316 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



and entirely unknown in any part of Europe or America, 

 Poland and Hungary excepted. The captain conducted us 

 into a well-furnished, comfortable room, assisted us to un- 

 dress and get to bed, and from time to time applied wet 

 cloths to our swollen face and body, until a profound sleep 

 temporarily relieved our excruciating pains. The same 

 care was taken of our servant, who, in the madness caused 

 by his sufferings, attempted to shoot himself that he might 

 be out of misery, but was prevented by two athletic Cos- 

 sacks, and watched and nursed until he, too, was relieved 

 by sleep. It was not until after a week of suffering that 

 the fever and inflammation subsided so that we could open 

 our eyes, and then, with many hearty thanks to our hospi- 

 table host, Captain Wasil Iwanovich, and his kind-hearted 

 family, and with the deepest gratitude, we continued our 

 travel to Mosdok, from which town we we^it with a cara- 

 van, escorted by two cannon, two hundred infantry, and 

 sixty Cossacks on horseback, through the fertile valleys of 

 romantic Circassia, with her castles and warlike knights, to 

 the Russian fortress Wladicaucas ; thence we ascended the 

 bank of the furious Terek, through the Porta Caucasica, to 

 the height of nine thousand feet, from which we descended 

 to the delicious plains of Transcaucasia, every where enjoy- 

 ing the same hospitable reception. 



The utmost hospitality is found among all the Russians, 

 and one can not visit their principal cities without being 

 thoroughly convinced of it. The English Captain Coch- 

 rane, known by his pedestrian travels in Russia, started 

 from St. Petersburg, taking with him only five francs, and 

 when he arrived in Moscow — a distance of seven hundred 

 versts, or four hundred English miles — his five francs were 

 still in his pocket. 



As the Cossacks of the Black Sea are no agriculturists, 

 but derive their subsistence from their numerous herds of 

 horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and hogs, they suffer immensely 



