of government functionaries—care less for
church-building; but are lavish in reply to
claims upon their charity. Is there famine or
notorious calamity in any part of Russia, they
will be prompt to contribute towards its relief,
especially by the gay method of getting up
masquerades. By their private theatricals,
during a recent famine in one part of Russia,
they caused corn to the value of several
thousand roubles to be sent to the poor in the
distressed district.

The third class of Kazanites, mechanics,
workmen, petty tradesmen, live, in unwholesome
streets and houses, an extremely
wretched life. They are fed upon black bread
and cabbage soup. They drink great quantities
of tea, and also of a stronger liquor
entitled vodki; for, like most of the degraded
and ignorant classes of men in the world, they
are happiest when they can intoxicate
themselves. These people surpass the merchants
in regard for the externals of religion. They
observe fasts quite literally; and, during Lent,
eat nothing but dried mushrooms, salad,
cucumbers, cabbage, and other vegetables:
even of such diet many take only one meal a
day. Out of their strictness has been bred a
sect, for which we think we could find a
parallel in England; its members form the
Raskolniki or sect of Old believers. They are
devoted to the ancient mode of worship in the
Church of Russia. They are great lovers of
old books of prayer and relics. Their images
are of the antique character, such as were
painted in the old times, when every figure
had a skeleton-like body. They make it a
great point to pronounce the "hallelujah" only
twice; to do it thrice, according to the form
usual in Russia, they hold to be unlawful.
They reverence only the eight-cornered cross,
and they teach that the benediction of the
priest should be given with the two middle
fingers—not with a thumb and two fingers in
the way now heretically customary. The poor
ignorant people of this very ancient sect
are true to these opinions amidst cruel
persecutions. On one occasion ten thousand
of them emigrated to the wilds of Siberia,
where they hoped to remain unmolested
in possession of their principles, and others
have been known to set fire to their
villages and rush into the flames; more willing
to be burnt alive than concede any one of
the points just stated.

From this mention of burning villages we
come to the last aspect, in which we propose
to present the Russian Cauldron. It is a
lamentable, but not an extraordinary fact for a
Cauldron, that it is continually being set
a-blaze. Kazan has been devastated—one
might almost say burnt down—nine times
during the last two hundred and sixty years.
The last fire occurred when Mr. Turnerelli
was residing there. He set out early one
August, morning, when a terrible wind was
thickening the Cauldron with Kazan summer
dust, and on his way passed the spot
where several houses had been burnt down
a few days before: they were still smoking.
"Ah," said a friend to him, " if they had
been burning under this wind, we should
have had the fire of eighteen hundred
and fifteen over again!"

The idea had scarcely been expressed before
the fire-bell sounded, engines and men came
sweeping through the streets, and the inhabitants
rushed out to know in which direction
they were going. An elegant hotel was on
fire in the street called Prolomnaya. Mr.
Turnerelli and his friend hurried to the scene.
The wind roared among the flames and carried
burning brands in all directions; neighbours
were emptying their houses, fire-engines were
dashing about madly, people were screaming
and shouting, and the fire-bell never
ceased.

The flames spread from house to house, they
caught the Church of the Ascension; presently
down came its tower and bells. Masses of
burning wood, blown over the roof of a
hundred houses, fell on the Dome Sobrany, the
assembly-room of the nobles. Up rose the
black smoke of the fire. On went the flames
and seized the palace of the governor-general
more churches caught. Although there was
much brick and stone, there were a great many
wooden structures. The hot sun of summer
had dried everything up, and wherever the
wind carried a burning fragment, it seldom
failed to kindle something. Fires sprung up
in places at a distance of six miles; to which
it was supposed that brands had been swept
after having been shot up out of the crackling
Cauldron, by the fury of the storm.
Streets, churches, markets, bridges,
hospitals, barracks, and manufactories, were
all blazing together. Men, women, and
children rushed out of doors with images in their
hands, and prostrated themselves in vain
before their thresholds. They were forced to
fly and leave their dwellings in the hold of
the destroyer. The flames rolled to the
University—a magnificent structure upon a hill,
containing many rare treasures, and especially
a famous Oriental library. The Observatory
took fire, and the students rushed in, at great
risk to themselves, to save the instruments.
The grand refractor was brought safely, by eight
youths, down an almost perpendicular ladder.
The rector's house was burnt, the library fell
into the jaws of the devourer, when the wind
shifted suddenly, and it was saved.

In the town there was the crash of falling
towers, the clang of bells, the beating of drums,
the crying of the frantic, and through all, the
roaring of the wind and of the fire; there was
the awful sheet of livid flame, and there were
the thick clouds of smoke, and dust, and
burning ashes. He who went abroad to see
the fire when it began in one quarter, had,
after no long time, to rush back, that he might
save what he could out of the wreck of his
own distant home. The way back lay by
burning houses, and sometimes through burning