OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 501

 

We may well be supposed to want rest again after this long journey;
for in this desert we saw neither house or tree, or scarce a bush; we
saw, indeed, abundance of the sable-hunters, as they called them.
These are all Tartars, of the Mogul Tartary, of which this country is
a part, and they frequently attack small caravans; but we saw no
numbers of them together. I was curious to see the sable-skins they
catched; but I could never speak with any of them; for they durst
not come near us; neither durst we straggle from our company to go
near them.

After we had passed this désert, we came into a country pretty well
inhabited; that is to say, we found towns and castles settled by the
Czar of Muscovy, with garrisons of stationary soldiers to protect the
caravans, and defend the country against the Tartars, who would other-
wise make it very dangerous travelling; and his czarish majesty has
given such strict orders for the well guarding the caravans and mer-
chants, that if there are any Tartars heard of in the country, detach-
ments of the garrison are always sent to see travellers safe from station
to station. : .

And thus the governor of Adinskoy, whom I had an opportunity to
make a visit to, by means of the Scots merchant, who was acquainted
with him, offered us a guard of fifty men, if we thought there was any
danger, to the next sfation.

I thought, long before this, that as we came nearer to Europe we
should find the country better peopled, and the people more civilized ;
but I found myself mistaken in both, for we had yet the nation of the |
Tonguses to pass through, where we saw the same tokens of paganism
and barbarity, or, worse than before, only, as they were conquered by
the. Muscovites, and entirely reduced, they were not so dangerous ; but
for the rudeness of manners, idolatry, and polytheism, no people in the
world ever went beyond them. They are all clothed in skins of beasts,
and their houses are built.of the same. You know not a man from a
woman, neither by the ruggedness of their countenances or their
clothes; and in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, they
live under ground, in houses like vaults, which have cavities, or caves,
going from one to another.

If the Tartars had their Cham-Chi-Thaungu for a whole village, or
country, these had idols, in every hut and every cave; besides, they
worship the stars, the sun, the water, the snow; and, in a word, every
thing that they do not understand, and they understand but very little:
so that almost every element, every uncommon thing, sets them a-sa-
crificing.

But I am no more to. describe people than countries, any further than