62 MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 



travelling, like that of a savage life, made him 

 impatient of a stated residence in a city. 



Equally tired of a sedentary life and of the influx 

 of the fashionable world, whether foreign or native, 

 for which the mansion of so celebrated a man was 

 the natural rendezvous, he eagerly seized the oppor- 

 tunity which the conquest of the Crimea afforded of 

 visiting new countries, and spent the years 1793 

 and 1794 in travelling, at his own expense, over 

 the southern provinces of the empire. He was 

 accompanied by an able draftsman and other pro- 

 fessional assistants, who afforded him all possible 

 facilities for improving his opportunities ; and hence 

 his published work is literally crowded with sketches 

 of all sorts, with views, maps, &c. 



He again visited Astrakan, and travelled over 

 the frontiers of Circassia, — ^that mountainous region, 

 which supports some of the finest races of the 

 species. This country is also remarkable for the 

 great number of tribes, differing in language and 

 appearance, which it maintains in its ravines, — the 

 small remnants of those nations which traversed it 

 at the time of the vast migrations of mankind, — 

 the Huns, the Allans, the Bulgarians, and those 

 many other barbarians, whose very names were 

 almost as terrible as their cruelty, and who left 

 colonies amid the precipices of the Caucasus ; and 

 hence it has been remarked, that we may here find 

 mankind in samples. An account of these travels 

 appeared in German in 1799, in French in 1801, 



