have been no uncommon thing for a man, in those antient times, when he was weary of his wife, to go and sell her for a trifle in the public assemblies.

It is likewise customary on great solemnities, whether religious or civil, for the people to assemble before the chancery, and there be regaled with several buckets of brandy, some bread, and a small portion of fish. At the same time, within the chancery a table is spread with all sorts of strong liquors, bread, dried fish, and caviar; where the hettman and his starchins drink the healths of the sovereign and the first personages of the empire to discharges of the musquetry, and conclude by putting the glass about to the prosperity of the government, and the welfare of the Kosacs.

Espousals and weddings furnish the youth of both sexes with frequent and various diversions. A young woman has all the girls of her acquaintance to spend the evening with her every day for twenty weeks from the day of her betrothing. This time is passed in a number of ridiculous ceremonies and diversions with the lads, accompanied with singing, dancing, &c. During all this interval, the young couple are allowed such privacies as are otherwise only permitted to husband and wife. When the day of marriage draws nigh, the gallant is obliged to furnish his lass with a complete suit of cloaths proper for her sex; and she, in return, presents him with a cp, a pair of boots, a shirt, and a pair of breeches. When the nuptial ceremony is over, the bride is earried back to her house in an open carriage, with her mother, and the go-between behind her, who should have rings upon all their fingers; and both employ themselves in waving pieces of stuff on the right hand and left, to conceal the face of the bride from the view of the spectators. The bridegroom goes before the carriage, accompanied by his father, his relations, and friends, all on foot. The carriage is followed by a number of young persons on horeback; one of whom carries a piece of stuff, striped with different colours, plachta, such as that the Tscherkessian women use for petticoats; it is fastened to the end of a long pole, and is waved to and fro like a flag. This custom is the more extraordinary, as the women

here do not wear these plachtas. The remainder of the festival is celebrated by the friends and relations of the bridegroom, who divert themselves by drinking, singing, and dancing; and this for the most part in the open street. The Tartarian dances are the most customary on these occasious; and the young people accompany them with movements infinitely various, in which they show an astonishing address, agility, and strength of body. They are accustomed, indeed, from their very infancy, to all sorts of robust and manly exercise; but prin cipally in shooting with the bow,which next to the art of using fire-arms and the lance, is that wherein they discover the most dexterity.

Almost all the forts and advanced posts along the Yaik are guarded by these Kosacs. They employ in this service, besides the hundred Kosacs posted at Gurief, a thousand volunteers of their own body, who go, about the Feast of the Epiphany, to relieve all the garrisons of the preceding year. Numbers of Kosacs who have settled themselves by degrees in these forts, and breed cattle, remain continually in service; preferring the certain stipend they obtain from their brethren, besides the pay and provisions assigned by the government to every Kosac of the Yaik, to the uncertain profits of a laborious fishery, fromwhich such as serve are excluded. The rest consist of such as, in the hope of gaining a rank, or because they have been unfortunate in the fishery, enter for a year or more.

As to what concerns the means employed by the Kosacs for procuring a subsistence, they have among them the most necessary artizans, such as shoe-makers, smiths, carpenters, and the like; nay they will not so much as allow any foreign workman to follow those professions among them. They are abundantly supplied with the produce of such manufactories as they have not yet established, by the great numbers of foreign merchants which the fish-trade brings continually hither. Many Kosac women, especially among the Tartars, fabricate camlets of camel's hair of every quality. The worst sort are very cheap, and yet are very lasting. They weave also these stuffs of so good a quality as to yield neither in beauty or fineness to the camlets of

Brussels,

Brussels, if they had not the defect, common to all the Russian linens and stuffs, of being fabricated in small pieces, very narrow.

Camels might be bred the whole length of the Yaik, and great advantage might be made of them, as there is no domestic animal with whom the thorny and saline plants of the steppes of this country better agree. The breed of divers other animals is already the principal accessary occupation of the Kosac: but the Russians keep to horses and horned cattle. Both kinds succeed wonderfully in these warm climates, grow to a good size, and the horses especially yield neither in spirit, vigour, nor even in beauty to any Russian horse. They are besides accustomed in case of need to pass both winter and summer in the open pastures, where they are left entirely to themselves, and have hardly any hay or other dried forage except when they are brought home to be worked during the fishing-season in the most laborious employs. Neither are the horses here shod with iron; but in this dry soil a handsome and very durable sabot or wooden shoe is found to answer the purpose much better. As to what concerns the rearing of horned cattle, numbers of Kosacs keep chutori, or cow-houses, in remote places that abound in excellent forage. The generality of the Tartars, who likewise breed numbers of sheep, go wandering about from place to place, with their tents of felt. But the Russians build clay huts payed over with mud, for putting up their cattle in at night. Great numbers of cattle are transported from the Yaik to the Volga; and large quantities of hides and suet to the towns that have tanDeries and soap manufactories, as Kasan, Yaroslauf, Arsamas, &c.

Another of their accessary employ. ments, and in which numbers of them engage, is the chace of the fox, the wolf, the beaver, and the boar of the steppes. They usually hunt in the first months of the winter, while the snow that covers the deserts makes it easy to trace their game by the scent, and when there is no fishery of importance to divide their application.

But what most contributes to the comfortable subsistence of this people, and which they make their prime occupation, is the fishery. There is no part of Russia where it is so well re

gulated as among them; and this from hereditary customs that have obtained the force of laws, and are maintained with the utmost rigour. They fish only four times a year on the Yaik: indeed properly but three times. The first, and most important is that followed in January, with certain hooks, called bagri; and this fishery is termed bagrenie. The second, for sevrugas, called Veschnaia Plavniæ, is carried on in the month of May, and lasts till June. Then, the third, and least considerable, is the autumn fishery, Ossennaia Plavniæ, which is pursued in October with nets. Towards the end of the year, about the feast of St. Nicholas, or it may beat the beginning of December, they have a custom of making a fishery with nets under the ice, only however in the adjacent rivers, or in the lakes of the steppes, and never in the Yaik. This may be accounted the fourth; but it produces only fish of the most ordinary kinds, which serve for daily consump tion. Since the fisheries of the Yaik have been wholly ceded to the Kosacs by the Crown, for a very moderate consideration, with which the ustiugs established at Gurief for the use of the fishery were fixed, this antient method of fishing has been abolished, and a permanent ustiug is substituting in its place, which entirely shuts the bed of the river at the upper extremity of the part of the town that flanks it, in such manner that the fish can freely enter the Yaik from the Caspian sea, and yet not swim higher up that river than Yaikzkoi-gorodok.

The most common sorts of fish in the Yaik, are the ordinary sturgeon, osetch, the great sturgeon, bieluga, and a copious variety of these two species, but more especially of the former, which bears the name of schip. It is distinguished by its glossy skin and its pointed snout. After these the sevrugas, the sterlet, the siluru glanis, or vels of the Germans, the barbel, the white salmon, bielaia reebitchka; and lastly, the smaller sorts, which are still more common, such as pikes, various kinds of perch,the bream, the orfe, the tchechon, or bream with the sharp belly, and an immense quantity of small shell fish, which are likewise found in as great abundance in the Volga. But neither the shad, clupea alosa, so frequent in this latter river, nor the sturgeon with the rough

and