takes up his feverest punishments, hardness, befottedness of heart, and idolatry, to their final perdition. Idolatry brought the Heathen to heinous tranfgreffions, Rom. ii. And heinous tranfgreffions ofttimes bring the flight profeffors of true religion to grofs idolatry: 1 Theff. ii, 11, 12: "For this caufe God fhall fend them ftrong delufion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." And Ifaiah xliv, 18, fpeaking of Idolaters, "They have not known nor understood, for he hath shut their eyes that they cannot fee, and their hearts that they cannot understand." Let us therefore, ufing this laft means, laft here fpoken of, but first to be done, amend our lives with all speed; left through impenitency we run into that stupidity which we now seek all means fo warily to avoid, the worft of fuperftitions, and the heaviest of all God's judgments, popery. A BRIEF HISTORY OF MOSCO VIA, AND Of other lefs known Countries lying Eaftward of RUSSIA as far as CATHAY. Gathered from the Writings of feveral Eyewitneffes. TH THE PREFACE. HE ftudy of geography is both profitable and delightful; but the writers thereof, though fome of them exact enough in fetting down longitudes and latitudes, yet in those other relations of manners, religion, government, and fuch like, accounted geographical, have for the moft part miffed their proportions. Some too brief and deficient fatisfy not; others too voluminous and impertinent cloy and weary out the reader, while they tell long ftories of abfurd fuperstitions, ceremonies, quaint habits, and other petty circumstances little to the purpose. Whereby that which is ufeful, and only worth obfervation, in fuch a wood of words, is either overflipped, or foon forgotten; which perhaps brought into the mind of fome men learned and judicious, who had not the leisure or purpofe to write an entire geography, yet at least to affay fomething in the description of one or two countries, which might be as a pattern or example to render others more cautious hereafter, who intended the whole work. And this perhaps induced Paulus Jovius to defcribe only Mofcovy and Britain. Some fuch thoughts, many years fince, led me at a vacant time to attempt the like argument, and I began with Mofcovy, as being the most northern region of Europe reputed civil; and the more more northern northern parts thereof first discovered by English voyages. Wherein I faw I had by much the advantage of Jovius. What was scattered in many volumes, and obferved at feveral times by eyewitneffes, with no curfory pains 1 laid together, to fave the reader a far longer travail of wandering through fo many defert authors; who yet with fome delight drew me after them, from the eastern bounds of Ruffia, to the walls of Cathay, in feveral late journies made thither over land by Ruffians, who defcribe the countries in their way far otherwife than our common geographers. From proceeding further other occafions diverted me. This Effay, fuch as it is, was thought by fome, who knew of it, not amifs to be published; that fo many things remarkable, difperfed before, now brought under one view, might not hazard to be otherwise loft, nor the labour loft of collecting them. OR, RELATIONS OF MOSCOVIA, As far as hath been discovered by English Voyages; Gathered from the Writings of feveral Eyewitnefjes: and the other lefs known Countries lying Eastward of RUSSIA as far as CATHAY, lately difcovered at feveral times by the Ruffians. CHAP. I. A brief Defcription. HE empire of Moscovia, or as others call it Ruffia, ocean; fouthward by the Crim Tartar; on the west by Lithuania, Livonia, and Poland; on the east by the river Ob, or Oby, and the Nagayan Tartars on the Volga as far as Aftracan. The The north parts of this country are fo barren, that the inhabitants fetch their corn a thousand miles*; and fo cold in winter, that the very fap of their woodfuel burning on the fire freezes at the brand's end, where it drops. The mariners, which were left on fhipboard in the first English voyage thither, in going up only from the cabins to the hatches †, had their breath fo congealed by the cold, that they fell down as it were ftifled. bay of St. Nicholas, where they firft put in ‡, lieth in fixty four degrees; called fo from the abbey there built of wood, wherein are twenty monks, unlearned, as then they found them, and great drunkards: their church is fair, full of images and tapers. There are befides but fix houses, whereof one built by the English. In the bay over against the abbey is Rofe Ifland §, full of • Hack. 251. VOL. IV. + Ibid, vol. 1. 248. + Ibid. 376. g Ibid. 365. damafk damafk and red rofes, violets, and wild rofemary; the ifle is in circuit feven or eight miles; about the midst of May, the fnow there is cleared, having two months been melting; then the ground in fourteen days is dry, and grafs kneedeep within a month; after September froft returns, and fnow a yard high: it hath a house built by the English near to a freth fair fpring. North-east of the abbey, on the other fide of Duina, is the castle of Archangel, where the English have another houfe. The river Duina, beginning about feven hundred miles within the country, baving firft received Pinega, falls here into the fea, very large and fwift, but fhallow. It runneth pleasantly between hills on either fide; befet like a wildernefs with high fir and other trees. Their boats of timber, without any iron in them, are either to fail, or to be drawn up with ropes against the stream. North-eaft beyond Archangel ftandeth Lampas*, where twice a year is kept a great fair of Ruffes, Tartars, and Samoeds; and to the landward Mezen, and Slobotca, two towns of traffic between the river Pechora, or Petzora, and Duina: to feaward lies the cape of Candinos, and the island of Colgoieve, about thirty leagues from the bar of Pechory in fixty nine degrees †. The river Pechora or Petzora, holding his courfe through Siberia, how far the Ruffians thereabouts know not, runneth into the fea at feventy two mouths, full of ice; abounding with fwans, ducks, geese, and partridge, which they take in July, fell the feathers, and falt the bodies for winter provifion. On this river spreading to a lake ftands the town of Puftozera in fixty eight degrees, having fome eighty or a hundred houfes, where certain merchants of Hull wintered in the year fixteen hundred and eleven. The town Pechora, fmall and poor, hath three churches. They traded there up the river four days journey to Ouftzilma a fmall town of fixty houfes. The Ruffians that have travelled fay, that this river fprings out of the mountains of Jougoria, and runs through Permia. Not far from the mouth thereof are the ftraits of Vaigats, of which hereafter more Hack. 284. Purc. par. 3. 533. Ibid. Purc. eastward |