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The hospitable reception which travellers in general meet with in this country
(and which I as a foreigner and from my recommendations have more particularly
met with) was understood, though nothing of the kind mentioned, in
here Mr Davidoff's letter. He is at present at Moscow his usual residence, his house
here, his Servants, Table Equipages & c I am at present Master of. If you are not
engaged some day next week and will come and take a dinner or supper with me
whichever is most convenient, I should be very glad to see you. I mention it only least
hearing that nobody comes to the table here without my express invitation, your
bashfulness might deprive me of the pleasure of your company. Besides Soups
you will find every day Beef, Mutton & Pork, dressed each in several different ways, also Geese
ducks & fowls. You must not however critisize the etiquette in serving up
the poultry, or find fault with the sauses. Don't make it a tea-table-talk
at your return if you should see one dish containing a Goose and a fowl
another a duck and a fowl laid head to tail or one up on end against the
other, all shrunk by the heat of the oven to half their former size, and the dry remains
of the flesh ready to drop from the bones at the first touch, dry I mean only on the
inside for the outside shines from the oiled butter in which the almost swim.
You love pastry, you will find some of different sorts or rather of in different shapes; and a
great abundance of each. With such fare however, by the assistance of Champaign
other French wine and English beer you may be able to exist for a single day.
The wines are brought about 2,000 versts overland. All together in so much as I have
seen of this same Country Siberia one may find I have always found something more than the bare necessities
of life. at Solikamskaja a town further to the northward though without
the boundaries of Siberia where poor abbe Chappe was near being stifled in a bath
into which other<add> people <add> would go for pleasure, I saw besides other hot house plants a five hundred as
fair Orange & lemon trees as I ever saw anywhere. They are remarkably well trained
by a Russian Gardener who presented me with a couple of lemons just plucked which
though small were exceedingly good. The Abbe speaks of these hot houses as
being then in line with the Iron & salt fabricks in the possession of Mr Davidoff, at present
he they belong to a Mr Jurchininoff. By the bye what an infamous, malicious,
and lying work that is of the Abbe's ! Here you read the antidote to it? it is
said to be written by the Princess Dashcoff who was lately in England. Her criticisms
are in general, as far as I have been able to inform myself, exceedingly just; but
now & then her partiality for her country carries her too far.
May 3rd This letter has been lying on a table which stands before me what
little time in the day I have to sit down and yet I have not been able to
add anything to it since the date of the former part of it. I have been
in the mean time about 70 versts from here to a wharf in the river Chesawry,
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Identifier: | JB/539/169/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
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1781-??-?? |
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539 |
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169 |
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002 |
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Correspondence |
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Samuel Bentham |
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