indeed terrible to peaceful waterfolk when alive,
some must be even of an awful beauty; but
now they are mere dabs of clammy glutinous
ugliness, flabbing about wherever an old fish-wife
flings them. Near are the vegetable stalls.
Vegetables are scarce with us, save the hardy
cabbage which makes our national stchee soup.
Our asparagus plants are not bigger than
crow-quills. We import our cauliflowers. Salads
are rare. The butchers'-shops are little dark
Oriental-looking wooden sheds under a wooden
colonnade, with a painted money-box for a till.
Each establishment is worth, perhaps, ten pounds
sterling, till included. Large dogs prowl about,
but the meat is small. The lamb and veal look
still-born; ghastly little objects that never could
have enjoyed air and life. More in demand than
meat are hard tough polonies, sausages of
extraordinary appearance, pickled beetroot, damp
salt-fish, dried herrings, and salted cucumbers.
But our prime trade just now is in pigs. Every
one wants to eat a sucking-pig; no matter
even if he is not a sucking-pig. Persons of
breeding should not inquire too closely into
the ages of their friends. If some of these
Easter sucking-pigs appear like quite middle-
aged porkers, we dare say nobody will grumble
when they are boiled and served cold with
horse-radish sauce. Britons might think cold boiled
sucking-pig rather flabby, but we do not.

So we must each have a pig, and farmer or his
wife must show us a pig. We will not buy a pig
in a poke. There he lies tied up in his poke rolling
over and over, throwing himself down, treading on
himself, half stifled, and squeaking passionately.
Thousands of his race are squeaking too. Farmer
unties the sack, and before Piggy can get breath
to recover himself or show fight, he is hanging
by one leg in the air, with his head downwards.
Pig, being of an apoplectic habit of body, is
thus alarmed and rendered powerless. Then we
poke our pig to feel if he is fat. Imagine the
hysterical yells of a strong youthful pig being
tickled and poked in his ribs, and punched with
the forefinger along the loins, and in the small of
his back. Imagine ten thousand strong young
pigs being so tickled and poked at the same
time, with much poultry of varied feather
cackling their death shrieks, and you will have
a just idea of our market music.

In a hole of the wood covering of a drain,
stands a basket of violets with a woman in
sheepskin cowering beside it. She is more ugly
than a female bogie. She has a scarred noseless
face, bound up in a black cloth; no features, no
teeth, no distinct shape or figure. Her violets
are not pleasant to look at; their leaves are
white with dust, their stalks foul with mud.
Our gardens grow but poor flowers. Begrimed
and scentless as they are, however, they are
scarce and dear. Yonder, young lover, so
straight and tall, with the high lordly head and
haughty stride, is a prince and a soldier. He has
been sent by the lady of his heart to find her
the first violets of the year, and he has been,
with knightly devotion, marching about, any
raw morning this month past, on that gentle
errand: he will purchase the pick of the old
she-bundle's basket. See how contemptuously
he waves back the change for his bank-note.
We do not care for change, nor for small things
generally— quite enough in Russia. We have
not precisely a just standard of the becoming,
and we are often lavish when it would be as
fine, and much better, to be only liberal.

A water-cart is filling from a well near the
new prison. No wonder water is so dear: there
are four horses and six men sent to fetch a
single buttful of it. Presently, fourteen men
will be working with a pump and a long leather
pipe to do the work of one water-cart; and
they will take hours to lay the dust on less than
a quarter of a mile of road before the
governor-general's house. Labour is precious
among us, yet we are as wasteful of it as of our
time or our money.

A broad handsome shady walk leads from the
market-place to the cemetery. Here are the
beggars. They are seated on the ground and
read prayers for alms from great folio prayer-books
(so also they may be seen in the bazaars
of the East). Let us not teach them prayers
in vain, lest our own prayers remain unheard.
We must take off our hats respectfully and give
something with a silent blessing. In Russia we
are naturally charitable and generous, a race of
cavaliers; bearing some saintly precept mostly
in our minds, fearing the Lord and lending to
him freely. They are reverend men, too, these
beggars. Their manners are not at all suppliant.
Their long white hair is parted in the middle
and descends to their shoulders; their majestic
beards are long and well kept, their bearing
grave and proud. They more resemble the
palmers of the middle ages than the squalid
mendicants of modern times. It would be
absolutely impossible to dismiss them with a
political economy phrase from a newspaper leading
article.

We are a motley assembly. Amongst us the
highest civilisation may be seen side by side with
semi-barbarism. Minds carefully cultivated, the
most exquisite polish of manner, brilliant wit,
amazing knowledge of the world, gorgeous
palaces, splendid jewels, rich banquets, French
dresses, and ignorance, coarseness, squalor,
hunger in sheepskin. Little more than half a
century ago we were Turkish. But a Mohammedan
population seldom remains in a conquered
country. The Moors left Spain after the fall of
Boabdil; the Circassians hurried in thousands
from their mountains after the surrender of
Schamyl; the Tartars have nearly deserted the
Crimea. A few years ago, indeed, there was
still one Turkish inhabitant remaining in Russian
Bessarabia; now he is dead there is not one.
The old race of conquerors, however, although
they rode away, left a deep trace behind them.
Our habits and feelings much resemble theirs.
Our manners are patriarchal. We are fond of
adopting children into our families. We call our
servants by their christian names, and they call
us by ours, Ivan Ivanovich, plain John Johnson
on both sides. Some of us have no surnames at