14 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



down in Orenburg. The rows of the furriers, where, as is 

 proper in Russia, the peltry is so magnificent, that if 

 English ladies could only get there with their husbands, 

 these lords of creation would find they were in for an 

 awkward quarter of an hour of it. The braziers' rows, 

 resplendent in samovars, the tea-urns of Russia, mostly 

 made in the workshops of Tula, on the banks of the Oka, 

 which have become so fashionable in aristocratic circles in 

 this country, since the Czar's most able and noble 

 daughter has become a member of the Royal Family of 

 England. The china rows, where the most ravishing 

 pottery and glass-work is displayed. I entered one of the 

 shops in the china row, and selected a few small and 

 beautiful articles to bring home with me. Quite inciden- 

 tally, I asked the salesman where they were made, when I 

 was getting out my purse to pay for them. To my 

 astonishment he said " England." " England ! " thought I, 

 " then it is not worth while carrying coals to Newcastle," 

 and telling him I was "Anglichanin," prayed to be 

 excused from completing the purchase. He smiled, and 

 graciously acceded to my proposition. Trunkmaker's 

 rows, filled with many-coloured boxes with bright metal 

 bindings. These trunks are quite an institution of the 

 country. Every peasant, man and woman, aims at being 

 the happy possessor of one of them, in which he can store 

 up his little " all," and still leave room for more. 

 Drysalters', paper, cloth, cotton, and linen rows, in which 

 goods are stored up, sufficient, you would say, to supply 

 all Russia and the East, and leave much over; but so 

 great is the demand this year for everything, that before 

 the two flags are taken down which float at the sides of 

 the Votive Church, and whose removal indicates the 

 closing of the fair, every ounce by weight, and every yard 

 by measurement, will have been disposed of. Fish rows, 

 in which hundreds of tons of dried sturgeon, and sterlet, 

 and fish of every kind, and caviare — to eat which with 

 enjoyment, requires, in my opinion, a developed taste — 

 are all exposed for sale. Mountains of grindstones for 



