146 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



stamping impatiently with his foot. Having startled 

 the scribes, secretaries, and policemen in this manner, 

 the assistant police master beamed inquiringly in our 

 direction a moment through his spectacles and then 

 passed out. 



In Kursk, as in most provincial Russian cities, the 

 motive that prompts anybody to seriously take up their 

 residence in it is a positive enigma to a foreigner. In 

 summer the people seem to exist chiefly for the purpose 

 of assembling every evening in a little public garden, 

 illumined with colored lamps, where they circle round 

 and round a fountain and peer into each other's faces 

 to the music of a military band, kindly provided by the 

 courtesy of His Excellency the Governor-General of 

 the province. On this particular Sunday evening there 

 were to be extraordinary doings in the little garden, in 

 virtue of which a small admission fee was charged. 

 Rockets and bombs, which exploded and hissed in fiery 

 flight about 6 o'clock p.m., announced to the city that 

 the performances for the evening had begun. 



We made our way thither and mingled with the 

 gathering throng. We called for tea and cigarettes at 

 the garden restaurant, and, seated at a table, watched 

 the proceedings with considerable interest. There was 

 a sack-race around the fountain for an accordion ; and 

 any number of abortive efforts on the part of men and 

 boys to climb to the summit of a greased pole, the 

 prize being in this case a samovar. The proprietors of 

 the entertainment seemed to have taken good care that 

 the pole should be so thoroughly covered with grease 

 that they would have been quite safe even had they 

 put up a prize of a million rubles. 



