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

134PRIMITIVE DROWSKAS.

hazarded judgments will allow any solid, impartial, and ripe conclusions to be drawn. I have not attempted to draw them, because I prefer travelling to composing: an author is not independent, a traveller is. I therefore relate my impressions, and leave the reader to complete the book.

The above reflections on the Eussian character have been suggested by several visits that I have made in Yaroslaf. I consider this central point as one of the most interesting in my journey.

I will relate to-morrow the result of my visit to the chief personage of the place, the governor, for I have just sent him my letter. I have been told, or rather given to infer, much to his disparagement in the various houses that I have visited this morning.

The primitive drowska is to be seen in this city. It consists of a little board on four wheels, entirely concealed under the occupant, and looks as though the horse were fastened to his person ; two of the wheels are covered by his legs, and the other two are so low that they disappear under the rapid motion of the machine.

The female peasants generally go barefoot. The men most frequently wear a species of sandal made of rushes, rudely platted, which resembles those of antiquity. The leg is clothed in a wide pantaloon, the folds of which, drawn together at the ancle by a little fillet, are covered with the shoe. This attire is precisely similar to the Scythian statues of the Roman sculptors.

I am writing in a wretched inn; there are but two good ones in Eussia, and they are kept by foreigners : the English boarding-house at Saint Petersburg, and