the buildings.

The peculiarity of this Makary Fair is that nothing is sold by sample,
in modern fashion; the whole stock of goods is on hand, and is delivered
at once to purchasers. The taciturn, easy-going merchants in those
insignificant-looking shops of the Gostinny Dvor "rows," and, to a small
extent, in the supplementary town which has sprung up outside the canal,
set the prices for tea and goods of all sorts all over Russia and
Siberia for the ensuing year. Contracts for the future are dated, and
last year's bills fall due, at "Makary." It is hard to realize.

All the firms with whose shops we had been familiar in Petersburg and
Moscow had establishments here, and, at first, it seemed not worth while
to inspect their stocks, with which we felt perfectly acquainted. But we
soon discovered that our previous familiarity enabled us to distinguish
certain articles which are manufactured for the "Fair" trade
exclusively, and which are never even shown in the capitals. For
example, the great porcelain houses of St. Petersburg manufacture large
pipe-bowls, ewers (with basins to match) of the Oriental shape familiar
to the world in silver and brass, and other things, all decorated with a
deep crimson bordering on magenta, and with gold. The great silk houses
of Moscow prepare very rich and very costly brocades of this same deep
crimson hue, besprinkled with gold and with tiny bouquets of bright
flowers, or in which the crimson is prominent. They even copy the large,
elaborate patterns from the robes of ancient Doges of Venice. All these,
like the pipes and ewers, are made to suit the taste of customers in
Bokhara and other Eastern countries, where a man's rank is, to a certain
degree, to be recognized by the number and richness of the _khalati_
which he can afford to wear at one time. This is one of the points in
which the civilization of the East coincides very nearly with the
civilization of the West. The _khalat_ is a sort of dressing-gown, with
wide sleeves, which is girt about the waist with a handsome shawl; but
it would strike a European that eight or ten of these, worn one on top
of the other, might conduce to the preservation of vanity, but not to
comfort, in the hot countries where the custom prevails. The Bokhariots
bring to the Fair _khalati_ of their own thin, strong silk, in hues more
gaudy than those of the rainbow and the peacock combined, which are
always lined with pretty green and white chintz, and can