For the population of this country of New Russia (a name by the by which exists only in our geographies) the Russian government has scraped together fragments from half the nations of Europe, besides offering an asylum to the Jews, and forcing Gipsies and Tartars, both equally averse to the labours of tlie field, to assist in forming the agricultural colonies. Large tracts of land have been granted to the German, Hiuigarian, and Bulgarian colonists, and estates have been given to the Russian and Polish nobles on condition of bringing them into cultivation. In some places sanctuaries have even been created, where runaway serfs from the interior of Russia or Poland may settle as freemen.
The main body of the population is, however, everywhere Malorossian. This interesting race of men h-as of late years spread itself out in a manner deserving of much more notice than it has generally received. The native region of the Malorossians is in the governments of KiefiP, Poltava, and TshernigofF, stretching along to the Carpathian mountains, where a branch of them, the Rusnaki, are found living under the Austrian sceptre. Of late years this race of agricultiu-ists has spread itself over New Russia to the shores of the Black Sea, to Moldavia, the Crimea and the Caucasus.
In AJexandria was a coffeehouse kept by a Jew, and his pretty daughter made us our coffee. We complimented her on her bright eyes and pearly teeth, but she seemed to attach much less value to these natural jewels than to a splendid cap embroidered with pearls, which she wore upon her head. All the Jewesses in New Russia and in Little Russia, as far as Galicia, wear a huge, stiff, and very unbecoming cap, of which the foundation is usually of black velvet, over which is formed a complete network of pearls, and this ornament they call mushka. With rich and poor, the mushka is always nearly the same in form, the only difference being the greater or less value of the pearls, and occasionally of other precious stones attached to it. A girl in this way often carries half her fortune on her head, for these caps are generally worth from 500 to I OCX) rubles, and some of them are even valued at five or six thousand. The mushka is worn alike on holidays and working-days, in tlie kitclien as on the promenade, and the head is often seen resplendent with pearls, when all the rest of the costume consists of mere rags. This fashion gives rise to a very extensive trade in pearls at Odessa, Taganrog, and other ports of the Black Sea. Within the geographical limits of the mushka there are supposed to be about two millions of Jews. Now supposing that among them there are only 300,000 adult women, and that only half of these wear mushkas, though, in point of fact none but the very poorest and the few that affect an aristocratic tone, are ever to be seen without the distinguishing ornament, and supposing that, on an average, each is only worth 500 rubles, this calculation alone will give us a capital of 76,000,000 rubles invested in the caps of the Jewesses of this part of the world.
It was a beautiful evening on which we crossed the steppe between Alexandria and Yelisabethpol, and the scene was certainly any thing but lifeless and desolate. The crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, and other flowers which make their appearance immediately after the melting of the snow, had indeed, already withered, but the grass was deliciously green and fresh, and all teeming with animal life.
The lovely little spotted 5t«5/f^5, qv Erdhdschen (earth-hares), as they are called by the German colonists, sprang about and diverted us with their various odd gestures ; small birds were everywhere to be seen, eagles and vultures w^ere floating high in the air ; pigeons were cooing around on every side, and the stately demoiselles de Numidie were hopping to and fro like so many young ladies engaged in the execution of a quadrille. One, disposed to look with interest on all these varied crowds of animal life, had little cause to complain of monotony or weariness on the steppes. In addition, moreover, to all these elegant little animals, we met in the military colony of Petrikova, a dandy from Odessa, who favoiu-ed us with a budget of the fashionable chit-chat of that city, while he diverted himself by eating up, in a most unconscionable manner, six of the meat patties we had brought from Poltava ; Avhereas my companion and I were wont to divide one between us. To eat six of our little patties at once, was a more formidable attack on our larder on the naked steppe than if in a great town he had devoured six sirloins of beef at our cost.