The Russian Language--Early folk literature: Folklore-- Songs-Sagas-Lay of Igor's Raid-Annals-The Mongol Invasion; its consequences-Correspondence between John IV. and Kúrbiskíy-Split in the Church-Avvakúm's Memoirs- The eighteenth century: Peter I. and his contemporaries-Tretiakóvsky-Lomonósoff-Sumarókoff-The times of Catherine II.-Derzhávin-Von Wízin-The Freemasons: Novikóff; Radíscheff-Early nineteenth century: Karamzín and Zhukóvskiy-The Decembrists-Ryléeff. One of the last messages which Turguéneff addressed to Russian writers from his death-bed was to implore them to keep in its purity "that precious inheritance of ours.-the Russian Language." He who knew in perfection most...
All this summer I traveled on the Amúr. I went as far as its mouth, or rather its estuary, -- Nikoláevsk, -- to join the governor-general, whom I accompanied in a steamer up the Usurí and after that, in the autumn, I made a still more interesting journey up the Sungarí, to the very heart of Manchuria, as far as Ghirín (or Kirín, according to the southern pronunciation). Many rivers in Asia are made by the junction of two equally important streams, so that it is difficult for the geographer to say which of the two is the main one, and which is a tributary. The Ingodá and the Onón join to make the Shílka; the Shílka and the Argúñ join to make the Amúr; and the Amúr joins the Sungarí to form that mighty stream which flows northeastward and enters the Pacific in the inhospitable latitudes of the Tartar strait. Up to the year 1864, the great river of Manchur...