The Russian language is one of the richest and most beautiful in the world: it is soft and agreeable in sound, and has not the defect of the Italian in being too effeminate; it contains many words that express the same ideas. If ever a Sclavonic Milton or Shakspeare arise, he will find an inexhaustible treasure in his native tongue wherewith to express his thoughts, but at present there is scarcely any national literature, owing to the deadening influence of the government. The principal Russian authors are Poushkin the poet, Karamsin the historian, and Kriloff the writer of fables. In the alphabet there are thirty-six letters, of which a great number are vowels: many of them are purely Greek characters. A friend who understood the classic tongues assured me that a great similitude existed between Russ and Greek; the resemblance to Erse remarked by my Highland acquaintances has already been mentioned. The words which appear to be spelled with so many consonants merely contain letters of which we have not the equivalent,—such as shtch, cz, tch, which are each expressed in Russian by a single character. In the preceding pages, whenever Russian words occur, the true orthography has not been given, but they are written according to the sound as nearly as possible. FOOTNOTES [1] A verst is about five furlongs. A verst and a half, with the addition of six yards, makes a mile. [2] I was informed that they tie a string round the head and then cut the hair in a straight line: the poll of the neck is shaved quite bare. [3] The Greek Church forbids any carved images, although it allows painted ones: they say “graven images” are expressly forbidden; how they get over the ensuing “nor the likeness,” &c., they could never satisfactorily explain. [4] The Russians begin preparing a dowry for their daughters almost as soon as they are born, and they accumulate an immense quantity of things by the time they are marriageable. [5] The unmarried girls have their hair done in one long thick plait hanging straight down the back; the married have two, which are twisted under the head-dress. [6] The priests are so called in Russia. [7] The heat is so great for some weeks in the summer that I have heard people who have just arrived from India declare it is more insupportable than anything which they had experienced in that country. [8] So absurdly anxious is the government to prevent even the faintest echo of the voice of freedom from being heard in Russia, that it is a positive fact that the librettos of the operas of Masaniello and William Tell were ordered to be changed lest the subject should be too exciting! [9] In Russia there are many superstitions regarding this animal; the people never eat it, as they consider it unclean. Perhaps this might have arisen from their ancient Pagan creed, as one of their idols had the body of a woman and the head of a hare.