vers who insist on being paid thirty per
cent. extra to-day, "because it is the Empress's birthday."...

_Aug. 5th._--After dinner we went by arrangement to Mr.
Penny, and accompanied him to see a Russian wedding. It was
a most interesting ceremony. There was a large choir, from
the cathedral, who sang a long and beautiful anthem before
the service began; and the deacon (from the Church of the
Assumption) delivered several recitative portions of the
service in the most magnificent bass voice I ever heard,
rising gradually (I should say by less than half a note at a
time if that is possible), and increasing in volume of sound
as he rose in the scale, until his final note rang through
the building like a chorus of many voices. I could not have
conceived that one voice could have produced such an effect.
One part of the ceremony, the crowning the married couple,
was very nearly grotesque. Two gorgeous golden crowns were
brought in, which the officiating priest first waved before
them, and then placed on their heads--or rather the unhappy
bridegroom had to wear _his_, but the bride, having
prudently arranged her hair in a rather complicated manner
with a lace veil, could not have hers put on, but had it
held above her by a friend. The bridegroom, in plain evening
dress, crowned like a king, holding a candle, and with a
face of resigned misery, would have been pitiable if he had
not been so ludicrous. When the people had gone, we were
invited by the priests to see the east end of the church,
behind the golden gates, and were finally dismissed with a
hearty shake of the hand and the "kiss of peace," of which
even I, though in lay costume, came in for a share.

One of the objects of the tour was to see the fair at Nijni Novgorod,
and here the travellers arrived on August 6th, after a miserable
railway journey. Owing to the breaking down of a bridge, the
unfortunate passengers had been compelled to walk a mile through
drenching rain.

We went to the Smernovaya (or some such name) Hotel, a
truly villainous place, though no doubt the best in the
town. The feeding was very good, and everything else very
bad. It was some consolation to find that as we sat at
dinner we furnished a subject of the liveliest interest to
six or seven waiters, all dressed in white tunics, belted at
the waist,