almost invariably of this form; and the peasants not only lie
and sleep upon it as a matter of course, but even get inside and
use it as a bath. Not that they fill their stoves with water--that
would be rather difficult. But the Russian bath is merely a room
paved with stone slabs and heated like an oven, in which the bather
stands to be rubbed and lathered, and to have buckets of water poured
over him, or thrown at him, by naked attendants; and accordingly a
stove makes an excellent bath on a small scale. As a general rule,
every row of huts has one or more baths attached to it, which the
inhabitants support by subscription; but when this is not the case,
the peasant, after carefully raking out the ashes, creeps into
the hot _peitchka_, and is soon bathed in his own perspiration.
He would infallibly be baked alive but for the pailfuls of water
with which he soon begins to cool his heated skin. Thanks, however,
to this precaution, he issues from the fiery furnace uninjured,
and, it is to be hoped, benefited.

[Illustration: THE RED SQUARE, MOSCOW.]

When a stove is being heated, the port-holes are kept carefully
shut, to prevent the egress of carbonic-acid gas. But after the
wood has become thoroughly charred, and every vestige of flame
has disappeared, the chimney is closed on a level with the garret
floor, the covers are removed from the apertures in the side of
the stove, and the hot air is allowed to penetrate freely into
the room; which, if enough wood has been put into the _peitchka_,
and the lid of the chimney closes hermetically, will, by this one
fire, be kept warm for twelve or fourteen hours.

Occasionally it happens that the port-holes are opened while there
still flickers a little blue flame above the whitening embers.
In this case there is death in the stove. The carbonic-acid gas,
which is still proceeding from the burning charcoal, enters the
room, and produces asphyxia, or at all events some of its symptoms.
If you have not time, or if you are already too weak, to open the
door when you find yourself attacked by _ougar_ (as the Russians
call this gas), you had better throw the first thing you have at
hand through the window; and the cold air, rushing rapidly into the
room, will save you. A foreigner unaccustomed to the hot apartments
of Russia will scarcely perceive the presence of _ougar_ until he
is already seriously affected by it; and in this manner the son
of the Persian ambassador lost his li