RUSSIA IN EUROPE 
23 
July and continues through August and September. Some of 
the articles for sale are brought by rail, but most by barges or 
steamboat. I counted fifty tugs from one point, while two or 
three times as many were anchored in other parts of the river. 
From Siberia are brought furs and diamonds, precious stones, 
fine-toned bells, iron and wooden utensils, Siberian shoes, made 
of felt, impervious to snow or water, heat or cold. From China 
come caravan tea, worth $2.50 per pound, the finest tea that is 
drunk, and brick tea, the poorest, worth only 15 cents per 
pound. From Persia come precious stones, fruits, carpets, and 
silks ; from Circassia, shawls, slippers, and oils ; cotton from 
Khiva and Bokhara ; oil and wool from Astrakhan ; from west- 
ern Russia, woolen, linen, and vast quantities of hardware, nails, 
and steel, while Germany, France, and England sell their goods 
by sample. There is a palace with salons for great and small 
balls and dinners. There are streets with buildings and stores 
of stone, brick, and iron. These were found insufficient, and 
three thousand bazaars of a temporary nature are often erected. 
The same merchants come year after year, and often from gen- 
eration to generation, and occupy the same buildings. Some 
come on horseback with their stores, others with steam-tugs 
towing barges filled with merchandise. Near by on the rivpr 
Oka are sheds, nearly a mile in length, filled with Siberian 
iron, rolled, bar, and cast iron rods, plate iron, and boiler 
plates, wire, hollow-ware, stoves, nails, and all descriptions of 
rough iron-work. Here also are churches for all creeds — Rus- 
sians, Chinese, Tartars, Buddhists, Catholics, and Lutherans. 
After the fair is over, by the middle or last of September, the 
place is deserted, stores and houses closed, the goods are taken 
away, and not a soul is seen in the place where only a few days 
before three or four hundred thousand people were gathered. 
The bridge of boats which connects the fair-ground with Nijni 
is taken down and removed for the winter. 
TRAVELING. 
The different methods of traveling show the habits and civiliza- 
tion of a people. In the far north of Russia the sledge and tlie 
reindeer are only used ; in Finland, steam or sail lioat or sledge. 
Travel in summer by land is unusual ; they wait for sleighing 
or go by boat. In central Russia they travel by railroad or 
