VI 
PREFACE. 
and in the least obtrusive manner, objects re- 
ferred to in the text, — the merit is solely due to 
her, whose name appears occasionally annexed 
to those Designs, and who, from the rudest 
documents, has afforded an elegant and faithful 
representation of truth. 
Notwithstanding the care bestowed upon the 
accuracy of the text, it is highly probable that 
some errors have escaped the author s notice. 
Should this prove to be the case, it is hoped that 
the Public will overlook defects in the style of a 
mere writer of travels ; from which the more 
responsible pages of an Addison, a Steele, and 
a Gibbon, have not been found exempt. In the 
progress of transcribing a journal written in a 
foreign land, remote from scenes of literature, 
more attention was often given to fidelity of 
extract, than to elegance, or even purity of 
composition. 
The unsettled state of English orthography, 
as far as it affects the introduction of Russian 
names, produces considerable embarrassment 
to the writer who wishes to follow a fixed rule. 
Upon this subject it not only happens that no 
two authors agree, but that the same author is 
inconsistent. Jonas Han way, whose writings are 
