and when this, which is supposed to operate as a charm is ended, the choice must be made, which is done by dropping a handkerchief on the ground before the elect, who, taking up the handkerchief, enters the circle, and places it on the shoulders of her partner. They then move about together, chanting an appropriate stanza. Having finished their song, the couple give each other a kiss, when the first person unites with the ring, while the second remains in the middle, where, after the same ceremonies, she chooses another partner, and is herself emancipated. Thus the game proceeds till all the players have had their turn in the ring.

The game of Czar is something similar. It commences with a choral song by a circle of players. After the first chant is over, the Czar is called upon by the choir to choose a wife -a king's daughter. Accordingly, one is named by the Czar, and he endeavours to seize her, but she tries to escape outside the ring. . The Czar pursues her, and after she has evaded him for some time, succeeds in making her a captive. He then leads her into the midst of the circle, and the company begin a chant,

describing their mutual duties towards each other. The princess is admonished not to fly from the Czar, but to respect and bow to him; and, accordingly, she instantly makes a low curtsey to the monarch. After this, she is ordered to jump; and this she must also do, as well as anything she may be commanded. Then the Czar is addressed, and admonished to treat this king's daughter well, and not to upbraid her, nor to beat her, but to love and kiss her. The Czar, in proof of his readiness to fulfil these conditions, immediately gives the princess a kiss, which she returns, in token of her obedience and love. This terminates the career of the two actors, and their places are taken by others.

The game of Boyar is, with some slight variation, conducted in the same way. Indeed most of the games of the Berezovians terminate in kisses. All penalties for forfeits and for the recovery of them are thus discharged, kisses being established as the standard medium of exchange.

These amusements were protracted till four o'clock in the morning, at which hour the guests sat down to a plentiful supper. The proceed

ings had frequently been interrupted by various masks, and persons in disguise, who forming no part of the invited company, seemed to have good-naturedly come in to make a display of their costumes; and after walking for a while about the apartments, retired unknown.

At this New Year's assembly I made a new acquaintance, in the person of a functionary, named Slobodski, a judge of the Berezov district. He was by name as well as by birth a Pole. He still continued a Roman Catholic; but having been for a number of years in the service, he had forgotten the customs and even the language of his native country.

The day preceding the eve of Twelth Night, that is the 4th. of January, is the last allowed by the Church for the favourite diversion of masks, and on this closing day the public outdid all the others in the variety and splendour of their costumes. Some persons appeared seized by madness. I saw with my own eyes a dame of sixty, dance on a large shovel (lopata), her grey, dishevelled hair covering her face instead of a mask-conduct which not only struck me as a disgrace to her age, but which painfully recalled to my memory what ancient

tradition recorded of the revels of the witches on the Bald Mountain (Lysa Gora)*-filling my mind with horror and aversion.

I here likewise saw engaged in these mad revels, a mother who but a few weeks ago had lost her daughter, her only child; over whose bier I had myself shed tears deeply compassionating the parent, whose wounds I had thought to be so deep as to remain for ever incurable. Yet now she presented a spectacle as unsuited to her age as to her position-a breach of good feeling at which I could not but be shocked. At length all this madness came to an end, and was followed by a fast-day-the eve of TwelfthNight.

*Lysa Gora, meaning literally Bald Mountain, and according to traditions, it was in Poland what the Blocksberg was in Germany-a spot where witches anciently held their assemblies. The Polish witches used to ride to the rendezvous through the air on shovels, while the German rode on broomsticks. The Lysa Gora is celebrated in Polish history as the site of a temple devoted to a Slavonic deity. Subsequently, on the conversion of the Poles to Christianity, a church, called the Holy Cross, was built on the spot, with a monastery of the Benedictines, and both these edifices are still in existence.-ED.

Early next morning—that is, on the 5th of January-just as we were getting up, our landlady entered our apartment, holding in one hand a vase filled with holy water, and a sprinkling brush in the other. Astonished at this apparition, I asked what it meant ; but without suffering a word to escape her lips, she commenced sprinkling the holy water in all directions. First she threw it on the walls and in the corners of the room; afterwards she crept under the beds and the sofa; and then climbed up the stove, and behind it--and so, successively, to the innermost recesses and crevices of the apartments, besprinkling them all copiously with the contents of her vessel. We soon saw that the formula would not admit of her gratifying our curiosity by a single word until she had performed what she had to do, and therefore we waited the result in silence. When the sprinkling was finished, she began to explain her proceedings.

"You have," said she, "received masks in your apartments, and with the masks devils intruded into the house; for, without their aid, how could the maskers turn round and dance as they did?" She then further informed us

VOL. II.

M