do not speak of this as desirable, I only note it as an existing fact: it is not all brothers who love, but all understand each other.
As to the analogy which I imagine I can in certain points discover between the Russians and the Spaniards, it is accounted for by the relations which may have originally existed between some of the Arab tribes and some of the hordes which passed from Asia into Muscovy. The Moresque architecture bears an affinity to the Byzantine, which is the model of the real Muscovite. The genius of the Asiatic wanderers in Africa could not be contrary to that of other eastern nations but recently established in Europe. History is explained by the progressive influence of races.
But for the difference in religion and the variety of manners among the people, I coidd fancy myself here on one of the most elevated and barren plains of Castile. In fact we are enduring at present the heat of Africa; for twenty years Petersburg has not known so burning a summer.
Notwithstanding the tropical heats, I see the Rus-
* The Poles are of Slavonic race. —
FUEL IN PETERSBURG.307
sians already preparing their provision of winter fuel. Boats loaded with billets of birch Mrood, the only fuel used here (for the oak is a tree of luxury), obstruct the large and numerous canals which intersect the city in every direction. It is built on the model of Amsterdam : an arm of the Neva flows through the principal streets, which in winter is filled up by the ice and snow, and in summer by the innumerable boats. The wood is conveyed from the boats in narrow carts of a primitive simplicity of construction, on which it is piled to a height which makes it resemble a moving wall. I have never once seen any of these tottering edifices fall.
The Russian people are singularly adroit: it is against the will of nature that this race of men has been driven by human revolutions towards the pole, and that it is kept there by political circumstances. He who would penetrate further into the designs of Providence, might perhaps recognise a war with the elements as the rough trial to which God has subjected a nation, destined by Him some day to rule over others. A situation demanding a severe struggle is the school of Providence.
Fuel is becoming scarce in Russia. Wood is as dear in Petersburg as in Paris. There are houses here which consume the value of nine or ten thousand francs per winter. In beholding the inroads made upon the forests we may ask, with inquietude, how will the next generation warm themselves.
If the jest be pardonable, I would advise as a measure of prudence on the part of the people who enjoy a genial climate, that they should furnish the
308ADDRESS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE.
.Russians wherewith to keep good fires. They might then less covet the southern sun.
The carts used for removing the filth and refuse of the city are small and inconvenient. With such machines a man and horse can do but little work in a day. Generally speaking, the Russians show their skill rather in their manner of using inferior implements than by the pains they take to perfect those which they have. Endowed with little power of invention, they most frequently lack the mechanical appliances suitable to the end they would attain. This people, who possess so much graee and so much facility of character, have no creative genius. Once for all, the Russians are the Romans of the north. Both people have drawn their arts and sciences from strangers. The former have intelligence, but it is an imitative and therefore ironical intelligence ; it counterfeits every thing, and imagines nothing. Ridicule is a prevailing trait in the character of tyrants and slaves. All oppressed people are given to slander, satire, and caricature; they revenge themselves for their inaction and degradation by sarcasm. The nature of the relation which exists between nations and their governments has yet to be elucidated. In my opinion, each nation has for a government the only one which it could have. I do not however pretend either to impose or expound this system. It is a labour which I leave to those who are worthier and wiser than I: my present object is the less ambitious one of describing that which has most struck me in the streets and on the quays of Petersburg.
Several parts of the Neva are entirely covered with boats of hay. These rural objects are larger
THE PLASTERERS.
309
than many houses; they are hung with straw mattings, which give them the picturesque appearance of oriental tents or Chinese junks.
The trade of plasterer is important in a city the interior of whose houses is a prey to swarms of vermin, and the exterior spoilt in appearance every winter. The manner in which the Russian plasterers perform their work is curious. There are only three months in the year during which they can work outside the houses ; the number of artificers is therefore considerable, and they are found at the corner of every street. These men, suspended at the peril of their life on little planks attached to a long hanging cord, seem to support themselves like insects against the edifices which they rewhiten.
In the provinces they whitewash the towns through which the emperor may have to pass: is this an honour rendered to the sovereign, or do they seek to deceive him as regards the wretchedness of the land ? In general the Russians carry about their persons a disagreeable odour, which is perceptible at a considerable distance. The higher classes smell of musk, the common people of cabbage, mixed with exhalations of onions and old greasy perfumed leather. These scents never vary.
It may be supposed from this, that the thirty thousand subjects of the emperor who enter his palace on the 1st of January, to offer him their felicitations, and the six or seven thousand that we shall see to-morrow pressing into the interior of the palace of Peterhoff, in honour of their empress, must leave on their passage a formidable perfume.
Among all the women of the lower orders whom I
о
%
10 DISPROPORTION OF WOMEN TO MEN.
have hitherto met in the streets, not a single one has appeared to me to possess beauty, and the greater number among them are ugly and dirty to a degree that is repulsive. Astonishment is excited by the recollection that they are the wives and mothers of men with features so fine and regular, profiles so perfectly Grecian, and forms so elegant and supple as those seen among even the lowest classes of the nation. There are no where old men so handsome, nor old women so hideous, as in Russia. I have seen few of the citizens' wives. One of the singularities of Petersburg is, that the number of women in proportion to that of the men is less than in other capitals. I am assured that the former do not at the utmost form more than a third of the total population of the city. Their scarcity causes them to be only too highly prized. They attract so eager an attention that there are few who risk themselves alone after a certain hour in the streets of the less populous quarters. In the capital of a country altogether military, and among a people addicted to drunkenness, this discreetness appears to me sufficiently well founded. At all times the Russian women show themselves less in public than the French: it is not necessary to go far back to find the time when they passed their lives shut up like the women of Asia. This reserve, the remembrance of which still lingers, recalls, like so many other Russian customs, the origin of the people. It contributes to the dnlness of the streets and the fetes of Petersburg. The finest sights in this citv are the parades,
