But what signified all the astonishment and reflection of thoughts?  Thus it was, and I saw it before my eyes; and there was no room to wonder at it, or think it impossible.  All my admiration turned to rage; and I rode up to the image or monster, call it what you will, and with my sword cut the bonnet that was on its head in two in the middle, so that it hung down by one of the horns; and one of our men that was with me, took hold of the sheep skin that covered it, and pulled at it, when, behold, a most hideous outcry and howling ran through the village, and two or three hundred people came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour for it; for we saw 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 lamed and jaded with the badness of the way, and our long march over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to put my design in execution.  I communicated my project to the Scots merchant, of Moscow, of whose courage I had had a sufficient testimony, as above.  I told him what I had seen, and with what indignation I had since thought that human nature could be so degenerate.  I told him, I was resolved, if I could get but four or five men well armed to go with me, to go and destroy that vile, abominable idol; to 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 laughed at me:  said he, “Your zeal may be good; but what do you propose to yourself by it?”—­“Propose!” said I:  “to vindicate the honour of God, which is insulted by this devil-worship.”—­“But how will it vindicate the honour of God,” said he, “while the people will not be able to know what you mean by it, unless you could speak to them too, and tell them so? and then they will fight you too, I will assure you, for they are desperate fellows, and that especially in defence of their idolatry.”—­“Can we not,” said I, “do it in the night, and then leave them the reasons in writing, in their own language?”—­“Writing!” said he; “why, there is not in five nations of them one man that knows any thing of a letter, or how to read a word in any language, or in their own.”—­“Wretched ignorance!” said I to him:  “however, I have a great mind to do it; perhaps nature may draw inferences from it to them, to let them see how brutish they are to worship such horrid things.”—­“Look you, Sir,” said he; “if your zeal prompts you to it so warmly, you must do it; but in the next place, I would have you consider these wild nations of people are subjected by force to the czar of Muscovy’s dominion; and if you do this, it is ten to one but they will come by thousands to the governor of Nertzinskay, and complain, and demand satisfaction; and if he cannot give them satisfaction, it is ten to one but they revolt; and it will occasion a new war with all the Tartars in the country.”