180 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



drying the bread used in the process of kwass-making. 

 Kwass and sugar for sweetening it were brought for 

 us, and excellent black bread. The erstwhile Countess 

 was so pleased at the praise bestowed on her rye bread 

 that she insisted on wrapping several slices of it up in 

 a paper for us to take home. 



Everything consumed by the nuns is, as far as pos- 

 sible, the work of their own hands. They aim to pro- 

 vide for all their own wants as well as to make things 

 for sale. We visited the shoemaking room, where 

 several Sisters were busy as bees with lasts, hammers, 

 awls, wax, and thread ; and they brought out for our 

 inspection several pairs of gaiters which had just been 

 finished. Shoemaking is as much beyond a woman as 

 sharpening a pencil is, and I must confess that my 

 admiration of these elastic sides was the grossest 

 flattery. 



We were soon in woman's true sphere, however, and 

 there was no flattery in praising the gorgeous vest- 

 ments of silk and gold which the nuns were making to 

 sell to priests. Nor was it flattery, in the ikon room, 

 which led us to praise the work of twenty or thirty 

 demure-looking Sisters who were engaged in stamping 

 out the most intricate patterns and mosaics on metal 

 surfaces. Here they could work from patterns and 

 tracings and were equal or superior to men. 



There was also a department or studio where about 

 fifty nuns were painting holy pictures, with ancient 

 ikons for their models ; and another room where other 

 nuns ground and prepared the paint. 



From these very interesting scenes of life and activ- 

 ity we once more sought the acquaintance of the dead, 



