The rage for scampering half over the world in search of the picturesque has scarcely got far enough to tempt any, except a stray traveller or two, into the chilly regions of Siberia and Kamtschatka, and in these exceptional cases, perhaps, more from force than choice. These are regions, therefore, concerning which our information is remarkably limited. It is true that Captain Cochrane informs us that he married a wife from Kamtschatka—a virtuous maiden, who knew more of that region, perhaps, than he or she cared to tell; for the one tells us very little, and the other nothing, of yon strange land, with an almost unpronounceable name. We are told, moreover, that the capital is called by the names of St. Peter and St. Paul. Fearing lest one patron saint should not be sufficient to immortalize the metropolis of all the Kamtschatkas, the founders and inhabitants have wisely adopted two. This city also is stated to contain forty-two dwellings, besides fifteen edifices belonging to the government, an old church, and the foundation of a new one. The winters are declared to be mild, compared with those of Siberia; but even these are not very inviting, as the snow lies on the ground seven or eight months, and the soil, at the depth of twenty-four to thirty inches, being frozen at all seasons. Potatoes never ripen, cabbages never come to a head, and peas only flower. But the gallant captain adds: “I am certainly the first Englishman that ever married a Kamtschatdale, and my wife is undoubtedly the first native of that peninsula that ever visited happy Britain.” In such a land, there is little hope of cultivating poppy, tobacco, betel, coca, hemp, or thorn-apple; and the poor native would have been compelled to have glided into his grave without a glimpse of Paradise beforehand, if, on the one hand, the kindly Russian pedlar had not found a way to smuggle a little bad spirits into the country, to the great annoyance of all quietly-disposed persons, or, on the other, nature had not promptly supplied an indigenous narcotic, in the form of an unpretending-looking fungus or toadstool, to stimulate the dormant energies of the dwellers in this region of ice and snow.