mask, but the
window-pane remains open.... A keen sensation of cold and of intolerable
itchings in the hands and face awakens me; day has dawned, and the
marshes lie before me in all their splendid colouring, but I have paid
dearly for my imprudence; every part of my face which my mask touched in
the position in which I fell asleep has been stung a thousand times
through the meshes of hair by thousands of probosces and suckers athirst
for my blood--forehead and chest and chin are grotesquely swollen. I do
not know myself. My wrist, exposed between the glove and the edge of the
sleeve, is ornamented with a regular swelling like a bracelet all round
the arm; in a word, wherever the enemy has been able to penetrate, he
has wrought indescribable ravage....

"At the next posting-house, I have the satisfaction of seeing that my
travelling-companions have not escaped better than myself, and, thanks
to the vinegar and water bandages we are forced to apply, we resemble,
as we sit at the breakfast table, an ambulatory hospital!"

The Baraba marshes measure 250 miles in breadth, and in length extend
over eight degrees of latitude (from the 52nd to the 60th); a road has
been carried across them, consisting of trunks of fir trees fastened
together and covered with clay, but it is not very substantial.

Abandoning the steppes and forests of Western Siberia, our travellers
crossed the great Ural range of mountains, made their way to Perm, and
thence to the Volga. Having disposed of all their vehicles, they
transformed themselves into European tourists, with no other
incumbrances than boxes and portmanteaus. They traversed Rayan, and in
due time arrived at Nijni-Novgorod, just at the season of its famous
fair, which in importance equals that of Leipzig, and in variety of
interest surpasses it. To the observer it offers a wonderful collection
of different types of humanity. There you may see assembled all the
strange races of the East, elbowing Russians, and Jews, and Cossacks,
and the traders of almost every European nation. Among the shows and
spectacles, Madame de Bourboulon was most struck by a performance of
Shakespeare's "Othello," in which the hero was played by a black actor
from the West Indies (Ira Aldridge?), who spoke in English, while all
the other characters delivered their speeches in Russian. The result was
a curious cacophony. She thought the Othello good, nay, very good, for,
she observes, "On returning from China o