INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN TPRKET AND arsst.A.

Tnrsz volumes are a good specimen of' the American love of lo- comotion; which far surpasses that of their English ancestors. The author, Mr. STEPHENS, is a law student, or lawyer, who without any visible object, beyond the love of moving, ran over Greece, visited the parts of Asia Minor adjoining Smyrna, steamed away for Constantinople, and by a similar conveyance got to Odessa, where he seems to have passed more time in the lazaretto than out. From Odessa he posted, Russian fashion, across the Steppes to Chioff, the ancient and holy city of Southern Russia ; and thence travelled in a diligence through Moscow to St. Peters- burg. After exhausting such sights and subjects of a capital as are open to strangers without letters of introduction, tangible posi- tion, or local knowledge, he again started post through Lithuania for Warsaw; and finally closes his present volumes at Cracow, though he subsequently ran a similar round through Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land. Nor is the free and easy, New-country way in which he gets along, less curious than the journey itself. Ile rarely if ever scents to have had any letters of introduction, beyond what he got from people he picked up en route : but we guess, he supplied their place by calling without—if upon an American, as a compatriot—if he took a filmy to strangers, as an American ; which character, in Greece and Poland, has a certain interest from the means fur- nished for the patriots of those two countries. This familiar habit, and the freedom with which he encouraged new acquaint- ances, sometimes served him, and sometimes carried hint to the verge of difficulties. At St. Petersburg he got hold of a ;murals Nnjet of a colonel, who might have .given any body but a cautious Yankee reasons to remember him; and at Moscow, lie struck up in a few hours an eternal friendship with a man in the theatre, who turned out to be a spy.

As a traveller, the acquired requisites of' Mr. STEPHENS arc

small. Though occasionally trying hand at classical sentiment on the scenes of classic glory, it is e‘ident he is neither scholar nor antiquarian, even had he remained berg enough in any place to have examined it thoroughly. In any of the arts or sciences, whose practice is essential to social existence,—as architecture, engineer- ing, agriculture, the art of war,—lie makes no display of any know- ledge if he possesses any ; and though he scents to have a natural taste for the fine arts, it is uninstructed. lie has not studied the popular characteristics—the manners and modes of life of a people. and rarely gets beyond their costumes or external behaviour ; a defi- ciency which may spring. indeed. from his want of the median of communication. From the opening to the close of his volumes, he travelled amongst people of whose language he had no knowledge— relying (except from Petersburg to Warsaw) upon his attend- ants fin' the utterance of his wants, and upon casual companions for the interchange of ideas. .1Iany persons indeed travel through a country without knowing its language; but their route is usually confined to the grand tour, where all civilized tongues, like the coins of civilization, have a common currency ; whilst those who visit remoter climes have generally a mission, or something which gives a purpose to their journey, whilst it procures information of some kind for their book.

To counterbalance these deficiencies of education, Mr. STE-

rurss has several natural gifts. He has a good constitution, good spirits, and the knack of " getting on" over difficulties, or in despite of them, which may be supposed to characterize a race who travel much, where comfortable-appliances are few. For mental qualifications, he has ,great fluency ; some liveliness, which occasionally carries hint towards the confines of indiscretion ; a quick perception of externals at least, with rather a graphic manner of sketching them ; and a power of ready adaptation which enables him to dress up the facts of a guide-book, so as to look like ori- ginal lore, or to take a mental colour from the passing scene, and pour forth American eloquence upon the site of any celebrated event,—a quality, by the by, at times too unsparingly exercised.

It will readily be conceived that the defect of this book is in- equality of interest and deficiency of matter. Travelling so ra- pidly, and with such slender knowledge in an enlarged sense, Mr. Srteuxiss was of necessity dependent upon the accidents of the day for any "incident of travel;" and as the character of servants, innkeepers, table d'hôte company, or the information of persons whom he fell in with fluctuates, so does the spirit of his pages on such common ground as Greece, Smyrna, and Constantinople.

His Polish and Russian journey, 'deducting his descriptions of Moscow and Petersburg, which are pretty well known, have greater novelty and attraction ; and would have had more, had he not tra- velled over half of the country in the night, and in Poland under jolting circumstances, unfavourable to observation.

From these parts we will select our extracts; beginning with

THE STEPPES OP RVSSIA.

At daylight we awoke, and found ourselves upon the wild steppes of Russia, forming part of the immense plain which, beginning in Northern Germany, extends for hundreds of miles, laving its surfisce occasionally diversified by an- cient tumuli, and terminates at the long chain of the Urals, which, risim, like a wall, separates them from the equally vast plains of Siberia. The whole of this immense plain was covered with a luxuriant pasture, but bare of trees like

our prairie lands, mostly uncultivated, vet evervwhere capable of producing the same wheat which now draws to the Black- Sea the vessels of Turkey Egypt, and Italy, making Russia the granary of' the Levant; and which, within the last year, we have seen brought six thousand miles to our own doors. Our road over these steppes was in its natural state—that is to say, a mere track worn by caravans of waggons ; there were no fences, and sometimes the route was marked at intervals by heaps of stones, intended as guides when the ground should he covered with snow. I had some anxiety about our carriage: the spokes of the wheels were all strengthened and secured by cords wound tightly around them. and interlaced so as to make a network; but the postil- lions were so perfectly reckless as to the fine of the carriage, that every crack went through me like a shot. The breaking of a wheel would have left us perfectly helpless in a desolate country, perhaps more than a hundred miles from any place where we could get it repaired. Indeed, on the whole road to Chioff there was not a single place where we could have any material injury repaired; and the remark of the old traveller is yet emphatically true, that o there be small succour in these parts."

TRAVELLING ON TAE STEPPES.

Resuming our journey, we met no travellers. Occasionally we passed large droves of cattle; but all the way front Odessa the principal objects were long trains of waggons, fifty or sixty together, drawn hy oxen, and transporting merchandise toward lfoscow or grain to the Black .Sea. Their approach wag indicated at a great distance by immense clouds of dust, which gave us timely notice to let down our curtains and raise our glasses. The waggoners were short. ugly-looking fellows, with huge sandy mustaches and beards, black woolly caps, and sheepskin jackets, the wool side next the skin ; perhaps, in many cases, transferred warm from the back of one animal to that of the other, where they remained till worn out or eaten up by vermin. They had among them blacksmiths and wheelwrights, and spare wheels, and hammer and tools, and every thing necessary for a Journey of several hundred miles. Half of them were generally asleep on the top of their loads, and they encamped at night in caravan style, arranging the waggons in a square, building a large fire, and sleeping around it. About mid-day we saw clouds gathering afar off in the horizon, and soon after the rain began to fial, and we could see it advancing rapidly over the immense level till it broke over our heads, and its a few mo- ment, passed off, leas cog the ground smoking with exhalations.

Late its the afternoon, we suet the travelling equipage of a seigneur return-

ing from 'Moscow estate in the country. it consisted of four carriages, with six or eight Lot-es each. The first was a large, stately, and cumbrous vehicle, padded and cushioned, in which, as sae passed rapidly by, we esuolq a glimpse of a corpulent Russian on the back seat, with his feet on the Front, bolstered all around with pillows and cushions. almost burying every part of him but his ace. and looking the very p,..1,1:nification of luxurious hololgenee; and :vet, probably, that MIR had been a soldier, and slept many a night on the bare ground, with no covswing but his military cloak, Next came another car- riage. fitted out in the same luxurious dyle. with the seigneur's lady and w little girl ; then another with nurs,'s and children ; then beds, baggage, cooking uten- sils, and servants, the latter hanging on ct erywhere about the vehicle, Much in the sante win with the pots and kettle,. Altogether, it was an equipment in caravan style. sonlcw hat the same as for a journey in the desert, the traveller carrying with him provision and every thing nece,sary for his comfort. as not expecting to procure any thing on the road, nor to sleep under a roof tinning the whole journey. lie stops when he pleases, and his servants prepare his meals, sometimes in the open air, but generally at the posthouse.

RUSSIA.N POSTING.

The posthouse was usually in a village. but sometimes stood alone, the only object to be seen on the great plain. lkfore it was always a high square post, with black and white stripes, marking the nunther of verst, from station to sta- tion : opposite to this Henri dismounted. and presented the podorodosi or im- perial order for horses. But the postmasters were high above the law-; every one of them seemed u little autocrat in his awn right, holding his appointment rather to prey upon than to serve traveller, ; and the Emperor's got eminent would be but badly administered it' hi, ukases and other high-somaling orders did not carry with titans more wtight than his podoroshni. The peistmasters obeyed it when they pleased, and when they did not, made a new bargain. They always bad an exuwe ; as. for instance, that they had no bor-es, or were keei;ing them in reserve for a courier or grand seigneur : but they listened to reason when enforced by rubies and at soon us a new bargain was made, half- a-dozen animals in sheepskin went out on the plain and drove up fifteen or twenty hor.cs, small, rugged, and tough, with long and ,lisggy mane, and mils, which no comb or brush had ever tonclicd, and diving anions them promiscu- ouslv. caught fur, put on rope head,talls, and tied them to our rope-traces. The postillion mosusted the box. and shouting and whipping his horses, and some- times shutting his eyes, started from the post on a tall gallop, carried us like the wind, yentre is terra., over the immense plain, sometimes without a rut or any visible mark to guide him, and brought its up all standing in flout of the next post. A long delay and a short post, and this was the same over and over again during the whole journey. The time actually consumed in making pro- gress was incredibly short ; and I do not know a more beautiful way of getting over the ground than posting in Russia with a man of high military rank, who can make the postmasters give him horses immediately on Ids arrisah -ksfor us, after an infinite deal of vexation and at a ruinous expense, on the morning of the fourth day we were within one post of' Chioff.

AMERICAN AND RVSSIAN SLAVERY.

About noon we passed the chateau and grounds of a seigneur belonging to the chateau was a large church standing in a conspicuous sitnatum,. with a green dome, surmounted by the Greek cross: and round ltwweeresa:hae miserable

spectacle and filthy habitations of his slaves. Filtering the village,

of wretchedness and misery seldom surpassed even on the banks of the Nile. The w bole population was gathered in the streets, in a state of absolute -darn-

tion. The miserable serfs had hot raised enough to supply themselyes .with ood ; and men of all ages, half-grown tint's, and little children, wereprowlIng the streets or &dog in the doorways, ravenous with hunger, and waiting for the agent to come dorm from the chateau and distribute among them bread - I

had liar* many interesting. aobjects of comparison between that country and my own, but it was with-deep .hamiliatiou I felt that the most odious feature In that despotic government found a parallel in ours. At this day, with the exception of Russia, some of the VOL India Islands, and the re- public of the -United States, every country in the civilized world can respond to the proud boast of the English common law, that the moment a slave sets foot on her soil he is free. I rs spat the feelings of others and their vested rights, and would be the last to suffer those feelings or those rights to be wan- tonly violated ; but 1 do not hesitate to say that, abroad, slavery stands as a dark blot upon our national character. There it will not admit of any pallia- tion ; it stands in glaring contrast with the spirit of our free institutions ; it belies our words and our hearts; and the American who would he most prompt to repel any calumny. upon his country withers under this reproachond writhes with mortification when the taunt is hurled at the otherwise stainless flag of the free republic. I was forcibly struck with a parallel between the white serfs of the North of Europe and Afefean bondsmen at home. The Russian boor, ge- nerally wanting the comforts which are supplied to the Negro on our best-ordered plantations, appeared to me to be not less degraded in intellect, character, and personal bearing. Indeed, the marks of phyfical and personal degradation were su strong, that 1 was insensibly compelled to abandon certain theories not uncom- mon among my countrymen at home, iu regard to the intrinsic superiority of the White race over others. Perhaps, too. this impression was aided by my haying previously met with Africans of intelligence and capacity, standing upon a footing of perfect equality as soldiers and caters in the Greek army and the Sultan's.

LITHUANIA.

The villages are a miserable collection of straggling huts, without plan or arrangement, and separated from each other by large spaces of ground. They areabout ten or twelve feet square, made of the misshapen trunks of trees heaped on each other, with the ends projecting over ; the roof of large shape- less boards, and the window a small hole in the wall, answering the double purpose of admitting light and letting out smoke. The tenants of these wretched. hovels exhibit the same miserable appearance both in person and manners. They are hard-boned, and sallow-complexioned ; the men wear coarse white woollen frocks, and a round. felt cap lined with wool, and shoes made of the bark of trees ; and their uncombed hair bangs law over their heads, generally of a flaxen colour. Their agricultural implements are of the rudest kind. The plough and harrow arc mule from the branches of' the fir-tree, without either iron or ropes ; their carts are .put together without iron, con- sisting of four small wheels, each of a single piece of wood ; the sides are made of the hark of a tree bent round, and the shafts are a couple of fir bruit:lies ; their bridles and traces platted from the hark of trees, or composed merely of twisted. branches. Their only instrument to construct their huts and make their carts is a hatchet. They were servile and cringing in their expressions of respect, bowing down to the ground and stoppiug their carts as soon as we came !War them, and stood with their caps in their hands till we were out of sight. The whole country, except in sonic open places around village,, is one im- mense forest of firs, perhaps sixty feet in height, compact and -thick, but very slender,

LABOURERS IN POLAND.

We had scarcely left the postmaster's laughter, on the threshold of Poland, aim :st throwing a romance about the Polish women, before I saw the most de- grading spectacle I ever beheld iu Europe, or even in the barbarous countries of the East. Forty. or fifty women were at work in the fields ; and a large, well-dressed man. with a pipe in his mouth and a long stick in his hand, wes walking among them as overseer. In our country, the most common labouring man would revolt at the idea of his wife or (laughter working in the open fields. I had seen it, however, in gallant France and beautiful Italy ; but I never see, even in the barbarous countries of the East, SO degrading n spec- tack as this ; and I could have borne it almost anywhere better than in chivalric Poland.

WARSAW AND THE POLES.

But none of this barbaric display is now seen in the streets of Warsaw. Indeed, immediately on entering it i was struck with the European aspect of things. It seemed almost, though not quite, like a city of Western Europe ; whic'lm may perhaps', be ascribed, in a great measure, to the entire absence of the semi-Asiatic costumes so prevalent in all the cities of Russia, and even at St. Petersburg; and the only thing I rensarked peculiar in the die-s of the inhabitants, was the remnant of a barbarous taste for show, exhibiting itself in hap breast-pins, shirt-buttons, and gold chains over the vest ; the mustache is universally worn. During the war of the revolution immediately succeeding our own, Warsaw stood the heaviest brunt ; and when Kosciusko fell fighting before it, its population was reduced to seventy-five thousand. Since that time it has increased, and is supposed now to be one hundred and forty thou- sand, thirty thousand of whom are Jews. Calamity after calamity has be- fallen Warsaw ; still its appearance is that of a gay city. Society consists altogether of two distinct and distant orders, the nobles and the peasantry, without any intermediate degrees. I except, of course, the Jews, who form a large item m her population ; and whose lung beards, thin and anxious faces, an piercing eves, met me at every corner of Warsaw. The peasants are in the lowest stage ut mental degradation. The nobles, who are more numerous than in any other country in Europe, hare always, in the eyes of the public, formed the people of Poland. They are brave, prompt, ftank, hospitable, and gay, awl mace long been culled the French of the North, being French in their habits, fond of amusements, and living in the open air, like the lounger in the Palais Royal, the Thuileries, the Boulevards, and Luxembourg, and particu- larly French in their political feelings, the surges of a revolution in Paris being always klt at Warsaw. They regard the Germans with mingled contempt and aversion, calling them "daub" in contrast with their own fluency and lo- quacity ; and before their fall were called by their neighbours the " proud Poles.' They consider it the deepest disgrace to practise any profession, even law or medicine, and, in cases of utmost necessity, prefer the plough.

We know not whether the comparison struck Mr. STEPHENS, but it is difficult in reading his tour to avoid marking the contrast be- tween Russia and America. Scarcely fifty years have passed since adventurous settlers first crossed the Allegheny range, to explore the valley of the Mississippi: compare the desert steppes, or the gloomy wine forests of Lithuania, with the bustling life and advancing activity m America—the contrast of old despotism and young freedom. Nor do we think that any can peruse Mr. STEPHENS'S narrative of his journey from Odessa to Warsaw, through the very centre of the most civilized and slimy parts of the empire—see the scanty popu- lation, povertyi, find ignorance everywhere prevalent in the oldest lisparts of Russia 'proper, save four great towns—and perceive the misery felt in Poland through Russian rule, and the under-current of hatred evidently mingling with the life-blood of' every Pole— and yet dread the /present aggressive rowers of Russia, unless force be lent her by imprudence or cowardice.

It is but fair, in closing, remark, that we have spoken of these volumes as if ;hey were originally addressed to an English public, fed to repletion on Greece and Turkey. To Americans, for whom we believe they were originally written, the first volume may have the novelty of subject which we desiderate.