f lemon," to my
amazement I was told, as I travelled off the track of railways and
sometimes on, "are an English custom!"

Tea is always taken in tumblers set in a little metal frame with a
handle. On the trains for the poorest passengers there is often hot
water, and always at stations on the way; and emigrants, as they travel,
may be said to do so teapot in hand. It is China tea and light in
colour, and, as the custom amongst the poorer classes is to put only a
moderate quantity of tea into the _tchinak_ or teapot, to begin with,
and to fill up with hot water as they go on drinking for an indefinite
time, it must be very weak indeed at the end. Not even at the start is
it strong, or what some public schoolboys call "beefy." At the end it
can hardly have even a flavour of tea about it, though they go on
drinking it quite contentedly. Across the Urals and amongst the Kirghiz
I found the custom was not to put sugar in the tea but in the mouth, and
drink the tea through it, and just above the Persian frontier jam was
taken in the same way, to flavour and sweeten the tea in the act of
drinking.

Russian houses, in the great cities, are much the same as in other
capitals, though perhaps rather more spacious and richly furnished. The
rooms for entertainment and daily use open out of each other, of course,
and the beautiful stoves of porcelain have not, as yet, given way to
central heating. Double windows in all the rooms are the rule all
through the long winter, with a small pane let in for ventilation; and
thus a cosy and comfortable sense of warmth is experienced everywhere
whilst indoors, which renders it, strange as it may seem, unnecessary to
wear, as in our own country, warm winter under-garments. Comfortably
warm by night or day, without extra clothing or extra blankets whilst
indoors, and wrapped in thick warm furs when out of doors, the winter is
not as trying in Russia as in more temperate countries. One takes a cold
bath, indeed, in that country with more enjoyment than anywhere else,
for, though the water gives an almost electric shock with its icy sting,
yet, as soon as one steps out into the warm air of the bath-room and
takes up the warm towels, the immediate reaction brings at once a glow
of pure enjoyment. There is every comfort in a Russian house, especially
in the winter.

The country house, or _datcha_, is a necessity for those who have to
live in Russia all the year round, as the cities and great town