Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

THE COUNTRY WOMEN.181

they think only of protecting themselves from the cold, are necessarily less aired than those of southern people. Of the air that purifies, the Russians are deprived for nine months in the year, so that their dirtiness is rather the inevitable effect of their climate than of their negligence.

In some districts the workpeople wear a cap of blue cloth, bulging out in the shape of a balloon. They have several other species of head-dress, all pleasing to the eye, and showing good taste as compared with the saucy affectation of negligence, visible among the lower orders in the environs of Paris.

When they work bare-headed, they remedy the inconvenience of their long hair by binding it with a kind of diadem, or fillet made of a riband, a wreath of rushes, or of some other simple material, always placed with care, and which looks well on the young people; for the men of this race have in general finely formed, oval heads, so that their working head-dress becomes an ornament. But what shall I say of the women ? All whom I have hitherto seen have appeared to me repulsive : I had hoped in this excursion to have met some fair villagers ; but here, as at Petersburg, they are broad and short in figure, and they gird their forms at the shoulders, a little above the bosom, which spreads freely under the petticoat. It is hideous ! Add to this voluntary deformity, large men's boots and a species of riding coat, or jacket of sheep's skin, similar to the pelisses of their husbands, but, doubtless through a laudable economy, much less gracefully cut, and far more worn ; falling indeed literally in rags — such is their toilette. Assuredly there is no part of the world