his candle or his penny.

Before this place, which is filled with old pictures of the kind already described, and which a stranger might really mistake for a picture-stall, devotees, during the whole day, may be seen bowing and crossing themselves. A Russian hardly com

mits any action without this previous ceremony. If he be employed to drive your carriage, his crossing occupies two minutes before he is mounted. When he descends, the same motion is repeated. If a church be in view, you see him at work with his head and hand, as if seized with St. Vitus's dance. If he make any earnest protestation, or enter a room, or go out, you are entertained with the same manual and capital exercise. When beggars return thanks for alms, the operation lasts a longer time; and then between the crossing, by way of interlude, they generally make prostration, and touch their foreheads to the earth.

The snow increased very fast in our road from Novogorod to Tver; but afterwards we had

(2) It was a common practice among the early Christians, towards the end of the second century. Tertullian, who flourished A.D. 192, thus mentions it: Ad omnem progressum atque promotum, ad omnem aditum et exitum, ad vestitum, ad calceatum, ad lavacra, et mensas, ad lumina, ad cubilia, ad sedilia, quæcunque nos conversatio exercet, frontem crucis signaculo terimus."

Tertullian. de Coron. Mil. cap. 3.

III.

CHAP. Scarcely sufficient for the sledges, and in some places the earth was bare. The traveller will be more interested in this information than readers at home; and he will of course compare April 6, 7, the observation with the date of the journey; as the weather in Russia is not subject to those irregular vicissitudes experienced in England. It may generally be ascertained by the Calendar.

and 8.

A notion has become prevalent, that the road from Petersburg to Moscow is a straight line through forests; perhaps, because it was the intention of Peter the Great to have it so made1. The country is generally open, a wide and fearful prospect of hopeless sterility, where the fir and the dwarf birch, which cover even Arctic regions, scarcely find existence. The soil is, for the most part, sandy, and of a nature to set agriculture at defiance. Towards the latter part of the journey, corn-fields of considerable extent appeared. What the summer road may be, we are unable to say; but our pro

(1) When Jonas Hanway (Travels, Vol. I. p. 92.) passed in 1743, only one hundred miles had been completed according to the original plan; which was, to make a bridge of timber for the whole distance of four hundred and eighty-seven miles. For that space of one hundred miles, according to the calculation made by him, no less than two millions one hundred thousand trees were required.

III.

Valday.

gress was as devious as possible. In all the CHAP. province or district of Valday, the soil is hilly, not to say mountainous; so that what with the Heights of undulations of the road itself, from the heaps of drifted snow, and the rising and sinking of the country, our motion resembled that of a vessel rolling in an Atlantic calm. Our good friend Professor Pallas experienced as rough a journey along this route, a few years before. He mentions the delay, and even the danger, to which he was exposed on the Heights of Valday. So precisely similar were the circumstances of the seasons, that in both cases the snow failed in the moment of arrival in Moscow.

The female peasants of the Valday have a Costume. costume that resembles one in Switzerland. It consists of a shift with full sleeves, and a short petticoat, with coloured stockings. Over this, in winter, they wear a pelisse of lamb's wool, as white as the snow around them, lined with cloth, and adorned with gold buttons and lace. The hair of unmarried women, as in most parts of Russia, is braided, and hangs to a great length down their backs. On their heads they wear a handkerchief of coloured silk. When married, the hair is trussed up; and this consti

(2) Travels through the Southern Provinces, &c. Vol. I. p. 4.

CHAP.
III.

Tumuli.

tutes the outward mark of a virgin, or of a matron. Generally speaking, the traveller may pass over a vast extent of territory without noticing any change in the costume. How very different is the case in Italy! where the mere passage of a bridge in the same city, as at Naples, leads to a different mode of dress. The male peasants of Russia are universally habited, in winter, in a jacket made of a sheep's hide, with the wool inwards, and a square-crowned red cap with a circular edge of black wool round the rim. These, with a long black beard, sandals made of the bark of the birch-tree, and woollen bandages about the legs, complete the dress.

Conical mounds of earth, or tumuli, occur very frequently on this road. The most remarkable may be observed in the stage between Yezolbisky and Valday, on both sides of the road, but chiefly on the left; and they continue to appear from the latter place to Jedrova. Professor Pallas has given a representation of four of these tumuli, in a Vignette at the beginning of the first volume of his late work'. They are common all over the Russian Empire: and indeed it may be asked, Where is the country, in which such sepulchral hillocks do not appear?

(1) Travels through the Southern Provinces, &c.

III.

We had been pestered the whole way from CHAP., Petersburg by a bell, which the driver carried, suspended to his belt; but were not aware that it passed for a mark of privilege, until we arrived at Jedrova. Here we saw a poor fellow cudgelled by a police-officer, because he had presumed to carry a bell without a poderosnoy, the title to such a distinction.

The whole journey from Petersburg to Moscow Jedrova. offers nothing that will strike a traveller more than the town or village of Jedrova. It consists of one street, as broad as Piccadilly, formed by the gable-ends of wooden huts, whose roofs project far over their bases; and this street is terminated by the church. A view of one of these towns will afford the Reader a very correct idea of all the rest, as there is seldom any difference in the mode of constructing the poorer towns of Russia. A window in such places is a mark of distinction, and seldom found. The houses in general have only small holes, through which, as you drive by, you see a head stuck, as in a pillory'.

(2) The Imperial order for horses. Those who travel with posthorses carry a bell. It serves, as the horn in Germany, to give notice to persons on the road to turn out of the way; such horses being in the service of the Crown.

(3) See the Vignette to this Chapter.