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ancient days, when the Romans sent ambassadors to any distant and unknown country, they are said to have charged them as a duty to commit carefully to writing a description of the manners, institutes, and entire mode of living of the people with whom their embassy brought them in contact; and so much importance was afterwards attached to such descriptions, that upon the termination of an embassy, the ambassador’s commentaries were deposited in the temple of Saturn for the instruction of posterity. If this regulation had been observed by men of our own, or recent times, we should perhaps have had more light, and certainly less trash, infused into history. For my own part, as I always from my youth took delight in observing the habits of foreigners both at home and abroad, it was a matter of cordial pleasure to me that my services were required in embassies, not only by that wise prince, Your Majesty’s grandfather Maximilian, but by Your Majesty also, by whose command I more than once travelled through the countries of the north. To Russia in particular, which of all the countries of Christendom differs so much from us in its manners, laws,