The Vogouls form only a very insignificant population dwelling east of the Oural, and have undergone such mixture with the Turks and Mongolians as to have adopted to a great extent their characteristics.
The Ostiaks who dwell upon the banks of the Obi appear to have preserved in much greater perfection the characteristics of the Finns. They are a people devoted to hunting and fishing, with red hair, very uncivilized, and partly idolatrous.
Madame Eva Felinska, during an exile in Siberia, inspected, as far as possible, the Ostiak huts. These habitations were so foul, and gave forth such putrid miasmas, that, notwithstanding her curiosity, this lady was unable to remain in them more than a minute.
The Ostiaks cover their skins with a layer of rancid fat, over which they wear a reindeer skin. They eat uncooked fish or game, this being their ordinary food. But from time to time they go with large buckets of bark to Berezer, where they collect, and devour as delicacies, the refuse of the kitchens. [Fig. 51] represents an Ostiak hut.
The Finns of Eastern Russia comprise the Baskirs, the Teptiars, and the Metscheriaks of the Southern Oural: three small peoples who speak Turkish dialects mingled with Finnish words, and who exist in very much the same way. The Baskirs are the most numerous; they are engaged in rearing horses and bees. Like the Cossacks they furnish bodies of cavalry to the Russian army.
The Finns of the Volga comprise the Tchouvachians, Tcheremissians and Moadueinites, who likewise speak dialects interspersed with Turkish words: a short time since they turned their attention to husbandry.
Certain populations scattered through the governments of Perm, Vologda, Orenburg, and Viatka, are the remains of a people of some consideration, formerly independent, civilized, and commercial, whom the Russians subdued, and to a large extent absorbed: these are the Permians.
The Finns of the Baltic, or Finns properly so called, have been long under the rule of Teutonic nations, and have generally preserved the characteristics of the family we have described above. Among them are distinguished the Livonians, Esthonians, Ischorians, Kyrials, Ymes or Finlanders, and Quaines, who are respectively the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Finland, and Carelia, where they are now mixed with the Slavonians and Teutons. During the last century the Quaines pushed forward to the extremity of Norwegian Lapland, of which they at present form the principal population.
