Early in the morning, when marching from a little town called Changu, we
had a river to pass, which we were obliged to ferry; and, had the Tartars
had any intelligence, then had been the time to have attacked us, when
the caravan being over, the rear-guard was behind; but they did not
appear there. About three hours after, when we were entered upon a
desert of about fifteen or sixteen miles over, we knew by a cloud of dust
they raised, that the enemy was at hand, and presently they came on upon
the spur.
Our Chinese guards in the front, who had talked so big the day before,
began to stagger; and the soldiers frequently looked behind them, a
certain sign in a soldier that he is just ready to run away. My old
pilot was of my mind; and being near me, called out, "Seignior Inglese,
these fellows must be encouraged, or they will ruin us all; for if the
Tartars come on they will never stand it."--"I am of your mind," said I;
"but what must be done?"--"Done?" says he, "let fifty of our men advance,
and flank them on each wing, and encourage them. They will fight like
brave fellows in brave company; but without this they will every man turn
his back." Immediately I rode up to our leader and told him, who was
exactly of our mind; accordingly, fifty of us marched to the right wing,
and fifty to the left, and the rest made a line of rescue; and so we
marched, leaving the last two hundred men to make a body of themselves,
and to guard the camels; only that, if need were, they should send a
hundred men to assist the last fifty.
At last the Tartars came on, and an innumerable company they were; how
many we could not tell, but ten thousand, we thought, at the least. A
party of them came on first, and viewed our posture, traversing the
ground in the front of our line; and, as we found them within gunshot,
our leader ordered the two wings to advance swiftly, and give them a
salvo on each wing with their shot, which was done. They then went off,
I suppose to give an account of the reception they were like to meet
with; indeed, that salute cloyed their stomachs, for they immediately
halted, stood a while to consider of it, and wheeling off to the left,
they gave over their design for that time, which was very agreeable to
our circumstances.
Two days after we came to the city of Naun, or Naum; we thanked the
governor for his care of us, and collected to the value of a hundred
crowns, or thereabouts, which we gave to the soldiers sent to guard us;
and here we rested one day. This is a garrison indeed, and there were
nine hundred soldiers kept here; but the reason of it was, that formerly
the Muscovite frontiers lay nearer to them than they now do, the
Muscovites having abandoned that part of the country, which lies from
this city west for about two hundred miles, as desolate and unfit for
use; and more especially being so very remote, and so difficult to send
troops thither for its defence; for we were yet above two thousand miles
from Muscovy properly so called. After this we passed several great
rivers, and two dreadful deserts; one of which we were sixteen days
passing over; and on the 13th of April we came to the frontiers of the
Muscovite dominions. I think the first town or fortress, whichever it
may he called, that belonged to the Czar, was called Arguna, being on the
west side of the river Arguna.
I could not but feel great satisfaction that I was arrived in a country
governed by Christians; for though the Muscovites do, in my opinion, but
just deserve the name of Christians, yet such they pretend to be, and are
very devout in their way. It would certainly occur to any reflecting man
who travels the world as I have done, what a blessing it is to be brought
into the world where the name of God and a Redeemer is known, adored, and
worshipped; and not where the people, given up to strong delusions,
worship the devil, and prostrate themselves to monsters, elements, horrid-
shaped animals, and monstrous images. Not a town or city we passed
through but had their pagodas, their idols, and their temples, and
ignorant people worshipping even the works of their own hands. Now we
came where, at least, a face of the Christian worship appeared; where the
knee was bowed to Jesus: and whether ignorantly or not, yet the Christian
religion was owned, and the name of the true God was called upon and
adored; and it made my soul rejoice to see it. I saluted the brave Scots
merchant with my first acknowledgment of this; and taking him by the
hand, I said to him, "Blessed be God, we are once again amongst
Christians." He smiled, and answered, "Do not rejoice too soon,
countryman; these Muscovites are but an odd sort of Christians; and but
for the name of it you may see very little of the substance for some
months further of our journey."--"Well," says I, "but still it is better
than paganism, and worshipping of devils."--"Why, I will tell you," says
he; "except the Russian soldiers in the garrisons, and a few of the
inhabitants of the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country,
for above a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and most
ignorant of pagans." And so, indeed, we found it.
We now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth that is to be
found in any part of the world; we had, at least, twelve thousand miles
to the sea eastward; two thousand to the bottom of the Baltic Sea
westward; and above three thousand, 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 Persian Sea south; and about eight hundred to the Frozen
Sea north.
We advanced from the river Arguna by easy and moderate journeys, and were
very visibly obliged to the care the Czar has taken to have cities and
towns built in as many places as it is possible to place them, where his
soldiers keep garrison, something like the stationary soldiers placed by
the Romans in the remotest countries of their empire; some of which I had
read of were placed in Britain, for the security of commerce, and for the
lodging of travellers. Thus it was here; for wherever we came, though at
these towns and stations the garrisons and governors were Russians, and
professed Christians, yet the inhabitants were mere pagans, sacrificing
to idols, and worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, or all the host of
heaven; and not only so, but were, of all the heathens and pagans that
ever I met with, the most barbarous, except only that they did not eat
men's flesh.
Some instances of this we met with in the country between Arguna, where
we enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city of Tartars and Russians
together, called Nortziousky, in which is a continued desert or forest,
which cost us twenty days to travel over. In a village near the last of
these places I had the curiosity to go and see their way of living, which
is most brutish and unsufferable. They had, I suppose, a great sacrifice
that day; for there stood out, upon an old stump of a tree, a diabolical
kind of idol made of wood; it was dressed up, too, in the most filthy
manner; its upper garment was of sheepskins, 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, nor any other
proportion of parts.
This scarecrow was set up at the outer side of the village; and when I
came near to it there were sixteen or seventeen creatures all lying flat
upon the ground round this hideous block of wood; I saw no motion among
them, any more than if they had been all logs, like the idol, and at
first I really thought they had been so; but, when I came a little
nearer, they started up upon their feet, and raised a howl, as if it had
been so many deep-mouthed hounds, and walked away, as if they were
displeased at our disturbing them. A little way off from the idol, and
at the door of a hut, made of sheep and cow skins dried, stood three men
with long knives in their hands; and in the middle of the tent appeared
three sheep killed, and one young bullock. These, it seems, were
sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol; the three men were priests
belonging to it, and the seventeen prostrated wretches were the people
who brought the offering, and were offering their prayers to that stock.
I confess I was more moved at their stupidity and brutish worship of a
hobgoblin than ever I was at anything in my life, and, overcome with
rage, I rode up to the hideous idol, and with my sword made a stroke at
the bonnet that was on its head, and cut it in two; and one of our men
that was with me, taking hold of the sheepskin that covered it, pulled at
it, when, behold, a most hideous outcry ran through the village, and two
or three hundred people came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour
for it, for some had bows and arrows; but I resolved from that moment to
visit them again. Our caravan rested three nights at the town, which was
about four miles off, in order to provide some horses which they wanted,
several of the horses having been lamed and jaded with the long march
over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to put my design in
execution. I communicated it to the Scots merchant, of whose courage I
had sufficient testimony; I told him what I had seen, and with what
indignation I had since thought that human nature could be so degenerate;
I told him if I could get but four or five men well armed to go with me,
I was resolved to go and destroy that vile, abominable idol, and let them
see that it had no power to help itself, and consequently could not be an
object of worship, or to be prayed to, much less help them that offered
sacrifices to it.
He at first objected to my plan as useless, seeing that, owing to the
gross ignorance of the people, they could not be brought to profit by the
lesson I meant to teach them; and added that, from his knowledge of the
country and its customs, he feared we should fall into great peril by
giving offence to these brutal idol worshippers. This somewhat stayed my
purpose, but I was still uneasy all that day to put my project in
execution; and that evening, meeting the Scots merchant in our walk about
the town, I again called upon him to aid me in it. When he found me
resolute he said that, on further thoughts, he could not but applaud the
design, and told me I should not go alone, but he would go with me; but
he would go first and bring a stout fellow, one of his countrymen, to go
also with us; "and one," said he, "as famous for his zeal as you can
desire any one to be against such devilish things as these." So we
agreed to go, only we three and my man-servant, and resolved to put it in
execution the following night about midnight, with all possible secrecy.
We thought it better to delay it till the next night, because the caravan
being to set forward in the morning, we suppose the governor could not
pretend to give them any satisfaction upon us when we were out of his
power. The Scots merchant, as steady in his resolution for the
enterprise as bold in executing, brought me a Tartar's robe or gown of
sheepskins, and a bonnet, with a bow and arrows, and had provided the
same for himself and his countryman, that the people, if they saw us,
should not determine who we were. All the first night we spent in mixing
up some combustible matter, with aqua vitae, gunpowder, and such other
materials as we could get; and having a good quantity of tar in a little
pot, about an hour after night we set out upon our expedition.
We came to the place about eleven o'clock at night, and found that the
people had not the least suspicion of danger attending their idol. The
night was cloudy: yet the moon gave us light enough to see that the idol
stood just in the same posture and place that it did before. The people
seemed to be all at their rest; only that in the great hut, where we saw
the three priests, we saw a light, and going up close to the door, we
heard people talking as if there were five or six of them; we concluded,
therefore, that if we set wildfire to the idol, those men would come out
immediately, and run up to the place to rescue it from destruction; and
what to do with them we knew not. Once we thought of carrying it away,
and setting fire to it at a distance; but when we came to handle it, we
found it too bulky for our carriage, so we were at a loss again. The
second Scotsman was for setting fire to the hut, and knocking the
creatures that were there on the head when they came out; but I could not
join with that; I was against killing them, if it were possible to avoid
it. "Well, then," said the Scots merchant, "I will tell you what we will
do: we will try to make them prisoners, tie their hands, and make them
stand and see their idol destroyed."
As it happened, we had twine or packthread enough about us, which we used
to tie our firelocks together with; so we resolved to attack these people
first, and with as little noise as we could. The first thing we did, we
knocked at the door, when one of the priests coming to it, we immediately
seized upon him, stopped his mouth, and tied his hands behind him, and
led him to the idol, where we gagged him that he might not make a noise,
tied his feet also together, and left him on the ground.
Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another would come out
to see what the matter was; but we waited so long till the third man came
back to us; and then nobody coming out, we knocked again gently, and
immediately out came two more, and we served them just in the same
manner, but were obliged to go all with them, and lay them down by the
idol some distance from one another; when, going back, we found two more
were come out of the door, and a third stood behind them within the door.
We seized the two, and immediately tied them, when the third, stepping
back and crying out, my Scots merchant went in after them, and taking out
a composition we had made that would only smoke and stink, he set fire to
it, and threw it in among them. By that time the other Scotsman and my
man, taking charge of the two men already bound, and tied together also
by the arm, led them away to the idol, and left them there, to see if
their idol would relieve them, making haste back to us.
When the fuze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smoke that
they were almost suffocated, we threw in a small leather bag of another
kind, which flamed like a candle, and, following it in, we found there
were but four people, who, as we supposed, had been about some of their
diabolical sacrifices. They appeared, in short, frightened to death, at
least so as to sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak either,
for the smoke.
We quickly took them from the hut, where the smoke soon drove us out,
bound them as we had done the other, and all without any noise. Then we
carried them all together to the idol; when we came there, we fell to
work with him. First, we daubed him all over, and his robes also, with
tar, and tallow mixed with brimstone; then we stopped his eyes and ears
and mouth full of gunpowder, and wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in
his bonnet; then sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us
upon him, we looked about to see if we could find anything else to help
to burn him; when my Scotsman remembered that by the hut, where the men
were, there lay a heap of dry forage; away he and the other Scotsman ran
and fetched their arms full of that. When we had done this, we took all
our prisoners, and brought them, having untied their feet and ungagged
their mouths, and made them stand up, and set them before their monstrous
idol, and then set fire to the whole.
We stayed by it a quarter of an hour or thereabouts, till the powder in
the eyes and mouth and ears of the idol blew up, and, as we could
perceive, had split altogether; and in a word, till we saw it burned so
that it would soon be quite consumed. We then began to think of going
away; but the Scotsman said, "No, we must not go, for these poor deluded
wretches will all throw themselves into the fire, and burn themselves
with the idol." So we resolved to stay till the forage had burned down
too, and then came away and left them. After the feat was performed, we
appeared in the morning among our fellow-travellers, exceedingly busy in
getting ready for our journey; nor could any man suppose that we had been
anywhere but in our beds.
But the affair did not end so; the next day came a great number of the
country people to the town gates, and in a most outrageous manner
demanded satisfaction of the Russian governor for the insulting their
priests and burning their great Cham Chi-Thaungu. The people of
Nertsinkay were at first in a great consternation, for they said the
Tartars were already no less than thirty thousand strong. The Russian
governor sent out messengers to appease them, assuring them that he knew
nothing of it, and that there had not a soul in his garrison been abroad,
so that it could not be from anybody there: but if they could let him
know who did it, they should be exemplarily punished. They returned
haughtily, that all the country reverenced the great Cham Chi-Thaungu,
who dwelt in the sun, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to
his image but some Christian miscreant; and they therefore resolved to
denounce war against him and all the Russians, who, they said, were
miscreants and Christians.
The governor, unwilling to make a breach, or to have any cause of war
alleged to be given by him, the Czar having strictly charged him to treat
the conquered country with gentleness, gave them all the good words he
could. At last he told them there was a caravan gone towards Russia that
morning, and perhaps it was some of them who had done them this injury;
and that if they would be satisfied with that, he would send after them
to inquire into it. This seemed to appease them a little; and
accordingly the governor sent after us, and gave us a particular account
how the thing was; intimating withal, that if any in our caravan had done
it they should make their escape; but that whether we had done it or no,
we should make all the haste forward that was possible: and that, in the
meantime, he would keep them in play as long as he could.
This was very friendly in the governor; however, when it came to the
caravan, there was nobody knew anything of the matter; and as for us that
were guilty, we were least of all suspected. However, the captain of the
caravan for the time took the hint that the governor gave us, and we
travelled two days and two nights without any considerable stop, and then
we lay at a village called Plothus: nor did we make any long stop here,
but hastened on towards Jarawena, another Muscovite colony, and where we
expected we should be safe. But upon the second day's march from
Plothus, by the clouds of dust behind us at a great distance, it was
plain we were pursued. We had entered a vast desert, and had passed by a
great lake called Schanks Oser, when we perceived a large body of horse
appear on the other side of the lake, to the north, we travelling west.
We observed they went away west, as we did, but had supposed we would
have taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happily took the south
side; and in two days more they disappeared again: for they, believing we
were still before them, pushed on till they came to the Udda, a very
great river when it passes farther north, but when we came to it we found
it narrow and fordable.
The third day they had either found their mistake, or had intelligence of
us, and came pouring in upon us towards dusk. We had, to our great
satisfaction, just pitched upon a convenient place for our camp; for as
we had just entered upon a desert above five hundred miles over, where we
had no towns to lodge at, and, indeed, expected none but the city
Jarawena, which we had yet two days' march to; the desert, however, had
some few woods in it on this side, and little rivers, which ran all into
the great river Udda; it was in a narrow strait, between little but very
thick woods, that we pitched our camp that night, expecting to be
attacked before morning. As it was usual for the Mogul Tartars to go
about in troops in that desert, so the caravans always fortify themselves
every night against them, as against armies of robbers; and it was,
therefore, no new thing to be pursued. But we had this night a most
advantageous camp: for as we lay between two woods, with a little rivulet
running just before our front, we could not be surrounded, or attacked
any way but in our front or rear. We took care also to make our front as
strong as we could, by placing our packs, with the camels and horses, all
in a line, on the inside of the river, and felling some trees in our
rear.
In this posture we encamped for the night; but the enemy was upon us
before we had finished. They did not come on like thieves, as we
expected, but sent three messengers to us, to demand the men to be
delivered to them that had abused their priests and burned their idol,
that they might burn them with fire; and upon this, they said, they would
go away, and do us no further harm, otherwise they would destroy us all.
Our men looked very blank at this message, and began to stare at one
another to see who looked with the most guilt in their faces; but nobody
was the word--nobody did it. The leader of the caravan sent word he was
well assured that it was not done by any of our camp; that we were
peaceful merchants, travelling on our business; that we had done no harm
to them or to any one else; and that, therefore, they must look further
for the enemies who had injured them, for we were not the people; so they
desired them not to disturb us, for if they did we should defend
ourselves.
They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer: and a great
crowd of them came running down in the morning, by break of day, to our
camp; but seeing us so well posted, they durst come no farther than the
brook in our front, where they stood in such number as to terrify us very
much; indeed, some spoke of ten thousand. Here they stood and looked at
us a while, and then, setting up a great howl, let fly a crowd of arrows
among us; but we were well enough sheltered under our baggage, and I do
not remember that one of us was hurt.
Some time after this we saw them move a little to our right, and expected
them on the rear: when a cunning fellow, a Cossack of Jarawena, calling
to the leader of the caravan, said to him, "I will send all these people
away to Sibeilka." This was a city four or five days' journey at least
to the right, and rather behind us. So he takes his bow and arrows, and
getting on horseback, he rides away from our rear directly, as it were
back to Nertsinskay; after this he takes a great circuit about, and comes
directly on the army of the Tartars as if he had been sent express to
tell them a long story that the people who had burned the Cham
Chi-Thaungu were gone to Sibeilka, with a caravan of miscreants, as he
called them--that is to say, Christians; and that they had resolved to
burn the god Scal-Isar, belonging to the Tonguses. As this fellow was
himself a Tartar, and perfectly spoke their language, he counterfeited so
well that they all believed him, and away they drove in a violent hurry
to Sibeilka. In less than three hours they were entirely out of our
sight, and we never heard any more of them, nor whether they went to
Sibeilka or no. So we passed away safely on to Jarawena, where there was
a Russian garrison, and there we rested five days.
From this city we had a frightful desert, which held us twenty-three
days' march. We furnished ourselves with some tents here, for the better
accommodating ourselves in the night; and the leader of the caravan
procured sixteen waggons of the country, for carrying our water or
provisions, and these carriages were our defence every night round our
little camp; so that had the Tartars appeared, unless they had been very
numerous indeed, they would not have been able to hurt us. We may well
be supposed to have wanted rest again after this long journey; for in
this desert we neither saw house nor tree, and scarce a bush; though we
saw abundance of the sable-hunters, who are all Tartars of Mogul Tartary;
of which this country is a part; and they frequently attack small
caravans, but we saw no numbers of them together.
After we had passed this desert we came into a country pretty well
inhabited--that is to say, we found towns and castles, settled by the
Czar with garrisons of stationary soldiers, to protect the caravans and
defend the country against the Tartars, who would otherwise make it very
dangerous travelling; and his czarish majesty has given such strict
orders for the well guarding the caravans, that, if there are any Tartars
heard of in the country, detachments of the garrison are always sent to
see the travellers safe from station to station. Thus the governor of
Adinskoy, whom I had an opportunity to make a visit to, by means of the
Scots merchant, who was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fifty
men, if we thought there was any danger, to the next station.
I thought, long before this, that as we came nearer to Europe we should
find the country better inhabited, and the people more civilised; but I
found myself mistaken in both: for we had yet the nation of the Tonguses
to pass through, where we saw the same tokens of paganism and barbarity
as before; only, as they were conquered by the Muscovites, they were not
so dangerous, but for rudeness of manners and idolatry no people in the
world ever went beyond them. They are all clothed in skins of beasts,
and their houses are built of the same; you know not a man from a woman,
neither by the ruggedness of their countenances nor their clothes; and in
the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, they live underground
in vaults, which have cavities going from one to another. If the Tartars
had their Cham Chi-Thaungu for a whole village or country, these had
idols in every hut and every cave. This country, I reckon, was, from the
desert I spoke of last, at least four hundred miles, half of it being
another desert, which took us up twelve days' severe travelling, without
house or tree; and we were obliged again to carry our own provisions, as
well water as bread. After we were out of this desert and had travelled
two days, we came to Janezay, a Muscovite city or station, on the great
river Janezay, which, they told us there, parted Europe from Asia.
All the country between the river Oby and the river Janezay is as
entirely pagan, and the people as barbarous, as the remotest of the
Tartars. I also found, which I observed to the Muscovite governors whom
I had an opportunity to converse with, that the poor pagans are not much
wiser, or nearer Christianity, for being under the Muscovite government,
which they acknowledged was true enough--but that, as they said, was none
of their business; that if the Czar expected to convert his Siberian,
Tonguse, or Tartar subjects, it should be done by sending clergymen among
them, not soldiers; and they added, with more sincerity than I expected,
that it was not so much the concern of their monarch to make the people
Christians as to make them subjects.
From this river to the Oby we crossed a wild uncultivated country, barren
of people and good management, otherwise it is in itself a pleasant,
fruitful, and agreeable country. What inhabitants we found in it are all
pagans, except such as are sent among them from Russia; for this is the
country--I mean on both sides the river Oby--whither the Muscovite
criminals that are not put to death are banished, and from whence it is
next to impossible they should ever get away. I have nothing material to
say of my particular affairs till I came to Tobolski, the capital city of
Siberia, where I continued some time on the following account.
We had now been almost seven months on our journey, and winter began to
come on apace; whereupon my partner and I called a council about our
particular affairs, in which we found it proper, as we were bound for
England, to consider how to dispose of ourselves. They told us of
sledges and reindeer to carry us over the snow in the winter time, by
which means, indeed, the Russians travel more in winter than they can in
summer, as in these sledges they are able to run night and day: the snow,
being frozen, is one universal covering to nature, by which the hills,
vales, rivers, and lakes are all smooth and hard is a stone, and they run
upon the surface, without any regard to what is underneath.
But I had no occasion to urge a winter journey of this kind. I was bound
to England, not to Moscow, and my route lay two ways: either I must go on
as the caravan went, till I came to Jarislaw, and then go off west for
Narva and the Gulf of Finland, and so on to Dantzic, where I might
possibly sell my China cargo to good advantage; or I must leave the
caravan at a little town on the Dwina, from whence I had but six days by
water to Archangel, and from thence might be sure of shipping either to
England, Holland, or Hamburg.
Now, to go any one of these journeys in the winter would have been
preposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would have been frozen up and
I could not get passage; and to go by land in those countries was far
less safe than among the Mogul Tartars; likewise, as to Archangel in
October, all the ships would be gone from thence, and even the merchants
who dwell there in summer retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the
ships are gone; so that I could have nothing but extremity of cold to
encounter, with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie in an empty town
all the winter. Therefore, upon the whole, I thought it much my better
way to let the caravan go, and make provision to winter where I was, at
Tobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, where I was
sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, viz. plenty of
provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house, with fuel enough,
and excellent company.
I was now in quite a different climate from my beloved island, where I
never felt cold, except when I had my ague; on the contrary, I had much
to do to bear any clothes on my back, and never made any fire but without
doors, which was necessary for dressing my food, &c. Now I had three
good vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to the
feet, and button close to the wrists; and all these lined with furs, to
make them sufficiently warm. As to a warm house, I must confess I
greatly dislike our way in England of making fires in every room of the
house in open chimneys, which, when the fire is out, always keeps the air
in the room cold as the climate. So I took an apartment in a good house
in the town, and ordered a chimney to be built like a furnace, in the
centre of six several rooms, like a stove; the funnel to carry the smoke
went up one way, the door to come at the fire went in another, and all
the rooms were kept equally warm, but no fire seen, just as they heat
baths in England. By this means we had always the same climate in all
the rooms, and an equal heat was preserved, and yet we saw no fire, nor
were ever incommoded with smoke.
The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be possible to meet
with good company here, in a country so barbarous as this--one of the
most northerly parts of Europe. But this being the country where the
state criminals of Muscovy, as I observed before, are all banished, the
city was full of Russian noblemen, gentlemen, soldiers, and courtiers.
Here was the famous Prince Galitzin, the old German Robostiski, and
several other persons of note, and some ladies. By means of my Scotch
merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted with here, I made an acquaintance
with several of these gentlemen; and from these, in the long winter
nights in which I stayed here, I received several very agreeable visits.