with little scarlet ornament at the top, their steel veil falling over their necks, their shirt of linked mail, the plate-armour on their legs, and their barbed steeds, make us imagine them to be some ancient knights of high renown ready caparisoned for the tournament. Their piercing black eyes and noble features do not belie what we have heard of the beauty of the Circassian race. These are probably some of a tribe that have been induced to swear fealty to the Czar, or perhaps are two of the hostages from Circassia. I remember a gentleman telling me that the Circassians were among the most faithful of the Emperor’s soldiers: perhaps the time may be near at hand in which their fidelity will be put to the test. You see those other soldiers opposite; they cut but a poor figure by the side of the Circassians. They are some of the infantry of the line; their downcast, inanimate look, their thin and miserable forms, tell of the many kicks and blows, the scanty rations of black bread and salt, the life of drudgery and the shameful ill-treatment to which, poor wretches! they are too much accustomed. “It is no wonder our soldiers are brave,” said a Russian official to me; “they have so little worth living for, that, as Grinion the author says, ‘they lose nothing when they lose their life:’ the only way to make a good trooper is to make him care nothing at all about his existence.” What abominable policy! That little house at the corner of the street is inhabited by a butitchnick or stationary policeman; he is placed there to keep the streets in order: I am sorry to say he has not the reputation of being very honest himself. So many stories are told and known to be true concerning the police in Russia, that they really may be regarded as the wolves instead of the watch-dogs of the community. Among the many examples of what is here asserted, I remember two. The first was that of a servant-girl who was the slave of a lady with whom I was slightly acquainted, and who was one evening sent out to purchase something. The girl, like the generality of domestics in this country, was not of good character, and she stopped to talk with the butitchnick, who invited her into his house. She was never seen again alive, and several weeks passed before any trace of her was discovered. By chance, as the police-officer was going his rounds, he entered the man’s cabin, and looking round he caught sight of a very small portion of a cotton dress that was jammed between the boards of the floor. He instantly had them taken up, and beneath them was found the body of the wretched servant-girl: the butitchnick confessed that the silver rouble intrusted to her had tempted him to commit the murder. The second case was that of a lady who went to take a walk in the Strogonoff gardens, at a few versts’ distance from St. Petersburg. She was seen to enter them, but she never left them again. Nothing was heard of her during nine months,