expression I have observed on the baconian
physiognomy, I don't think that animal likes it.
Finally, the cattle drivers, clad (also in seeming
insult to their victims) in loose capes of
pie-bald calf-skin, as if they had been foraging
in the Pantechnicon, London, and had robbed
some hair-trunks of their coverings. They
blow veritable cow-horns which make an
unearthly wailing noise, and sound so
discordantly that I very much marvel that the cows
don't die of that tune.

Over the glassy Neva, blue as the sky that
roofs it, with ships from all parts of the world
mirroring their cobweb rigging in its depths,
over the Neva by the new bridge on to the
Quai Anglais, and I am not half home
yet. See, here are the Iks all at once, and
in great force all over the new bridge
without crowding it, and stationary, though
there is no show to see, no orator to hear,
no time to laze away; for they are all bound
for a weary day's work.

That man with a short, stunted, scrubby
but thick beard, with the leathern cap and
blue cloth band in lieu of the ordinary
Ischvostchik's hat; with the blue striped shirt,
pink-striped breeches, and immutable boots,
and fluttering over all like the toga of an
ancient Roman in difficulties, or the time-
worn, and by stern-creditor not-renewed
mantle of Don Cæsar de Bazan—a tattered,
patched, greasy, stained, villanous, but
voluminous leathern apron—is a Batchmatchnik,
a shoemaker. He beside him, with the
cunning fox-face, the unwholesome complexion,
the bloodshot eyes, the slight stoop
in the back, the large hands with lissome
fingers crooked somewhat at the tips, the
general weary, done-up, hunted-dog look,
telling of late hours, and later vodki; he who
has a square bonnet of stiff blue paper something
like a lancer's cap on his head, a black
calico apron over his caftan, and black calico
sleeves reaching half-way up his arms, must
be a Typograpschtchik—a journeyman
printer, who has just knocked off work at the
bureaux of the Journal de St. Pétersburg
in the Pochta-Oulitza, or General Post-Office-
street hard by; or else he has been setting
all night in type, positive or superlative
lies in some imperial oukase, or edict, or
prikaz. Yonder fellow, with the herculean
frame, the fair-haired, blue-eyed, full-bearded,
Richard-Cœur-de-Lion-head, and the eye like
Mars to threaten or command, (he was
whipped yesterday) is—it needs not his bared
arm, his coarse canvas suit, but always with
boots, the rope tied round his waist, and the
tape round his forehead, and the film of fine
drab powder with which he is covered from
hair of crown to ball of toe—to tell you, a
Kammenstchik, or stone-mason. Beside him
is his brother in building—not an Ik this
time but an Ar; but he may be allowed,
I hope, to press in with the ruck—a ruddy
fellow in a pink shirt and the usual etceteras
with a hatchet stuck in his girdle; a merry-
faced varlet with white teeth, who, if he had
but an ass to lead, might be Ali Baba; but
who is his own beast of burden, wots of no
caverns, and is simply Axinti Ivanoff the
Stoliar, or carpenter. He can do more feats
of carpentry, joinery, ay and cabinet-making
and upholstery, with that single clumsily-
made, blunt-looking toula hatchet of his, than
many a skilled operative in London who
earns his three pounds per week. Axinti, of
course, is a slave; and, being very clever at
his trade, is at high obrok, and is very
profitable to his master. The facility and
dexterity with which the Russian mechanics
handle the hatchet, and make it serve in
lieu of other tools, are marvellous, and almost
incredible,—are certainly unequalled, save
by the analogous skill of the peasants of
the Black Forest, who are reported to be
able to cut down trees, square timber for
houses, carve comic nutcrackers and ugly-
mugged toys, shave themselves, and cut their
meat, all with the aid of one single penknife.
The hatchet of the Russian carpenter
seems to serve him in lieu of plane, saw, chisel,
and mallet, and (it would almost seem) gimlet
and screwdriver. I knew a Russian who
declared "qu'il avait un paysan" ("J'avais un
paysan"—I had a peasant—is as common a
commencement to a Russian conversation as
"once upon a time" to a fairy tale, or "it is
now some eighteen years since" to the speech
of a virtuous venerable in a melo-drama at
home) who could glue boards together with
his hatchet. No men (I except the Bat-
men) who have traversed Moscow or
Petersburg streets, and have watched the
carpenters at work, either in their open
shops or at the ligneous pavement, can.
have failed to remark the wonderful
dexterity with which they convert a rough,
shapeless piece of wood, into a plank, a panel,
an hexagonal paving-block, a staff, a batten,
a faggot, a quoin, a board, or a shelf. The
process seems instantaneous. The carpenters
have other tools besides the hatchet,
doubtless; though I never saw a Russian Stoliar
with a complete basket of tools beside him.
But the hatchet is emphatically an implement
germane and to the Russian manner born,
as the cloth-yard shaft was to the English
bowmen of yore, before the long bow
came to be used in England in a manner
that our stout ancestors of Crecy and
Agincourt never dreamt of. With the hatchet,
the Russian moujik hews at the black pine-
forests of Olonetz and Wiborg, for logs
for his houses, for timber for the Czar's
ships; with the hatchet he defends himself
against the grisly bear and ravenous wolf;
with the hatchet he cuts a way, for his sledge,
in winter through the frozen snow; with the
hatchet he joints frozen meat, and cuts up
frozen fish, and chops frozen vegetables. The
hatchet is his principal aid in building his
house, and in constructing his furniture, and
in cutting his fuel: all of which he does