nience. Throughout Siberia there is also found on the aluminous schistus an efflorescence called "rock-butter," which is used by the people as a remedy in diarrhoea and the venereal disease. Diamonds have lately been found, but in small quantities. Asiatic Russia, indeed, promises to be come the most productive of metaliferous countries; and the government, by fostering these rich resources, may eventually become one of the most powerful and wealthy nations of the world, and the great arbiter of both Europe and Asia.

The Russians are of course the dominant people; but they, with the Cossacks, and other colonists from Europe, inhabit chiefly the towns and military stations. Some of them are descended from the conquerors, or the soldiers employed in keeping the country in subjection; others are criminals, sent thither for punishment, with their descendants. To these must be added adventurers, peasant deserters, and ruined merchants, who seek here the means of repairing their fortunes. Siberia, indeed, is to Russia what California is to the United States: a sanctuary for those whose condition is irksome at home, or whose residence in the haunts of civilization is dangerous to their personal liberty. The higher officers of the government are a very fleeting class in the community; all of them, whether civil or military, who volunteer to serve in Siberia, are entitled to promotion, by three years' service beyond the Irtish; and those who seek advancement through this channel seldom stay beyond the time required. The growing civilization, however, of Siberia, and the great advantages it holds out to settlers, have, of late years, induced many respectable persons to take up their permanent abode in the principal towns, and in the more fertile and agreeable districts of the country; and thus the country is constantly receiving fresh elements of civilization, and a gradual revolution is forced upon society at large.

But the Russians only form as yet a small moiety of the population. Numerous Tartar colonists occupy the southern part of the government of Tobolsk, and immense hordes of natives, under different names, inhabit the full extent of the country. Almost every nation of Asia has representatives in Siberia; and in its several towns are found Armenians, Chinese, Jews, &c., while the Tongooses, Finns, Samoiedes, Yakûts, Tschuktschi, Koriaks, Bashkirs, &c., form the principal native tribes. These are divided into several families, the names, customs, and religion of which, partake of every shade and creed in the known world. Nothing, indeed, could be more heterogeneous than a Siberian community; and the commixture of civilization and barbarism which characterizes the people, forms a remarkable feature throughout the whole.

Besides the agricultural labors which are carried on in places suitable for the production of grain, with the hunting and fishing, and rearing of horses and cattle, that form the chief occupation of the native tribes, the industry of the Russian settlers is principally directed to the working of the mines and the manufacturing of iron and copper; utensils of these metals, leather, shagreen, carpets, arms, glass, salt, saltpetre, pitch, isinglass, and felts. The art of lackering has been brought to great perfection. Many of the manufacturers have sent their serfs into Western Europe to study various branches of the arts, and these returning, have established schools in the towns for the benefit of their brethren. Among other branches of industry carried on, is the cutting and engraving of precious stones. Amethysts, topazes, tourmalines, with quartz, crystals of large VOL. II.

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size, are cut and polished with great skill; and are then inelegantly, though ponderously, set in the gold of the country. The trade of the lapidary, indeed, is carried on to a great extent. Tagalisk is the chief town in which manufactures are pursued.

The trade of Siberia with foreign nations is very extensive and profitable. Tobolsk is the centre of the greatest amount of commerce. The produce of the mines, fisheries, and hunting expeditions, are here met with, and exchanged for European and Chinese goods and manufactured articles. A great trade is also carried on at the annual fair of Irbit, 100 miles northeast of Iekaterinburg, which is the best frequented and most important of all Siberia. The commerce eastward of Tobolsk is carried on through Kiakhta, Irkutsk, and several other intervening towns, the whole distance between Tobolsk and Kiakhta, with the exception of about 60 miles, being navigable by the branches of the Angara, Ienisei, and the Obi; and though the route is exceedingly circuitous and irksome, amounting to no less than 8,000 miles, the profits of the trade carried on with the Siberian tribes on the banks of the streams, are considered a sufficient compensation for the time and trouble spent on the journey. From the south, the merchants of Turkestan bring silk and cotton stuffs, precious stones, and other articles. Formerly caravans used to arrive annually at Omsk, Orenburg, and other frontier towns of Western Siberia. But at present the return merchandize is carried direct to Nishnei-Novgorod, in European Russia. Still, however, small caravans occasionally travel southward from the Siberian frontier, taking with them skins, linen, and bar iron. The merchants, who are chiefly Tartars, assemble at Semiyarsk, on the Irtish, and usually start in May, while the pools and the streams in the deserts are not yet dried up. The place to which they direct their journey is Tashkend in Turkestan, at a distance of two months' travelling from Semiyarsk; the first 200 miles being over a wild and hilly country, across the Karakaralui Mountains, which are thickly covered with forests; after leaving which, they pass through a woodless country, till they reach Tashkend. To the north, again, Obdorsk, 50 miles from the mouth of the Obi, is a point of the greatest importance to the Russian fur trader, and is the centre of the commerce carried on with all the tribes who possess the country, from Archangel to the Ienisei. The traders begin to assemble in December, but the active traffic, or the fair, does not take place till February, when the "yasak," or tribute of skins, is paid by the Ostiaks of Beresov. Besides many other useful articles, great quantities of meal and baked bread are sent northward by private traders, from Tomsk and Tobolsk, besides what is dispatched on account of government, all of which serves as money in the traffic with the Ostiaks and Samoiedes, who are very fond of such luxuries. Petropaulovski, in Kamtschatka, is the principal port on the Pacific, but its trade is monopolized by the Russian American Company, who have also factories or counting-houses at Moscow, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Okhotsk, Kazan, Tomsk, and other places. Peltry forms the principal

article of trade.

Siberia is divided, after the manner of European Russia, into several great governments, over each of which a governor-general presides as the chief executive officer. These divisions with their area and approximate population, and the chief towns of each, are exhibited in the following table:

TOBOLSK, the former capital of all Siberia, is situated on the right bank of the Irtish, near its confluence with the Tobol. It is divided into the Lower and Upper town, the former of which stands on the banks of the river, while the latter occupies the top of a steep ridge which rises considerably above the plain. The lower town is only 128 feet and the upper only 357 feet above the level of the Arctic Ocean. Except the governor's house and two churches the town is built wholly of wood. Many institutions, similar to those of St. Petersburg, have been introduced, and literature, science and the polite amusements have also made considerable progress among the inhabitants. The town is well supplied with foreign goods, and the markets are in every respect abundantly supplied with the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life. TUMEN, BERESOV, OBDORSK, & c., are also towns in this government; all are trading posts of great importance.

TOMSк, on the right bank of the Tim near its mouth, though possessed of many fine buildings and institutions of great value, is represented as a miserable unhealthy place. BARNOUL is the centre of the mineral region of Kolyvan, and contains about 14,000 inhabitants. OMSK, formerly the capital of a province of the same name, now suppressed, is a large town, and has about 12,000 inhabitants. The suburbs contains some neat buildings, but otherwise nothing remarkable.

IRKUTSK, on the left bank of the Anjara, is the chief town in Eastern Siberia. It is the handsomest in external appearance, and the most elegant as to society, in the country. The principal inhabitants are merchants and the civil and military officers of government. KIAKHTA is a neat and regularly built town on the right bank of a brook of its own name, an affluent of the Selinga, which forms the border of the Russian and Chinese empires. It is the only place on this frontier where the Chinese government allows its subjects to trade with Russia. SELINGINSK, NIJNEI-UDINSK, WERTSHINSK, and several other towns of importance, are also in the government of Irkutsk. Wertshinsk is the head-quarters of the great penal settlement of Siberia-all the worst criminals being sent to work in the mines of the district. The majority of them are kept at the " Bolshoyzavod" or great fabric, 180 miles east of the city, situated in a deep hollow and surrounded by high and barren rocks, as bleak, dreary and inhospitable as can well be imagined.

KRASNOYARSK, the capital of the province of Ieniseisk, is situated on the left bank of the Ienesei, 300 miles north-west of Irkutsk. ATSHINSK, 50 miles west, is a thriving trading town.

YAKUTSK, on the left bank of the Lena, is an irregularly built town, but being the seat of the fur trade and of a great commerce with the natives, it contains a comparatively large population. Yakutsk has all the character

*Omsk has been divided between Tobolsk and Tomsk. Part of the governments of Perm and Orenburg also extend into Siberia.

of the cold and gloomy north. The Russians live entirely by trade, and have abandoned all sorts of handicraft to the Yakûts, among whom there are now excellent carpenters, cabinet-makers, carvers in wood, and painters. NISHNEI-KOLYMSK stands on the eastern side of an island in the Kolyma, about 150 miles from the mouth of the river. It is a large town for this part of the world, containing 50 houses, 400 inhabitants, most of whom are Cossacks, with a few pedlers, and three priests.

OKHOTSK is a small town with a harbor on the west side of the sea of Okhotsk, and maintains considerable trade with Kamtschatka and the Russian settlements in America. PETROPAULOVSKI, the capital of KamtIts harbor is a safe land-locked schatka, is a town of thatched log houses. basin, on the eastern side of Awatska bay. The bay is 30 miles in circuit, with a general depth of water of 12 or 14 fathoms, on a level bottom of soft mud, and abounds with fish of the finest quality. Its entrance is four miles long and a mile and a half wide at its narrowest part, with a lighthouse on the south-east point, in latitude 52° 52′ N., and longitude 158° 47′ E.

THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN.

THIS Empire consists of a group of large islands in the Pacific Ocean, separated from China by the Channel of Tartary and the Sea of Japan, and lying between the parallels of 300 and 42° Ñ. latitude, and between the longitudes of 1280 and 143° E. The principal islands are named-Niphon, Sikoke, Kiu-Siu, Awadsi, Sado, and Ieso; besides which, the Japanese have also colonized the southern portion of the island of Sagalien, and claim dominion over the southern half of the Kurile Islands. Niphon is upwards of 800 miles in length, but of irregular form, and of various The whole breadths: the other islands are very considerably smaller. superficial area of the empire is estimated at about 260,000 square miles.

The surface of the principal islands is very uneven, and interspersed with rocky hills. Niphon is traversed throughout its whole length by a regular chain of mountains, the peaks of which exceed 12,000 feet in height; but the elevation is generally so low as to admit of cultivation up to the water-sheds of its streams. Several of the summits are active vol canoes earthquakes are frequent and destructive, and thermal and mineral springs occur in several places. The metallic wealth of the country is very great, and copper, tin, sulphur, lead, iron, gold and silver abundant. The streams have very short courses, and are rather torrents than rivers. The climate varies extremely from north to south. In Kiu-siu, and the southern part of Niphon, the thermometer ranges between 29° and 104° Fahr.-800 being the average of the middle of summer, and 35° in the coldest months of winter. Rain is very frequent, while hurricanes and storms often sweep destructively over the land. Few plants, except on the hills, are found in a natural state; and the face of the country, even up the sides of the mountains, is most diligently cultivated. In the southern districts rice is raised in large quantities, and forms the usual food of the inhabitants. Wheat is held in little estimation; but barley, buckwheat, beans, potatoes, melons, &c., are raised in abundance. Ginger and pepper are the princi pal spice-plants: cotton and tobacco are also grown; next to rice, however,

tea is the grand object of cultivation. The natural forests produce oaks, firs, and cypresses: there is also the gum-varnish tree, the camphor-laurel, and many others of great value. Among the wild animals may be enumerated bears, boars, foxes, dogs, monkeys, hares, &c. Buffaloes and beeves are not numerous, and are used only for draught. The horses are small, and used only by the nobility; while sheep and pigs are almost unknown, and what few there are have been introduced by the Dutch. Dogs are held sacred by the men, and cats are the constant companions and pets of the women. Birds are numerous, and of many species. Snakes are everywhere, and one variety, the "ourabami," is of enormous size: there are also tortoises and lizards, scorpions, centipedes, and white ants. The seas contain large quantities of fish, which afford a principal food to the inhabitants, and give employment to numerous villages of fishermen : oysters, also, of a peculiar and delicious kind, are extremely abundant. Whales and narwhales often visit the coasts, and are caught with the harpoon-the flesh is eaten, the balein serves for various purposes, and ambergris is extracted from the entrails.

The Japanese are a mixed race of Mongol and Malay origin. They are generally well-made, active, and nimble, with yellow complexions, small, deeply-set eyes, short and flat noses, broad heads, and thin, black hair. They are divided into eight classes: princes, nobles, priests, soldiers, civil officers, merchants, artizans, and laborers. All these positions and pursuits are hereditary-the son succeeds to the occupation of his father, and no amount of merit can elevate him above the class in which he was born. Woman, however, occupies a higher station than is allowed to her in any other oriental nation. She is the companion, and not the slave of the man, and presides on all occasions of social festivity. They are skilful and prudent as housekeepers, and remarkable for their fidelity. The samsie, or guitar, is even more invariably a part of female education than the piano in western countries. Prostitution, however, is carried on to a horrid extent; and, so little discredit is attached to the prostitutes, that they are received without remark into respectable society.

In literature the Japanese are said to excel. They study medicine and astronomy; history, poetry, and several of the natural sciences are cultivated, and there is a prevalent taste for drawing, engraving, and music. The Japanese language has no relation to the Chinese, nor indeed to any other known in Asia. It is polysyllabic, and has an alphabet of 47 letters, which are written in five different forms, one of which is used exclusively by the men, and another by the women. Some of the inhabitants are also acquainted with the Chinese. The established or state religion is that of Buddha; but it has many varieties, and much superstition prevails among its votaries. Monks, religious beggars, and singing-girls, go about the country and levy considerable sums. The sect of Suito, which professes the doctrines of Confucius, has also been imported from China; but its followers are very few. An older form of religion than either of these, however, has maintained itself from the most remote antiquity. It is called Sinto, or Sin-siu, (faith in the gods,) or Kami-no-mitsi, (way to the gods.) This ancient sect consider the founders of the Empire as the immediate descendants of the Supreme God, who came down from heaven into Japan, and have continued without interruption to exercise sovereign authority. They believe the spirit of their ruler to be immortal, and consider the Supreme Being too great to be addressed in prayer, except through the