the bride, and they again by the bride and bridegroom, decorated ^N-ith such a profusion of pinks, Hlies, asters, and other flowers, that they looked almost like a pair of walking nosegays. The whole party came on with a tripping, half-dancin-g step, all except the two principal personages in the show, who were blushing, embarrassed, and half melancholy, and, on arriving in front of the portico, bowed so low, that their heads almost touched the ground.
After the bridegroom came a pretty girl, led by a couple of khlopzi. In her hand she earned a sabre thrust through a large loaf of bread. This symbol of connubial life is never absent from a wedding in Little Russia. We were not told the meaning of the custom, yet we had no difficulty in explaining it to ourselves. It was a warning, in the olden time, to the bridegroom that he had undertaken to defend his bride, and furnish her with bread. At the wedding here described the sabre was only of wood ; before the days of serfdom, I have no doubt, it was of polished iron.
The wedding guests followed festively arrayed in their national costumes. They drew up in front of the balcony, where we all, one after the other, drank to the happiness of the bridal pair, who in their turn drank all our very good he'alths, in doing which the poor girl manifested much feeling, and more than once allowed tears to escape her.
Our guests then seated themselves to their dinner, at which there could not be less than a thousand persons. A little altar, covered with white cloth, had been erected, on which were laid pictures of saints, and other ecclesiastical paraphernaha. The Russians can enter upon nothing without a priestly benediction, not even upon a festive carouse. A whole chorus of priests came forward, chanting hymns and swinging their censers, and praying for a blessing on the munificent lord of the chateau, and on all present.
During the whole day an ox had been roasting before the fire, and cabbage-soup and peas had been preparing in enormous boilers. Halfa-dozen casks of spirit, mead, and beer had been placed on the lawn, and by the aid of these and other good things, every remnant of seriousness was soon banished. For us, dinner had been prepared within the chateau, where we were entertained by a party of travelling Tyrolese singers, whose delicious Alpine melodies threw a temporary melancholy over those among us who were natives of Germany. These wandering minstrels are frequently met with in Russia, and even in remote parts of Siberia, where their musical abilities are far more richly remmierated than in their native land.
On our return to the lawn we found the wedding guests as merry as need be. They were broken up into various groups, and the cymbals, tambarlnes, and fiddles were all hard at work, accompanying their national dances. The favourite dance in Little Russia is the hasatshn. One pair only dance at the same time. The dancer, after havingselected his partner, seeks to allure her by a number of seductive graces into the circle formed by the spectators, and when at last the lady has allowed herself to be prevailed on to begin, it is some time before she shows any signs of weariness. Her gestures are of course less rapid and expressive than her partner's, but she also sometimes indulges in the toss of the head and the shrugging of the shoulders, so characteristic of the Russian dance, even wliile she affects to avoid the amorous swain, and to repiUse him with her hands.
A Russian does not dance merely with liis legs and his feet, though he evidently entertains no small regard for those members of his political body, often glancing at them most affectionately while he dances, and throwing open his sheepskin coat, that he may admire their paces the more conveniently ; but they are far from having the dance all to themselves, his head, hands, and arms being likewise in continual motion, whenever he wishes to heighten the expression of his pantomime. Not only every featiu-e of his countenance, but every muscle of his body, is kept in play. The meaning of the kasatsha is this : an amorous swain makes all sorts of gestures and postures to please his mistress, and seems at turns in rapture and in despair ; his prudish partner is at first unmoved by all his solicitations, but gradually she softens, and the dance ends -svith an embrace and a kiss. One couple played their parts so admirably that they drew down the warmest applause, and excited the gaiety of all present.