had thrown themselves into whiskers with
all the energy of their nature, and had
produced some startling effects in that line. A
pair of a light buff colour, poudré with coal-
dust (he had probably just concluded an
official visit to some neighbouring engine-
room) were much admired. There were men
with with faces so sun-baked, that their eyes
looked considerably lighter than their faces;
there were others with visages so white and
pasty that their little, black, Chinese eyes
looked like currants in a suet-dumpling.
And it was now, for the first time, that,
with great interest and curiosity, I saw
the famous Russian military great-coat—that
hideous capote of some coarse frieze of a convict-
colour, half-grey, half-drab (the colour of
inferior oatmeal, to be particular) which is
destined, I suppose, to occupy as large a
place in history as the redingote guise of the
first Napoleon. These great-coats—buttoned
straight down from the throat to the waist
and from thence falling down to the heels in
uncouth folds and gathered in behind with a
buckle and strap of the same cloth—had red
red collars and culfs, the former marked with
letters in a fantastic alphabet, that looked as
a Greek Lexicon might look after a supper of
raw pork chops. The letters were not Greek,
not Arabic, not Roman, and yet they had
some of the characteristics of each abecedaire.
These gentry were police officers; most of
them wore a round flat cap with a red band;
and if you desire further details, go to the
next toyshop and purchase a Noah's ark, and
among the male members (say Shem: Ham is
too bright-looking) you will find the very
counterpart of these Russian polizeis. One
little creature, apparently about sixty years
of age, almost a dwarf, almost hump-backed,
and with a face so perforated with pockmarks
that, had you permission to empty his skull
of its contents, you might have used him for
a cullender and strained maccaroni through
him—but with a very big sword and a fierce
pair of moustaches; this small Muscovite I
named Japhet on the spot. He walked and
fell (over my portmanteau, I am sorry to say)
all in one piece; and, when he saluted his
officer (which every one of the privates
seemed to do twice in every three minutes),
and which salute consists in a doffing of the
cap and a very low bow, he seemed to have a
hinge in his spine, but nowhere else. There
were men in authority amongst these policemen,
mostly athletic, big-whiskered fellows,
who looked as if they did the knocking-down
part of the police business (shall I ever know
better what these large-whiskered men do, I
wonder?) These wore helmets with spikes
on the top and the Double Eagle, in the
brightest tin, in front. They must have been
mighty warriors too, some of them; for many
were decorated with medals and crosses, not,
of any very expensive materials, and
suspended to ribbons of equivocal hue, owing
to the dirt. On the broad breast of one
brave I counted nine medals and crosses
(I counted them twice, carefully, to be quite
certain) strung all of a row on a straight
piece of wire; and, with their their tawdry scraps
of ribbons, looking exceedingly like the
part-coloured rags you see on a dyer's
pole. Some had great stripes or galons of
copper-looking lace on their sleeves; and
there was one officer who not only wore a
helmet, but a green surtout laced with silver,
the ornaments of which inlaid with
black dirt and grease in a novel and tasteful
manner. The  custom-house officers wore
unpretending uniforms of shabby green, and
copper buttons: and the majority of the
subordinates, both polizeis and douaniers,
had foul Belcher handkerchiefs twisted round
their necks. There were two other trifling
circumstances peculiar to these braves, which,
in my quality of an observer, I may be
allowed to mention. Number one is, that
nearly all these men had no lobes to their
ears.* Number two is, that from careful
and minute peeping up from their sleeves and
down their collars, I am in a position to
declare my belief that there was not one
single shirt among the whole company.
About the officer I cannot be so certain. I
did not venture to approach near enough to
him; but I had four hours' opportunity to
examine the privates (as you will shortly
hear),and what I have stated is the fact. A
Hottentot private gentleman is not ordinarily
considered to be a model of cleanliness. It is
difficult in England to find dirtier subjects
for inspection than the tramps in a low lodging-
house; but for dirt surpassing ten thousand
times anything I have ever yet seen, commend
me to our boarding-party. They were,
assuredly, the filthiest set of ragamuffins that ever
kept step since Lieutenaut-Colonel
Falstaff's regiment was disbanded.

*This is a physical peculiarity I have observed in
scores of Russians—some of them in the highest classes
of society.

I am thus particular on a not very
inviting subject, because the remarkable
contrast between the hideous dirt ot the soldiery
on ordinary, and their scrupulous cleanliness
on extraordinary occasions, is one of the
things that must strike the attention (and at l
east two of the senses) of every traveller in
Russia. On parade, at a review, whenever
he is to be inspected, a Russian soldier (and
under that generic name I may fairly include
policemen and douaniers in a country where
even the postmen are military) is literally—
outwardly at least—as clean as a new pin.
But it would seem that it is only under the
eye of his emperor or his general that the
Muscovite warrior is expected to be clean;
for, on every occasion but those I have named,
he is the dirtiest, worst-smelling mortal to be
found anywhere between Beechy Head and
the Bay of Fundy. I am fearful, too, lest I
should be thought exaggerating on the topic
of shirts; but it is a tact that the Russians,