the very summit of the crowning ramparts. These commanding stairs, with the towers by which they arc flanked, the slopes, the vaults, the arcades which sustain them, form a picture from whichsoever point of approach they are viewed.
The fair of Nijni, now become the most considerable in the world, is the rendezvous of people the least alike in person, costume, language, religion, and manners. Men from Thibet, from Bucharia, from the regions bordering upon China, come to meet Persians, Finns, Greeks, English, and Parisians: it is like the merchants' doomsday. The number of foreigners present at Nijni every day during the fair, exceeds two hundred thousand. The men who compose this yearly gathering come and go daily; but the number always continues pretty nearly the same : nevertheless, on certain days, there are at Nijni iw many as three hundred thousand at the same time. The average consumption of bread in the pacific camp amounts to four hundred thousand pounds weight per day. Except at the season of this saturnalia of trade and industry, the city is lifeless. Nijni scarcely numbers twenty thousand stationary inhabitants, who are lost in its vast streets and naked squares during the nine months that the fair- ground remains forsaken.
The fair occasions little disorder. In Russia disorder is unknown: it would be a progressive movement, for it is the child of liberty. The love of gain, i 5
178
BRIDGE OP THE OKA.
and the ever-increasing need of luxuries, felt now by even barbarous nations, cause the semi-barbarous populations who resort here from Persia and Bucharia to recognise the advantages of orderly demeanour and good faith: besides, it must be admitted that in general the Mohammedans are upright in money matters.
Though I have only been a few hours in the city, I have already seen the governor. I had several flattering letters of introduction to him: he appears hospitable, and, for a Russian, open and communicative. His name is illustrious in the ancient history of Russia — it is that of Boutourline. The Boutourlines are a family of old boyards ; a class of men that is becoming rare.
I have scarcely encountered any really dense crowd in Russia, except at Nijni, on the bridge over the Oka, the only road which leads from the city to the fair-ground, and the road also by which we approach Nijni from Yaroslaf. At the entrance of the fair you turn to the right to cross the bridge, leaving on the left the booths, and the temporary palace of the governor, a pavilion which forms a species of administrative observatory, whither he repairs every morning, and from whence he surveys all the streets, all the rows of shops, and presides over the general arrangements of the fair. The dust, the din, the carriages, the foot-passengers, the soldiers charged with maintaining order, greatly obstruct the passage of the bridge, whose use and character it is difficult at first to understand; for the surface of the water being covered by a multitude of boats, at the first glance, you suppose the river to be dry. The boats are so crowded together at the confluence of the Volga and the Oka
DIFFICULTY IN OBTAINING A LODGING. 179
that the latter river may be crossed by striding from junk to junk. I use this Chinese word because a great portion of the vessels whieh resort to Nijni bring to the fair the merchandise, more especially the tea, of China.
Yesterday, on arriving, I expected that our horses would have run over twenty individuals before reaching the quay of the Oka, which is New Nijni, a suburb that will in a few years more be very extensive.
When I had gained the desired shore, I found that many other difficulties awaited me : before everything else it was necessary to find a lodging; and the inns were full. My feldjager knocked at every door, and always returned with the same smile, ferocious by its very immobility, to tell me that he could not find a single chamber. He advised me to appeal to the hospitality of the governor; but this I was unwilling to do.
At length, arrived at the extremity of the long street that forms this suburb, at the foot of the steep hill whieh leads to the old city, and the summit of which is crowned by the Kremlin of Nijni, we perceived a coffee-house, the approach to which was obstructed by a covered public market, from whence exhaled odours that were anything but perfumes. Here I descended, and was politely received by the landlord, who conducted me through a series of apartments, all filled with men in pelisses, drinking tea and other liquors, until, by bringing me to the last room, he demonstrated to me that he had not one single chamber at liberty.
180 DIFFICULTY IN OBTAINING A LODGING.
' Yes.'
' Very good: lock the door which separates it from the other apartments, and let me have it for a bedchamber.'
The air that I breathed already suffocated me. It was a mixture of the most opposite emanations : the grease of sheep-skins, the musk of dressed leather, the blacking of boots, cabbage, which is the principal food of the peasants, coffee, tea, liqueurs, and brandy, all thickened the atmosphere. The whole was poison : but what could I do ? it was my last resource. I hoped, also, that after being cleared of its guests, swept and washed, the bad odours of the apartment would dissipate. I therefore insisted on the feldjager clearly explaining my proposal to the keeper of the coffee-house.
' I will pay you what you please ; provided you also find somewhere a lodging for my valet and my courier.'
The bargain was concluded; and here I am, quite proud of having taken by storm, in a dirty public-hoise, a room for which I have to pay more than the price of the finest apartment in the Hotel des Princes, at Paris. It is only in Russia, in a country where the whims of men supposed to be powerful, know no obstacle, that one is able to convert, in a moment, the public hall of a coffee-house into a sleeping-apartment.
My feldjager undertook to make the drinkers retire: they rose without offering the least objection, were
THE PLAGUE OF PERSIC AS.181
crowded into the next room, and the door was fastened upon them by the species of lock I have already mentioned. A score of tables filled up the chamber ` but a swarm of priests in their robes, in other words, a troop of waiters in white shirts, precipitated themselves upon the furniture, and left me with bare walls in a few moments. But what a sight then met my eyes ! Under each table, under every stool, multitudes of vermin were crawling, of a kind I have never before seen: they were black insects, about half an inch long, thick, soft, viscid, and tolerably nimble in their movements. This loathsome animal is known in a portion of Eastern Europe, in Yolhynia, the Ukraine, Russia, and a part of Poland, where it is called, I believe,
