they cheerfully share with others whatever else they may kill. But they are also irascible, and very independent in spirit, allowing none to abuse them. To strike a Tonguse is reckoned a great crime, and leads to dangerous consequences. Hence the Russians, who flog others to make them work more, in dealing with this people, act on the maxim, "Never abuse or provoke a Tonguse." The only way to manage them is by kind treatment. In dealing with Russians, they are very straightforward and firm, and their moral superiority is strikingly manifested in all, always bringing them to their own terms. Theft and robbery is unknown among them. The Rozaks found greater difficulty in subduing them than any other nation. On the eastern side of the Lena there is a large circular valley on the road-side; it is called "The Valley of Death." Tradition says that a numerous tribe of Tonguses, fleeing in terror from the firearms of the Rozaks, retreated to this valley, and made a last and valiant stand, which ended in the whole horde being slain. Brave Tonguse!-sacred let that valley remain to the memory of his valour; and let its name descend to posterity to tell the melancholy tale. The nation consists of many tribes, governed by chiefs chosen by themselves, and independent of each other. They are upwards of 50,000 in number. The Yakuts, according to their own tradition, are of Mougol origin; and their features, their language, and their decided preference of a pastoral life, as far as the climate will allow, fully confirm the tradition. They maintain that Sakhalar, their ancestor, once dwelt with his tribe in the valleys to the north of the lake Baikal, and about the river Augara; that in war he was subdued and driven thence, and took refuge on the banks of the Lena, where he married a Tongusian woman. Hence they call themselves Sakhalars. They now inhabit the country to the east of the Lena to the river Kolyma and the sources of the Auadyr, and to the south-east border on the province of Okbotsk. The Yakuts are of a sallow complexion, a low stature, a flat and oval face, with regular features and sharp lines, expressive of an indolent and amiable gentleness rather than of vigour and passion. Their eyes are obliquely set, but not so elongated nor so far apart as those of their western neighbours. They are humane and tractable, but heavy, dull, and spiritless; far better tempered, and more orderly, but neither so honest nor so independent as the Tonguses. There is a tameness, a servility, a want of character about them. The Russian maxim is, "The more you beat a Yakut, the more work you get from him: touch a Tonguse, and you get no work from him." The women have good features, are more cheerful than the men, and work vigorously, though they stop often to stimulate themselves with the swallowed fumes of tobacco. Their original character, however, has been very much modified by extensive and intimate intercourse with, and oppression under, the Russians. They are becoming vain, covetous, cunning, and guilty of crime. If you accuse them of knavery, they will retort by asking, "Who, then, taught the Sakhalars to be knaves? The Kozak's despotism over them is complete and cruel. The Yakuts are all baptized, and extensively intermarry with the Russians. They are subject to cutaneous diseases, and the goitre of the Alps is prevalent among them. They are properly a pastoral nation, their wealth consisting chiefly of horses and horned cattle, and are comparatively a sedentary people, migrating in search of pasture only once a year. They have no sheep, and have much difficulty in rearing their horses and cows. They are supplied with corn from the south, and manage to get hay enough in meadows sheltered from the north-west wind. Some of them are rich in money, possessing fortunes to the amount of 20,000l.; and though they retain their national mode of living in huts similar to those of the Ostyaks, just as the poor do, they are by no means ungenerous or illiberal. Many of their Christian churches have been built and endowed by themselves. The Yakutau adage is, "To eat much and grow fat is the highest dignity of man." They are noted for their gluttony, and can safely challenge the rest of the world in gormandizing. Disgusting and almost incredible facts are told, in illustration of their enormous gluttony, by veracious travellers. Sir G. Simpson indulged two of these gourmands, each of whom ate seventy-two pounds of boiled beef and eighteen pounds of melted butter! They have, however, a singular aptitude for mechanical arts, and display great ingenuity and skill in them. They work very neatly in iron and silver, and are excellent carpenters, cabinet-makers, by their terrible sufferings seem hitherto carvers in wood, and painters. The to have been in vain. nation is divided into tribes, and these are subdivided into communities, each of which is governed by a chief or toiou, on whom the Russian government confers the title of prince. They are chosen from the community, and by its universal suffrage. Their total number is about 130,000. The Krioks inhabit the extreme eastern coast of Siberia, which is washed by the sea of Kamtchatka; and their wild and dreary country is bounded on the north by the river Auadyr, on the west by a spur of the Stanovoy Mountains, and on the south by the peninsula of Kamtchatka. They probably derive their name from Khora, which, in their language, signifies a reindeer. They are little known, and have been subjected to Russian dominion with very great difficulty, and are from time to time abandoned to their independence. They have a dialect of the language of the Tchuktches, whom they resemble in appearance and manners, and are even less scrupulous of offending the Russians than their unconquered neighbours. They have as little intercourse with the Russians, are represented as fierce and bar diseases, and ranging with their tame reindeer over their own unmolested valleys and plains, are happy and prosperous compared to their nearest neighbours. Their number is about 5,000. The Yukaghirs, the Tchuvatses, the Shelages, the Omoks, and eight or ten other races—some, indeed, now consisting of only a few families, but all evidently distinct from each other, and from all others are crowded into a comparatively small surface to the north-east of the Yakutau territory, and as far as the frontiers of the Tchuktches, between whom and the Russians they serve as a sort of neutral nation. The men are well proportioned, and with open, manly countenances; and the women are represented as extremely beautiful. The Rus-barous, but free from all famines and sians found them so fierce and formidable, that the empress Catherine 11. absolutely forbade their languages to be spoken; hence they have not only adopted the Russian mode of life and customs, but have forgotten their natural idioms, and all now speak Russ. They are all baptized, and so extensively intermarry with the Russians that as pure races they are becoming extinct. The parts they inhabit are the coldest in the continent. Their ancestors were reindeer nomads; but their degenerate children are made to depend for subsistence chiefly on the interception of the wild reindeer in their half-yearly migrations. Tame reindeer must never be restricted to any limited circle, otherwise they have always perished from disease and want of food. The Russian, for the easier collection of tribute, have forcibly restricted the wanderings of these races to a very confined district; in consequence of which they have all lost their reindeer, and are more subject than any other races of Siberia to terrible ravages of famine and disease, in which hundreds perish almost every season. Having suddenly, and not by choice, exchanged a nomad for a settled life, they have unhappily retained the improvidence and carelessness for the future which characterises nomad tribes, and which is now the grand, if not the sole, cause of periodical famines among them, that even the efforts of the government to effect an amelioration in their conditions and the lessons taught The Tchuktches are a remarkable race, who have preserved their original nationality more than any other in Northern Asia; and notwithstanding the extreme rigour of their climate, and the physical privations of their condition, have with a bold and independent spirit successfully resisted and set bounds to the advancing tide of Russian invasion, before which every other tribe has fallen. Free and independent, they roam over with their reindeer, and confine themselves to the extreme north-east cape or peninsula of Asia, from the river Tchaun in the west to Behrings' Straits in the east. Their country, which does not exceed 1,400 miles in length, and 200 in breadth, is very mountainous and barren, yielding nothing but moss. Like the Rouaks, they have clear and white skins, small heads, and round meagre faces. Their features are masculine, and their conduct wild. Their language, as well as appearance, bear no resemblance to anything Asiatic. They are supposed to be of American origin, but their language is different, and their complexion much fairer. Paradoxical as it may sound, and unexampled in the history of uncivilized nations, they are mercantile savages, trading with the Russians on the one hand, and the American savages on the other. They are divided into tribes, are governed by chiefs, and have shamans or soothsayers for their priests and physicians. But our space forbids our mentioning more interesting particulars respecting this people. Their number is about 10,000, or more. Such is the motley and various multitude of distinct nations that people these regions. High and refined notions of morality cannot be expected from them; but they all possess the good qualities which can be looked for in their halfcivilized state: among themselves they are affectionate, to strangers hospitable; their character is distinguished by simplicity, honesty, and integrity, and they are free both from the crimes of civilized and the vices of savage life. They are, however, in danger of corruption and deterioration from Russian intercourse. Why does Christianity not put forth her regenerating and elevating influence in that direction? Why is her power so small to impel her wealthy professors to establish themselves among these nations, and endeavour to save them from the evils of deterioration, by which they are threatened. Let us remember, "Children we all are Of the great Father, in whatever clime And tints, white, black, and tawny-Greek and Northmen, and offspring of hot Africa; and a-half feet. As almost all of them have been in their winter retreats ever since the frost of last month, I was glad that we had surprised one in his native haunts, and seen him plunge into the water by the side of our boat. When I first read Bartram's account of alligators more than twenty feet long, and how they attacked his boat and bellowed like bulls, and made a sound like distant thunder, I suspected him of exaggeration; but all my inquiries here and in Louisina, convinced me that he may be depended upon. His account of the nests which they build in the marshes is perfectly correct. They resemble haycocks about four feet high, and five feet in diameter at their bases, being constructed with mud, grass, and herbage. First they deposit one layer of eggs on a floor of mortar, and having covered this with a second stratum of mud and herbage eight inches thick, lay another set of eggs upon that, and so on to the top, there being commonly from one hundred to two hundred eggs in a nest. With their tails they then beat down round the nests the dense grass and reeds, five feet high, to prevent the approach of unseen enemies. The female watches her eggs until they are all hatched by the heat of the sun, and then takes her brood under her care, defending them, and providing for their subsistence. Dr. Luzenberger, of New Orleans, told me that he once The all-seeing Father-He in whom we live and packed up one of these nests with the move; He, the impartial Judge of all-regards Nations and hues and dialects alike; According to their works shall they be judged." T. E. S. NESTS OF THE ALLIGATOR. "WHEN our canoe," says sir C. Lyell, "had proceeded into the brackish water, where the river banks consisted of marsh land covered with a tall reed-like grass, we came close up to an alligator, about nine feet long, basking in the sun. Had the day been warmer, he would not have allowed us to approach so near to him, for these reptiles are much shyer than formerly, since they have learned to dread the avenging rifle of the planter, whose stray hogs and sporting dogs they often devour. About ten years ago, Mr. Couper tells us, that he saw 200 of them together in St. Mary's River in Florida extremely fearless. The oldest and largest individuals on the Alatamaha, have been killed, and they are now rarely twelve feet long, and never exceed sixteen eggs in a box for the museum of St. Petersburgh, but was recommended, before he closed it, to see that there was no danger of any of the eggs being hatched on the voyage. On opening one, a young alligator walked out, and was soon after followed by all the rest, about a hundred, which he fed in his house, where they went up and down the stairs, whining and barking like young puppies. They ate voraciously, yet their growth was so slow, as to confirm him in the common opinion, that individuals which have attained the largest size, are of very great age, though whether they live for three centuries, as some pretend, must be decided by future observation." THE SAVIOUR. TAKE Christ for your hope, his character for your model, his love for your motive, his Spirit for your strength, and his promises for your encouragement. Marsh. THE CITY IN THE SEA. VENICE was the earliest, and long the most considerable city of modern Europe. Its site was, however, exceedingly inauspicious. In the bottom of the Adriatic Sea there was a great number of marshy islands, separated by narrow channels; and here, presenting no attractions to the rover or the freebooter, and almost inaccessible, dwelt some fishermen, in comparative security, who supported themselves by a little trade in fish and salt. Thither the Veneti, a people inhabiting that part of the peninsula which stretches along the coasts of the gulf, retired, when Alaric king of the Goths, and afterwards Attila king of the Huns, ravaged Italy. The new population, intending to make this but a temporary residence, formed themselves into no body politic;, but each APRIL, 1850. of the seventy-two islands of the little archipelago continued for a long time under its separate master, each forming à distinct commonwealth. On their commerce improving and assuming some importance, the jealousy of their neighbours was excited; and it was at length found necessary for their mutual support to unite their interests, and to form a common government. At a very early period the Venetians began to trade with Constantinople and the Levant; and notwithstanding the competition of the Genoese and Pisans, they continued to engross the principal commerce in eastern products till the discovery of a route to India by the Cape of Good Hope turned this traffic into a new channel. The crusades seemed but to augment their wealth, and to extend the commerce and possessions of Venice. A L naval armament was fitted out at Venice, under Vitalis Micheli, for the service of the crusaders, which shows the power and wealth which the people had acquired. Two hundred galleys assembled, and after vanquishing the fleet of the neighbouring republic of Pisa, they captured Ascalon in Syria and other towns. Under the successors of this doge similar arrangements were prepared, and met with so much success on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, on the coast of Africa, and in the Holy Land, that the envy of the Greek emperors was excited, and a series of fierce engagements ensued between them. An event occurred towards the close of the twelfth century, which led to the Venetian ceremony of the " Doge marrying the sea." Pope Alexander, being threatened with an attack from Frederick Barbarossa, solicited the aid of the Venetians. This was granted; and on Barbarossa despatching a fleet of seventyfive very large galleys to the attack of Venice, forty-eight of his vessels were captured or destroyed. The pope, who had taken refuge in the city, signified his gratitude to the Venetians by presenting the doge with a ring, which he accompanied with the following declaration: "Take this ring, and present it to the sea, in token of your dominion over it. Enjoin your successors to perform annually the same ceremony, that succeeding ages may learn that your valour acquired this great prerogative, and has subjugated the ocean, even as a wife is subject to her husband." The absurd ceremony of "marrying the sea" was annually performed for many centuries after this event. The doge, attended by the senators, the chief nobility, and the foreign ambassadors, entered a splendid vessel, called the Bucentaur, which was fitted up with great elegance, was gilt from prow to stern, and covered with an awning of purple silk. Having sailed out to the sea, preceded by the gondolas of the nobility, the doge threw a gold ring into the waters, saying, "We marry thee, O Sea, in token of that true and perpetual dominion which the republic has over thee." The fallacy and folly of the entire proceeding require neither illustration nor enforcement. The maritime importance of Venice did not here terminate. The eastern emperor having been deposed, his son * Desponsamus te, Mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii." 66 solicited the aid of the Venetians, and of Baldwin, earl of Flanders, to reinstate his father on his rightful throne. Venice fitted out a large armament, consisting of sixty galleys, twenty ships of war,the distinctive character of which is not precisely known, and several transports." In gratitude for the service thus rendered to earl Baldwin,-who by its instrumentality had become emperor,he permitted them to wage war against, and to take possession of, the Greek islands in the Archipelago; and ultimately the whole of the Greek islands became subject to them. They secured also a chain of forts and factories extending along the coasts of Greece, from the Morea to Dalmatia, while they monopolized almost the whole foreign trade of Egypt. The preservation of these commercial advantages Venice had early usurped over the Adriatic, and to retain her colonies and distant trading establishments were measures pursued by the government with great skill and inflexible constancy. With the single exception of Rome, Venice, in the fifteenth century, was by far the richest and most magnificent city of Europe; and her peculiar situation in the midst of the sea greatly contributed to impress those by whom she was visited with still higher notions of her wealth and grandeur. By the close of the seventeenth century, however, a great change had occurred. Candia was taken from the Venetians by the Turks, though with a loss to the latter of more than 200,000 men. The commerce of the republic had rapidly declined, and being at length almost entirely attracted into other quarters, the energies of the government and people were exhausted. Venice may be said, indeed, to have owed the last hundred years of her political existence more to the forbearance and jealousy of other powers, than to any strength which she could exert. In 1797, the "maiden city" submitted to the yoke of the conqueror; and the last surviving witness of antiquity, stripped of independence and wealtb, now enjoys but a precarious existence, and is "slowly sinking into the waves" whence she arose.* The peculiar situation of Venice renders the city in many respects unique : thus the streets, or rather passages, are usually not more than four, and seldom * Macculloch; Hallam's "Middle Ages;" Sismondi's" Italian Republics;" M. Daru's Histoire de la République de Vénise. |