Many of the pictures were not without wit. Among others I observed one on which was inscribed in great letters " Deneshnoi diavol" (the gold devil), which I purchased immediately for my collection of travelling souvenirs. The devil, painted purple, is hovering over the world ; from hand, foot, mouth, and nose, gold is falling in abundance, and golden ducats are creeping like vermin from under his hair. His adjutant (Gospodin Striiptshik) rides behind him on a yellow monstrosity which he is flogging with Mercury's wand. On the ground, men are sprawling to catch the golden shower. A baker has fastened a thick rope round the devil, and is pulling the fiend to him. A shoemaker has a weak thread round the great toe of the tailed enemy, and will not, it may easily be seen, be able to do much with him. An hotel-keeper has heaped up his tuns and baiTcls, into which the gold runs in at one end and the wine out at the other ; yet thirstier than his guests, he holds up a glass to catch the gold that is falling sideways. A lady stands near in all her finery, and the whole abimdance of Russian beau-y, that is, with a thick plaster of red paint on each cheek, and an embonpoint that a beer tun might envy. A priest is standing with his foot on the stool of his pulpit, one hand held out in a preaching attitude, while the other is holding out his mitre to catch the fertihzing shower, the devil showering it down upon him with both hands. Close to the priest is a church vessel, with a mighty ray of gold streaming into it. The oddest fancy is the artist, on whose shoulders dance a couple of squliTels ; to his cap a multitude of butterflies are attached fluttering at the end of a thread, and his headdress is also larded with pens and pencils. He stands afar off, where none of the gold shower reaches, and fires a pistol in the air. Apart from the turmoil sits, as a quiet observer, a little ape ; he has one hand raised as if preaching to the mob, none of whom heed him. The label appended I could not decipher. Such pictorial satires issue in abundance from every paltry attelier of Moscow.
That little shabby-looking men have often plenty of money in their pockets was a fact I had already learned in St. Petersburg and elsewhere. I was therefore not surprised when in the wealthy possessor of this magazine, one of those known to all the great world of Russia for antiquities of the costHest kind, I saw a man in a little, old, green, threadbare coat, with a long white beard, who spoke no language but the Russian of the Moscovite peasant. In this language, however, he has much to say that is interesting. For fifty years he has had dealings with half Russia ; at his door almost every Russian grandee of that period has knocked, and through liis hands aU the ducats of Moscow have passed more than once.
In Lukhmannoff's magazine costly rarities of every kind are to be found ; whole presses full of snuffboxes of the most curious workmanship, some of them worth three, four, nay, as much as twelve thousand .rubles ; small caskets containing, within a few cubic inches, the purchase of some square versts of land, and a toy made by command of Louis XIV. for the Dauphin. It is a small temple standing in a court and surrounded by a wall, the whole of solid gold. In this com-t are the figures of several animals, birds, elephants, ike, the bodies consisting of real pearls, in which some sport of nature had designed the torsoes of the animals, and the artist had added the legs and horns, and so on, in pure gold. The figures are fastened to the golden floor, andon the steps of the temple is the figure of a huntsman with his gun. This very foolish, unchildlike toy is a proof how little Louis knew of children. Tliere cannot be the least doubt that the first Noah's ark from Niirnberg would have given the Dauphin far more pleasure than this fine golden temple of Diana, which must have cost an enormous sum. Lukhmannoff estimates it at fifty thousand rubles.
He has also a collection of coins, from the first ruble of the olden time, which was simply a piece hacked off a bar of silver with a hatchet, to the newest and most elegant die ; and many of the now rare coins of the false Demetrius. I bought a copper " beard token" of Peter the Great. It is well known how desirous Peter was to rid his subjects of their beards, but he knew not how deeply rooted these beards were, and even he was obliged to give way in some measure. He took off the prohibition, therefore,
niul le\necl a tax of fifty-two kopeks per beard, and every man who paid it received a token in copper to "legitimate" the weaiing of it to the poHce. It is moderately large, encircled with a garland, and has the impression of a nose, a hp, and a long beard in the centre. On the reverse, the inscription " Denyi vsati" (beard-money paid).