NOVOC.OROD. 
39 
his candle or his penny. Before this place, 
which is filled with old pictures of the kind 
already described, and which a stranger might 
really mistake for a picture-stall, devotees, 
during the whole day, may be seen bowing and 
crossing themselves. A Russian hardly com- 
mits any action without this previous ceremony. 
If he be employed to drive your carriage, his 
crossing occupies two minutes before he is 
mounted. When he descends, the same motion 
is repeated. If a church be in view, you see him 
at work with his head and hand, as if seized 
with St. Vitus's dance. If he make any earnest 
protestation, or enter a room, or go out, you 
are entertained with the same manual and 
capital exercise*. When beggars return thanks 
for alms, the operation lasts a longer time ; and 
then between the crossing, by way of interlude, 
they generally make prostration, and touch 
their foreheads to the earth. 
The snow increased very fast in our road 
from Novogorod to Tver ; but afterwards we had 
(2) It was a common practice among the early Christians, towards 
the end of the second century. Terlullian, who flourished A.D. 192, 
thus mentions it : “Ad omnem progressum atquc promotum, ad 
omnem aditum ct exitura, ad vostitum, ad caleeatum, ad lavacra, et 
mensas, ad lumina, ad eubilia, ad sedilia, quascunque nos conver- 
satio exercet, frontem erucis signaculo termin'*.” 
Tertullian. dr Coron. Mil. cap. 3. 
CHAP. 
III. 
