to be a race of Hamaxobites,* leading a sort
of nomadic life among the palaces of the
capital. They encamp by day in the streets,
and so do many of them during the night,
their sledge serving them at once as house
and bed. Like the Bedouin Arabs, they
carry the oat-bag constantly with them, and
fasten it, during their intervals of leisure, to
the noses of their steeds. In every street
arrangements have been made for the
convenience of the Isvoshtshiks. Every here and
there mangers are erected for their use; to
water their horses, there are in all parts of
the town convenient descents to the canals or
to the river; and hay is sold at a number of
shops in small bundles, just sufficient for one
or two horses. To still the thirst and hunger
of the charioteers themselves, there are
peripatetic dealers in quass, tea, and bread, who
are constantly wandering about the streets
for the charitable purpose of feeding the
hungry. The animals are as hardy as their
masters.

* Dwellers in waggons.

"As there are no fixed fares, you must
each time bargain with your driver when you
hire him; but the fellows are, in general,
moderate enough, and will take you a tolerably
long way for a few pence. Their demands,
indeed, are apt to rise in proportion as the
weather becomes less inviting to pedestrianism,
or as the calendar announces the recurrence
of a public holiday. There are days
when they will not bate a copek of their
demands; and in the busy part of the day
they will not take less than two roubles for a
course, which in the morning or the evening
they are ready to go for half a one. On
ordinary occasions they are reasonable and
obliging enough, and will often carry you for
nothing from one side to the other of a muddy
street.

"You may know what countryman your
Isvoshtshik is, by the way in which he treats
his horses. The Russian coachman seems to
trust more to the persuasiveness of his own
eloquence than to anything else. He seldom
uses his whip, and generally only knocks with
it upon the foot-board of his sledge, by way
of a gentle admonition to his steed, with
whom, meanwhile, he keeps up a running
colloquy, seldom giving him harder words
than: ' my brother,' ' my friend,' ' my little
father,' 'my sweetheart,' 'my little white
pigeon,' &c. ' Come, my pretty pigeon,
make use of thy legs,' he will say. ' What
now? art blind ? come, be brisk! Take care
of that stone there. Dost not see it? There,
that's right. Bravo! hop, hop, hop! steady,
boy, steady! Now, what art turning thy
head aside for? Look out boldly before thee!
Huzza! Yukh, yukh! '

"One very important thing to know is,
that our Isvoshtshik, for the period of the
drive, has become our serf, and that if we are
people to abuse our power, we may assume
the lord and master with impunity. If we
speak to him, he will never think of replying
to us otherwise than bareheaded. Our scolding
he receives with a cheerful and submissive
smile, our commands with prompt obedience.
If he is to drive faster, the intimation
is conveyed to him in the way intimations are
usually conveyed to slaves, namely, through
the medium of his back, on which the hand of
his temporary master writes down the order
in a legible character. A Russian is born
with a bridle round his neck, and every man
whose hand is firm enough may seize the reins.

"Though you speak no Russian, you will
seldom find it difficult to make yourself
understood to your Isvoshtshik, who is in general quite
a cosmopolite and a man of the world,
compared to those of his calling in other countries.
He has to deal with nearly all the nations of
Asia in his time, and individuals from every
country in Europe have held converse with
him. He has a smattering of every language.

"The constant plague of the Isvoshtshik is
the pedestrian, who in Russia is invested with
immense privileges. In other countries a
man thinks himself bound to take care that
he is not run over; but in Russia, he who
walks afoot troubles himself but little about
the matter, and thinks the coachman alone is
bound to be careful. If the horse or carriage
merely touch a foot passenger, without even
throwing him down, the driver is liable to be
flogged and fined; should the pedestrian be
thrown down, a flogging, Siberia, and the
confiscation of the whole equipage, are the
mild penalties imposed by the law. ' Have a
care,' cries the Isvoshtshik. 'Have a care
thyself, and remember Siberia,' is the
probable reply of the leisurely wayfarer. The
moment the cry is raised that a man has been
run over, a brace of butshniks rush out from
their watchboxes, and the carriage, whomever
it may belong to, is carried away as a police
prize. The poor coachman is immediately
bound, and the flattering prospect of an
emigration to Siberia is immediately held forth
to him, whether the accident have arisen from
his own fault or not. Cases of great severity
sometimes occur; but it is difficult to point
out any other way of checking the wild way
of driving in which the nobles frequently
indulge. As it is, they are always urging their
poor fellows to go faster, and the consequence
is, that, wide as the streets are, and severe as
the law is, accidents are constantly occurring,
and every now and then you hear that this
prince's fine four-in-hand is in the clutches of
the police, or that that count's coachman is
undergoing an inquiry."

Now, without declaring that the French
wheeled system is perfect, or that the
Austrian wheeled system is perfect, or that the
Russian wheeled system is perfect, or that any
of these wheeled systems is near perfection,
we may very confidently assert that our own is
decidedly imperfect and very defective. If we
would put a little more common-sense on