of all sorts were much better among them; but such was the generality. And as the long suffering of God permits bad men to enjoy prosperous days with the good, so his severity ofttimes exempts not good men from their share in evil times with the bad.

If these were the causes of such misery and thraldom to those our ancestors, with what better close can be concluded, than here in fit season to remember this age in the midst of her security, to fear from like vices, without amendment, the revolution of like calamities?

END OF THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN.

A

BRIEF HISTORY OF MOSCOVIA,

AND OF OTHER LESS KNOWN COUNTRIES LYING EASTWARD OF RUSSIA AS FAR AS CATHAY.

GATHERED FROM THE WRITINGS OF SEVERAL EYEWITNESSES. [FIRST PUBLISHED, 1682.]

THE PREFACE.

THE study of geography is both profitable and delightful: but the writers thereof, though some of them exact enough in setting down longitudes and latitudes, yet in those other relations of manners, religion, government, and such like, accounted geographical, have for the most part missed their proportions. Some too brief and deficient satisfy not: others too voluminous and impertinent cloy and weary out the reader, while they tell long stories of absurd superstitions, ceremonies, quaint habits, and other petty circumstances little to the purpose. Whereby that which is useful, and only worth observation, in such a wood of words, is either overslipped, or soon forgotten; which perhaps brought into the mind of some men more learned and judicious, who had not the leisure or purpose to write an entire geography, yet at least to assay something in the description of one or two countries, which might be as a pattern or example to render others more cautious hereafter, who intended the whole work. And this, perhaps, induced Paulus Jovius to describe only Moscovy and Britain. Some such thoughts, many years since, led me at a vacant time to attempt the like argument, and I began with Moscovy, as being the most northern region of Europe reputed civil; and the more northern parts thereof first discovered by English voyagers. Wherein I saw I had

by much the advantage of Jovius. What was scattered in many volumes, and observed at several times by eyewitnesses,

with no cursory pains I laid together, to save the reader a far longer travail of wandering through so many desert authors; who yet with some delight drew me after them, from the eastern bounds of Russia to the walls of Cathay, in several late journies made thither overland by Russians, who describe the countries in their way far otherwise than our common geographers. From proceeding further, other occasions. diverted me. This Essay, such as it is, was thought by some, who knew of it, not amiss to be published; that so many things remarkable, dispersed before, now brought under one view, might not hazard to be otherwise lost, nor the labour lost of collecting them.

MOSCOVIA, OR RELATIONS OF MOSCOVIA, &c.

CHAP. I.-A BRIEF DESCRIPTION.

THE empire of Moscovia, or as others call it Russia, is bounded on the north with Lapland and the ocean; southward by the Crim Tartar; on the west by Lithuania, Livonia, and Poland; on the east by the river Ob, or Oby, and the Nagayan Tartars on the Volga as far as Astracan.

The north parts of this country are so barren, that the inhabitants fetch their corn a thousand miles ;' and so cold in winter, that the very sap of their woodfuel burning on the fire freezes at the brand's end, where it drops. The mariners, which were left on shipboard in the first English voyage thither, in going up only from the cabins to the hatches, had their breath so congealed by the cold, that they fell down as it were stifled. The bay of St. Nicholas, where they first put in, lieth in sixty-four degrees; called so from the abbey there built of wood, wherein are twenty monks, unlearned, as then they found them, and great drunkards: their church is fair, full of images and tapers. There are besides but six houses, whereof one built by the English. In the bay over against the abbey is Rose Island, full of damask and red roses, violets and wild rosemary; the isle is in circuit seven or eight 1 Hack. 258. 2 Ibid. vol. i. 248. 3 Ibid. 376. • Ibid. 365.

3

miles; about the midst of May, the snow there is cleared, having two months been melting; then the ground in fourteen days is dry, and grass knee-deep within a month; after September, frost returns, and snow a yard high: it hath a house built by the English near to a fresh, fair spring. North east of the abbey, on the other side of Duina, is the castle of Archangel, where the English have another house. The river Duina, beginning about seven hundred miles within the country, having first received Pinega, falls here into the sea, very large and swift, but shallow. It runneth pleasantly between hills on either side; beset like a wilderness with high fir and other trees. Their boats of timber, without any iron in them, are either to sail, or to be drawn up with ropes against the stream.

North-east beyond Archangel standeth Lampas," where, twice a year, is kept a great fair of Russes, Tartars, and Samoëds; and to the landward, Mezen and Slobotca, two towns of traffic between the river Pechora, or Petzora, and Duina: to seaward lies the Cape of Candinos, and the Island of Colgoive, about thirty leagues from the bar of Pechory in sixty-nine degrees."

7

The river Pechora or Petzora, holding his course through Siberia, how far the Russians thereabouts know not, runneth into the sea at seventy-two mouths, full of ice; abounding with swans, ducks, geese, and partridge, which they take in July, sell the feathers, and salt the bodies for winter provision. On this river spreading to a lake, stands the town of Pustozera in sixty-eight degrees, having some eighty or a hundred houses, where certain merchants of Hull wintered in the year sixteen hundred and eleven. The town Pechora, small and poor, hath three churches. They traded there up the river, four days' journey to Outszilma, a small town of sixty houses. The Russians that have travelled say that this river springs out of the mountains of Jougoria, and runs through Permia. Not far from the mouth thereof are the straits of Vaigatz, of which hereafter: more eastward is the point of Naramzy, the next to that the river Ob; beyond which the Moscovites have extended lately their dominion. Touching the Riphæan mountains, whence Tanais was anciently thought to spring, our men could hear nothing; but rather that the whole 5 Hack. 384. Purc. part 3. 533. 7 Ibid. Purc. 8 Purc. 549, 445, 551.

country is champaign, and in the northernmost part huge and desert woods of fir, abounding with black wolves, bears, buffs, and another beast called rossomakka, whose female bringeth forth by passing through some narrow place, as between two stakes, and so presseth her womb to a disburdening. Travelling southward, they found the country more pleasant, fair, and better inhabited, corn, pasture, meadows, and huge woods. Arkania (if it be not the same with Archangel) is a place of English trade, from whence a day's journey distant, but from St. Nicholas a hundred versts," Colmogro stands on the Duina; a great town not walled, but scattered. The English have here lands of their own, given them by the emperor, and fair houses: not far beyond Pinega, running between rocks of alabaster and great woods, meets with Duina. From Colmogro to Usting are five hundred versts or little miles, an ancient city upon the confluence of Juga and Sucana into Duina,' which there first receives his name. Thence continuing by water to Wologda, a great city so named of the river which passes through the midst; it hath a castle walled about with brick and stone, and many wooden churches, two for every parish, the one in winter to be heated, the other used in summer: this is a town of much traffic, a thousand miles from St. Nicholas. All this way by water no lodging is to be had but under open sky by the river side, and other provision only what they bring with them. From Wologda by sled they go to Yeraslave on the Volga, whose breadth is there at least a mile over, and thence runs two thousand seven hundred versts to the Caspian sea, having his head spring out of Bealozera, which is a lake, amidst whereof is built a strong tower, wherein the kings of Moscovy reserve their treasure in time of war. From this town to Rostove, then to Pereslave, a great town situate on a fair lake: thence to Mosco.

Between Yeraslave and Mosco, which is two hundred miles, the country is so fertile, so populous and full of villages, that in a forenoon seven or eight hundred sleds are usually seen coming with salt-fish, or laden back with corn.3

Mosco the chief city, lying in fifty-five degrees, distant from St. Nicholas fifteen hundred miles, is reputed to be greater than London with the suburbs, but rudely built; their houses

Hack. 376. Ibid. 312. 2 Ibid. 377, 248. 3 Ibid. 251, 335. Ibid. 313.