n the very curbstone. The signs of the fur stores,
with their odd pictures of peasant coats and fashionable mantles, add an
advertisement of black sheepskins which precisely resemble rudely
painted turtles. In the broad, place-like street surged a motley, but
silent and respectful crowd. A Russian crowd always is a marvel of
quietness,--as far down as the elbows, no farther! Along the middle of
the place stood rows of rough tables, boxes, and all sorts of
receptacles, containing every variety of bread and indescribable meats
and sausages. Men strolled about with huge brass teapots of _sbiten_ (a
drink of honey, laurel leaves, spices, etc.), steaming hot. Men with
trays suspended by straps from their necks offered "delicious" snacks,
meat patties kept hot in hot-water boxes, served in a gaudy saucer and
flooded with hot bouillon from a brass flask attached to their girdles
behind; or sandwiches made from a roll, split, buttered, and clapped
upon a slice of very red, raw-looking sausage, fresh from the water-box.
But we did not feel hungry just then, or thirsty.

"There are but two genuine Russian titles," said the count, as we walked
among the merchants, where the women were dressed like the men in
sheepskin coats, and distinguished only by a brief scrap of gay
petticoat, and a gay kerchief instead of a cap on the head, while some
of the dealers in clothing indulged in overcoats and flat caps with
visors, of dark blue cloth. "Now, if I address one of these men, he will
call me _batiushka_, and he will call you _matushka_."*

* A respectfully affectionate diminutive, equivalent to _dear little
father, dear little mother_.

We began to price shoes, new and old, and so forth, with the result
which the count had predicted.

"You can get very good clothing here," the count remarked, as a man
passed us, his arm passed through the armholes of a pile of new vests.
"These mittens," exhibiting the coarse, white-fingered mittens which he
wore, piles of the same and stockings to match being beside us, "are
very stout and warm. They cost only thirty kopeks. And the other day, I
bought a capital shirt here, for a man, at fifty kopeks" (about
twenty-five cents).

I magnanimously refrained from applying to that shirt the argument which
had been used against my suggestion in regard to giving bread. This
market goes on every day in the year, hot or cold, rain, sun, or shine.
It is a model of neatness. Roofs improvised from scraps of