turning to the east, and bending his body almost double, he pronounces a short prayer; then he proceeds to the church of Jerusalem, where he renews his devotion. This exercise being performed, he returns to his palace, the bridle of the patriarch's horse resting upon his arm. The horse's head being covered with white linen, is held by some noblemen, while the patriarch, sitting sidewise, and holding a cross in his hand, distributes benedictions as he moves along on his head he wears a cap edged with ermine, adorned with loops and buttons of gold, and precious stones; before him are displayed banners of consecrated stuff, in a variety of colours. Above 500 priests walk in the procession; those who are near the patriarch, bearing pictures of the Virgin Mary, richly ornamented with gold, jewels, and pearls, with crosses, relics, and religious books, including a copy of the Gospels, which they reckon of inestimable value. In the midst of this procession is born a triumphal arch, and on the top an apple-tree covered with fruit, which several little boys enclosed in the machine endeavour to gather. The lords and laity carry branches of willow; the guards and the spectators throw themselves on the ground, while the procession halts, and after the ceremony, the patriarch presents a purse of 100 rubles to the czar, who perhaps invites him to dine at his table during the season of Easter; the whole empire is filled with myrth and rejoicing, which, however, never fails to degenerate into heat and debauchery; even the ladies may indulge themselves with strong liquors to intoxication without scandal. During these carnivals, a great number of people, in reeling home drunk, fall down and perish among the snow. It is even dangerous to relieve a person thus overtaken, for should he die, the person who endeavoured to assist him is called before the judge, and generally pays dear for his charity. The Muscovite priests use exorcisms at the administration of baptism. They plunge the child three times over head and ears in water, and give it the sacrament of the Lord's supper in one kind, until it hath attained the age of seven, after which the child is indulged with it in both kinds. They likewise administer the sacrament to dying persons, together with extreme unction; and if this be neglected, the body is denied Christian burial. Soon as the person expires, the body is deposited in a coffin, with a lunchion of bread, a pair of shoes, some few pieces of money, and a certificate signed by the parish priest, and directed to St. Nicholas, who is one of their great patrons. They likewise hold St. Andrew in great veneration, and pretend they were converted by him to Christianity. But next to St. Nicholas, they adore St. Anthony of Padua, who is supposed to have sailed upon a mill-stone through the Mediterranean and Atlantic, and over the lakes Ladoga, and Onega, as far as Novogorod. Every house is furnished with an image of St. Nicholas, carved in the most rude and fantastic manner; and when it becomes old and worm-eaten, the owner either throws it into a river with a few pieces of coin, saying, Adieu, brother, or returns it to the maker, who accommodates him with a new image.

The women are very careful in adorning their private St. Nicholases with rich clothes and jewels; but on emergency, these are resumed, and the saint left as naked as he came from the hand of

the carpenter. There are monasteries in Russia; but neither the monks nor the nuns are subjected to severe restrictions. The friars are either horse-jockeys, or trade in hops, wheat, and other commodities; the sisters are at liberty to go abroad when they please, and indulge themselves in all manner of freedoms. Heretofore liberty of conscience was denied, and every convicted heretic was committed to the flames; but since the reign of Peter, all religions and sects are tolerated throughout the empire. Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Armenians, Jews, and Mahometans, enjoy the free exercise of their respective forms of worship; though it was not without great difficulty, and by dint of extraordinary solicitation from different powers, that the Romish religion was allowed. Peter, knowing the dangerous tenets of a religion that might set the spiritual power of the pope at variance with the temporal power of the emperor, and being well acquainted with the meddling genius of its professors, held out for some time against the intercession of Germany, France, and Poland; and though at length he yielded to their joint interposition, he would by no means suffer any Jesuits to enter his dominions.

INHABITANTS OF SAMOIEDA.

THESE people are so rude, that they can hardly pretend to humanity, except in face and figure; they have little understanding, and in many things resemble brutes, for they will eat carrion of every kind. They travel on the snow on sledges, drawn with an animal like a rein-deer, but with the horns of a stag. Travellers affirm, that no people on the earth make such shocking figures their stature is short; their shoulders and faces are broad, with flat broad ses, great blubber lips, and staring eyes; their complexion is dark, and their hair long, and as black as pitch, and they have very little beards, and the Samoiede women have black nipples. If they have any religion at all, it is idolatry, though some attempts have been made of late to convert them.

Their huts are made of birch bark sewed together, which is laid upon stakes set in the ground, and at the top is a hole to let out the smoke; the fire is made in the middle, and both men and women lie naked round it all night. They have little regard to the nearness of kin, and take as many wives as they can keep; their only employment is hunting and fishing.

INHABITANTS OF DARIEN.

THE aboriginal natives of the isthmus or province of Darien, have several peculiar customs. Although they go naked, like most of the other American Indians, yet they wear nose-jewels. The men have silver plates in the form of a crescent, fastened to their noses, and hanging over their mouths. The women have rings passing through their noses, and hanging down in the same manner. They also have several chains, composed of teeth, shells, beads, &c., hanging down from the neck to the pit of the stomach.

Their houses are scattered by the sides of rivers, and have plantations around them. They are built with small posts set upright, about seven feet high, hurdled with sticks, and daubed over with earth. The men clear the plantations, and the women cultivate them. The girls pick and spin cotton, which the women weave into cloth for their hammocks. The men make baskets very neatly with canes, reeds, and palmetto leaves, dyed of different colours. Each man has several wives, who live together in great harmony. They dance to the sound of a pipe or drum, and are expert at tumbling. When they go a hunting, the women carry baskets full of plantains, bananas, yams, potatoes, and cassava roots, ready roasted. Rivers are no interruption to their expeditions, men, women, and children being equally expert at swimming. They have no distinction of weeks, but reckon their time by the course of the moon.

CAFFRES.

THESE are the natives of Caffraria, whom Mr. Walker thus describes : "The Caffres are tall, active, and strong, and evince great courage in attacking lions, and other beasts of prey. Their complexions are black their clothing consists of hides of oxen, which are as pliant as cloth." Perhaps this kind of clothing has led voyagers to confound them with the Hottentots. "Industry is the leading trait in the character of the Caffres. The men employ much of their time in hunting, the women in cultivating_the_land. They also make earthenware, and curious baskets. They have a high opinion of the supreme Being, and of his power; believe in a future state of rewards and punishments; and think that the world had no beginning, and will be everlasting. They have no form of prayers nor priests, yet undergo, at nine years of age, the initiatory rite of the Hebrews. Their government is limited monarchy, and their king is often poorer than his subjects. He is allowed a plurality of wives."

AVARS.

THESE were a tribe of Sarmatian origin, deriving their name which signifies far distant, from their remote eastern situation with regard to Europe. Their name and their nation were unknown to the civilized world, till in the sixth century they revealed their existence to it by the terrors they inspired, and connected their history with its revolutions and its downfall. Driven before a tribe more fierce and powerful than themselves, they emerged from their primneval wilds, and appeared on the confines of the Eastern empire in the reign of Justinian. Their pride was not tamed by their defeats, nor their confidence dismayed by the appearance of a civilized and powerful state. Their ambassadors having gained admittance to the Roman emperor, represented their nation as the most powerful and most warlike people on the earth, as invincible when attacked, or irresistible when aggressors. Upon the faith of this character, they offered their services to the empire, and demanded gifts and riches as their reward. Instead of endeavouring to dispel this cloud of bar

barians, the timid monarch who then sat on the throne of the Cesars, courted their alliance, and purchased their protection. He sent an ambassador to their camp at the foot of mount Caucasus, to assure them of his friendship, and to point the line of their invading hordes to the country of his enemies.

Their camps were soon pitched on the Danube and the Elbe; and their savage fury either swept from the earth, or rendered tributary to their dominion, many tribes of Hungary, Poland, and Germany. Their king still retained an attachment to the emperor, who on his side appeared not averse to continue the alliance, till his friendship was claimed by a more powerful horde, who effected to treat the Avars as slaves and fugitives. The Turks had pursued them from their native wilds to the Wolga, to Mount Caucasus, and the Euxine, and they now appeared in the presence of the emperor requiring him to withdraw his countenance from a people whom they had followed so far as runaway subjects, and whom they now claimed a right to subdue or extirpate. The timid emperor yielded to this demand, and renounced the alliance of his friends the Avars. Their ambassadors, who came to renew the coalition, and to represent the advantages that might result from it, were dismissed without presents or promises, and their remonstrances or threats treated with haughty defiance. The king, called Chagan, and his tribe, were either awed by the power of the empire, or dissembled their resentment till a more convenient opportunity should occur for gratifying it, and retired into Germany, where they met in dreadful conflict with the fierce and powerful nation of the Franks. They were obliged to withdraw from the neighbourhood of the Franks, after repeated defeats, and might, like many other hordes of those barbarous ages, have been totally extinguished in their retreat to their native wilds, had they not had the good fortune to have formed a league with the Lombards, in conjunction with whom they destroyed the tribe of Gepida, and succeeded to their dominions. Their new allies directing their views to Italy, left them in possession of their extensive territories, which stretched from the Euxine to Germany and Prussia. They were now in a condition to repay the insults offered them by the Romans, and the most glorious of their kings, Baion, was not backward to display the power of his arms, and to extend the terror of his name. He made repeated inroads upon the empire, and demanded presents as the price of his retreat. Submission and exactions only increased arrogance, and the value of the presents bestowed only encouraged future demands. The emperor Maurice found he must either become a tributary to a barbarian, or repel his incursions by meeting him in the field. In five battles his general was victorious, 60,000 of the barbarians, with four of the king's sons, were killed in battle, and nearly 20,000 prisoners were taken. The Avars, however, were not finally subdued, and seizing the opportunity when the eastern parts of the empire were pressed with all the weight of hostility by the Persian kings, they renewed their dreadful inroads with augmented forces and more atrocious cruelties. Blood and rapine every where marked their progress, the most fruitful violations of nature and humanity every where distinguished their conduct. Their captives were either

killed in cold blood or reduced to slavery, and virgins of the highest rank were abandoned to their brutal lusts.

Heraclius, the emperor of the east, having in vain endeavoured to purchase their retreat, was almost surprised by the barbarian king in an interview which the latter solicited, as preparatory to a mutual reconciliation. Having joined his forces with the Persians, the chagon invested Constantinople, and after endangering the safety of the city, by repeated assaults, was driven from it by the ancestors of the race that now possess it. After this period the fortune of the Avars began to decline, and we find them, in 795, surrendering themselves to the arms of Charlemagne, and offering to embrace his religion as well as to submit to his sway.

PHOLEYS.

THE Pholeys are the inhabitants of Pholey, a kingdom of Africa, and a people of very peculiar manners. Mr. More, however, says, that the Pholeys live in clans, build towns and are in every kingdom and country on each side the river, yet are not subject to any kings of the country, though they live in their territories, for if they are used ill in one nation, they break up their towns and remove to another. They are rather of a low stature, but have a genteel and easy shape, with an air peculiarly delicate and agreeable. Though they are strangers in the country, they are the greatest planters in it. They are extremely industrious and frugal, and raise much more corn and cotton than they consume, which they sell at reasonable rates, and are so remarkable for their hospitality, that the natives esteem it a blessing to have a Pholey town in their neighbourhood, and their behaviour has gained them such reputation, that it is esteemed infamous for any one to treat them in an inhospitable manner. Their humanity extends to all, but they are doubly kind to people of their own race. They are, however, as brave as any people of Africa, and very expert in the use of their arms, which are javelins, cutlasses, bows and arrows, and occasionally guns. They usually settle near some Mantingo town, there being scarce any of note up the river that has not a Pholey town near it. Most of them speak Arabic, which is taught in their schools, and they are able to read the Koran in that language, though they have a vulgar tongue called Pholey.

Their houses are built in a very regular manner, they being round structures, placed in rows at a distance from each other to avoid fire, and each of them has a thatched roof, somewhat resembling a high crowned hat. They are also great huntsmen, and not only kill lions, tigers, and other wild beasts, but frequently go twenty or thirty in a company, to huut elephants, whose teeth they sell, and whose flesh they smoke-dry and eat, keeping it for several months together. They are almost the only people who make butter, and sell cattle at some distance up the river. They are very particular in their dress, and never wear any other clothes but long robes of white cotton, which they make themselves. They are always very clean, especially the women, who keep their houses exceedingly neat.