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

SMALL ÏIUSSIAN TOWNS.2-17

imagined myself among a camp of gipsies, except that gipsies are without pretence or affectation. I, who pique myself on not being fastidious when travelling, find the post-houses established on this road by the government, that is, by the Emperor, sufficiently comfortable. I consider that I have fared well in them : a man may even sleep at night, provided he can dispense with a bed.; for this nomade people are acquainted only with the Persian carpet or the sheep-skin, or a mat stretched upon a divan under a tent, whether of canvass or of wood, for in either case it is a souvenir of the bivouac. The use of a bed, as an indispensable article of furniture, has not yet been recognised by the people of Slavonian race : beds are rarely seen beyond the Oder. Sometimes, on the borders of the little lakes which are scattered over the immense marsh called Russia, a distant town is to be seen ; a cluster, namely, of small houses built of grey boards, which, reflected in the water, produce a very picturesque effect. I have passed through two or three of these hives of men. but I have only particularly noticed the town of Zimagoy. It consists of a rather steep street of wooden houses, and is a league in length; at some distance, on the other side of one of the creeks of the little lake on which it stands, is seen a romantic convent, whose white towers rise conspicuously above a forest of firs, which appeared to me loftier and more thickly grown than any that I have hitherto observed in Russia. When I think of the consumption of wood in this country, both for the construction and the warming of houses, I am astonished that any forests remain in the land. All that M 4