Tartar in a broader sense than is commonly given to it, embracing not only all the northern Asiatic races and the Chinese, but likewise the aborigines of North America. Pallas says, that even the Monguls and Kalmuks are not rightly called Tartars, and that these latter people are different from the former in their origin, customs, political establishments, and the lineaments of their features. They inhabit the northern regions of Thibet, and Western Siberia, never mingling with the Kalmuks. These facts in no degree affect Ledyard's use of the word. He employs it as a general term, and in a definite manner, without regard to its original meaning.

CHAPTER XI.

Climate in Siberia. - Particulars concerning that Country. Ledyard's celebrated Eulogy on Captain Billings meets him at Yakutsk. Bering's Discovery. — Russian Voy

Women.

Russian Fur Trade.

pedition. His Instructions.

--

Billings's Ex

A FEW other selections on miscellaneous topics will now be made from that part of the journal which was written at Yakutsk.

"At Kazan there is abundance of snow; at Irkutsk, which is in about the same latitude, very little. Here at Yakutsk the atmosphere is constantly charged with snow; it sometimes falls, but very sparingly, and that in the daytime; rarely, if ever, at night. The air is much like that which we experienced with Captain Cook in mare glaciali, between the latitudes of seventy and seventy-two; seldom a serene sky, or detached clouds; the upper region is a dark, still, expanded vapor, with few openings in it. The lower atmosphere contains clouds floating overhead, resembling fogbanks. In general the motion of everything above and below is languid. The summers are said to be dry; the days very hot, nights cold, and the weather exceedingly changeable, subject to high winds, generally from the north, and sometimes heavy snows in August. I have seen but one aurora borealis, and that not an extraordinary one.

"The people in Yakutsk have no wells. They have tried them to a very great depth, but they freeze even in summer; consequently they have all their water from the river. But in winter they cannot bring water in its fluid state; it freezes on the way. It is then brought in large cakes of ice to their houses, and piled up in their yards. As water is

wanted, they bring these pieces of ice into the warm rooms, where they thaw, and become fit for use. Milk is brought to

same way.

A Yakuti came

market in the

into our house

to-day with a bag full of ice. 'What,' said I to Laxman, has the man brought ice to sell in Siberia?' It was milk. Clean mercury exposed to the air is now constantly frozen. By repeated observations I have found in December, that two ounces of quicksilver, openly exposed, have frozen hard in fifteen minutes. It may be cut with a knife, like lead. Strong cognac brandy coagulated. A thermometer, filled with rectified spirits of wine, indicated thirty-nine and a half degrees on Reaumur's scale. Captain Billings had, on the borders of the Frozen Ocean the winter before last, fortythree degrees and three fourths by the same thermometer. In these severe frosts the air is condensed, like a thick fog; the atmosphere itself is frozen; respiration is fatiguing; all exercise must be as moderate as possible; one's confidence is in his fur dress. It is a happy provision of nature, that in such intense colds there is seldom any wind; when there is, it is dangerous to be abroad. In these seasons,

there is no chase; the animals

submit them

selves to hunger and security, and so does

man. All nature groans beneath the rigorous winter.*

It

"The first settlers here [Russians] came round by the North Sea, about two hundred and fifty years ago. A gentleman showed me to-day a copy of a marriage contract done at Moscow, two hundred and five years ago. is a folio page, and there are only sixteen words intelligible to an ordinary reader, which correspond to the orthography of the present day. Many instances of longevity occur in this place. There is a man one hundred and ten years old, who is in perfect health, and labors

*The following is the statement of Captain Cochrane, respecting the degree of cold at the River Kolyma, which he visited in the winter of 1820-21. "The weather proved exceedingly cold in January and February, but never so severe as to prevent our walks, except during those times when the wind was high; it then became insupportable out of doors, and we were obliged to remain at home. Forty degrees of frost of Fahrenheit never appear to affect us in calm weather, so much as ten or fifteen during the time of a breeze. Forty-three of Reaumur, or seventy-seven of Fahrenheit, have been repeatedly known. I will, also, add my testimony from experiment to the extent of fortytwo. I have also seen the minute book of a gentleman at Yakutsk, where forty-seven of Reaumur were registered, equal to eighty-four of Fahrenheit."

By various experiments it has been proved, that mercury congeals at thirty-two degrees below zero of Reaumur's scale, and forty of Fahrenheit's.

daily. The images in the Russian houses, which I should take for a kind of household gods, are very expensive. The principal ones have a great deal of silver lavished on them. To furnish out a house properly with these Dii Minores, would cost a large sum. When burnt out, as I have witnessed several times, the people have appeared more anxious for these than for anything else. The images form almost the whole decoration of the churches, and those melted in one of them just burnt down, are estimated to have been worth at least thirty thousand roubles. The warm bath is used by the peasantry here early in life, from which it is common for them to plunge into the river, and if there happens to be new fallen snow, they come naked from the bath and wallow therein. Dances are accompanied, or rather performed, by the same odd twisting and writhing of the hips as at Otaheite.

"Dogs are here esteemed nearly in the same degree that horses are in England; for besides answering the same purpose in travelling, they aid the people in the chase, and, after toiling for them the whole day, become Indeed, they com

their safeguard at night.

mand the greatest attention. There are dog farriers to attend them in sickness, who are