168 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



The Samoyedes, Pallas thinks, are not quite so 

 dirty as the Ostiacks, because they are more in 

 motion during the winter in hunting; but he de- 

 scribes the state of the women amongst them as 

 a still more wretched and laborious servitude ;* 

 and consequently the check to population from 

 this cause must be greater. 



Most of the natives of these inhospitable regions 

 live nearly in the same miserable manner, which 

 it would be. therefore mere repetition to describe. 

 From what has been said, we may form a suffi- 

 cient idea of the principal checks that keep the 

 actual population down to the level of the scanty 

 means of subsistence which these dreary coun- 

 tries afford. 



In some of the southern parts of Siberia, and 

 in the districts adjoining the Wolga, the Russian 

 travellers describe the soil to be of extraordinary 

 fertility. It consists in general of a fine black 

 mould of so rich a nature as not to require or even 

 to bear dressing. Manure only makes the corn 

 grow too luxuriantly, and subjects it to fall to the 

 ground and be spoiled. The only mode of re- 

 cruiting this kind of land which is practised is, 

 by leaving it one year out of three in fallow; and 

 proceeding in this way, there are some grounds, 

 the vigour of which is said to be inexhaustible.t 

 Yet, notwithstanding the facility with which, as 

 it would appear, the most plentiful subsistence 

 might be procured, many of these districts are 



* Voy. tie Pallas, toiu. iv. p. 92. 

 t Id. p. 5. 



