At the nones of December, however, the dead animals that arrive cause infinitely more bustle there than the " stamping steeds" of whom I have just spoken. On the 6th of December, namely, neither sooner nor later, but on the feast of St. Nicholas, it is gerierally assumed that the snow track must be in a firm and proper condition for the winter. Among the Russians indeed almost all actions, but particularly those which relate lo their household arrangements, are regulated, not according to nature, but according to certain festivals of the church, which are assumed to be the most suitable periods for certain arrangements to be made, 'ilms, for instance, the cattle is not driven out into the Helds when the grass is green, but on the 17th of April, St. Stephen's day, and then the ceremony is accompanied by the benedictions of the priest, and copious besprinklings with holy water. The farmer does not begin to plough when the weather is favourable, but on St. George's day. Apples are not plucked when they are ripe, but on the feast of Mary, in August ; and an apple eaten before the legitimate day would be thought little better than poison ; while after that day, even an unripe apple would be given unhesitatingly to an infant. On the Tuesday after Easter, in the south of Russia, all the Tshumaks sally forth, because the roads then are considered to be good, and on the 1st of October Pakrovi) all endeavour to be home again, as after that festival the country is no longer deemed passable.
On the 6th of December, accordingly, the snow track is thought to be in a fit condition for travelling. The autumn, with its rains, its storms, and its alternations of frost and thaw, is supposed to be at an end, and all the large caravans of sledges are put into motion on this important day. In the second week of December, therefore, St. Petersburg, after having perhaps been but scantily supplied during the latter part of the autumn, is aU at once inundated with inconceivable masses of winter stores of every kind. A scene something like that which has been described as customary at the haymarket, takes place, but on an infinitely larger scale. The frozen oxen that stand about in all directions are now to be immbered.
Drivers of the oxen caravans.
The pigs are piled up in pyramids on the snow, and the heaps of goats and sheep rise to the altitude of mountains. The mnter provision market at this time is a sight which no stranger ought to miss seeing.
We have thus passed in review the three principal markets where the Russian populace may be said chiefly to resort ; let us now draw a little nearer, and examine more attentively, the life and manners of the class that people them, and, after all, constitute the bulk of the nation.
Tiie aristocracy of every country have invented some contemptuous term, by which to designate the mass of their country people, whose rudeness and pecidiarities it is always more easy to condemn, than it is to discover and duly estimate the qualities that are really valuable. The English expression John Bull, and the French word canaille, are examples of what T mean. Now the Russians, from the earliest times, for the word existed even in the days of the repubhc of Novgorod, have called their canaille tshornoi narod, which means literally, black people ; but as tshornoi is often used synonymously with dirty, the expression may be taken to mean " dirty people ;" in short, " the unwashed," and to this comprehensive class are considered to belong, the peasantry, particularly when they make their appearance in the towns, the street rabble, beggars, and the common labourers. — An individual belonging to the tshornoi narod is called a mushik.