Among the prisoners made on the day of the battle of Narva was one who was typical of the revolutions of fortune. He was the eldest son and heir of the King of Georgia. He was called the “Czarafis,” a name which means son of the Czar among all the Tartars as well as in Russia; for the word Czar meant King among the ancient Scythians, from whom all these peoples are descended, and is not derived from the name of the Cæsars, so long unknown to these barbarians. His father, Mitelleski, who was master of the most beautiful part of the country between the mountains of Ararat and the eastern extremity of the Black Sea, had been driven from his kingdom by his own subjects in 1688, and preferred throwing himself on the mercy of the Emperor of Russia, to applying to the Turks. This king’s son, at the age of nineteen, helped Peter the Great in his expedition against the Swedes, and was taken in battle by some Finnish soldiers, who had already stripped him, and were on the point of killing him, when Count Renschild rescued him from their hands, supplied him with clothes, and presented him to his master. Charles sent him to Stockholm, where the wretched prince died shortly after. When he took leave, the King made aloud a natural reflection on the strangeness of the fate of an Asiatic prince, born at the foot of the Caucasus, and going to live a prisoner among the snows of Sweden: “It is just,” he said, “as if I were to be one day prisoner among the Tartars of the Crimea.” At that time these words made no impression, but afterwards, when the prediction had been justified in the event, there was but too much reason to remember them. The Czar was advancing by long marches with a force of 40,000 Russians, expecting to surround his enemy on all sides. When he had got half-way he heard of the battle of Narva, and the dispersal of his whole camp. He thought it best not to attack a victor who had shortly before destroyed 100,000 entrenched troops, with a force of 40,000 raw and undisciplined men. He retraced his steps, hoping to discipline his troops at the same time as civilize his subjects. “I know,” he remarked, “that the Swedes will long beat us, but in time they will teach us to beat them.” Moscow, his capital, was terror-stricken to hear of this defeat. So great was the pride and ignorance of the people that they were convinced they had been conquered by superhuman agency, and that the Swedes had secured their victory by magic. This opinion was so widespread that a public prayer to Saint Nicholas, patron saint of Russia, was ordered. This prayer is too singular to be omitted. It runs thus--