densely crowded with buyers and sellers from
the fair: a place steaming with all manner of
odours. Wearied and worn out, and almost
shaken to pieces, we were all glad to be
huddled into a room twelve feet by fifteen, where,
after drinking an enormous quantify of tea, and
eating a cutlet, or an imitation of a cutlet in
gutta percha, my companions went to bed on
the floor. I, desiring better quarters, sought
out the stables, where, rolled in my shirt and
covered with hay—procured for a consideration
—I passed four or five hours in a sound sleep.

A Russian hotel in the interior is the most
filthy of all filthy places, for, as the floors are
never washed, the mud and filth accumulate to
an inch and a half in thickness, the walls are
black and fÅ“tid, tarakans—a horrible sort of
large brown beetle—crawl in myriads over
everything, invading even the dishes out of
which the traveller eats and drinks, and the dirty
deal tables are covered constantly with a dirty
linen cloth. The public rooms, generally lofty
and spacious, are constantly filled with the
offensive odour of the native tobacco. The
waiters are all men dressed in print trousers
and shirts, the trousers stuffed into long boots
and the shirts hanging outside the trousers:
a parti-coloured band or scarf round the waist
completing the costume. Their hair, like that
of all the peasants, is worn long, cut straight
round the neck, and parted in front like a
woman's, while the beard is neither cut nor trimmed.

Most of the Russian merchants do all their
bargaining in the inns, and, while doing business,
swallow fabulous quantities of tea at a
sitting. It is drunk in glass tumblers, and the
sugar is taken, not in the tea, but with it—
nibbled at, to sweeten the mouth before every
gulp. No milk is used. The brass urn, or
"samovar," contains the supply of hot water,
which is kept boiling by inserting burning charcoal
in the centre tube. Travellers may carry
their own tea, sugar, and bread, and by paying ten
or twenty kopecks will at any station or inn get
the use of an urn. The hot water being brought
to the carriage-door in summer, many travellers
never enter one of these places, but sleep, eat,
and travel in their conveyances for weeks.

Next morning we started at six o'clock with
five horses, but had soon to add a sixth. This
day was like the day before it, except that we
killed no horses. As daylight vanished, we
determined to push on during the night; but at
eleven o'clock we lost the track in the dark,
and stuck fast in a mountain ridge of snow.
After an hour spent in fruitless efforts at
extrication, three of us set out in search of assistance.
To our astonishment we presently
discovered by " the smoke that so gracefully curled"
from several points at once, that we were
wrecked in the midst of a straggling snow-
covered village. A kind peasant gave us
admittance, and sent help to our half-frozen
companions. This day we made about thirty-
two miles in seventeen hours. As I had slept
with the horses on the previous night, so this
evening the cow gave me a part of her bed.

We had passed six dead horses, some of them
partially devoured, and four overturned conveyances,
embedded in deep snow, beyond recovery
until the spring. Where the passengers were, I
know not. My companions said, " God knows,"
and crossed themselves. All along the track we
had seen evidences of distress: wrecks of sledges,
horses up to their necks in drift, men digging
them out. But just before starting the next
morning we saw the most horrible sight of all.
Opposite the hut of our poor entertainer there
had been men digging, to get into a house
entirely buried in snow, and they had succeeded in
rescuing a family that had been four days
buried. This family was none the worse for its
mishap; but the diggers had come on a sledge
with its horse, driver, and two women frozen to
death, and buried in the drift. They had got
fast, and had perished without help in the midst
of a village. Caught in the greatest fury of
the storm, they had not known their whereabout,
nor had their cries been heard. Three
months after this, and when the snows
disappeared, from two hundred and fifty to three
hundred corpses were found, all of whom had
met their death in this fearful storm upon the
Moscow road alone. So I have been told, and
fully believe.

SALMON BREEDING.

AT a beautiful spot on the river Tay, not far
from a place celebrated in Scottish history—
the Palace of Scone—there is now being carried
on a remarkable series of experiments, having
for their object the multiplication of salmon.
Salmon is so valuable as to be a source of
considerable revenue to many of the landed proprietors.
Its value, in fact, has been its ruin; costing
nothing for seed, grown to maturity at almost
no charge, and being then of even greater value
than a good Southdown sheep, the greed of those
who traffic in it as an article of commerce has led
to gross over-fishing; the result is, that the great
rivers of England are salmonless, while the rivers
of Scotland and the sister kingdom are being
rapidly depopulated. Hence the necessity for
resorting to pisciculture, or artificial fish-breeding.
Salmon ponds were constructed on the Tay as a
commercial speculation, to afford protection to
the incubating eggs and the young fish when
hatched. Good service to science has also been
done at the ponds, by aiding in the solution of
a problem which long served our naturalists as
a theme of contention.

An excellent group of ponds have been
excavated at Stormontfield, and it may be hinted to
those interested in such matters that the drive out
to the salmon ponds on a fine breezy day is
delightful, and that the particular part of the river
Tay on which they have been placed is exceedingly
picturesque, while ruddy Peter Marshall,
the genius of the place, is an adept in the art of
pisciculture, and eager to communicate information
and show his skill.

The experiments in fish-breeding were
commenced at Stormontfield in November, 1853,