nice sense of national honour and a high standard of public opinion.

As an instance, the salary of a governor of a province is twelve thousand roubles a-year, or about five hundred pounds; a sum which is quite insufficient to cover the expenses of his establishment. Yet I am told that a late governor of Saratoff, on the Volga, one of the richest provinces in Russia, retired, after holding the office for six years only, with a capital, notoriously realized during that period, of three millions of roubles, about a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. I inquired how this was possible, and the following is, in substance, the explanation which I received.

This Governor usually abstained from any direct acts of private injustice or oppression; but for value received he consented to shut his eyes and not to interfere with the misdoings of his inferiors. He, in fact, sold his protection wholesale to his subordinates, leaving them to dispose of their good offices by retail for their own profit according to the demand.

In each of the twelve districts of every government is an ispravnik, an officer whom I have already mentioned as a rural magistrate or master of police. Each ispravnik paid his Excellency the Governor five thousand roubles a-year, a douceur which obliterated any little peccadilloes of the officer, or any mistakes into which he might fall in administering justice.

The Bashkirs, and other wild tribes who dwell in the Steppes beyond the Volga, wished to remain in undisturbed possession of lands claimed by the Crown. The Governor threatened them with forcible ejectment, but his annual revenue was increased by thirty or forty thousand roubles, and the Bashkirs were left in repose.

The province, again, abounded in heretics, of a sect regarded with much jealousy by government, and much persecuted for their political rather than for their religious opinions. These sectarians longed for peace and quiet, and the price of the Governor's toleration was from one to two hundred thousand roubles a-year.

Certain salt-works at Saratoff, which supply all Russia with that article, contributed more than a mite to the pocket of his

Excellency; and his purse was replenished from numerous other sources not included in this catalogue.

It is not every one who is so successful in enriching himself as was this Governor. He was not, however, held up as an extraordinary instance of rapacity, but was rather admired for his cleverness in turning to account the opportunities which he enjoyed. I was assured that he left an excellent character behind him, and that he was much regretted in the province.

The Emperor, I believe, does all in his power to check and discourage this disgraceful system of corruption, by visiting offenders with the ntmost severity. Few of the great culprits, however, are detected, and it is impossible that such malpractices should be eradicated so long as the sources exist out of which they naturally arise. These appear chiefly to be, first, the utter inadequacy of the legitimate emoluments attached to every office and employment, and, secondly, the total absence of a sound and healthy state of public opinion in Russia.

The former of these causes renders a man needy and liable to temptation, and the latter secures him from the disgrace which ought to be the severest punishment of his misconduct.

LETTER XVI.

Belief in powers of images and saints - Madame B. The Archbishop of Tamboff - Variety of dishes visits Anecdote.

Tamboff, December 27th, 1837.

I TOLD you in a former letter that the upper classes of Russia were usually by no means strict in their observance of the fasts and ceremonies of the Church; but there are some striking exceptions, more especially among the ladies. Of these we have rather a remarkable example in the society of Tamboff. We have a lady here who, in her attention to all such points, is most rigid and undeviating, and who, moreover, by her evidently sincere belief in the miraculous virtues of images and reliques, reminds me of some characters depicted in medieval history, the like of whom I scarcely expected to meet with in real life in this nineteenth century.

This lady, having a daughter unwell a few years ago, dreamed that a monk came to her and told her that if she took her child to the shrine of a certain saint at Veronish, a town at no very great distance from Tamboff, she would be cured. Madame B., for so we will call her, followed the advice of her nocturnal counsellor; and the young lady, after the pilgrimage to Veronish, in due time recovered her health. Her mother attributed her restoration entirely to the miraculous interference of the saint, and, out of gratitude for the cure, she made a vow to live for the rest of her days as a nun; that is to say, to eat only fish, vegetables, and the like, abstaining entirely from meat. She has a picture of the saint as the image in her private room, and she declares that, by putting a piece of paper, in which this image had been wrapped, under her pillow at night, she was lately cured of a violent headache. She is, indeed, a firm believer in charms of all kinds. Lately I saw her produce, out of a pile

of recipes for the cure of colds, coughs, and sore throats, a slip of paper which she said contained an excellent remedy for the bite of a mad dog; adding that, extraordinary as we might think it, she herself had witnessed its good effects. In one corner were written three short words, which she said must be copied on little bits of paper, and the latter then rolled up into the form of pills, three of which were to be swallowed daily for the space of nine days.

A few days ago Madame B. gave a grand dinner to the Archbishop on the consecration of a new altar in one of the churches of Tamboff. She was kind enough to invite us to the entertainment, and you will perhaps be amused by some description of it.

As we were then in the middle of the six weeks' fast of the Greek Church preceding Christmas, the dinner could not be otherwise than exclusively maigre in the presence of the Archbishop; and the invitation to us was accompanied by a few words of explanation on this point. The dinner itself seemed intended to convince us that cooks, if really artistes, are independent of butchers. No sign of asceticism appeared among the guests, or in the fare itself, which was as suitable for mortifying the appetite as is a fish dinner at Greenwich-the only thing at all resembling it in England.

We went to Madame B.'s house at about half-past two, and we found the Archbishop there, and many guests already assembled. Most persons on entering the room went up to his Eminence and kissed his hand, receiving his blessing. The Archbishop of Tamboff is a strong, harsh-featured man of about forty, with no great expression of dignity in his countenance, though it is grave and calm. He was dressed in a long robe, or caftan, of dark-brown flowered satin, with large sleeves, displaying an under-dress of pale green silk. He was decorated with the red ribbon, cross, and star of St. Anne, and on his breast hung a miniature image, set in diamonds. In his hand he held a rosary of white beads; and on his head he wore the usual monk's cap of black velvet, made like a hat without a rim, and with a hood or veil hanging down behind. The whole party amounted to twenty-nine, among whom were several priests, and one monk, attendants on the Prelate. When dinner was announced, the Archbishop led the procession into

the dining-room, walking alone at the head of the guests. The choristers of his convent were placed in a gallery, and they sung a grace before we sat down, and several hymns at intervals during dinner. Unfortunately, they were placed rather nearer to us than they should have been, and their voices, adapted to a church, were too loud for the room. The dinner, which consisted entirely of fish and vegetables under various forms, was most recherché, and was served in the best possible style; but the number of dishes, between the sterlet soup which headed the banquet, and the ice which ushered in the dessert, was so great, that, although each was handed round in duplicate, we were nearly three hours at table. The variety of good things really appeared interminable. Wine of every kind was handed round in turn, and the object seemed to be that of showing how luxuriously people might fare without the use of meat, while the whole thing amounted to a practical satire on the Russian system of fasting.

Towards the conclusion of dinner, while the servants were handing round champagne, a deacon, who was seated near the bottom of the table, rose from his seat, and placed himself before the image in the corner of the room. I did not understand what he was about, but I supposed that he was appointed to say grace, and that he had rather mistaken his time, as the dinner was not quite concluded. However, he kept looking over his shoulder, his back being turned to the table, and he evidently awaited a signal. At last he apparently received it, for he suddenly opened his mouth, and thundered forth a chant in a deep bass voice, while in an instant the whole party, excepting the Archbishop, rose to their feet, and I was utterly at a loss to comprehend the scene.

On the one side I saw the deacon singing with the voice of a Stentor, and bowing and crossing himself before the image; and I might have supposed myself in a church. If I looked the other way, there were the guests standing up on both sides of the table, each with a bumper of champagne in his right hand, and we seemed to be a convivial party doing honour to a popular toast. This incongruous spectacle lasted for two or three minutes, when the chant ceased, and we all resumed our seats. I then asked my neighbour, who was