t 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