M. d’Hearyet, who has travelled in the Russian provinces of the Baltic, informs us, that at Riga the houses are comfortable and well appointed; that immense stoves preserve a temperature of 68° or more in vast apartments, guarded from without by double windows and double doors: that persons leaving the house envelop themselves in a fur robe, which leaves no form distinguishable, so that it is difficult to say whether the individual in question is a man or woman: that at night, the bed is small, low, furnished with one or two leathern mattresses and some sheets a little larger than napkins. They live in a hot-house atmosphere, the air of which is not often enough renewed.
47.—TARTAR OF KASAK.
The Cossacks form in Russia rather a military caste than a distinct people. They seem to be descended from the Rousniaks mixed with other people, chiefly Circassians. They frequently have longer faces, more prominent noses, and are of greater height, than the Russians properly so called. Their principal settlement is upon the banks of the lower portion of the Don. They, however, rarely possess a fixed residence, since the Cossacks, spread throughout the entire Russian Empire, act as light cavalry and border troops.
48.—TARTAR OF THE CAUCASUS.
[Figures 48] and [49] represent different types, taken from Nature, of Cossacks who live in the Caucasus, along the frontiers which bound the Southern portion of the Russian possessions.