To the south-east of the kingdom of Astracan, is a small country, newly
planted, called Oremburg. The town of this name was built in the year
1734, on the banks of the river Jaick. This province is thick covered
with hills, that are parts of Mount Caucasus. The passes in these
mountains, and of the rivers that run down from them, are defended by
forts raised at equal distances. In this region, formerly uninhabited,
the Persians come at present, to hide from the rapacity of robbers,
such of their effects as have escaped the fury of the civil wars. The
city of Oremburg is become the asylum of the Persians and their riches,
and is grown considerable by their calamities. The natives of Great
Bukari come hither to trade, so that it is become the mart of Asia.
_Of the Government of_ CASAN, _and of_ GREAT PERMIA.
Beyond the Wolga and Jaick, towards the north, lies the kingdom of
Casan, which, like that of Astracan, fell by partition to one of the
sons of Gengis Khan, and afterwards to a son of Tamerlane, and was at
length conquered by John Basilides. It is still inhabited by a number of
Mahometan Tartars. This vast country stretches as far as Siberia; it is
allowed to have been formerly very flourishing and rich, and still
retains some part of its pristine opulence. A province of this kingdom,
called Great Permia, and since Solikam, was the staple for the
merchandizes of Persia, and the furs of Tartary. There has been found in
Permia a great quantity of the coin of the first Caliphs, and some
Tartarian idols, made of gold;[9] but these monuments of ancient
opulence were found in the midst of barren deserts and extreme poverty,
where there were not the least traces of commerce: revolutions of this
nature may easily happen to a barren country, seeing they are so soon
brought about in the most fruitful provinces.
The famous Swedish prisoner, Strahlemberg, who made such advantageous
use of his misfortunes, and who examined those extensive countries with
so much attention, was the first who gave an air of probability to a
fact, which before had been always thought incredible; namely,
concerning the ancient commerce of these provinces. Pliny and Pomponius
Mela relate, that, in the reign of Augustus, a king of the Suevi made a
present to Metellus Celer of some Indians who had been cast by a storm
upon the coasts bordering on the Elbe. But how could inhabitants of
India navigate the Germanic seas? This adventure was deemed fabulous by
all our moderns, especially after the change made in the commerce of our
hemisphere by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. But formerly it
was no more extraordinary to see an Indian trading to the parts to the
north west of his country, than to see a Roman go from India by the way
of Arabia. The Indians went to Persia, and thence embarked on the
Hyrcanian Sea, and ascending the Rha, now the Wolga, got to Great Permia
through the river Kama; from whence they might take shipping again on
the Black Sea, or the Baltic. They have, in all times, been enterprising
men. The Tyrians undertook most surprising voyages.
If after surveying all these vast provinces, we direct our view towards
the east, we shall find the limits of Europe and Asia again confounded.
A new name is wanting for a considerable part of the globe. The ancients
divided their known world into Europe, Asia, and Africa: but they had
not seen the tenth part of it: hence it happens, that when we pass the
Palus Mæotis we are at a loss to know where Europe ends, or Asia begins;
all that tract of country lying beyond mount Taurus was distinguished by
the general appellation of Scythia, and afterwards by that of Tartary.
It might not be improper, perhaps, to give the name of Terræ Arcticæ,
or Northern Lands, to the country extending from the Baltic Sea to the
confines of China; as that of Terræ Australes, or Southern Lands, are to
that equally extensive part of the world, situated under the Antarctic
Pole, and which serves to counterpoise the globe.
_Of the Governments of_ SIBERIA, _of the_ SAMOJEDES, _the_ OSTIAKS
KAMTSHATKA, _&c._
Siberia, with the territories beyond it, extends from the frontiers of
the provinces of Archangel, Casan, and Astracan, eastward as far as the
sea of Japan: it joined the southern parts of Russia by Mount Caucasus;
from thence, to the country of Kamtshatka, is about one thousand two
hundred computed French leagues; and from southern Tartary, which serves
as its boundary, to the Frozen Sea, about four hundred, which is the
least breadth of the Russian empire. This country produces the richest
furs; and this occasioned the discovery of it in the year 1563.
In the sixteenth century, in the reign of the czar, John Basilides,
and not in that of Foedor Johannowitz, a private person in the
neighbourhood of Archangel, named Anika, one tolerably rich for his
condition of life and country, took notice that certain men of an
extraordinary figure, and dressed in a manner unknown to that country,
and who spoke a language understood by none but themselves, came every
year down a river which falls into the Dwina,[10] and brought martens
and black foxes, which they trucked for nails and pieces of glass; just
as the first savages of America used to exchange their gold with the
Spaniards: he caused them to be followed by his sons and servants, as
far as their own country. These were the Samojedes, a people who seem
to resemble the Laplanders, but are of a different race. They are, like
that people, unacquainted with the use of bread; and like them, they
yoke rein-deer to draw their sledges. They live in caverns and huts,
amidst the snow;[11] but in other respects, nature has made a visible
difference between this species of men and the Laplanders. Their upper
jaw projects forward, so as to be on a level with their nose, and their
ears are placed higher. Both the men and women have no hair in any other
part of their bodies, but their heads; and their nipple is of a deep
black, like ebony. The Lapland men and women are distinguished by no
such marks. By memoirs sent from these countries so little known, I have
been informed, that the author of the curious natural history of the
king's garden, is mistaken, where, in speaking of the many curiosities
of human nature, he confounds the Lapland race with that of the
Samojedes. There are many more different species of men than is commonly
thought. The Samojedes, and the Hottentots, seem to be the two extremes
of our continent; and if we observe the black nipples of the Samojedian
women, and the apron with which nature has furnished the Hottentot
females, and which hangs half way down their thighs, we may have some
idea of the great variety of our animal species, a variety unknown to
those inhabiting great cities, who are generally strangers to almost
every thing that is not immediately within their view.
The Samojedes are as singular in their moral as in their physical
distinctions; they pay no worship to the Supreme Being; they border upon
Manicheism, or rather upon the religion of the ancient Magi in this one
point, that they acknowledge a good and an evil principle. The horrible
climate they inhabit may in some measure excuse this belief, which is of
such ancient date, and so natural to those who are ignorant and unhappy.
Theft, or murder, is never heard of amongst them; being in a manner
devoid of passions, they are strangers to injustice; they have no terms
in their language to denote vice and virtue, their extreme simplicity
has not yet permitted them to form abstract ideas, they are wholly
guided by pensation, and this is perhaps an incontestable proof that men
naturally love justice, when not blinded by inordinate passions.
Some of these savages were prevailed on to suffer themselves to be
carried to Moscow, where many things they saw struck them with
admiration. They gazed upon the emperor as their god, and voluntarily
engaged for themselves and countrymen a present of two martens, or
sables, every year for each inhabitant. Colonies were soon settled
beyond the Oby,[12] and the Irtis,[13] and some forts built. In the year
1595, a Cossack officer was sent into this country, who conquered it for
the czar with only a few soldiers and some artillery, as Cortez did
Mexico; but he only made a conquest of barren deserts.
In sailing up the Oby to the junction of the river Irtis with the Tobol,
they found a petty settlement, which they converted into the town of
Tobol,[14] now the capital of Siberia, and a considerable place. Who
could imagine that this country was for a long time the residence of
those very Huns, who under Attila carried their depredations as far as
the gates of Rome, and that these Huns came from the north of China? The
Usbeck Tartars succeeded the Huns, and the Russians the Usbecks. The
possession of these savage countries has been disputed with as much
murderous fury, as that of the most fruitful provinces. Siberia was
formerly better peopled than it is at present, especially towards the
southern parts; if we may judge from the rivers and sepulchral
monuments.
All this part of the world, from the sixtieth degree of latitude, or
thereabouts, as far as those mountains of perpetual ice which border the
north seas, is totally different from the regions of the temperate zone,
the earth produces neither the same plants, nor the same animals, nor
are there the same sort of fishes in their lakes and rivers.
Below the country of the Samojedes lies that of the Ostiaks, along the
river Oby. These people have no resemblance in any respect with the
Samojedes, save that like them and all the first race of men, they are
hunters, fishermen, and shepherds; some of them have no religion, not
being formed into any society, and the others who live together in herds
or clans, have a kind of worship, and pray to the principal object of
their wants; they adore the skin of a sheep, because this creature is of
all others the most serviceable to them; just as the Egyptian husbandmen
made choice of an ox, as an emblem of the Deity who created that
creature for the use of man.
The Ostiaks have likewise other idols, whose origin and worship are as
little deserving our notice as their worshippers. There were some
converts to Christianity made amongst them in the year 1712; but these,
like the lowest of our peasants, are Christians without knowing what
they profess. Several writers pretend that these people were natives of
Great Permia, but as Great Permia is in a manner a desert, how comes it
that its inhabitants should settle themselves at such a distance, and so
inconveniently? This is a difficulty not worth clearing up. Every nation
which has not cultivated the polite arts, deserves to remain in
obscurity.
In the country of the Ostiaks in particular, and amongst their
neighbours the Burates and Jakutians, they often discover a kind of
ivory under ground, the nature of which is as yet unknown. Some take it
to be a sort of fossil, and others the tooth of a species of elephants,
the breed of which have been destroyed: but where is the country that
does not afford some natural productions, which at once astonish and
confound philosophy.
Several mountains in this country abound with the amianthes or asbestos,
a kind of incombustible flax, of which a sort of cloth and paper is
sometimes made.
To the south of the Ostiaks are the Burates, another people, who have
not yet been made Christians. Eastward there are several hordes, whom
the Russians have not as yet entirely subdued.
None of these people have the least knowledge of the calendar: they
reckon their time by snows, and not by the apparent motion of the sun:
as it snows regularly, and for a long time every winter, they say, 'I am
so many snows old,' just as we say, I am so many years.
And here I must relate the accounts given by the Swedish officer
Strahlemberg, who was taken prisoner in the battle of Pultowa, and lived
fifteen years in Siberia, and made the entire tour of that country. He
says, that there are still some remains of an ancient people, whose skin
is spotted or variegated with different colours, and that he himself had
seen some of them, and the fact has been confirmed to me by Russians
born at Tobolsky. The variety of the human species seems to be greatly
diminished, as we find very few of these extraordinary people, and they
have probably been exterminated by some other race: for instance there
are very few Albinos, or White Moors; one of them was presented to the
academy of sciences at Paris, which I saw. It is the same with respect
to several other species of animals which are rare.
As to the Borandians, of whom mention is made so frequently in the
learned history of the king's garden, my memoirs say, that this race of
people is entirely unknown to the Russians.
All the southern part of these countries is peopled by numerous hordes
of Tartars. The ancient Turks came from this part of Tartary to conquer
these extensive countries, of which they are at present in possession.
The Calmucs and Monguls are the very Scythians who, under Madies, made
themselves masters of Upper Asia, and conquered Cyaxares, king of the
Medes. They are the men, whom Gengis Khan and his sons led afterwards as
far as Germany, and was termed the Mogul empire under Tamerlane. These
people afford a lively instance of the vicissitudes which have happened
to all nations; some of their hordes, so far from being formidable now,
are become vassals to Russia.
Among these is a nation of Calmucs, dwelling between Siberia and the
Caspian Sea, where, in the year 1720, there was discovered a
subterraneous house of stone, with urns, lamps, earrings, an equestrian
statue of an oriental prince, with a diadem on his head, two women
seated on thrones, and a roll of manuscripts, which were sent by Peter
the Great to the academy of inscriptions at Paris, and proved to be
written in the Thibet language: all these are striking proofs, that the
liberal arts formerly resided in this now barbarous country, and are
lasting evidences of the truth of what Peter the Great was wont several
times to say, viz. that the arts had made the tour of the globe.
The last province is Kamtshatka, the most eastern part of the continent.
The inhabitants were absolutely void of all religion when they were
first discovered. The north part of this country likewise affords fine
furs, with which the inhabitants clothed themselves in winter, though
they went naked all the summer season. The first discoverers were
surprised to find in the southern parts men with long beards, while in
the northern parts, from the country of the Samojedes, as far as the
mouth of the river Amur, they have no more beards than the Americans.
Thus, in the empire of Russia, there is a greater number of different
species, more singularities, and a greater diversity of manners and
customs, than in any country in the known world.
The first discovery of this country was made by a Cossack officer, who
went by land from Siberia to Kamtshatka, in 1701, by order of Peter the
Great, who, notwithstanding his misfortune at Narva, still continued to
extend his care from one extremity of the continent to the other.
Afterwards, in 1725, some time before death surprised him, in the midst
of his great exploits, he sent Captain Bering, a Dane, with express
orders to find out, if possible, a passage by the sea of Kamtshatka, to
the coast of America. Bering did not succeed in his first attempt; but
the empress Anne sent him out again in 1733. M. Spengenberg, captain of
a ship, his associate in this voyage, set out the first from Kamtshatka,
but could not put to sea till the year 1739, so much time was taken up
in getting to the port where they were to embark, in building and
fitting out the ships, and providing the necessaries. Spengenberg sailed
as far as the north part of Japan, through a streight, formed by a long
chain of islands, and returned without having discovered the passage.
In 1741, Bering cruised all over this sea, in company with De Lisle de
la Croyere, the astronomer, of the same family of L'Isle, which has
produced such excellent geographers: another captain likewise went upon
the same discovery. They both made the coast of America, to the
northward of California. Thus the north-east passage, so long sought
after, was at length discovered, but there were no refreshments to be
met with in those barren coasts. Their fresh water failed them, and part
of the crew perished with the scurvy. They saw the northern bank of
California for above a hundred miles, and saw some leathern canoes, with
just such a sort of people in them as the Canadians. All their
endeavours however proved fruitless: Bering ended his life in an island,
to which he gave his name. The other captain, happening to be closer in
with the Californian coast, sent ten of his people on shore, who never
returned. The captain, after waiting for them in vain, found himself
obliged to return back to Kamtshatka, and De Lisle died as he was going
on shore. Such are the disasters that have generally attended every new
attempt upon the northern seas. But what advantages may yet arise from
these powerful and dangerous discoveries, time alone can prove.
We have now described all the different provinces that compose the
Russian dominions, from Finland to the sea of Japan. The largest parts
of this empire have been all united at different times, as has been the
case in all other kingdoms in the world. The Scythians, Huns,
Massagetes, Slavians, Cimbrians, Getes, and Sarmatians, are now subjects
of the czar. The Russians, properly so called, are the ancient Roxolani
or Slavi.
Upon reflection, we shall find that most states were formed in the same
manner. The French are an assemblage of Goths, of Danes called Normands,
of northern Germans, called Burgundians; of Franks, Allmans, and some
Romans, mixed with the ancient Celtæ. In Rome and Italy there are
several families descended from the people of the North, but none that
we know of from the ancient Romans. The supreme pontiff is frequently
the offspring of a Lombard, a Goth, a Teuton, or a Cimbrian. The
Spaniards are a race of Arabs, Carthaginians, Jews, Tyrians, Visigoths,
and Vandals, incorporated with the ancient inhabitants of the country.
When nations are thus intermixed, it is a long time before they are
civilized, or even before their language is formed. Some, indeed,
receive these sooner, others later. Polity and the liberal arts are so
difficult to establish, and the new raised structure is so often
destroyed by revolutions, that we may wonder all nations are not so
barbarous as Tartars.