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CHAP. XI.

RUSTIC URBANITY-WRETCHED VILLAGE-NO. 1-WIBOURG-GREEK RELIGION-A CHARITY SERMON-RELIGION AND EXTORTION-A WORD OR TWO TO FORTIFIED TOWNS-STARVED HORSES-VOLUNTEER JACKET-APPEARANCE OF

NOWNED STATUE.

PETERSBURG—COSSACRE

WHILST the peasants were adjusting our horses, four abreast to the carriage, in the yard of our kind and hospitable host, I was amused with seeing with what solemn and courteous bows the commonest Russians saluted each other; nothing but an airy dress and a light elastic step were wanting to rank them with the thoughtless, gay, and graceful creatures of the Bouvelards des Italiens: here the Russian exterior was more decisively developed; but I should wish to postpone a more particular description of it until we reach the capital; it is now sufficient to observe, that the men in complexion and sturdiness resembled the trunk of a tree, and that the women were remarkably ugly: I saw not a female nose which was not large and twisted, and the dress of the latter, so unlike their sex in other regions, was remarkable only for filth and raggedness. Travelling is very cheap in Russian Finland:

we paid only two copecs for each horse per verst, except for the last post to Petersburg, when we paid five copecs. In Russian Finland the comfort of sending an avante-courier to order horses ceases. On the road we met with several kibitkas, such as I have described.

After we left Uperla, those extraordinary detached rocks, and vast stones, which hitherto had lined the sides of the roads and were scattered over the fields, began to assume a redder tint, and to show a greater portion of friability than their hard and savage brethren which we had left behind, and gradually disappeared in deep sand: the country presented a scene of extreme wretchedness. To the squalid inhabitants we might have said in the beautiful language of Cowper:

Within th' enclosure of your rocks,

Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks;

No fertilizing streams your fields divide,

That show, revers'd, the villas on their side;

No groves have ye; no cheerful sound of bird,

Or voice of turtle, in your land is heard;

No grateful eglantine regales the smell

Of those that walk at evening where ye dwell."

We halted at a village of old crazy hovels, composed of trunks of trees, rudely thrown across each other, and perched upon granite rocks; every one of these forlorn abodes was out of the perpendicular, whilst, from a little hole which feebly admitted the light, the smoke issued. The inhabitants were

nearly naked, and looked like a race of animals formed in the anger of heaven. Instead of the green refreshing blade,

parched hoary moss covered the earth; where the limpid brook ought to have rippled, a narrow, slimy, brown stream, of reeking offensive water, crawled indolently and unwholesomely along. Not a tree was to be seen; not even a melancholy fir! Time, that bids the barrenness of nature bear, that enables the shepherd and his flock to find shelter and rich pasture in the altered desert, has passed over these regions without shedding his accustomed beneficence. These people, or, as they are called, the Finns, I found always distinguishable in the capital from the proper Russian, by their squalid and loathsome appearance.

Yet even in this inhospitable spot, are to be found what many a traveller in England has frequently lamented the want of, viz. the exposition of every diverging road carefully, and intelligibly, marked out by a directing post. Although the peasantry of the country, in these immediate parts, are so wretched, a considerable portion of Russian Finland is considered to be as fertile in corn as any part of the Polar empire.

We were prevented from reaching Wibourg on the day we set off from Frederickshamn, on account of our being detained, for want of horses, at Terviock, which forms the

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last stage to the former place. Here, as it was too hot to admit of two sleeping in a chaise, I entered a sorry post-house; the room contained only a crib and a sheet, as aged, and as brown, and as filthy, as the post-master's face and hands, who, after having given me to understand that I might use the bed after he had done with it, very composedly jumped into it with his clothes on, and soon made this black hole resound with one of the loudest, and least tuneable, nasal noises, I ever heard. Sleep sat heavy upon me, and with my pelisse for a bed, and my portmantua for a pillow, I closed my eyes upon the floor, which appeared to be the favourite promenade of flies, fleas, and tarrakans. Necessity, like

"Misery, acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows."

At three in the morning, I was awakened by the jingling of the bells of our horses, which the peasants very merrily gallopped up to the door. The sun was up, and threatened very speedily to destroy the refreshing coolness of the air. At five we passed the bridge, and were at the gate of Wibourg, the capital of Russian Finland. It is a large, handsome, fortified town, a place of considerable commerce, and has been much improved since the terrible fire which happened in 1793. Like mice, who find no difficulty in getting into a cage, but know not how to return, we were admitted within the gates of this town with perfect facility, but were

detained no less than nine hours for a new post order, which must be signed by the governor or his deputy. It was Sunday, and whilst this was negotiating, I visited the Greek church, which stands in a corner of the area where the parade is held, and is an elegant structure of wood, painted light yellow and white, with a roof and dome of copper, painted green. It had a very light and pleasing effect. Every Russian, before he ascended the steps which led to the door, raised his eyes to a little picture of the Virgin, fixed to the cornice, and having uncovered his head, inclined his body, and crossed himself with his thumb and fore-finger. The Virgin was framed and decorated with a projecting hood of silver. If she had not been produced by the coarse and crazy imagination of the painter, it might have been supposed that one of the nymphs, which we saw between Fredericksham and this place, had sat for the model. She was a bru nette of the deepest mahogany, and bore no resemblance whatever to any branch of Vandyke's holy family.

In the Greek church images, musical instruments, and seats, are proscribed. Even the Emperor and Empress have no drawing-room indulgence here. No stuffed cushion, no stolen slumbers in padded pews, inviting to repose. Upon entering the church, these people again crossed and bowed themselves, and then eagerly proceeded to an officer of the church, who was habited in a rich robe; to him they gave one