all the rest of this country, for above a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and most ignorant of pagans: and fo indeed we found it.

We were now launched into the greatest piece of folid earth, if I understand any thing of the surface of the globe, that is to be found in any part of the world: we had at least twelve hundred miles to the fea, eastward; we had at least two thousand to the bottom of the Balic sea, weftward; and almost three thousand miles, if we left that sea, and went on west to the British and French channels; we had full five thousand miles to the Indian or Perfian fea, fouth; and about eight hundred miles to the frozen fea, north: nay, if fome people may be believed, there might be no fea north-eaft till we came round the pole, and confequently into the north-weft, and fo had a continent of land into America, no mortal knows where; though I could give fome reasons why I believe that to be a mistake too.

As we entered into the Mufcovite dominions, a good while before we came to any confiderable town, we had nothing to obferve there but this: first, that all the rivers run to the east. As I understood by the charts which fome of our caravans had with them, it was plain that all thofe rivers ran into the great river Tamour, or Gammour. This river, by the natural course of it, must run into the eaft sea, or Chinese ocean. The story they tell us, that the mouth of this river is choaked up with bulrushes of a monftrous growth, viz. three feet about, and twenty or thirty feet high, I must be allowed to fay, I believe nothing of; but as its navigation is of no use, because

because there is no trade that way, the Tartars, to whom alone it belongs, dealing in nothing but cattle; fo, nobody that ever I heard of, has been curious enough either to go down to the mouth of it in boats, or to come up from the mouth of it in fhips; but this is certain, that this river running due eaft, in the latitude of 60 degrees, carries a vast concourfe of rivers along with it, and finds an ocean to empty itself in that latitude; fo we are fure of sea there.

Some leagues to the north of this river there are feveral confiderable rivers, whose streams run as due north as the Tamour runs east; and these are all found to join their waters with the great river Tartarus, named fo from the northermoft nations of the Mogul Tartars, who, the Chinese fay, were the first Tartars in the world; and who, as our geographers alledge, are the Gog and Magog mentioned in facred story.

These rivers running all northward, as well as all the other rivers I am yet to speak of, made it evident that the northern ocean bounds the land also on that fide; fo that it does not seem rational in the least to think that the land can extend itself to join with America on that fide, or that there is not a communication between the northern and the eastern ocean; but of this I fhall fay no more; it was my obfervation at that time, and therefore I take notice of it in this place. We now advanced from the river Arguna by eafy and moderate journeys, and were very visibly obliged to the care the czar of Mufcovy has taken to have cities and towns built in as many places as are poffible to place them, where his foldiers keep garrifon, fomething like the ftationary foldiers placed VOL. II.

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by the Romans in the remoteft countries of their empire, fome of which I had read were particularly placed in Britain for the fecurity of commerce, and for the lodging of travellers; and thus it was here; for wherever we came, though at these towns and ftations, the garrifons and governor were Ruffians and profeffed mere pagans, facrificing to idols, and worfhipping the fun, moon, and stars, or all the host of heaven; and not only fo, but were, of all the heathens and pagans that ever I met with, the most barbarous, except only that they did not eat man's flesh, as our favages of America did.

Some inftances of this we met with in the country between Arguna, where we enter the Mufcovite dominions, and a city of Tartars and Ruffians together, called Nertzinskay; in which space is a continued defart or foreft, which coft us twenty days to travel over it. In a village, near the last of thofe places, I had the curiofity to go and fee their way of living; which is most brutish and unfufferable they had, I fuppofe, a great facrifice that day; for there food out upon an old stump of a tree, an idol made of wood, frightful as the devil; at least as any thing we can think of to reprefent the devil that can be made: It had an head certainly not fo much as refembling any creature that the world ever faw; ears as big as goats horns, and as high; eyes as big as a crown piece; and a nofe like a crooked ram's horn, and a mouth extended fourcornered, like that of a lion, with horrible teeth, hooked like a parrot's under bill. It was dreffed up in the filthiest manner that you can fuppofe; its up

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per garment was of fheep-fkins, with the wool outward; a great Tartar bonnet on the head, with two horns growing through it: it was about eight feet high, yet had no feet or legs, or any other proportion of parts.

This fcarecrow was fet up at the outfide of the village; and when I came near to it, there were sixteen or feventeen creatures, whether men or women I could not tell, for they make no diftinction by their habits, either of body or head; these lay all flat on the ground, round this formidable block of fhapeless wood. I faw no motion among them any more than if they had been logs of woods like their idol; at first I really thought they had been fo; but when I came a little nearer, they started up upon their feet; and raised an howling cry, as if it had been fo many deep-mouthed hounds, and 'walked away as if they were displeased at our disturbing them. A little way off from this monster, and at the door of a tent or hut, made all of sheep-fkins and cow-fkins, dried, ftood three butchers: I thought they were fuch; for when I came nearer to them, I found they had long knives in their hands, and in the middle of the tent appeared three sheep killed, and one young bullock, or fteer. Thefe, it seems, were facrifices to that senseless log of an idol; and these three men priests belonging to it; and the seventeen proftrated wretches were the people who brought the offering, and were making their prayers to that ftock.

I confess I was more moved at their ftupidity, and this brutish worship of an hobgoblin, than ever I

was at any thing in my life: to see God's most glorious and best creature, to whom he had granted fo many advantages, even by creation, above the rest of the works of his hands, vefted with a reasonable foul, and that soul adorned with faculties and capacities adapted both to honour his Maker and be honoured by him; I fay, to fee it funk and degenerated to a degree fo more than stupid, as to proftrate itself to a frightful nothing, a mere imaginary object dreffed up by themselves, and made terrible to themselves by their own contrivance, adorned only with clouts and rags; and that this fhould be the effect of mere ignorance, wrought up into hellifh devotion by the devil himself; who, envying his Maker the homage and adoration of his creatures, had deluded them into fuch grofs, furfeiting, fordid, and bruitish things, as one would think fhould fhock nature itself.

But what fignified all the astonishment and reflection of thoughts? Thus it was, and I faw it before my eyes; and there was no room to wonder at it, or think it impoffible. All my admiration turned to rage; and I rode up to the image or monfter, call it what you will, and with my fword cut the bonnet that was on its head in two in the middle, fo that it hung down by one of the horns; and one of our men that was with me, took hold of the sheep-fkin that covered it, and pulled at it, when, behold, a most hideous outcry and howling ran through the village, and two or three hundred people came about my ears, fo that I was glad to fcour for it; for we saw fome had bows and arrows; but I refolved from that moment to visit them again.

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