24 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



influence, and became much appreciated at Court. 

 Owing to clever political intrigues he preserved the 

 simultaneous favour of several enemy princes, one 

 of whom, Stepanita, covered him with benefits and 

 honours. Nevertheless, Spatar wrote to Constantine 

 Bassarab, in Poland, advising him to come and to 

 overthrow Stepanita 's throne. He sent his letter 

 inside a hollow cane ; Constantine, however, did not 

 wish to launch himself into such an adventure, and 

 indignantly sent the hollow cane and the letter to 

 Stepanita himself. At first the prince, naturally 

 angry, thought of having Spatar executed ; he spared 

 his life for the sake of his talents, but condemned him 

 to have the tip of his nose cut off. Spatar went to 

 Germany, where, says the naive chronicler, a doctor 

 made his nose grow again. He came back to Mol- 

 davia for a short time and then went to Russia. 

 Thanks to his knowledge of languages, he was made 

 an interpreter at the Court of the Tsar Alexis 

 Michailovitch, and was the first tutor of his son 

 Peter the Great, whom he taught to read and to 

 write. 



In 1674 the Tsar Alexis Michailovitch entrusted 

 Spatar with a mission in China, where he was to open 

 negotiations with a view to commercial and political 

 relations between Russia and China. In the course 

 of his journey Spatar carefully collected all possible 

 information concerning the countries he traversed. 

 He thus gathered much interesting geographical 

 knowledge and highly important data concerning the 

 commercial value of Asiatic rivers, and specially the 

 Amour river. 



At Pekin, Spatar rapidly learnt the Chinese lan- 

 guage, occupied for three years the post of ambassador 



