remedies from the act, and merely proposing that the tendency of the work should be no bar to an injunction against its piracy. This would be a slighter alteration of the law, (and every unnecessary alteration of existing laws ought carefully to be avoided,) and would spare the prejudices of those, whom no incidental advantage can reconcile to the enabling a plaintiff to demand damages and an account in respect of the unhallowed profits of a libellous publication:' but it would leave these unhallowed profits where they ought still less to be, in the hands of the libellous pirate; it would leave in force the revolting anomaly, that a man shall defend himself by pleading his own criminality. And if these consequences were avoided, by directing the profits and damages to be applied to a public charity, it would still leave literature exposed to its present dangers, by leaving it still in the power, or to speak more correctly, making it still the duty, of the Chancellor to stigmatize works, by refusing to allow the original publisher to receive the benefit of an account from the invader of his property. We must observe that the act will not apply to works which have been declared libellous by a jury. The 60th Geo. III. c. 8, which directs them to be seized, an act which we trust will not be suffered to expire, operates as a perpetual injunction; and we hope that parliament will now exclude from the classification of publications this heteroclyte species, which is too good to be punished, and too bad to be protected, and give to authors the security enjoyed by all their fellow countrymen-that they shall be presumed to be innocent until they have been convicted of guilt by an appropriate process before a competent tribunal. The wording and the details of the act we leave to those better qualified than ourselves,

Авт. VII.-ЗАПИСКИ О Нѣкоторыхъ НАРОДАХЪ и ЗЕМЛЯХЪ СРЕДНЕЙ ЧАСТИ АЗІИ.

Notices of certain Tribes and Countries in the Central Part of Asia. By Philip Nazaroff, Interpreter to the Siberian Corps employed on an Expedition to Kokand in the Years 1813 and 1814. 8vo. Petersburgh.

HIS is the Expedition to which we alluded in a former Numher* and we then stated that an account of it was preparing for the press at the expense of that distinguished patron of science and discovery in Russia, the Count Romanzoff. By his kindness, we have been favoured with a copy of the narrative, an outline of which we hasten to lay before our readers; for though it has

* No. XLVIII. Art. III. p. 334.

failed to answer our expectations as far as regards the geography and natural history of this interesting part of Asia, the seat and centre of the barbarian grandeur of the Sultan Timour and also of his predecessor Gengis Khan, yet it affords some little insight into the strength and character of the hordes of Tartars who now roam over a small but favourite portion of that once magnificent and boundless empire. The information which it contains, however, is so scanty, that, had it been conveyed in any language more accessible to our countrymen than the Russian, we should probably not have thought it worthy of a separate Article; as preparatory, however, to something more circumstantial relating to the same quarter, a few pages may not, perhaps, be considered as superfluous.

As Mr. Nazaroff has not accompanied his route with any chart, nor given a single latitude or longitude, and as his Russian orthography differs very much from the names on our maps, it is no easy matter to follow him; we collect, however, from his narrative that the present Sultan, or Amir, as he is here styled, of Khokand, is a pugnacious personage of the name of Valliami, who, though little more than twenty-five years of age, has already brought under his subjection the various tribes of Tartars dispersed over those vast plains known to the Arabs by the name of Mawn el-nahar and containing the once celebrated cities of Bokhara, Balk and Samarcand, a tract of country so fertile and beautiful as to have been pronounced by Abulfeda' the most delightful of all places which God had created.' This central part of Asia is circumscribed on the north by the Algydim Zano mountains, (the rampart of the mythological Gog and Magog,) on the west by the Belur Tag, on the south by the Hindoo Koo, and Pamar Mountains, and on the west by the River Jihon and the Sea of Aral; comprehending all those populous tribes of Tartars known by the name of Kirghis, with the exception of one branch whose hordes occupy the country lying be tween the Caspian and the Aral; and they too, we have reason to believe, have recently submitted to the yoke of the conqueror.

The occasion of the present mission is thus stated. A deputation had been sent in 1812 from the Sultan or Khan of Kokania to the court of Petersburgh, which, on its return, halted at the fortress of Petropaulousk (marked St. Peter on the charts) on the river Ishim, and close to the northern range of the Steppe of that name. Here the principal persons caught a fever and died; the next in rank was a most depraved character, and frequented the company of profligate women, in whose society he formed an acquaintance with an exiled Russian soldier. This man, with the view of getting pos¬ session of the Tartar's money, enticed him one day to the Ishim to bathe, and, availing himself of the opportunity, murdered him and flung his body into the river. These untoward circumstances in

duced

duced the Russian commandant of the fortress to accompany the remaining part of the deputation with an escort, in order to obviate any unfavourable interpretation that might be put by the Khan on the unfortunate end of his two envoys.

Being well acquainted with the language of the Kokans, M. Nazaroff volunteered his services, and was accordingly dispatched by the commandant in May, 1813, with credentials and presents, in the name of the emperor, under the protection of a party of Cossacks; and at the same time an opportunity was taken of sending a caravan, or company of traders, to endeavour to open a commercial communication with the people. Having crossed the Steppe of Ishim, Nazaroff entered upon the possessions of the northern Kirghis, of whom he gives some little account. He describes them as consisting of three hordes, over each of which is a khan; each horde is divided into other portions, over each of which is a sultaun; and these again are subdivided into separate companies placed each under the controul of a bia or elder. Both the general government and that of the hordes are exceedingly despotic: their religion is that of Mahomet, and their laws are founded on the precepts of the koran.

The Kirghis are excellent horsemen; even children of four or five years of age manage a horse with great dexterity, and the women are not less expert than the men. Their horses are of the Arabian breed, fifteen or sixteen hands high, and in their predatory excursions will hold out for several days at the rate of a hundred miles a day. The hordes are honest, and faithful to their word among themselves; but hold it no stuff o' the conscience to plunder their neighbours. Nightly forays to drive off cattle are very common, and the women, on such occasions, armed with clubs and lances, take as active a share in any combat that may ensue as the

men.

6

Marriages are contracted by the parents while the parties are infants; and such contracts are held sacred. At the marriageable age, which is very early, the young people have free access to each other. They have a tent set apart from the rest of the horde, to which the bride is brought every night for a fortnight before the marriage ceremony is performed, and left alone with the bridegroom; but such, says M. Nazaroff, is the native modesty implanted in the breasts of these savages,' (they are very far from being savages,) that no indecency or improper liberty is ever taken by the man. On the day appointed for the nuptials, the relations meet, the mullah receives the declaration of the parties, unites their hands, and invokes a blessing and a numerous offspring; barrenness being, in their estimation, little short of disgrace.

M. Nazaroff and his party halted at a place called Tur-Aigrah,

in Turkistan, near which was a lake about thirty miles in circumference named Ketchubai-Tchurkar. On a sloping bank of this lake they observed an extensive burying-ground, containing a multitude of square wooden tombs, some marked with spears as a memorial of the good horsemanship of the deceased, and others with the figures of hawks as a testimony of their skill in fowling. To this burying-ground the rich Tartars bring their deceased relations from every part of the Kirghis territory. In the winter months, when the country is covered with snow and no food is to be had for their cattle, they suspend the bodies, swaddled in thick felt, from branches of trees, and in the spring collect and carry them to the sanctified cemetery. " Crossing the deserts of Tartary,' says M. Nazaroff, in the winter months, one frequently meets with these dismal objects covered with hoar-frost, and dangling, in all directions, to the chilling blast.'

The borders of this lake are the resort of various wandering tribes, who barter their horses, camels and sheep with the caravans, for clothing and other articles of necessity and luxury. While M. Nazaroff halted at this spot, one of the horde was condemned to suffer death. A halter was immediately thrown round the neck of the culprit, the end of which was fastened to the tail of a horse which, being mounted by a Tartar, set off at full speed, and continued galloping round the encampment till the life of the criminal was terminated. 6 Having inquired into the cause of so excruciating and dreadful a punishment, I was surprized (he says) to learn that the sufferer's offence was that of stealing two sheep, whilst those who condemned him were at the very moment, under pretence of private quarrels with the neighbouring tribes, lifting whole herds of cattle, and exacting ransom for their restitution.'

The farther they advanced through Turkistan, now a part of Kokania, the more fixed the population appeared; the tents of the Tartars were exchanged for houses of stone, and fields cultivated with grain, among which towns and villages were interspersed, were seen on all sides. Every thing wore the appearance of improved civilization. They had now reached the territory of Tashkund, which is watered by the Sur and its numerous branches. The khan sent his officers to demand the usual duties from the caravan, inviting them at the same time, in the most friendly manner, into the town of that name. He advised M. Nazaroff to proceed with his Cossacks alone to Khokand; not succeeding in this, he detained the caravan with a part of the Cossacks, at Tashkund, but graciously permitted the mission to set forward with the remainder of the escort, (about twenty,) which they did, without guides, trusting to the local knowledge of the Kokaners whom they had brought with them from Russia.

With the utmost difficulty they crossed the river Tchirtchik, on account of the rapidity of the stream and the large stones which it rolled down with it. This is one of the numerous torrents which fall from the lofty mountain named Kindertau, a prolongation of the Beloor Tag, and which swell the Sur, or Sihon. M. Nazaroff says that the roaring of this turbulent stream may be heard at the distance of fifteen versts, and that it is so tremendous that even the beasts of prey dare not approach it. The valleys of this range of mountains are inhabited, it appears, by little hordes of savage and uncivilized Persians of the East, who are named the Men of the Mountains.

In perusing this part of M. Nazaroff's narrative, we were perpetually reminded of Sir John Mandeville's river of running rocks and lakes of sand, an account of which he may have met with in some oriental traveller whose wondrous stories have not reached our times; and the valleys of Kindertau, which M. Nazaroff calls a prodigiously high mountain,' may yet contain the descendants of the Old Man of the Mountain, who, with his assassins, spread terror from the Hindoo Coosh to Mount Lebanon. Lawless robbers are still found in all the mountainous regions of Asia; but being more divided are consequently less formidable than the Ishmaelites of former times, who were destroyed by the Moguls.

Proceeding southerly, the mission passed the Khojund and the Sur-Dariu, and arrived at the city of Kokand, the capital of Kokania, situated in the centre of those interminable plains, where Gengis-Khan was in the habit of assembling a general council of all the khans, governors, and military chiefs of his extensive empire, and where, we are told, were once assembled 500 ambassadors from the conquered countries only. It was here too that the magnificent feast was given by Timour on the marriage of six of his grandsons; where, according to Gibbon, following the statement of Sherefedden,' the plain was spread with pyramids of meat and vases of every kind of liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited;' where pearls and rubies were showered on the heads of the bridegrooms and their brides, and contemptuously abandoned to their attendants;' where a general indulgence was proclaimed, every law was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed, the people was free, the sovereign was idle;'-and where, we may add, on the authority of Clavijo, who was present as ambassador from Henry III. of Castile, the nine queens of Tamerlane caroused wine, handed to them by pages on their knees, in golden cups, till, in the courtly language of Bardolph, they became fap, and conclusions passed the

carrieres.

On arriving at the gates of Khok and, the Cossacks dressed themselves in full uniform, and the whole cavalcade entered the city,

marched