the Russian custom-house forbids the exportation with extreme severity.
Another town which attracted my attention among the suburbs, was that of barked timber. Like the faubourgs of Vienna, these secondary cities are larger than the principal. The one of which I speak serves as a magazine for the wood, brought from Siberia, destined to form the wheels of the Russian carts, and the collars of the horses — those semicircles formed of a single piece of bended wood, which are seen fixed in so picturesque a manner at the extremities of the shafts, and which rise above the heads of all the shaft-horses in the empire. The store necessary to furnish these wheels and collars to 'Western Russia forms here, mountains of wood, of which our timber-yards at Paris cannot give even an idea.
THE CITY OF IKON.191
Another city, and it is, I believe, the most extensive and curious of all, serves as a depot for the iron of Siberia. I walked for a quarter of a league under galleries, in which are to be found, artistically arranged, every known species of iron bar, grating, and wrought iron; pyramids built of the utensils of husbandry and house-keeping, magazines full of vessels of cast-iron ; in short, a city of the metal which forms one of the principal sources of the wealth of the empire. The sight of sueh wealth made me shudder. How many criminals must it not have required to dig up those treasures ? and if there are not criminals enough in that subterranean world which produces iron, their number is made up by the unfortunate victims of despotism. The system which regulates the miners of the Ural would be a curious subject of inquiry, if it were permitted, to foreigners. But the means of pursuing this study would be as difficult for an European from the West as the journey to Mecca is for a Christian.
All these towns form only ehapels-of-ease to the principal fair, round which, as a common centre, they extend without any plan or order. Their outer, or general cireumferen.ee, would equal that of the larger European capitals. A dajr would not afford sufficient time to pass through all the temporary suburbs. Amid sueh an abyss of riches it is impossible to see everything; the spectator is obliged to select.
I must abridge my descriptions. In Russia we resign ourselves to monotony ; it is a condition of existence : but in France, where I shall be read, I have no right to expect the reader to submit to it with the same 2;00d grace that I do here. He has not the
192THE CITIES OF WOOL AND FUES.
same obhgation to be patient as he would have if he had travelled a thousand leagues to learn the practice of that virtue of the vanquished.
I forgot to notice a city of cashmere wool. In seeing this vile, dusty hair, bound in enormous bales, I thought of the beautiful shoulders that it would one day cover; the splendid attires that, when transformed into shawls, it would complete.
I saw also a city of furs, and another of potash. I use this word city purposely ; it alone can give an idea of the extent of the various depots which surround the fah`, and which invest it with a character of grandeur that no other fair will ever possess.
Such a commercial phenomenon could only be produced in Russia. To create a fair like Nijni requires that there should be an extreme desire for luxuries among tribes still half barbarous, living in countries separated by incommensurable distances, without prompt or easy means of communication, and where the inclemency of the seasons isolate the population during a great part of the year. The combination of these, and doubtless many other circumstances which I do not discern, could alone induce commercial people to submit to the difficulties, expenses, and personal fatigues of annually resorting, and of bringing all the riches of the soil and of industry to one single point of the country, at a fixed season. The time may be predicted, and I think it is not far distant, when the progress of material civilisation in Russia will greatly diminish the importance of the fair of Nijni, at present, as I have already said, the largest in the world.
In a suburb, separated by an arm of the Oka, is a
SALT FISH FttOM THE CASPIAN.19o
Persian village, the shops of which are filled exclusively with Persian merchandise. Among these objects I more particularly admired the carpets, which appeared magnificent, the raw silk, and the termo-lama, a species of silk-cashmere, manufactured, they say, only in Persia.
The forms and dress of the Persians do not greatly strike in this country, where the indigenous population is itself Asiatic, and preserves traces of its origin.
T also traversed a city destined solely as a receptacle for the dried and salted fish wThich are sent from the Caspian Sea for the Russian Lents.* The Greek devotees are great consumers of these aquatic mummies. Four months of abstinence among the Muscovites enriches the Mohammedans of Persia and Tar-tary. This city of fishes is situated on the borders of the river: some of the fish are piled upon earth, the remainder lay within the holds of the vessels that brought them. The dead bodies, heaped together in millions, exhale, even in the open air, a disagreeable perfume. Another division forms the city of leather, an article of the first importance at Nijni; as enough is brought there to supply the consumption of all the West of Russia.
Another is the city of furs. The skins of every animal may be seen there, from the sable, the blue fox, and certain bear skins — to obtain a pelisse of which costs twelve thousand francs,—to the common foxes and wolves, which cost nothing. The keepers of the treasures make themselves tents for the night with their merchandise, savage lairs, the aspect of
* There are four Lents in the Greek chureh. —
VOL, III.К
194LAZZAEONIS OF THE NORTH.
which is picturesque. These men, although the} inhabit cold countries, live on little, clothe lightly, and sleep in the open air in fine weather. They are the true lazzaronis of the north, though less gay, witty, or buffoonish, and more dirty than those of Naples; because, to the uncleanliness of their persons is added that of their garments, which they never take off.
What I have already written will serve to give an idea of the exterior of the fair: the interior, I repeat, is much less interesting. Without, are ears and trucks moving amid a crowd where reign disorder, cries, songs, and, in short, liberty : within are regularity, silence, solitude, order, the police, and, in one word, Russia! Immense files of houses, or rather stalls, separate about a dozen long and broad streets, which terminate in a Russian church and in twelve Chinese pavilions. The united length of all the streets and alleys of the fair, properly so called, and without speaking of the faubourgs, is ten leagues.
The Emperor Alexander, after having selected the new ground for the fair, ordered the necessary works for its establishment, but he never saw it. He was ignorant of the immense sums that had to be added to his budget to make this low land fitted to the use for which it was destined. By means of amazing efforts and enormous expenditure the fair is now habitable during summer, which is all that is required for commerce. But it is not the less badly situated : being rendered dusty or miry by the first ray of sun, or smallest rain, and remaining unhealthy at all times; which is no small evil for the merchants obliged to sleep above their magazines for the space of six weeks.
BADLY CHOSEN SITE.
195
