They are found in all parts of Russia, with the exception of the government of St. Petersburg, from which they have been banished. In most of the provincial towns they are to be found in a state of half-civilisation, supporting themselves by trafficking in horses, or by curing the disorders incidental to those animals; but the vast majority reject this manner of life, and traverse the country in bands, like the ancient Hamaxobioi; the immense grassy plains of Russia affording pasturage for their herds of cattle, on which, and the produce of the chase, they chiefly depend for subsistence. They are, however, not destitute of money, which they obtain by various means, but principally by curing diseases amongst the cattle of the mujíks or peasantry, and by telling fortunes, and not unfrequently by theft and brigandage. Their power of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as it is not uncommon to find them encamped in the midst of the snow, in slight canvas tents, when the temperature is twenty-five or thirty degrees below the freezing-point according to Réaumur; but in the winter they generally seek the shelter of the forests, which afford fuel for their fires, and abound in game. The race of the Rommany is by nature perhaps the most beautiful in the world; and amongst the children of the Russian Zigáni are frequently to be found countenances to do justice to which would require the pencil of a second Murillo; but exposure to the rays of the burning sun, the biting of the frost, and the pelting of the pitiless sleet and snow, destroys their beauty at a very early age; and if in infancy their personal advantages are remarkable, their ugliness at an advanced age is no less so, for then it is loathsome, and even appalling. A hundred years, could I live so long, would not efface from my mind the appearance of an aged Ziganskie Attaman, or Captain of Zigáni, and his grandson, who approached me on the meadow before Novo Gorod, where stood the encampment of a numerous horde. The boy was of a form and face which might have entitled him to represent Astyanax, and Hector of Troy might have pressed him to his bosom, and called him his pride; but the old man was, perhaps, such a shape as Milton has alluded to, but could only describe as execrable—he wanted but the dart and kingly crown to have represented the monster who opposed the progress of Lucifer, whilst careering in burning arms and infernal glory to the outlet of his hellish prison. But in speaking of the Russian Gypsies, those of Moscow must not be passed over in silence. The station to which they have attained in society in that most remarkable of cities is so far above the sphere in which the remainder of their race pass their lives, that it may be considered as a phenomenon in Gypsy history, and on that account is entitled to particular notice.