JOURNEY FROM ST. PETERSBURG. 13 



feet, and it is easy to account for the plague of dust which 

 rises, and hangs in the air, and clogs the air-passages, and 

 powders the sober costume of Western tourists until their 

 dearest friends would hardly know them again, or at least 

 would inquire, could they only see them, " Have you been 

 transmogrified into the lineal descendants of the Miller of 

 the Dee ? " 



' At one end of the bridge of boats there stands the 

 Exchange, a poor though large wooden structure ; and 

 here thousands of traders will assemble every day, and 

 effect transactions during the fair to the tune of millions. 

 And then at once, and immediately beyond the Exchange, 

 begin the rows in which the different commodities are 

 stored. A broad and deep canal in the shape of a horse- 

 shoe separates the inner rows, situated in the vicinity of 

 the Governor's house, from those in the more outlying 

 districts. This is a precaution against fire. In the 

 bazaar proper, and in the booths of the merchantmen, 

 many different nationalities are represented. A few 

 Englishmen, and no end of Germans; Russians innumer- 

 able, as is natural ; Tartars by the thousand, some of 

 them dealers in fancy-coloured boots and scull-caps, and 

 many of them servants and porters in fact, the hewers of 

 wood and drawers of water to the fair; Circassians, 

 wonderfully subdued-looking when they are in civil life ; 

 and swarthy, tall-hatted Armenians, those Jews of the 

 East, who are even a match for the seed of Abraham 

 according to the flesh, and whose belts never know what 

 it is not to be well lined with bank notes and acceptances. 

 I saw only one native of the land of Sinim. 



' It takes a day's hard work to visit the rows, and get a 

 fair notion of the varied contents of the fair, and that 

 work I did until my rebellious feet cried, " Hold ; enough !" 

 There they were, the tea rows, containing innumerable 

 chests of that great Russian favourite : Captain Rickard 

 informed me he had sometimes bought upwards of 16,000 

 roubles' worth of tea and sugar at one time at the fair, 

 for the use of the peasants on the estates he manages 



