scale of humanity to bear the shock of a superior order of life, have been demoralised by it. The Tunguses and Ostiaks, who live in the northern parts of the provinces of the Irkutsk and Yeniseisk, are of a very low order of savages. The Tunguses are thievish, treacherous and cowardly, and live solely by fishing and hunting. The Ostiaks live almost entirely on and about the water, eat little else but fish when they can get it. They wander as far north as the Frozen Ocean. When deprived of their usual food in winter, they are reduced to eating carrion and garbage of all kinds. In their habits they are filthily dirty. Small-pox and drunkenness together make frightful havoc in their numbers. These tribes have been greatly injured by their contact with Russians. Naturally addicted to drunkenness, they have been supplied with ardent spirits to their heart's content by the invaders. The use of money being unknown to them, they only receive brandy in exchange for their services and products. They supply the gold-diggings with game, which brings them in return large quantities of spirits. They also act as guides to exploring parties, and such services are invariably requited with brandy. To obtain this liquor seems indeed to be the main object of their lives, and they have recourse to the most extraordinary expedients to gain their purpose. They are low idolaters, but they know how to turn to account the solicitude of the Russian Church for proselytising. They will allow themselves to be baptised in consideration of a bottle of brandy, but on the next favourable opportunity, they will pass over to another part of the country, and again offer themselves as candidates for baptism, if a similar inducement be held out. Brandy is fast ruining these people, and in a few generations they are likely to become extinct--a catastrophe which will have been greatly accelerated by the Russian settlers.