learn from him more than can be gathered from all other foreign writers on Russia put together, and learn it in a much more available form, and to a much more efficient end, whether the search be made as a matter of study, or as a means of mere amusement.

Nothing like an extract for doing justice to a work of this nature— or rather no justice can be done to it by any other means. An extract, therefore, our readers shall have, pending their attainment of the book itself. But how to choose where all, without exception, is worth attention? If there be a matter which "comes home to the business and bosoms" of every individual of the cooking species, man, it is that of cookery; and if the Russians have one national feature more strongly impressed upon them than any other, it is their taste in regard to one particular of that oldest and most universal of the arts, their everlasting, universal, and unpronounceable schtschi. Of schtschi, then, and one or two of its confreres of the Russian cuisine, let us hear what M. Kohl has to tell us.

Let us proceed, without further introduction, to the principal and national dish of the Russians, and begin with the schstchi, that famous cabbage-soup, so lauded and so loved as far as the Russian name extends, which is as ancient as Russia, which neither political nor moral revolutions could banish from the Russian table, which daily appears in the dish of the poor, and is a constant companion of the French ragouts and pasties on the board of the rich. One would scarcely believe, when one hears Russians in foreign countries complaining that no schtschi is to be got there, and frequently see their patriotism aroused at that word into moving eloquence, or when one is told in Riga that tschin, tschai, and schtschi, are the three chief divinities of the Russians-one would scarcely believe, I say, that this highly-extolled schtschi was nothing but simple cabbage-soup.

It is, however, a remark which is continually forcing itself upon us, that it is precisely the simplest national dishes of which nations are fondest, as the Italian of his macaroni and polenta, the Englishman of his roast-beef, the Westphalian of his pumpernickel, the German of his potatoes, the Moldavian of his mamaliga, the Pole of his oatmeal, and the Russian of his schtschi, to which, indeed, most of the Russians owe decidedly the greatest part of their corporeal substance, since their muscles, nerves, bones, may be considered as in reality nothing but extract of schtschi. Schtschi and everlastingly schtschi is the principal dish of all that live and breathe between Kamtschatka and the Prussian frontier. Forty millions of men pray to the Almighty for their daily schtschi. The whole glorious Russian army of a million efficient warriors is fed chiefly upon schtschi, and schtschi is that dish so celebrated and yet so little known to historians, which, transformed into Russian flesh and blood, has, for a considerable time past, been playing so important a part in the history of the world.

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The mode of preparing this remarkable dish varies exceedingly, and there are, perhaps, more kinds of schtschi than varieties of the cabbage: but all of them are strictly confined to certain geographical limits. "Six or eight white cabbages shredded, half a pound of pearl barley, a quarter of a pound of butter, a handful of salt, and two pounds of mutton cut into small pieces, with two quarts of kwas,” make excellent schtschi, the ordinary daily schtschi of the Russian peasant. The poor, of course, omit some of the ingredients, the butter and the meat, and in the end the whole is reduced to cabbage and kwas. On the other hand, in the better sort of houses, many things are added to improve this crude foundation; broth is used instead of kwas; the meat, salted for thirty-six hours, is put under a press, cut in small pieces, and not thrown into the pot till after the cabbage boils; some artichokes cut into four are added; when the whole it dished, three table-spoonfuls of thick cream are poured over it; and thus prepared, it is thought extremely delicate.

The second sort of schtschi is the posdnoi schlschi (the fast schtschi), which is eaten during fasts. For this oil is used instead of butter, and fish instead of meat. The lower classes usually make it with a small kind of fish called snitkis, no bigger than one's thumb; they abound throughout a great part of Russia, and are boiled down entire with the cabbage to a thick pap, over which oil is poured to improve the flavour.

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The celebrated botwinja, likewise a genuine Russian dish, which is so analagous to the Russian character and taste, that it is a favourite alike with high and low. The schtschi is the key-note of Russian cookery all the year round; the botwinja an invention for summer only. It is a counterpart to teh schtschi, and contains most of the ingredients composing the other cooked and hot, but in this raw and cold-cold kwas, into which are put the shredded greens, cranberries, sliced cucumbers, and, lastly, salmon, sturgeon, or ossetrin, cut in small cubes to these the rich add a few slices of lemon, a lump of ice, to give greater coolness, and sometimes a very brown toast cut in small pieces. These and some other things constitute the exquisite botwinja; and, if you are puzzled to conceive how all the said matters can harmonize with the small beer (the kwas) in which they float, and from which they are fished, come to Russia, eat botwinja for a few years, and then you will think it an excellent and harmonious composition.

In Russia almost every hot winter dish has its cold cooling summer brother. As the botwinja answers to the schtschi, so does cold kwas to the hot sbiten; the numberless sorts of marinated fish and meats correspond with the roasted and boiled joints, and a multitude of cool acidulated beverages, made of cucumbers, honey, and all sorts of berries, with the sweetened, hot, and heating drinks of brandy, tea, &c. It is probably the climate that has introduced this strong contrast into Russian cookery, and divided it into hot and cold, just as the seasons of the year consists of an extremely hot summer, and an extremely cold winter. Each season has its peculiar soups, its peculiar poultry, its peculiar pastry; nay, you may even specify the date when many eatables first make their appearance. Thus, fruit-eating commences on the 8th of August, iceeating on Easter Sunday. Religion, which has a good deal to do with the regulation of the kitchen and table, forbids the use of these things before that time. Throughout all Russia, Saturday has different dishes from Sunday, and Wednesday and Friday as fast-days, differ again in this respect from Monday and Thursday. In other countries it is indifferent what mourning relatives set before their friends at a funeral. In Russia mourners must not partake of any other dish but rich, boiled with plums and raisins; and it must be a kolibak, a cake filled with syrups, and no other, that is broken over the head of a newborn infant. Weddings, betrothals, the Butter-week, Christmas, Easter, have all their peculiar dishes. Be it recollected that all these prescribed regulations extend to no fewer than 40 millions of men and 6,500,000 square miles. In any other country it would be no easy matter to enforce a bill of fare and a culinary code for a town of 30,000 inhabitants. with a territory of a few acres.

THE NAVAL CLUB.*

Ir the yarns, long or short, that are spun by "old sailors" in general, are to be judged of by those of "the Old Sailor" par excellence, the Naval Clubs of our club-ridden city must be about as pleasant places for landsmen to while away an idle evening as all other clubs are dull ones, and Greenwich Hospital as lively and entertaining a resort every day in the year as Greenwich Fair is on Easter Monday. Not

*The Naval Club; or, Reminiscences of Service. By M. H. Barker, Esq. (“The Old Sailor.") 3 vols.

that all "old sailors" are likely to be gifted with the yarn-spinning capacities of Mr. Barker, who is the most merry and mercurial of his class. But believing, as we do, the axiom which asserts that no man's life passes without incidents that would make its history worth recording, if the recorder did but know where to begin and where to leave off, it follows that, of all lives, a sailor's is the best worth living over again, and even better worth it for other people than for himself. In fact, it is the irresistible conviction of these "Reminiscences of Service" being for the most part realities, and not fictions, that will command for them that favour and popularity which have uniformly attended their predecessors from the same pen. Not that they are the realities of a single career, but that every leading event, or series of events, has been actually undergone, in pretty nearly the manner and form in which they are related, and that all "the old sailor" has done for them, is to make them sufficiently ship-shape to pass muster with modern readers, and given to them a consecutive interest, by connecting them together with a thread of appropriate narrative. In a word, the "Naval Club" is the only fiction of these highly entertaining volumes; and moreover, it is the only portion of them that ever fails in entertainment. The everlasting puns of Handsail-the empty catch-word of the Hatchit-the pepper (unmixed with attic salt) of Valiant—and the various other peculiarities and crotchets of the several members of the "Naval Club"-Longsplice, Oldjunk, Hawser, Bobstay, Jolly, Spanker, and the rest; all these we could well enough have dispensed with; and quite as little do we relish the unseasonable interruptions of the subordinates who are (with no very exact eye to the vraisemblable) admitted to the sittings of the club. But the stories, anecdotes, and "reminiscences of service," which form the staple of the work, are all more or less excellent and well-told, and many of them possess a force of interest, a strength of character, and a vigour and spirit of style, which nothing but the truth can communicate.

An extract or two will best show the nature of the shorter narratives, and the preliminary sketches of character; the longer and more elaborated stories it would be injustice to touch. The following brings us acquainted with honest "Joe," ci-devant cook to the worthy president of the club, now landlord of the tavern where they hold their nightly meetings, and "fight their battles o'er again."

I must not, however, forget to mention the landlord, although I have declined publishing his name. He is one of the school of former days—a sort of classical antique, but has seen very hot service in his time, as he was for many years chief cook to the worthy Admiral Valiant, and baked, boiled, and roasted for him through the several rises, from blue at the mizen to his present rank. But the greatest luxury the Admiral enjoyed—and now out comes the secretwas the devilled "drumstick" of a turkey; and he had never, through an arduous career of glory, found an individual who could so well season it to "an infernal nicety"-the veteran's own expression-as honest Joe of the patent "Jack," an instrument which the jolly tars characterized as a machine for grinding raw bullock into roast-beef.

Joe's early introduction to a knowledge in the culinary art has been variously ascribed, and to this moment remains extremely doubtful, some asserting that he owed his first education in the profession to his having been errand-boy at a "buttock or both" shop in the Gld Bailey, whilst others go still further back, and declare that he was indebted for the rudiments of the art to his maternal

parent, who kept a respectable booth for refreshing the liege subjects of the realm at all the large fairs in the neighbourhood of the metropolis. One thing, however, is certain-honest Joe got picked up by a gang during a warm press, and was sent on board a man-of-war, where he occupied that most enviable of all enviable situations-midshipman's boy. In this capacity he fagged like a lady'smaid in the dog-days, and being a capital hand at furnishing the mess-table, the caterer made him a perfect galley-slave; and Joe, by endeavouring to render his education subservient to his interests, was soon noticed by the captain's cook, who obtained him from the first-lieutenant; the midshipmen lost their favourite stews and rich sea-pies, and the captain's dinners were none the worse for Joe's useful suggestions. The cook pronounced him to be "a 'cute lad, who, under his tuteration, would become an eminent artist, and distinguish himself in the fleet." But the science of devilling was peculiarly his own-it grew to be a particular and especial nature in his composition, and his tongue was a perfect Fahrenheit in deciding the several degrees of temperature which a good devil would bear.

"Some are born great, others achieve greatness."

But Joe was not of the number of those who are born great, for he was diminutive in stature and in station; but his intellect-that is, his cooking intellect was gigantic. A whitebait or a whale would have been the same to him; and he would have fried a kraken over Etna, could a fryingpan have been procured large enough for the purpose, or have griddled a mammoth at Vesuvius, if any one would have supplied him with a gridiron of suitable dimensions.

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At the restoration of peace, after Wellington had played the very deuce with Napoleon, Admiral Valiant coiled himself up quite cozy in a snug little berth near Blackheath. I shall not mention the precise spot, but it is at no great distance from those abortions of brick-and-mortar architecture, which are stated to have their design from Sir John Vanbrugh, somewhere approximating to the summit of Maize Hill. Honest Joe retired with his patron, with only this small difference-tle latter went upon half-pay, the former retained his full pay; and never had a kitchen chimney since the days of Adam and Eve smoked with more savoury offerings to epicureanism in a constant succession of devilled drumsticks :-breakfast, devilled drumsticks-lunch, devilled drumsticks-dinner, devilled drumsticks-supper, devilled drumsticks; it was one eternal tattoo of devilled drumsticks, till the Admiral began actually to assume the appearance of one himself.

The following is the concluding portion of a terribly true description of a vessel at sea on short allowance of water.

At length daylight broke-a bright, gorgeous daylight. We saw the land about eight miles distant; and there was the promise that, in a few hours more, we should enjoy the sweet refreshment of the delicious stream. Thus whispered Hope; but, oh! how delusive was the prospect! The sun arose above the eastern horizon, the wind was gradually hushed, and in another hour the heavens and the ocean were once more calm.

"At first every one seemed determined not to believe it; but the glassy surface of the water soon made it too evident to all, and a look of fixed despair sat on each countenance; but it was not the look of quiet, sullen despairthere was marked ferocity of aspect, as if every man would lift his hand against his neighbour, and, like a tiger, longed to quaff his blood. There was a dark menacing scowl upon the brow, and a redness in the fiery fierceness of the eye that claimed no connexion with the ordinary feelings of humanity. The wild ravings of the maniac-the earnest petitions to the throne of Omnipotence for help-the curses and imprecations of the desperate-the shrieks of females, and the plaintive wail of childhood, came mingling upon the ear in frightful discord. Signals of distress were made-guns were fired-the boats were hoisted out and sent away with empty casks; but still the dreadful havoc went on; whilst, to add to the horrible bitterness of disappointment, we could see the dark clouds pass over the high peaks of the island, and the rain descend in

torrents; we could see the mountain-streams dashing from ridge to ridge, and rushing down the steep sides of the almost perpendicular rocks, whilst, racked with the keenest pangs, we were almost destitute of one drop to quench the overpowering heat. The sun rose higher in the heavens, and his scorching beams came pouring down with, to imagination, redoubled fervour. Our water was entirely gone. Many in their madness flew to the rum; and, oh! what a spectacle of horror then ensued! Numbers ran to the side of the ship next the land, and stretched their hands towards the, place where the clear element came tumbling into the ocean. They clutched their withered and forked fingers as if to grasp at the promised banquet, thrust out their shrivelled fingers and stiffened into death. Others in the wildness of their impatience, threw themselves headlong into the sea, and struck out for the shore, but the waters soon closed above their heads and they were seen no more.

For myself, all hopes were at an end; life seemed ebbing fast, and I went to my cabin as if it had been my sepulchre, and wrapped my cot about me for a winding-sheet. Insensibility, or, as I thought, a deep sleep fell upon me, and yet there were times when I could perceive the shadows of things moving and the sound of many voices blending into harmony; delicious banquets were offered to my taste; and I wandered through green fields and luxuriant meadows, by the margin of the cool transparent rivulet, in which I bathed my fevered temples and quenched the burning heat of my tongue. Bright eyes were beaming on me; and the soft notes of soothing tenderness came, like the dulcet thrillings of the harp, to pour their melody upon the soul. On first awaking from this state of mental aberration, I found myself on a comfortable couch in a neat apartment, and as all recollections of the past had faded away, when or how I came thither was enveloped in mystery. I approached the opened window, and entered on a trellised verandah that looked down upon the pinnacles of lofty mountains that seemed to hang beneath me, whilst huge chasms rent in the solid rocks, yawned fearfully on all sides. The orange and apple blossoms breathed their odours in the mountain breeze, and looked beautiful amid the green foliage. Far as the eye could reach, the ocean glistened in the sunbeams, and a small island, floating like a hillock on the waters, rose on the verge of the horizon. This, I recollected to be the island of Corvo ; and as memory resumed her functions, the truth of my situation was gradually developed; but it was not till health was restored, and strength returned, that I was made acquainted with the circumstances that had taken place after my sinking into insensibility, by which I was relieved from witnessing the dreadful events that occurred.

The ship's boats were enabled, though with much difficulty, to get the casks filled, and hastily returned on board; but the moment the water was started into the scuttle-butt, a general rush took place. The very gurgling and splashing of the element as it fell into the butt served to increase desire. From striving they came to blows, and from blows to slaughter. Madness, in its most raging mood and terrific form, ruled the moment. Children who had pushed forward amongst the rest were trampled under foot; and every feeling of humanity was outraged. The dead and dying lay in promiscuous heaps; the red stream from many wounds stained the deck-the blood from brave and noble, kind and generous hearts.

At length the boats' crews, who had somewhat slaked their thirst ashore, (though several died afterwards), succeeded in keeping the poor creatures at a distance, and proper guards were placed, who served the water out in small quantities. Scarcely had this been accomplished, when a breeze carried the ship to her anchorage, and the Portuguese evinced their benevolence by kindly administering to our wants. Myself and several other officers were removed to a country-house of the governor's, where we received the most humane and assiduous attention. My stupefaction was succeeded by delirium; a fortnight elapsed before I was restored to reason. The ship had proceeded on her des