He will seldom have occasion to " sing out" his davai a second time. Nay, a man need not even look at the serviceable equipages, for if he onlv stand still for a moment, and seem to deliberate in his own mind upon the expediency of summoning a charioteer to his assistance, the hint is quite sufficient, and half-a-dozen sledges will immediately come darting up to the spot where he stands. The oat-bags are quickly thrown aside, the harness drawn tight, and each of the rival candidates for favour places himself upon his box, satisfied apparently that he, and he alone, will bear away the prize. " Where to, sir ?" — " To the Admiralty." — " III go for two rubles " — " I for one and a half," cries another^ and so they go on underbidding each other, till they come down perhaps to half a ruble. \ ou take the cheapest, probably, but take care the cheapest be not also the worst, or you must be prepared for a volley of jokes and banterings from the disappointed applicants. " Ah, do but look, little father, how stingy you are I" — " To save a few copeks, you put up with that ragged rascal for your coachman.'' — " He and his three-legged animal will stick fast before you get half way." — " The gray -bearded vagabond w^ill be sure to upset you ; he's so drunk he can't stand." — " He'll take you to the shambles, and swear it's the Admiralty." — No one enjoys all this abuse, meanwhile, more than the object of it, who laughs in his sleeve, and grumbles out his " Nitshevoss ! never fear, sir; we shall get on well enouffh."
These men are, for the most part, Russians from all the difi'erent governments of the empire ; but among them there are also Finlanders, Esthonians, Lettes, Poles, and Germans. They arrive at St. Petersburg generally as little boys of ten or twelve years old, hire themselves as drivers to some owner of hackney-carriages, whom, they continue to serve till they have saved enough to buy a horse and vehicle,- when they set up in business on their own account. Their trade, as all trades are in Russia, is uncontrolled by corporation laws j and should fodder grow dear,
or business slack, the isvoshtshik packs up the few worldly goods he possesses, drives away to the south, and reappears in the streets of Novgorod or Moscow ; thus, in pursuit of fortune, they emerge now in one town and now in another, till chance enable them to form a profitable and permanent establishment in some one place. In the provincial towns, where fodder is to be had for little or nothing, they usually drive with two horses, but in St. Petersburg, where every thing, in comparison, is enormously dear, the public must content themselves with one.
In winter the isvoshtshik uses the favourite national vehicle of a sledge, with which he continues to grind the pavement as long as the least trace of snow is to be felt under the spring mud. A covered carriage he never uses. The cloaks and furs of the passengers must do the same service in Russia that the roof of the coach does with us ; and when well wrapped up in a series of protecting folds, the warm nucleus of Hfe that occupies the centre, patiently suffers the pelting of snow, rain, and mud till the end of his journey, where the dirty rind is peeled off, and the said kernel steps forth clean and unspotted from his muddy covering.