Most of the houses seem to have been cast in the same moidd, but here and there the uniformity is broken by the mansion of a pope, or of a petty noble, in which a decidedly Asiatic style of architecture manifests itsel. Every thing is light and airy, balconies and porticoes aboimd, with covered courtyards, and numberless columns, though these are often nothing more than the rouglily-hewn stems of trees. The popes generally plant trees before their houses, and there the old patriarchs may be seen, vith their long venerable beards, seated in the shade, jesting with the cliildren, or amusing themselves with the antics of a favourite eat, the invariable appendage of every householder in Little Russia. Though it be Saturday evening, you may fearlessly accost the priest, without the least apprehension of disturbing him in his meditations on the sermon of the morrow. The Russian pastor is too well versed in liis slushha (service) to trouble himself about it beforehand. In the noble's yard a party of horses may be seen stamping the ground, or, perhaps an old carriage is undergoing the operation of cleaning, with a view to the next day's work.
Should there still be daylight enough, we may depend on finding some of the peasant women engaged in the weaving of carpets, for which the Southern Russian has an almost oriental fondness, and in the manufacture of Avhich he displays both skill and taste. All Russia is supplied from these Malorossian villages with sledge-covers and carpets, which, in addition to the brightness and variety of their colours, have the additional recommendation of being extremely cheap.
As we proceed we descend more and more Into the ravine in which the village is built. The path is mostly of a boggy character, and seldom quite diy. Sometimes you sink into a mass of dung, for which the farmers in this part of the world know no better use than to repair their roads. At the bottom of the ravine is almost always a large pond, and here all the parts of their little locality seem to meet as at a common centre. This road leads to the church, that to the inn, and a third to the chief magistrate's house. The pond is full of dirty water, from wliich millions of frogs raise their plaintive cries to heaven, frogs being more numerous about such a village than even the dogs and wolves. Flights of geese and ducks, halfwild and half-domesticated, hover around the pond, encircled often by a complete forest of reeds. We meet a fellow, and ask him the way to the bazaar or market-place, but he is a kasak, or freeman, and therefore privileged to be insolent, so we must not be surprised if liis answer be deficient in courtesy ; — indeed the Malorossian, even when a serf, has none of that native politeness which characterizes the lowest classes in Central Russia. Nevertheless, we find our way to the bazaar, where we see the merchants of the community ensconced in their little wooden booths, in which are displayed for sale — tallow, honey, chalk, carpets, ropes, nails, hatchets, sunHower-seeds, cucumbers, and a multitude of other articles in constant demand in a Russian Ullage. Should it happen to be Sunday, and divine service over, more than half the population of the place will be found assembled here, particularly the elders of the community, with their long beards, then' white trousers tucked into their high boots, then black sheepskin caps rising loftily from their heads, their persons enveloped in capacious brown woollen cloaks, collected together in groups, and as they all stand leaning on their long staves, they might not inaptly be taken for so many ancient philosophers, discoursing on the emptiness of sublunary affairs.
In the house of the magistrate, two of these venerable fig^es, the Ataman and his deputy, will generally be found ready to decide in a summary maimer every dispute that may arise. In an inner room we hear, perhaps, a fearful noise, which, ou inqiury, we find proceeds from a couple of drunken rascals, who have been guilty of some outrage, for which they are to receive the chastisement due, as soon as they are sober. The ataman of the village acts, at the same time, as postmaster. He can seldom write, but he has his pissar in an adjoining room, a learned man, who is able to spell out the passport and other papers of a traveller, though not with suiEcient expedition to satisfy the latter, who, meanwhile, is cursing at the delay to which he is subjected, and is impatiently bawling out for horses. The horses come at last, a whole herd of them driven in by a mounted herdsman, and half of them are then quickly harnessed before the carriage.