misfortune to sail in a storm, off the island of St Kilda, in the Atlantic ocean; but I never saw such a spectacle as this. I observed the consternation of our boatmen, and you may be sure I felt it. Cripps was in the carriage; it was no longer possible to conceal our situa tion. All subordination was lost; and that fearful confusion, in which men lose all presence of mind, had taken place. I begged they would put back; but was told that to alter the course of the boat, would ensure her going down. So rapid was the change, that within ten minutes from the beginning of our alarm, all hope was gone. I prevailed on them to take Cripps from the carriage, that he might be lashed to an oar. He was taken out; but not a hand could be spared to do more. At some distance from our stern, appeared a boat in equal distress; but so far to the windward, that there was no hope of her venturing down to save us, if the boat went over; and we have since learned, she had enough to do to bale out the water, which filled every moment on her lee-side. Our boat took in water on both sides, and laboured dreadfully. They began now to reproach us, on account of the carriage. For God's sake heave it overboard!' we all exclaimed; but they assured us, the mere attempt to move it would overset us. Every thing got worse and worse. We had at the helm an experienced seaman, who had taken the management of the vessel from the moment our danger appeared. He advised them to let go the fore-sail, but would not suffer the main-sail to be touched, as we had already fallen too much to leeward, and if we did not keep up to the wind, we should be driven into the Baltic, and inevitably perish. The noise and yelling of the sailors, is still in my ears—crying out, whenever the mountain waves approached. Upon such occasions, they let the vessel fall off with the wave, and she was carried into a gulf of foam, which broke over us, covering all our bodies, and sometimes forced us to quit our hold. At last, every hope seemed to vanish. In despair we clung together upon some sacks, near the stern, and during the short intervals, when the sea left us, had recourse to fervent prayer. It pleased Providence that we should at last escape. What our feelings are, you will better imagine than I can express. I assure you, my blood is chilled with horror, as I now write to you. How we were preserved, I know not. All I recollect of our first glimpse of hope is, that after a considerable time, the island on which the telegraph is stationed, appeared to leeward, at a great distance, under the boom of the main-sail; but the sea still was in its greatest commotion. Soon after the men began to shout, and we had an island to windward, which afforded us more tranquil water. We then sailed close to land, but it was impossible to reach it owing to the surf.

66

Having cleared these islands, matters went better, and soon after mid-day we arrived at Ekerö. pp. 374-376.

"P. S. This is my second letter, and it finds me again at Bomarsund. The north-east raged with unabated fury during thirtysix hours. I had no anxiety, as they assured me the storm would

keep the sea open. Guess my grief and astonishment, when at daylight this morning, I beheld it a solid field of ice, as far as the eye could reach; and all this in one night! God knows when I shall see Cripps again-all communication is cut off: he is on the bleak island of Kumlinge-doubtless in the greatest anxiety. I am alone, without clothes or books. There is a hope, that if this severe frost holds four days, I may walk over to him; the distance is twenty-one English miles. I have already driven a sledge with a horse over the Vargatta and Bomarsund. Cripps has the thermometer; I should think it must be thirty degrees of Fahrenheit, below freezing, as the sea did not freeze at 25.

The

"Second P. S. I have opened my letter again, to tell you we are safe in Abo; but if I was to tell you all that happened since this was sealed, I must begin a volume. Suffice it to say, that after being a week separated from Cripps, by twenty-one miles of ice, I undertook a circuitous route by the island of Sattunga, and performed a walk of seventy English miles in two days across the sea. peasants, who were my guides, deserted me in the midst of the ice, refusing to proceed. The cold was so severe, that the exercise of walking alone enabled me to support it. What think you of thirtynine degrees of Fahrenheit below freezing? Brandy became solid in an instant. At last, more dead than alive, I reached Kumlinge, when all communication with the island was said to be shut. Cripps and I came in open sledges to Abo. On the second morning of our journey, John's face became frozen, and we have been afraid it would mortify. Cripps had two spots in his; and Peter and the peasants recovered their noses with snow. I escaped all these to undergo severer trials. Last night the cold was at 40. Some said the mercury was rendered solid. Cripps and I had closed the stoves. In the night we were seized by convulsions. I lost all animation in my feet, hands, and nose, and it was not till this morning that the circulation of the blood was restored. Cripps is still unwell. A violent headache is all that remains to me. Adieu ! After many escapes from death, I still have power to trouble you. pp. 380, 381.

There was nothing, however, in all these dangers more formidable than the risk of the knout and Siberia, which they ran upon their arrival at Petersburgh. Should you like (says he, in one of his letters to his mother, after drawing a kibitki)—– • should like to travel in one? you Because if you come here, it is done in a moment. You have only to sit still in your carriage, whenever one of the royal family passes, instead of getting out and pulling off your pelisse, cloak, great coat, gloves, hat, &c. and you are bundled into a kibitki, and sent to Siberia, with your nose slit. All letters are opened; and if my • beautiful drawing was seen by a police-officer, I should visit the mines of Tobolski, with expedition and economy. I think, therefore, it will be as well to wait till our ambassador sends

He af

a courier to England, before I dismiss my letter." terwards complains that he has had a padlock on his lips the whole winter. If I were to relate,' says he, the ravings, the follies, the villanies, the cruelties of that detestable beast, (meaning his Imperial and Sacred Majesty) I should never reach the end of my letter. The other day the soldiers, by his order, cudgelled a gentleman in the streets, because the 'cock of his hat was not in a line with his nose. Upon another occasion his Imperial Majesty having, in his ride, been passed by a carriage and four, the driver of which knew not in what an august neighbourhood he was, the police officers were instantly despatched after it, and went to the wrong house, where a merchant resided who never drove a carriage and four, nor ever had such an equipage in his yard. His coachman and footman were however flung into prison, and the only answer given to his application for their release was, that, since his carriage was not in fault, he must find out the real offender. The friends of what is called the established order of things, in a word, the supporters of Legitimacy, can of course make no exceptions to their doctrine; and must inculcate as blind a submission to the Pauls and the Ferdinands as to the Catherines and the Josephs. It is fortunate for humanity, that among the founders of the sect, perhaps we ought rather to say its revivers, were found persons disposed to break through their own rule, and, the sacred person of Paul being deprived of life by a simple process, the tyranny of the Government resumed the more mitigated form in which it is still supposed to exist among the Muscovites, and which all good Calmucks, no doubt, consider as the perfection of wisdom, and calculated to secure as great a portion of true practical liberty as men are capable of enjoying with safety to themselves. This event, however, did not occur while our travellers remained in Russia; on the contrary, they suffered every inconvenience that could result from constant restraint and insecurity, during the ten months of their rcsidence in different parts of the empire. The correspondence of Dr Clarke is necessarily cramped during this period, unless when he can send his letters by a courier; but the following is interesting as a sketch of Moscow, drawn at the moment when the impressions made upon the observer were recent and lively. "You are eager to learn something of this singular city; and I feel happy in giving you that knowledge; because, from our long intimacy, I can make objects familiar to your eyes, which another person might not render visible.

"There is nothing more extraordinary in this We have no spring.

transition of the seasons.

country, than the Winter vanished,

and summer is! This is not the work of a week, or a day, but of one instant; and the manner of it exceeds belief. We came from Petersburg to this place, en trainau. The next day, the snow was gone. April the 8th, at noon, the snow beat in at our carriage windows. The same evening, arriving at Moscow, we had difficulty in being dragged through the mud to our inn. The next morning, the streets were bare, all carriages on wheels, the windows thrown open, the balconies filled with spectators, and for several days past, the streets have been dusty, and we have, in the shade, twenty-three degrees of heat of Celsius' thermometer.

"Fortune loves chance, and by one of those chances, we arrived here at the season of the whole year in which Moscow is most interesting to strangers. Moscow is in every thing extraordinary-in disappointing your expectations, and in surpassing them-exciting wonder and derision-pleasure and regret. We are now in the midst of the Pâques ; which is here celebrated with a pomp and festivity unknown to the rest of Europe. The most splendid pageants of Rome do not equal the grandeur and costliness of the church ceremonies; neither can Venice, in the midst of her carnival, rival in debauchery, and parade, and licentiousness, and relaxation, what is now passing in Moscow.

6

"I want to conduct you with me to the gates of the town, and thence through the streets. You see its numerous spires glittering with gold, amidst domes, and painted palaces, in the midst of an open plain, for several versts before you reach it. Having passed the gates, you look about, and wonder what is become of the town, or where you are, and are ready to ask When shall we get to Moscow?' They will tell you, this is Moscow !' and you see nothing but wide and scattered suburbs, huts, and pig-styes, and brickwalls, and churches, and dunghils, and timber-yards, and warehouses, and the refuse of materials sufficient to supply an empire, with miserable towns, and miserable villages. One might imagine that every town of Europe and Asia had sent a building, by way of representative, to Moscow. You see deputies from all countries holding congress. Timber huts from the north of the Gulf of Bothnia, plastered palaces from Stockholm and Copenhagen (not white-washed since their arrival), painted walls from the Tirol, mosques from Constantinople, Tartar temples, pagodas, and pavilions from Pekin, cabarets from Spain, dungeons, prisons, and public offices from France, ruins and fragments of architecture from Rome, terraces from Naples, and warehouses from Wapping.

"Then you hear accounts of its immense population; and wander through deserted streets. Passing suddenly towards the quarter where the shops are situated, you would think you could walk upon the heads of thousands. The daily throng is there so immense, that unable to squeeze a passage through it you ask, What has conven'ed such a multitude?' and are told, It is always so!' Such a

variety of dresses-Greeks, Turks, Tartars, Cossacks, Muscovites, English, French, Italians, Germans, Poles, &c.

"We are in a Russian inn. The next room to ours is filled by the ambassadors from Persia. Beyond these, lodge a party of Kirghicians, a people yet unknown. Beyond those, a party of Bucharians, and all of them are ambassadors, sent from their respective districts, to treat of commerce, peace, and war, at Petersburg. The Kirghicians and Bucharians I keep at arm's length; but our good old friend the Persian visits us, and we visit him. His name is Orazai, and I am so great a favourite with him, that he admits me to be present at his devotions, and I see him stand for hours on a carpet, with his face to Mecca, in silent meditation. It is then, he says, he holds intellectual converse with Mahomet. Yesterday he gave me pair of Persian slippers as a memorial; and I gave him a knife to shave his head with.

"We went at midnight to the cathedral to be present at the ceremony of the resurrection. About two o'clock in the morning the Archbishop, attended by all his bishops and priests, in habits of embroidered satin, covered with gold and silver, and precious stones, bear their consecrated candles to look in the holy sepulchre, and finding that Jesus was risen, announced to the people with a loud voice, Xpucmocb, bockpecb!' that is to say, Christ is risen!' and at the delivery of those important words, the signal is given for eating flesh, feasting, drinking, and dancing. To be drunk the whole of Easter week, is as much a religious observance, as to abstain from flesh in Lent; and the Russians are very punctual in religious observances.

"Of course, you saw at Petersburg the Russian priests, in their long black beards, and with their hair flowing in long ringlets, without powder, or quite in straight locks, over their rich robes, and shoulders. No figure can be more respectable than a Russian priest. I look at them, and fancy I behold Moses or Aaron, or one of the high-priests of old, holy men, standing by the tabernacle of the congregation, in fine raiments, the workmanship of "Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. pp. 398-401.

· When Dr Clarke arrived in the Crimea, he was attacked with a severe tertian fever; and owed his recovery to the unceasing care and almost parental kindness of the celebrated Professor Pallas, in whose house he lived for above two months. At Odessa they embarked for Constantinople; and after reaching the mouth of the canal, having delayed to land, owing to a calm that impeded the vessel, and in the belief that all was safe, a hurricane, felt over the greatest part of Europe, came on; they were driven out to sea, and exposed to the most imminent danger. Nor could they reach the port for some weeks, and after encountering a second severe storm. The rest which they enjoyed during the winter at Constantinople restored Dr Q

VOL. XLIV. No. 87.