right and duty to do. This is Robert Blum, the leader of the ultraLiberal and Republican party, the chief of the public in the galleries. He blusters much as he speaks, uses very figurative language, and evidently strains at being poetical: he thus really makes a certain effect upon his less educated hearers, and leads them away by those swelling phrases which, after all, only contain "words, words, words." The two who sit side by side, pale and poetical looking, are Raveaux and Venedey, from Cologne, moderate Republicans, Girondists they call themselves. The former is sickly and weak, yet passionate; the latter, a well-known author, is less fantastical than his friend, but still a Schwärmer: both are perfectly impractical in their views, like most or all of the German liberals. The middle-aged man, with the mild blue eyes, is Rüge, said to be a "Red Republican" and terrorist: in spite of his reputation, however, he puts on the softest airs, and says the most abrupt and violent things in the coldest, slowest, mildest manner. The dark-eyed young man, with his black beard, is Simon of Treves, the most striking in appearance of the democratic faction, young, fiery, inconsiderate, running madly counter to everything that is, taking the French democrats as models. Along with the men of the "Left," the bold humorist Zimmermann, of Stutgardt, and Itz, the people's tribune from Mayence, who aims at an O'Connell look, and many others of modern note, sits also old Uhland, the poet, with his plain, discontented face, still, in his old years, the uncompromising demo

crat.

While looking thus around us, the debate has been going forward; but it has been too long-winded and dull to awaken much attention. The subject has been the division and annexation of a part of Posen. Rüge alone has awakened a storm, by an attack upon the Austrians in Italy, which the President Gagern has been with difficulty able to allay by the exercise of his customary energy; and a tumult of hisses from the "Left" and from the galleries has attended the speaking of a fair young man, of animated and intelligent appearance. This was Giskra, of Moravia, one of the insurgents of the revolution at Vienna, who has seceded, by conviction, from the "Extreme Left" to the "Centre," and is now always received with all this violent reprobation by his ancient allies. The other speakers scarcely were worthy of our attention. But the debate will not be closed to day, and German stomachs are already grumbling angrily at their dinners' delay; the deputies are getting positively ferocious. Let us close our "Morning in the German National Assembly," and go too. Let us go with the hope that with their now popular Protector of the Empire, and his new moderately liberal cabinet, the Germans may make a few steps in peace towards the unity of their dreams, which to mere lookers-on seems as fantastic, as unrealizable, and as "far off" as when the Germans first met in parliament-general.

THE DEMON OF THE STEPPES.

It is now somewhere about four years ago that, as it was growing dusk on a rainy evening, I wrapped myself in my burka, and set out from my lodgings, in the house of a German apothecary, in the Russian town of Fanagoria on the Enikale Strait, to get rid of an hour or two of my irksome and involuntary abode there, in a ramble on the wild and gloomy sea-shore. I had been walking some time, and not caring much about the incessant but not very heavy showerbath I was receiving from the clouds, was standing still, gazing in a somewhat listless mood on the opposite Taurian coast, half veiled in mist, when I suddenly heard myself addressed in very good French. Delighted to have once more found an opportunity of conversing in a language with which I was familiar, I turned to reply to the salutation, and saw before me a Cossack officer, whose uniform, decorated with the second class order of Saint Anne, as well as his features, assured me that he was no Chernomorski, but a Cossack of the Don, and, therefore in this country, a sort of half foreigner.

After a little conversation, I explained to him my traveller's trouble of the delay of my luggage, &c., and my new companion proposed three remedies, namely, first, patience; secondly, a stiff glass of punch; thirdly, a comfortable gossip over a blazing fire till the sky should be clear again, and the waters of the Black Sea once more tranquil enough to give me hopes of the arrival of my bag and baggage. To this end he invited me to return with him to his habitation, situated at no great distance from the spot where we stood, and where I could have an opportunity of drying my now dripping burka, whilst he, on his side, undertook to furnish punch and conversation. The proposal pleased me, and I followed my courteous companion to a tolerably neat white cottage, surrounded by some wretched-looking huts of reeds and mud. A bright fire went roaring and crackling up the chimney, on the left side of which stood a huge gilt image of a saint, while the right was adorned by the portrait of the Emperor Nicholas, and we were soon seated sociably along with a comrade of the Cossack'ss—a staff-officer of Stavropolround an earthenware punch-bowl of colossal dimensions. My Cossack friend, who brewed the punch, and shewed himself a master in the art, now exhibited no less capacity for doing justice to its merits, swallowing glass after glass of the potent liquor with astounding rapidity.

"Mais vous buvez comme une demoiselle," he exclaimed, turning to me, when he saw that I was inclined to be a little moderate in my libations "that's not the fashion of your German forefathers; you must be a most degenerate descendant of theirs, or, it may be, no better than a tea-totaller, and a disciple of the Irish Father Mathew. God forgive him!"

As I wished, however, to be able to find my way back in the darkness to Fanagoria, even this dreadful suspicion could not induce me to alter my resolution: but Heaven and earth! did not the Cossack make amends for me. He had the mighty bowl of liquid fire filled once more, and emptied three-parts of it to his own share, yet remained perfectly and undeniably sober. He was certainly the

most stupendous toper that I have met with in three quarters of the world.

The two Russian officers appeared to be on a journey of inspection, or some official business, but as they seemed inclined to make a secret of it I could not find out the real motive of their coming. The officer from Stavropol belonged to a noble family in Moscow, and was a man of refined and agreeable manners, though not over lively in conversation. As for my Don Cossack, it was easy to see that what culture he had had been received late in life, and gleams of the wild animal might be observed breaking through the superficial varnish of the man of the world. There was, however, a certain rough honest cordiality about him that pleased me far better than the more polished reserve of his companions.

His love of talk seemed as insatiable as his thirst for punch, and he served us up a variety of amusing stories, grave and gay, from his campaigns, besides recollections and impressions of France and Germany, characters of all the armies of the Grand Alliance, and their leaders, especially the Russian generals Platoff, Miloradovitsch, Kutosoff, and others of whom he had many curious anecdotes to relate, winding up with what interested me most of all, a circumstantial account of his early life and condition in his paternal home on the Don, and the character and exploits of his grandfather Vassili Iguroff, otherwise known as the Demon of the Steppes.

This

The hero of his tale was the last of a race which, in the opinion of those best acquainted with the country, the strict military discipline introduced among those tribes has now rendered impossible. biography falls in the transition-period between the past and present condition of the Don Cossacks, and I will give it as nearly as I can in the major's own words, merely omitting the long accounts of the Cossack ceremonies of weddings, christenings, and funerals, with which he favoured us.

"If," he began, "the course of your journey should ever lead you towards my native country on the Don, do not be persuaded to stop at Novo Tcherkask, but go further south, and visit the Steppes of lake Manytsch, and the banks of the river Sal; there you will still have opportunities of observing the manners and customs of the old Cossacks, and, perhaps, meet with men who, in appearance and manner of life, may remind you of my grandfather, the genuine type of the Cossack hero of the old time. On the right bank of the Don, where the mass of our tribes have their abode, all is completely changed, and in Novo Tcherkask you will find nothing but a picture of degeneracy and corruption. It is the seat of a worthless, odious population, who have wholly abandoned the customs of their forefathers, and to whom "-here the major gave a deep sigh, and then took a still deeper draught of punch-"I myself unfortunately half belong. The pleasures and the vices of the more civilised nations of Europe have made their way even to us during the last half century, and swindling and bankruptcy, champagne, gambling, and adultery, may be found on the banks of the Don as well as on those of the Seine, though art and science, and the nobler accompaniments of civilisation have not yet reached these remote districts. But the further you go from the city and plunge into the interior of the Steppe country, the more will you perceive a certain rough bracing air of the wilderness blowing towards you that will do you more

VOL. XXIV.

C C

good than all their refinements as they call them. On this left bank of the Don you will find Cossack families living in the winter in solitary huts of straw and reeds, but spending all the fine season of the year under a tent. and wandering about pretty nearly like their neighbours the Calmucks. To one of these families belonged my maternal grandfather, one of the most remarkable men who have inhabited the Steppes for a long time.

"I can imagine I have him before me now, as I last saw him, when I was quite a little boy, and he was considerably turned of seventy. There was something in his appearance terrible,—nay, with reverence be it spoken,-almost diabolical, that was likely to leave a deep impression on a child. He was so tall that in Europe he might have shewn himself as a giant, and he wore usually a high cap and a lofty plume of black feathers, that towered far above the other Cossacks, when thousands of them were assembled on the banks of the Don; the breadth of his chest, the Herculean build of his bones, muscles, and sinews (he had scarcely an ounce of flesh on his whole body), was even more remarkable than his height; and he was moreover covered from head to foot by a thick growth of rough bristly hair. When I saw him his brown face was deeply furrowed, a grisly beard fell down to his breast, his large eyes were strongly bloodshot, and their by no means agreeable expression was not improved by the effect of a broad, deep scar on the forehead. In his youth he was the best rider on the whole Don, and famous for his skill with the lance, and his capability of enduring hardship, no less than for his prodigious power as a toper."

And here the major stopped, and took a huge draught of punch, as if he had wished to prove that in this noble quality, at least, he had not degenerated from the virtues of his ancestor of happy memory. He then went on:

"Well, you know, I dare say, that our people on the Don have been, from the most ancient times, a free people; that is, slavery has never subsisted amongst them; and though they do say we are made up of a jumble of Slavonic, Circassian, and Tatar tribes, with a good handful of Russian runaways, yet our social condition has always been entirely different from that of any of these races.

"We have never had any serfs, like the Poles and Russians; nor slaves, like the Circassians; nor yet a trace of the manners and habits of the detestable Mongol. Before the time of Peter the Great, the Cossacks beyond the Ukraine formed a perfectly free nation; the soil of our measureless Steppes was common property, and any part of it might belong to whoever would take the trouble to cultivate it, or, as herdsman or taboouchik (horse-herd), feed his cattle upon the boundless grassy plain. We had before the Russian time no hereditary nobility, supported on the possession of landed property; but complete equality did not exist among us, for certain families had, from time immemorial, exercised a predominant influence in all deliberations concerning the general welfare, and in the questions of peace or war.

"Amongst the first of these influential families were the Iguroffs my ancestors by the mother's side; but their influence rested on no patents of nobility, but only on their valour, the strength of their mighty fists, the multitude of their flocks and herds, their numerous kindred, and the troop of stout warriors that they could bring into the field on every martial expedition.

"The Iguroffs would often declare war on their own account against the Tatars of the Golden Horde, or the Nogays, without thinking it necessary to ask permission of their Hetman; and those who had a taste for booty or for Nogay skulls would often flock together under their banner. On the Don and the Manytsch far and wide the belief reigned that the god of war was favourable to our family, and that no one ever returned empty-handed who accompanied them on their expeditions. This fortune of war, however, which for so many years had smiled on the Iguroffs, took a sudden turn. Rendered presumptuous by continued success, they were induced to penetrate farther and farther into the Nogay country, to drive the flocks and herds; and one day, when the season was far advanced, they advanced as far as Perekop; but as they were returning home, laden with booty, they were attacked by a troop of Nogays, of twenty times their number, who had been lying in wait for them, and who now cut off their passage to the Don.

The Cossack horses were weary and hungry, as a heavy fall of snow had completely covered the grass of the steppe, and they had not been able to obtain any food. Those of the Nogays, on the contrary, were perfectly fresh, and indeed at all times superior to ours: there was nothing for it, therefore, but to settle the matter by hard blows.

"A desperate conflict took place; but it was of short duration, for our people were soon overpowered by the immense numerical superiority of their enemies. My grandfather was one of the first that fell, for his hard skull had given way before the still harder steel of a Nogay chief, and the business ended by the slaughter of the entire troop of the Cossacks. Above a hundred warriors, all bearing the name of Iguroff, and a still greater number of friends and comrades, were left on the field. My grandfather, however, though his skull was cleft, was not yet done for. As he returned to his senses, he saw that every man of his party lay massacred around him, and the enemy was busily engaged in cutting off their heads, as that was a kind of merchandize that the Chan at Baktshi-Serai was willing to buy and pay for in ready money. Fortunately for Vassili Iguroff, he had fallen close beside his faithful steed; and to this circumstance he owed his escape. While the attention of the foe was occupied elsewhere, he contrived to burrow himself down deep in the snow, and cover himself with the long mane of his horse; and the poor animal, who was fast dying, gave one roll over the spot where he lay, and then remained still. He was thus completely concealed from observation, and beneath his covering of snow he now again lost his senses for a time. The fight had taken place at daybreak, and when he again returned to himself, the midnight moon was shining over the Steppe. The snow had stopped the bleeding of his wound, and though he felt pain in the head, he had, in a great measure, recovered his strength. He worked his way, therefore, out of the snow, and, taking off his girdle, bound up the wound with it, and then rose to his feet. But a terrible spectacle awaited him; the bodies of his friends and kindred lay naked and headless, scattered over the wide Steppe, and wolves and jackals were enjoying over them a hideous feast. Wounded as he was, my grandfather's thundering bass voice had still power to drive off these beasts of prey; and he now sought out the body of his father,