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

CONCOURSE AT THE FAIR.177

site, which in certain places opposes real precipices to the creations of the architect. In the thickness of the walls have been worked, as at Moscow, staircases, which serve to ascend, from battlement to battlement,' up to the very summit of the crowning ramparts. These commanding stairs, with the towers by which they arc flanked, the slopes, the vaults, the arcades which sustain them, form a picture from whichsoever point of approach they are viewed.

The fair of Nijni, now become the most considerable in the world, is the rendezvous of people the least alike in person, costume, language, religion, and manners. Men from Thibet, from Bucharia, from the regions bordering upon China, come to meet Persians, Finns, Greeks, English, and Parisians: it is like the merchants' doomsday. The number of foreigners present at Nijni every day during the fair, exceeds two hundred thousand. The men who compose this yearly gathering come and go daily; but the number always continues pretty nearly the same : nevertheless, on certain days, there are at Nijni íw many as three hundred thousand at the same time. The average consumption of bread in the pacific camp amounts to four hundred thousand pounds weight per day. Except at the season of this saturnalia of trade and industry, the city is lifeless. Nijni scarcely numbers twenty thousand stationary inhabitants, who are lost in its vast streets and naked squares during the nine months that the fair-ground remains forsaken.

The fair occasions little disorder. In Russia disorder is unknown: it would be a progressive movement, for it is the child of liberty. The love of gain, i 5