Dmitri, surnamed by Russian historians “the False,” was, according to them, the Perkin Warbeck of Muscovite history. They affirm that his real name was Jachko (or in English James) Otrepief; that he was brought up in a monastery, and assumed the habit of a novice at the age of fourteen. He himself asserted that he was the son of Ivan the Terrible, or Cruel, and the legitimate heir to the crown. His history, which is perhaps the most interesting one in the Muscovite annals, is too long to be inserted here, but, after having obtained the protection of Sigismund and the Diet of Poland in 1603, he at last ascended the throne of Muscovy. There are many circumstances that would lead us to conclude that Dmitri V. was no impostor. Chuiski, his successor, aimed at the imperial crown, and, having murdered the Czar, it was to his interest, and to that of _his_ successors, to proclaim that Dmitri was the false heir, lest he might have left one to inherit his title. Was it not also to the interest of Michael Romanof, the founder of the present dynasty, still to keep up the belief. * * * * * Michael Romanof, the ancestor of the present Czar, was the son of a Boyar, or Muscovite noble, named Phedor Nikititch. He was not a _prince_, or of _Russian_ descent; but they say his forefather was a Prussian named Andrew, who emigrated to Russia towards the end of the fourteenth century. He was elected Czar in 1613.—_Levesque, from a MS. on the imperial family._ * * * * * Siberia was conquered by Yermak, an Ataman or Hetman of the Don Cossacks, between the years 1577 and 1580, and by him secured to the Czar Ivan IV. Yermak was drowned in the Vagai, one of the tributary streams of the Irtish, 1583. * * * * * The Samoïdes, or Samoyedes, are a race of people inhabiting a wild marshy country in the extreme north of Siberia, its shores being washed by the Frozen Ocean. The word Samoïde, Samoïede, or Samoïade, means a cannibal according to most authors, but it does not appear that they merit such an appellation: they pay a tribute of skins yearly to the Czar, but, like most of the nomads of Siberia, they _govern_ themselves. * * * * * The custom mentioned in the fourteenth chapter regarding the offering of bread, &c., made to the Church after a funeral, is apparently derived from Shamanism, for it is also a rite performed by those who profess that religion, and also on the fortieth day. Shamanism is still professed by immense numbers of the nomads, although its doctrines are now much corrupted: it was formerly an universal belief, even so far west of the Ural mountains as Jaroslaf. * * * * *