The Samojedes are scattered--to the number of about a thousand families--over their wild and inhospitable region. Ethnologists generally consider them to have a common origin with the Finns of Europe. In stature they are somewhat taller than the Lapps, and their colour is more of a tawny. The marked features of their countenance recall the Hindu type. The forehead is high, the hair black, the nose long, the mouth well-formed; but the sunken eye, veiled by a heavy lid, expresses a cruel and perfidious nature. The manners of the Samojedes are brutal; and in character they are fierce and cunning. They are shepherds, hunters, traders--and when opportunity serves, robbers. Like the other Arctic peoples, they clothe themselves in reindeer-skins. They shave off their hair, except a tolerably large tuft which they allow to flourish on the top of the head, and they pluck out the beard as fast as it grows. The women decorate their persons with a belt of gilded copper, and with a profusion of glass beads and metallic ornaments. * * * * * Continuing our progress eastward, we come to the Ostiaks, a people spreading over the northernmost parts of Siberia, from the Oural Mountains to Kamtschatka. Some interesting particulars of their habits and customs are recorded by Madame Felinska, a Polish lady whom the Russian Government condemned to a long exile in Siberia. One day, when she was seeking a pathway through a wood, she fell in with a couple of Ostiaks on the point of performing their devotions. These are of the simplest kind: the worshipper places himself before a tree (the larch, by preference) in the densest recess of the forest, and indulges in a succession of extravagant gestures and contortions. As this form of worship is prohibited by the Russian Government, the Ostiak can resort to it only in secret. He professes, indeed, to have accepted Christianity, but there is too much reason to fear that the majority of the race are still attached to their heathen creed. Nearly every Ostiak carries about his person a rude image of one of the deities which he adores under the name of _Schaïtan_; but this does not prevent him from wearing a small crucifix of copper on his breast. The _Schaïtan_ is a rough imitation of the human figure, carved out of wood. It is of different sizes, according to the various uses for which it is intended: if for carrying on the person, it is a miniature doll; but for decorating the Ostiak’s hut an image can be had on a larger scale. It is always attired in seven pearl-embroidered chemises, and suspended to the neck by a string of silver coins. The wooden deity occupies the place of honour in every hut,--sometimes in company with an image of the Virgin Mary or some saint,--and before beginning a repast the Ostiaks are careful to offer it the daintiest morsels, smearing its lips with fish or raw game; this sacred duty performed, they finish their meal in contentment.