If one were writing a volume of the manners and customs of the Slavonic races, he would learn more of them by the study of this museum than in months of travel among the people. The society is composed of learned and thoughtful men of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, &c., who meet annually for the collection and diffusion of useful knowledge on the subject of their own race specially and the family of man. We are very apt to think that, outside of our own English-speaking countries, there is little doing to promote the civilization and thus the happiness of the human race. Travel takes this and many other conceits out of a man. One of the first things he learns, if he is capable of learning any thing, is that he knows very little of what is going on in the world. Then he finds that people whom he thought slow and only half civilized are far ahead of him in many things, and by degrees he comes to the conclusion that there is much in the world to be learned that he had never dreamed of. But if he sticks to it that what he does not know is not worth knowing, like my fellow countryman who insists that there is more art in Illinois than in all Europe, then you may be sure that he answers to the cane shown to Sydney Smith by one of this sort of travellers who said: “This stick, sir, has been all around the world, sir.” “Is it possible,” replied Mr. Smith, “why it’s nothing but a stick for all that!” CHAPTER XXX. FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. A COUPLE of English commercial travellers arrived to-day and were very conversable at dinner. No class of men one meets abroad are more free to impart what they know, than these agents of trading houses in England, who infest all countries, and push their way into every company that is willing to hear their ceaseless flow of talk. At dinner one of them asked a Frenchman in what country of Europe Egypt was situated, and the Frenchman did not know; they discussed the subject for some time, neither of them thinking it was not in Europe at all. But the two having failed to settle the geographical position of Egypt came back to matters nearer at hand, and the invasion of Russia by the French and the downfall of Napoleon, made the conversation lively. For when did or will a Frenchman and Briton agree upon the character, the genius, or the deserts of the Man of Destiny. And this led to the mention of the SPARROW HILLS, and to an excursion thither, from which we have just returned.