confined to the laity. This will be apparent from the notice of a visit paid to the Tshudoff Monastir, or Convent of the Miracle, at Moscow. The traveller talked long and pleasantly with his monkish guide on ordinary subjects. "He told me," says he, "many things which I no longer remember, conversing rationally enough, till on mention being made of miracles, he began all at once to recount a story of some saint's picture of the town of Moshaisk, that betrayed all the childlike facility of faith so peculiar to the Russians. The French, who, in their belle France, little dream of the many miracles they gave occasion to in the year 1812, were also in that little town which lies east of Moscow, and pointed their profane cannon at a picture which had till then been ranked among ordinary ones, but which, on that occasion, became all at once imbued with wonder-working power. The French, it was said, shot thirty-two balls at the picture, not one of which hit the mark, all remaining fixed round in a circle, 6 as may yet be seen.' violent concussion, however, struck off many fragments of stone, all of which the picture could not of course repair, as they were countless. Some of them struck the picture, and caused wounds whence blood flowed, which announced its miraculous quality."

The

This miracle is of a piece with all the rest. None of them have any pretence to be of the slightest use; and they are narrated by otherwise intelligent men with a trusting and childish simplicity, calculated to amuse or to pain the mind, according to the disposi

tion of the listener to regard such only as a manifestation of childish credulity, or as a melancholy proof of the gross darkness and manifestly idolatrous superstition under which the whole of this vast nation lies.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EXILES OF SIBERIA.

A ROMANTIC, though deeply painful, interest attaches to the associations with the penal settlements of Russia in the inhospitable wilds of Siberia. The account of Siberia and its exiles, contained in the delightful French tale of Madame Cottin, has been authenticated by Russian travellers, as presenting a picture, in many respects, closely corresponding with actual facts; though her topographical descriptions are far from accurate. She represents the Siberian region as mountainous, and exposed to the dangers which menace the natives of the Alps, from avalanches, snow-slips, &c., whereas it corresponds to the more southern Asiatic steppes, and is one of the flattest regions of the globe.

To this, criminals of every class and grade are sent -political offenders, nobles, and officers of state, who have in any way given offence to the despotic power which reigns supreme; offenders against law in every form, and even vagabonds, whose sole crime is the want of any definite mode of subsistence. These form

may

the convict colonists of Northern Asiatic Russia, and lead to the permanent occupation of vast regions long abandoned, or, at most, but visited by a few wandering and unsettled nomades. In 1835, the total number of exiled convicts in Eastern and Western Siberia, according to government returns, was 97,121; and, as these are necessarily accompanied with a large military guard, as well as very frequently with the relatives of the unhappy convicts, it is obvious that a very large population is thus permanently established in Siberia.

It is difficult for us to conceive of such a state of things as prevails throughout the vast empire of Russia, where its whole population is practically subject to the will of one man. A secret police, and a well-organized system of espionage, render all captive within the mysterious meshes of an invisible, yet ubiquitous and all-powerful net. Among the nobles that attend on the court of Nicholas, and obsequiously wait around his throne, are those whose fathers, and brothers, and sisters, are pining in Siberia, sometimes without their even knowing the offence for which they have been condemned to banishment. Occasionally, instances are brought to light of milder punishments, designed as a warning to those who are unguardedly trespassing on dangerous ground; but even such tender mercies are sufficiently characteristic of a despotic and irresponsible power.

One of these, recently narrated by a Polish writer, though, perhaps, tinged with the natural prejudices

of a Pole against the oppressors and enslavers of his country, is not inconsistent with trustworthy information derived from other sources. The Countess of N, a young Russian lady, had, by her intercourse with foreigners at St. Petersburg, and by other means, been led to entertain feelings of the liveliest sympathy for the Poles, and especially for many of those of noble birth, who had been compelled to enter the Russian army, or remained in the country as civilians, generally subject to great privations, and jealously excluded from official favour or position in society. Influenced alone by the generous sympathies of a true womanly heart, unchilled by the prudential dictates which self-interest and experience too soon infuse into the breast of the most guileless when exposed to such a system, the Countess of N employed herself in administering liberally to the wants of such of the unfortunate Polish nobles as came within her sphere. As the claimants on her bounty increased, she interested some of her friends in the same cause, and thus, by degrees, a friendly charitable association was organized, in which she took the lead. Amid the endless ramifications of the Russian spy system, such a state of things could not long continue undivulged, and the Countess received more than one hint that her proceedings were known and disapproved of in high quarters. No political ends, however, had ever mingled with the charities of this benevolent association, though the warmth of their sympathy for the

suffering Poles was, in itself, evidence enough of the Russian crime of liberalism. Strong, however, in the consciousness of her disinterested benevolence and perfect integrity of purpose, the Countess of N- - pursued her secret charities, for the most part, with such privacy, that even the recipients of it were generally ignorant of the source of the contributions which came so opportunely to the relief of their wants.

The Countess, it is said, availed herself on one occasion of the great masked ball, which annually takes place in the Bolskoi Theatre, during the Butter Week, to appeal to the Emperor personally, under the disguise of a mask, against the system of espionage, and the interference of the police with charities, which had no other aim than the relief of a class of sufferers having peculiar claims on those who still lived in the enjoyment of all the luxuries and privileges of social rank, from which the unhappy nobles of Warsaw had been degraded. On no subject, however, is the Emperor less open to any appeal than on that of Poland. The acquisition of its dismembered provinces, and the general extension of the Russian kingdom on every side, form objects of Russia's policy and ambition, with which no mere humane or generous sympathies are allowed to interfere. The Countess escaped, as she believed, undiscovered; but this may be doubted, as the endless ramifications of the secret police of St. Petersburg are not likely to leave unguarded so important an