Note (return) — AMMALÁT BEK.

The chief of these is, without doubt, the difficulty and novelty of the language, and the unfortunate facility of travelling over the beaten track—from St Petersburg to Moscow, and from Moscow, perhaps, to Nijny Nóvgorod, without any acquaintance with that language. The foreigner may enjoy, during a visit of the usual duration, the hospitality for which the higher classes are so justly celebrated; but his association with the nobility will be found an absolute obstacle to the making even a trifling progress in the Russian language; which, though now regaining a degree of attention from the elevated classes,1 too long denied to it by those with whom their native tongue was an unfashionable one—he would have no occasion at all to speak, and not even very frequent opportunities of hearing.