book, longer o f ufe, among a people remarkably tenacious o f old
w-v— < ufages.
The country continued for fome way a bog, covered with
foreft, and the villages were built upon eminences of
fand riling out of the morafs. We paffed the night at
Kholiloff, a fmall village, which had alfo lately been confirmed
by fire. We need not wonder at thefe repeated inftances
of conflagration which fo frequently occur in this country,
when w'e confideY that the cottages are. built with wood,
and that the greateft part of the peafants, like thofe in Poland,
ufe, inftead of candles, long flips of lighted deal, which
they carry about the houfe, and even into hay-lofts, without
the leaft precaution. The next morning, the bad roads
having fhattered our new wheel, which was aukwardly put
together, and began already to difplayfymptoms of premature
decay, we flopped to repair: but the repairs were as treacherous
as the original fabrick 5 for, before the end of the
ftage, it again came to pieces, and we were again delayed
fome hours at Yedrovo before we could venture to continue
our journey, when we thought ourfelves blefled with the
afliftance of a very mafterly mechanick, as his workmanihip
lafted to Zimagor, a fmall village, prettily lituated upon the
borders of the lake Valdai. The country around Valdai is
the moft agreeable and diverfified we traverfed fince our departure
from Mofcow. It rifes agreeably into a variety of
gentle eminences, and abounds with beautiful lakes, prettily
fprinkled with woody iflands, and fkirted with foreft, cornfields,
and paftures. The largeft of thefe lakes is called
Valdai, and feemed to he about twenty-miles in circumference
: in the middle is an ifland containing a convent, which
rifes with its numerous fpires among clufters of furrounding
•trees. Valdai, which gives its name to the lake, and to the
range
range of hills in the midft of which it is fituated, contains CHAP-
feveral new bnck-buildings ; and even the wooden houfes ■ L ■
are more decorated than the generality of Ruffian cottages :
it lies upon an agreeable flope, and commands a pleafant view
of the lake. The Valdai hills, though of no confiderabie
elevation, are the higheft in this part of the country; and
feparate the waters which flow towards the Cafpian from
thofe which make towards the Baltick. From their foot, there
was no longer a beautiful diverfity of hills and dales, enlivened
with lakes; but the country prefented,for a confiderabie
way, an uniform flat, with a vaft extent of morafs.
On the 24th, in the afternoon, we arrived in good time at
Bronitza, a village upon the Mafta, within twenty miles of
Novogorod. We took up our abode for the night in the
houfe of a Ruffian prieft, which in no wife differed from the
other buildings either in fize or goodnefs. It was very
clean, however, and comfortable, having a chimney and being
provided with a large plenty of wooden and Earthen
utenfils. The prieft, not being attired in his clerical habits,
was dreffed like the peafants,and was only diftinguifhed from
them by his hair, which hung loofe over his ffiouklers to a
confiderabie length. He, his wife, and the reft of the family,
Were hufily employed in extracting the row from large quantities
of fifhi which are caught in the Mafta, and with which
an excellent caviare is prepared. Having procured from
our landlady fome of the choiceft of thefe fiih, and having,
purveyed in the village, by means of our fervant, a brace of
ptarmigans, a bird of the partridge fpecies, we fauntered out,,
while fupper was preparing, towards a neighbouring hill,
which ftrongly attracted our attention.
About two miles from the village, in the middle of a vaft
5 in , rifes an infulated hill o f a circul arfrm,. a compound
of