2S2 Biographical Memoir qf Peter Sirnon PaIIa». 



tions relative to the navy ; the Grand Duke Alexander, after- 

 wards Emperor, and his brother Constantine, received instruc- 

 tions from him in natural history and physics. 

 . Employed in so honourable a manner by the Government, 

 decorated with titles proportionate to his employments, applaud- 

 ed by the learned world, Pallas enjoyed at Petersburg all the 

 consideration that could be allied with his quality of foreigner 

 and his state as a mere literary character ; but it appears that 

 the habit of travelling, like that of the savage life, renders an 

 abode in cities difficult to be endured. 



Equally fatigued with his sedentary life, and with the crowd 

 of people of the world and of foreigners, for whom the house 

 of so celebrated a man was a natural rendezvous, he seized with 

 avidity the opportunity which the invasion of the Crimea af- 

 forded him of visiting new countries, and employed the years 

 1793 and 1794 in traversing, at his own expence, the southern 

 provinces of the Russian empire *. 



He revisited Astracan, and traversed the frontiers of Circas- 

 sia, a mountainous country, which produces the most beautiful 

 of all the races of the human species, and the singular manners 

 of whose inhabitants may have given rise to the fable of the 

 Amazons ; the married men can only see their wives in secret, 

 and by introducing themselves under night through their win- 

 dows. This country is besides singularly remarkable for the 

 multitude of tribes, differing from each other in their forms and 

 languages, that inhabit its defiles, forming the remains of the 

 tribes which passed through it at the time of the great migra- 

 tion of the nations. The Huns, the Alans, the Uzes, the Ava- 

 res, the Bulgarians, the Coumanes, and Petchenegres, and those 

 other barbarians, whose names were almost as frightful as their 

 cruelty, have left colonies amidst the rocks of the Caucasus, and 

 there Man may be gathered as it were by specimens. 



But Pallas did not chuse to risk himself among tribes, which, 

 although interesting in a high degree, are yet very dangerous. 



* We have the account of this Journey also in German and French, 

 2 vols. 4to. Leips. 1799 and 1801, with many beautiful coloured plates, and 

 there has lately appeared a new French translation, with notes, by MM. de 

 la Boulaye and Tounelier. Paris 1811. 



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