Kings & rulers > History of Charles XII, King of Sweden

BOOK I. CHARLES XII. 1^.
ance, into a total want of all the arts and sciences,
and into such an insensibility of that want as eifcctu*
ally suppressed every exertion of industry. An an¬
cient law, which they held to be sacred, forbade them,
under pain of death, to leave their native country
without permission of their Patriarch. This law, made
with a view to preclude them from all opportunities
of becoming sensible of their slavery, was very ac*.
ceptable to a people who, in the depth of their misery
and ignorance, disdained all commerce with foreign
nations.
The era of the; Muscovites began at the creation of
the world: they reckoned up 7207 years to the be¬
ginning of the last century, without being able to as¬
sign any reason for this computation. The first day
of their year answered to the 13th of our month of
September. The reason they allege: for; this regula¬
tion is, that it is probable that God created the world
in autujnn, the season whep the fruits of the earth are
in their full maturity. Thus, the only appearances of
.knowledge which they had were foended upon gross
errors. Not one of. them ever dreamed that the au¬
tumn of Russia might possibly be the spring of an¬
other country situated ip ao opposite .climate; norjis
it long since the people at Moscow were going to burn
the.secretary ;of a Persian.,ambassador, who had fore¬
told an, eclipse of the sun. They did not so much ae
know the use of figures, but, in $11 their computations
made use of little beads strung upon brass wires: they
had no other manner of reckoning in their counting
houses, nor even in the treasury of the Czar.
Their religion .was, $pfLstili is, that,of the Greek
church, intermixed with many superstitious rites, to
which they are.the more strongly attached in propor¬
tion as they are the more ridiculous, and their burden