Public Instruction--Corps of Cadets--Universities and Elementary Schools; Anecdote--Plan of Education--Motives for attending the Universities--Statistics--Professors; their Ignorance--Exclusion of Foreign Professors--Engineering-- Obstacles to Intellectual Improvement--Characteristics of the Sclavonic Race 127
Entry into the Country of the Don Cossacks--Female Pilgrims of Kiev; Religious Fervour of the Cossacks--Novo Tcherkask, Capital of the Don--Street-lamps guarded by Sentinels--The Streets on Sunday--Cossack Hospitality and Good Nature--Their Veneration for Napoleon's Memory 134
Origin of the Don Cossacks--Meaning of the Name--The Khirghis Cossacks--Races anterior to the Cossacks--Sclavonic Emigrations towards the East 137
Journey from Novo Tcherkask along the Don--Another Knavish Postmaster--Muscovite Merchants--Cossack Stanitzas 154
First Kalmuck Encampments--The Volga--Astrakhan--Visit to a Kalmuck Princess--Music, Dancing, Costume, &c.--Equestrian Feats--Religious Ceremony--Poetry 162
Historical Notice of Astrakhan--Mixed Population; Armenians, Tatars--Singular Result of a Mixture of Races--Description of the Town--Hindu Religious Ceremonies--Society 178
Commercial Position of Astrakhan--Its Importance in the Middle Ages--Its Loss of the Overland Trade from India--Commercial Statistics--Fisheries of the Caspian--Change of the Monetary System in Russia--Bad State of the Finances--Russian Political Economy 187
Departure from Astrakhan--Coast of the Caspian--Hawking-- Houidouk--Three Stormy Days passed in a Post-house--Armenian Merchants--Robbery committed by Kalmucks--Camels--Kouskaia-- Another Tempest--Tarakans--A reported Gold Mine 202
Another Robbery at Houidouk--Our Nomade Life--Camels--Kalmuck Camp--Quarrel with a Turcoman Convoy, and Reconciliation--Love of the Kalmucks for their Steppes; Anecdote--A Satza--Selenoi Sastava--Fleeced by a Lieutenant-Colonel--Camel-drivers beaten by the Kalmucks--Alarm of a Circassian Incursion--Sources of the Manitch--The Journey arrested--Visit to a Kalmuck Lady-- Hospitality of a Russian Officer 208
Review of the History of the Kalmucks 229
The Kalmucks after the Departure of Oubacha--Division of the Hordes, Limits of their Territory--The Turcoman and Tatar Tribes in the Governments of Astrakhan and the Caucasus-- Christian Kalmucks--Agricultural Attempts--Physical, Social, and Moral Characteristics of the Kalmucks 235