2 
THE DWINA. 
other half. Armies have marched from climate to climate, to 
defend the liberties of their own country, on the invaded shores 
of distant allies; and thus found safety, as well as renown, in 
protecting the rights of others. Liberal speculation, and gene¬ 
rous curiosity, (which foresaw a different empire than that of 
mere human ambition, in this extraordinary circumnavigation 
of the world,—the empire of civilized mind over brutal force !) 
these worthy motives, in the persons of the philosopher, the 
man of taste, the philanthropist, and the merchant, followed in 
the same track, eager to view places which modern story had 
brought into celebrity, and to visit countries which the past and 
the present cover with an ever-during fame. This latter impulse 
had long been very powerful with me ; and, in the autumn of 
1817, an opportunity occurred of gratifying a desire I had 
formed of travelling to Persia, across a range of countries which 
sacred, as well as profane history, has rendered peculiarly in¬ 
teresting to every man who finds pleasure in comparing men as 
they are, with what they have been ; and the recent progress of 
Asiatic regeneration, with the full growth of civilisation as it is 
displayed in Christian Europe. 
I left St. Petersburgh on the 6th of August (O. S.), 1817, 
for Odessa on the Black Sea ; intending to embark at that port 
for Constantinople, and thence proceed to Persia. As I tra¬ 
velled en courier to the Turkish capital, time would not allow me 
to halt long at any place in my way: hence, my readers must 
expect little more than an itinerary of posts, till it became 
necessary to alter my route from the waves of the Euxine to 
the mountains of Caucasus. Having taken the usual road from 
St. Petersburgh to the banks of the Dwina, I passed that river 
on the 20th of August (O. S.) by a floating bridge. It crossed 
