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

their presence in the habitations of man betrays, make me regret my journey to this part of the globe. I feel as though there were a moral degradation in being approached by these offal-bred creatures : physical antipathy triumphs over all the efforts of reason.

Л merchant of Moscow, who has the most splendid and extensive silk-magazine in the fair, is coming this morning to take me over it, and to show me everything in detail.

I again find here the dust and suffocating heat of a southern clime. I was therefore well advised not to go on foot to the fair : but the concourse of strangers is at this time so great at Nijni, that I could not get a vehicle on hire; I was therefore obliged to use the by-no-means elegant one in which I arrived from Moscow, and to attach to it two horses only, which annoyed me as much as though I had been a Russian. It is not through vanity that they drive four horses : the animals have spirit, but they are not robust ; they soon fatigue when they have much weight to draw.

On entering the carriage with the merchant who was so good as to act as my cicerone, and with hi¡? brother, I told my feldjäger to follow us. He, without hesitating or waiting to ask my permission, deliberately stepped into the calèche, and, with a coolness

that amazed me, seated himself by the side of M.'s

brother, who, notwithstanding my expostulations, was determined to sit with his back to the horses. In this country it is not unusual to see the owner of