sometimes added. These dwellings must be warm, but their appearance is cheerless. The rooms are dark, and tainted for want of air. They have no beds; in summer the inmates sleep on benches which form a divan around the Avails of the chamber, and in winter, on the stove, or on the floor around it; in other words, a Russian peasant encamps all his life. The word
In passing through Great Novgorod I saw none of the ancient edifices of that city, which was for a long time a republic, and which became the cradle of the Russian empire. I was fast asleep when we drove through it. If I return to Germany by Wilna and Warsaw, I shall neither have seen the Volkof, that river which was the tomb of so many citizens — for the turbulent republic did not spare the life of its children, — nor yet the Church of Saint Sophia, with which is associated the memory of the most glorious events of Russian history, before the devastation and final subjection of Novgorod by Ivan IV., that model of all modern tyrants.
I had heard much of the mountains of Valdai, which the Russians pompously entitle the Muscovite Switzerland. I am approaching this city, and, for the last thirty leagues, have observed that the surface of the soil has become uneven, though not mountainous. It is indented with numerous small ravines, where the road is so formed that we mount and descend the declivities at a gallop. It is only when changing horses that time is lost, for the Russian hostlers are slow in harnessing and putting-to.
The peasants of this canton wear a cap, broad and
COSTUME OF ТПЕ PEASANTRY.245
flat at the top, but fitting very closely round the head; it resembles a mushroom ; a peacock's feather is sometimes twisted round the band;, and when the men wear a hat, the same ornament is also adopted. Instead of boots they most commonly have plats of reeds, woven by the peasants themselves, and worn as leggings fastened with packthread laces. They look better in sculpture than on the living man. Some ancient statues prove the antiquity of the attire.
The female peasants are rarely to be seen.* ДУе met ten men for one woman. Such as I have noticed wear a dress that indicates a total absence of female vanity. It consists of a species of dressing-gown, very wide and loose, which fastens round the neck and reaches to the ground. A large apron of the same length, fastened across the shoulders by two short straps, completes their rustic and ungainly costume. They nearly all go barefoot; the wealthier wear the clumsy boots I have already described. Indian handkerchiefs or other pieces of stuff are bound closely round the head. The real national e female head-dress is only worn on holydays. It is the same as that of the ladies of the court; a species, namely, of shako, open at the top, or rather a very lofty diadem, embroidered with precious stones when worn by the ladies, and with flowers in gold or silver thread when on the heads of the peasants. This crown has an imposing effect, and resembles no other kind of head-dress, unless it be the tower of the goddess Cybele.
The peasant women are not the only Russian
* But little more than a hundred years ago the Russian women never went abroad.
246RUSSIAN LADIES EN DESHABIL·LE.
females who neglect their persons. I have seen ladies whose dress when travelling was of the most slovenly character. This morning, in a post-house where I stopped to breakfast, I encountered an entire family whom I had left in Petersburg, where they inhabit one of those elegant palaces which the Russians are so proud of showing to foreigners. There, these ladies were splendidly attired in the Paris fashions ; but at the inn where, thanks to the new accident that had happened to my carriage, I was overtaken by them, they were altogether different persons. So whimsically were they metamorphosed that I could scarcely recognise them : the fairies had become sorceresses. Imagine young ladies whom you had only seen in elegant society, suddenly reappearing before you in a costume worse than that of Cinderella ; dressed in old nightcaps that might have once been white, extremely dirty gowns, neck-handkerchiefs that resembled ragged napkins, and old shoes in which they walked slipshod. It was enough to make a man fancy himself bewitched.
The fair travellers were attended by a considerable retinue. The multitude of lacqueys and waiting-women, muffled in old clothes still more loathsome than those of their mistresses, moving about in all directions, and keeping up an infernal noise, completed the illusion that it was the scene of a meeting of witches. They screamed and scampered here and there, drank and stuffed themselves with eatables in a manner that was sufficient to take away the appetite of the most hungry beholder; and yet these ladies could complain before me in an affected manner of the dirtiness of the post-house,—as if they had any right to find fault with slovenliness. I could have
SMALL IIUSSIAN TOWNS.2-17
imagined myself among a camp of gipsies, except that gipsies are without pretence or affectation. I, who pique myself on not being fastidious when travelling, find the post-houses established on this road by the government, that is, by the Emperor, sufficiently comfortable. I consider that I have fared well in them : a man may even sleep at night, provided he can dispense with a bed.; for this nomade people are acquainted only with the Persian carpet or the sheep-skin, or a mat stretched upon a divan under a tent, whether of canvass or of wood, for in either case it is a souvenir of the bivouac. The use of a bed, as an indispensable article of furniture, has not yet been recognised by the people of Slavonian race : beds are rarely seen beyond the Oder. Sometimes, on the borders of the little lakes which are scattered over the immense marsh called Russia, a distant town is to be seen ; a cluster, namely, of small houses built of grey boards, which, reflected in the water, produce a very picturesque effect. I have passed through two or three of these hives of men. but I have only particularly noticed the town of Zimagoy. It consists of a rather steep street of wooden houses, and is a league in length; at some distance, on the other side of one of the creeks of the little lake on which it stands, is seen a romantic convent, whose white towers rise conspicuously above a forest of firs, which appeared to me loftier and more thickly grown than any that I have hitherto observed in Russia. When I think of the consumption of wood in this country, both for the construction and the warming of houses, I am astonished that any forests remain in the land. All that M 4
248TORJECK RUSSIAN LEATHER.
I had hitherto seen were miserable thickets, scattered here and there, which could only serve to interfere with the culture of the soil.
I resume my pen at Torjeck. It is impossible to see far on plains, because every object is a barrier to the eye : a bush, a rail, or a building conceals leagues of land between itself and the horizon. It may also be observed that, here, no landscape engraves itself on the memory, no sites attract the eye, not one picturesque line is to be discovered. On a surface void of all objects or variety, there should at least be the hues of the southern sky ; but they also arc wanting in this part of Russia, where nature must lie viewed as an absolute nullity.
What they call the mountains of Valdai are a series of declivities and acclivities as monotonous as the heathy plains of Novgorod.
The town of Torjeck is noted for its manufacture!? of leather. Here are made those beautifully-wrought boots, those slippers embroidered with gold and silver thread, which arc the delight of the
Torjeck is also celebrated for its chieken fricassees. The Emperor, stopping one day at a little inn of this
