DESCRIPTION OF THE TONGUESES, 609

in the country, detachments of the garrisons are always sent to see
the travellers safe from station to station.

And thus the governor of Adinskoy, whom I had 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 station.

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 Tongueses to pass through, where we saw the _bame
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 rudeness of manners, idolatry, and
multitheism, no people in the world ever went beyond them.
They are clothed all 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 going from one
to another. 5

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

But I am no more to describe people than countries, any farther
than my own story comes to be concerned in them. I met with
nothing peculiar to myself in this country, which I reckon was,
from the desert which I spoke of last, at least four hundred miles,
half of it being another desert, which took us up twelve days’
severe travelling, without house, or tree, or bush, but were obliged
again to carry our own provisions, as well water as bread. After
we were out of this desert, and had travelled two days, we came to
Janezay, a Muscovite city or station on the great river Janezay
(Yenisei?). This river they told us parted Europe from Asia, though
our map-makers, as I am told, do not agree to it; however, it is