TO PAULOVSKOY. 
only for a police-officer, to note down the cir- 
cumstances of the disaster; and, without the 
smallest effort towards restoring respiration, 
proceed in the ceremony of interment. A poor 
woman in bathing, during our stay at Woro- 
netz, fell beyond her depth. She struggled 
some time with the stream, and, being carried 
by it about three hundred yards, was taken out 
by some peasants before she had either sunk or 
lost her power of motion. When laid on the 
earth, she groaned and moved ; but the water 
which had been swallowed rendered her face 
black, and she became apparently lifeless. She 
was therefore immediately pronounced to be 
really dead. No endeavour on our part, ac- 
companied by persuasion and by offers of 
money, could induce the spectators either to 
touch the body, or to suffer any remedy to be 
attempted towards her recovery. They seemed 
afraid to approach what they considered as a 
corpse. In vain we explained to them the 
process by which persons, so circumstanced, 
are restored to life in England. They stood at 
a distance, crossing themselves, and shaking 
their heads ; and in this manner the poor wo- 
man was left upon the shore, until it would 
have been too late to have made use of any 
means for her recovery. If she were not after- 
wards buried alive, her death was certainly 
