Early in the morning, when marching from a little town called Changu, we had a river to pass, which we were obliged to ferry; and, had the Tartars had any intelligence, then had been the time to have attacked us, when the caravan² being over, the rear-guard was behind; but they did not appear there.  About three hours after, when we were entered upon a desert of about fifteen or sixteen miles over, we knew by a cloud of dust they raised, that the enemy was at hand, and presently they came on upon the spur.  
Our Chinese guards in the front, who had talked so big the day before, began to stagger; and the soldiers frequently looked behind them, a certain sign in a soldier that he is just ready to run away.  My old pilot was of my mind; and being near me, called out, “Seignior Inglese, these fellows must be encouraged, or they will ruin us all; for if the Tartars come on they will never stand it.”—“If am of your mind,” said I; “but what must be done?”—“Done?” says he, “let fifty of our men advance, and flank them on each wing, and encourage them.  They will fight like brave fellows in brave company; but without this they will every man turn his back.”  Immediately I rode up to our leader and told him, who was exactly of our mind; accordingly, fifty of us marched to the right wing, and fifty to the left, and the rest made a line of rescue; and so we marched, leaving the last two hundred men to make a body of themselves, and to guard the camels; only that, if need were, they should send a hundred men to assist the last fifty.
 
At last the Tartars came on, and an innumerable company they were; how many we could not tell, but ten thousand, we thought, at the least.  A party of them came on first, and viewed our posture³, traversing the ground in the front of our line; and, as we found them within gunshot, our leader ordered the two wings to advance swiftly, and give them a salvo on each wing with their shot, which was done.  They then went off, I suppose to give an account of the reception they were like to meet with; indeed, that salute⁴ cloyed⁵ their stomachs, for they immediately halted, stood a while to consider of it, and wheeling off to the left, they gave over their design for that time, which was very agreeable to our circumstances.
 
Two days after we came to the city of Naun, or Naum; we thanked the governor for his care of us, and collected to the value of a hundred crowns, or thereabouts, which we gave to the soldiers sent to guard us; and here we rested one day.  This is a garrison⁶ indeed, and there were nine hundred soldiers kept here; but the reason of it was, that formerly⁷ the Muscovite frontiers lay nearer to them than they now do, the Muscovites having abandoned that part of the country, which lies from this city west for about two hundred miles, as desolate⁸ and unfit for use; and more especially being so very remote, and so difficult to send troops thither⁹ for its defence; for we were yet above two thousand miles from Muscovy properly so called.  After this we passed several great rivers, and two dreadful deserts; one of which we were sixteen days passing over; and on the 13th of April we came to the frontiers of the Muscovite dominions¹⁰.  I think the first town or fortress¹¹, whichever it may he called, that belonged to the Czar, was called Arguna, being on the west side of the river Arguna.
 
I could not but feel great satisfaction that I was arrived in a country governed by Christians¹³; for though the Muscovites do, in my opinion, but just deserve the name of Christians, yet such they pretend to be, and are very devout¹⁴ in their way.  It would certainly occur to any reflecting man who travels the world as I have done, what a blessing¹⁵ it is to be brought into the world where the name of God and a Redeemer is known, adored, and worshipped; and not where the people, given up to strong delusions¹⁶, worship the devil, and prostrate¹⁷ themselves to monsters, elements, horrid-shaped animals, and monstrous¹⁸ images.  Not a town or city we passed through but had their pagodas¹⁹, their idols²⁰, and their temples, and ignorant people worshipping even the works of their own hands.  Now we came where, at least, a face of the Christian¹² worship appeared; where the knee was bowed to Jesus: and whether ignorantly or not, yet the Christian religion was owned, and the name of the true God was called upon and adored; and it made my soul rejoice to see it.  I saluted²³ the brave Scots merchant with my first acknowledgment of this; and taking him by the hand, I said to him, “Blessed be God, we are once again amongst Christians.”  He smiled, and answered, “Do not rejoice too soon, countryman; these Muscovites are but an odd sort of Christians; and but for the name of it you may see very little of the substance for some months further of our journey.”—“Well,” says I, “but still it is better than paganism, and worshipping of devils.”—“Why, I will tell you,” says he; “except the Russian soldiers in the garrisons²⁴, and a few of the inhabitants of the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country, for above a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and most ignorant of pagans.”  And so, indeed, we found it.
 
We now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth that is to be found in any part of the world; we had, at least, twelve thousand miles to the sea eastward²⁵; two thousand to the bottom of the Baltic Sea westward²⁶; and above three thousand, if we left that sea, and went on west, to the British and French channels: we had full five thousand miles to the Indian or Persian Sea south; and about eight hundred to the Frozen Sea north.
 
We advanced from the river Arguna by easy and moderate journeys, and were very visibly obliged to the care the Czar has taken to have cities and towns built in as many places as it is possible to place them, where his soldiers keep garrison, something like the stationary²⁷ soldiers placed by the Romans in the remotest countries of their empire; some of which I had read of were placed in Britain, for the security of commerce, and for the lodging²⁸ of travellers.  Thus it was here; for wherever we came, though at these towns and stations the garrisons and governors were Russians, and professed²⁹ Christians, yet the inhabitants were mere³⁰ pagans, sacrificing to idols, and worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, or all the host of heaven; and not only so, but were, of all the heathens and pagans that ever I met with, the most barbarous, except only that they did not eat men’s flesh.
 
Some instances of this we met with in the country between Arguna, where we enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city of Tartars and Russians together, called Nortziousky, in which is a continued desert or forest, which cost us twenty days to travel over.  In a village near the last of these places I had the curiosity to go and see their way of living, which is most brutish and unsufferable.  They had, I suppose, a great sacrifice that day; for there stood out, upon an old stump³¹ of a tree, a diabolical³² kind of idol²¹ made of wood; it was dressed up, too, in the most filthy³³ manner; its upper garment was of sheepskins, with the wool outward; a great Tartar bonnet³⁴ on the head, with two horns growing through it; it was about eight feet high, yet had no feet or legs, nor any other proportion of parts.
 
This scarecrow was set up at the outer side of the village; and when I came near to it there were sixteen or seventeen creatures all lying flat upon the ground round this hideous³⁵ block of wood; I saw no motion among them, any more than if they had been all logs, like the idol, and at first I really thought they had been so; but, when I came a little nearer, they started up upon their feet, and raised a howl, as if it had been so many deep-mouthed hounds, and walked away, as if they were displeased³⁶ at our disturbing them.  A little way off from the idol, and at the door of a hut, made of sheep and cow skins dried, stood three men with long knives in their hands; and in the middle of the tent appeared three sheep killed, and one young bullock.  These, it seems, were sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol; the three men were priests belonging to it, and the seventeen prostrated³⁷ wretches³⁸ were the people who brought the offering, and were offering their prayers to that stock.
 
I confess I was more moved at their stupidity and brutish worship of a hobgoblin than ever I was at anything in my life, and, overcome with rage, I rode up to the hideous idol, and with my sword made a stroke at the bonnet that was on its head, and cut it in two; and one of our men that was with me, taking hold of the sheepskin that covered it, pulled at it, when, behold³⁹, a most hideous outcry ran through the village, and two or three hundred people came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour⁴⁰ for it, for some had bows and arrows; but I resolved from that moment to visit them again.  Our caravan rested three nights at the town, which was about four miles off, in order to provide some horses which they wanted, several of the horses having been lamed⁴¹ and jaded⁴² with the long march over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to put my design in execution.  I communicated it to the Scots merchant, of whose courage I had sufficient testimony⁴³; I told him what I had seen, and with what indignation I had since thought that human nature could be so degenerate⁴⁴; I told him if I could get but four or five men well armed to go with me, I was resolved to go and destroy that vile⁴⁵, abominable⁴⁶ idol, and let them see that it had no power to help itself, and consequently could not be an object of worship, or to be prayed to, much less help them that offered sacrifices to it.
 
He at first objected to my plan as useless, seeing that, owing to the gross ignorance of the people, they could not be brought to profit by the lesson I meant to teach them; and added that, from his knowledge of the country and its customs, he feared we should fall into great peril⁴⁷ by giving offence to these brutal⁴⁸ idol worshippers.  This somewhat stayed my purpose, but I was still uneasy all that day to put my project in execution; and that evening, meeting the Scots merchant in our walk about the town, I again called upon him to aid me in it.  When he found me resolute⁴⁹ he said that, on further thoughts, he could not but applaud the design, and told me I should not go alone, but he would go with me; but he would go first and bring a stout⁵⁰ fellow, one of his countrymen, to go also with us; “and one,” said he, “as famous for his zeal⁵¹ as you can desire any one to be against such devilish things as these.”  So we agreed to go, only we three and my man-servant, and resolved to put it in execution the following night about midnight, with all possible secrecy⁵².
 
We thought it better to delay it till the next night, because the caravan being to set forward in the morning, we suppose the governor could not pretend to give them any satisfaction upon us when we were out of his power.  The Scots merchant, as steady in his resolution for the enterprise as bold in executing, brought me a Tartar’s robe or gown of sheepskins, and a bonnet, with a bow and arrows, and had provided the same for himself and his countryman, that the people, if they saw us, should not determine who we were.  All the first night we spent in mixing up some combustible⁵³ matter, with aqua vitae, gunpowder⁵⁴, and such other materials as we could get; and having a good quantity of tar¹ in a little pot, about an hour after night we set out upon our expedition.
 
We came to the place about eleven o’clock at night, and found that the people had not the least suspicion of danger attending their idol.  The night was cloudy: yet the moon gave us light enough to see that the idol stood just in the same posture and place that it did before.  The people seemed to be all at their rest; only that in the great hut, where we saw the three priests, we saw a light, and going up close to the door, we heard people talking as if there were five or six of them; we concluded, therefore, that if we set wildfire to the idol, those men would come out immediately, and run up to the place to rescue it from destruction; and what to do with them we knew not.  Once we thought of carrying it away, and setting fire to it at a distance; but when we came to handle it, we found it too bulky for our carriage, so we were at a loss again.  The second Scotsman was for setting fire to the hut, and knocking the creatures that were there on the head when they came out; but I could not join with that; I was against killing⁵⁵ them, if it were possible to avoid it.  “Well, then,” said the Scots merchant, “I will tell you what we will do: we will try to make them prisoners, tie their hands, and make them stand and see their idol destroyed.”
 
As it happened, we had twine⁵⁶ or packthread enough about us, which we used to tie our firelocks together with; so we resolved to attack these people first, and with as little noise as we could.  The first thing we did, we knocked at the door, when one of the priests coming to it, we immediately seized upon him, stopped his mouth, and tied his hands behind him, and led him to the idol, where we gagged him that he might not make a noise, tied his feet also together, and left him on the ground.
 
Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another would come out to see what the matter was; but we waited so long till the third man came back to us; and then nobody coming out, we knocked again gently, and immediately out came two more, and we served them just in the same manner, but were obliged to go all with them, and lay them down by the idol some distance from one another; when, going back, we found two more were come out of the door, and a third stood behind them within the door.  We seized the two, and immediately tied them, when the third, stepping back and crying out, my Scots merchant went in after them, and taking out a composition we had made that would only smoke and stink⁵⁷, he set fire to it, and threw it in among them.  By that time the other Scotsman and my man, taking charge of the two men already bound, and tied together also by the arm, led them away to the idol, and left them there, to see if their idol would relieve them, making haste back to us.
 
When the fuze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smoke that they were almost suffocated⁵⁸, we threw in a small leather bag of another kind, which flamed like a candle, and, following it in, we found there were but four people, who, as we supposed, had been about some of their diabolical sacrifices.  They appeared, in short, frightened to death, at least so as to sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak either, for the smoke.
 
We quickly took them from the hut, where the smoke soon drove us out, bound them as we had done the other, and all without any noise.  Then we carried them all together to the idol; when we came there, we fell to work with him.  First, we daubed him all over, and his robes also, with tar, and tallow mixed with brimstone; then we stopped his eyes and ears and mouth full of gunpowder, and wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; then sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us upon him, we looked about to see if we could find anything else to help to burn him; when my Scotsman remembered that by the hut, where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage⁵⁹; away he and the other Scotsman ran and fetched their arms full of that.  When we had done this, we took all our prison............