SIBERIA. 93 



In the deepest distress, 1 immediately began to exercise myself, and 



discovered, that these horrors arose from my connection with , 



on Earth. Oh why ! my little comforter, why do you not dwell at 

 peace among each other ? Why do you, for the mere sake of seeing the 

 dust it will raise, tilt the rock over the precipice, when, in its headlong 

 fall, tender flowrels, beautiful trees, and human life itself are swept be- 

 fore it ? Why, oh why ! shut out from yourselves our yearning sym- 

 pathies, when, from my own sad experience, others are deterred from 

 visiting you, and by their intercourse, raising you above sublunary 

 things ? Do, I entreat you, — I beg of you, do ." 



Here the emotions of our noble friend appear to have overcome him ; 

 and he quits a subject, so painful to his keenly susceptible nature. — 

 The remainder of the communication is of such a character, that we can- 

 not allow it to reach the public eye. 



SIBERIA. 



Upon this country nature has not lavished lier bounties, but, with 

 cold indifference, has meted out a scanty subsistence to the wretched na- 

 tives. The bosom of the earth is not opened by the genial rays of the 

 sun, presenting to the delighted gaze fruits and flowers, but, locked up 

 in the embrace of ice-bound winter, wears a perpetual w inding-sheet. — 

 Historical antiquity has not touched, with its charms, the rivers, plains 

 and mountains of this dreary land, or consecrated them, by military 

 acliievements, or the productions of science and art. It is a land with- 

 out the limits of history, over which nature, unbroken by civilization, 

 yet holds savage and stubborn dominion. Notwithstanding all this, it 

 contains within it the germs of interest and instruction. 



Siberia derives its name from Sibir, a Tartar word and the name of the 

 capitol of a Tartar government founded on the banks of the Irtysh and Obi 

 in 1242. It is almost identical in signification witli the Russian word Se- 

 weria, or country of the north ; the letter b, in that language, being pro- 

 nounced like w. Of this city, which was situated ten or eleven miles 

 from the present city Tobolsk, on the river Sibirka, it is with difficulty 

 that some obscure remains can be found. In 1580 it was wrested from the 

 Tartars by the Cossacks under Jermak Timofeyew. The northern boun- 

 dary of this country is the Frozen Ocean, on the east are the Eastern 

 Ocean and Belirings straits, on the south the Altay and Daoorian moun- 

 tain chains, on the west the Uralian mountains, separating it from Eu- 

 rope, and on the south-west the Algydinshalo mountains, which divide 

 it from Independent Tartary. Its length from east to west cannot be 



