6 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



on the famous Nevski Prospekt. It was four o'clock 

 in the afternoon, and a fine, sunny day. All the 

 Russian world and his wife seemed to be driving, 

 walking, hurrying, idling past the window on this 

 Broadway of the Russian capital. 



The most numerous passers-by, and to the new- 

 comer the most Russian and interesting, were the 

 drosky-drivers, the isvoshchics and their " fares." Like 

 Washington, St. Petersburg is a city of magnificent 

 distances. Everybody rides ; fares are cheap ; and 

 there are twenty-five thousand public drosky-drivers in 

 the city plying for hire. 



The isvoshchic and his costume are peculiarly 

 Russian. The latter has not changed for ages, and 

 apart from youth and age, whiskers and no whiskers, 

 there is not the splitting of a hair between any of the 

 five-and-twenty thousand public " kebbies ' in the 

 Czar's capital. There are isvoshchics at fourteen, 

 young in face but old in iniquity, and isvoshchics of 

 seventy-five, bearded like pards and supremely artful, 

 in bargaining with the foreigner about the price of a 

 drive. 



The summer costume of the isvoshchic is an ideal 

 garb for winter from the point of view of anybody but 

 a Russian. He is enveloped in an enormous overcoat 

 of heavy dark-blue cloth that descends to his heels and 

 is gathered about his waist by a gay-colored band. 

 Top boots, heavy and prodigal of leather, incase his 

 feet and legs ; and even on this warm June day a dis- 

 arrangement of the big blue over-garment revealed a 

 sheepskin coat, of similar dimensions, underneath. 

 But the crowning glory of the drosky-driver is his 



