It serves not only to heat the hut, but to bake their bread, and for all sorts of cookery, and to dry their clothes, articles of which are generally seen hung up round it. Benches are placed before it, where the inmates sit to warm themselves, while on a platform above it are placed beds where, wrapped up in sheepskins, they indulge in idleness, and heat-the greatest luxuries they are able to enjoy. To all our houses we have double windows: we paste paper over every crevice by which air may enter, and we fill up the lower part of the interval between the two windows with sand, into which we stick artificial flowers, to remind us that summer, with its varied tinted beauties, will once again return. Two or three doors also must generally be passed before the inside of the house is reached. Thus, you see, in spite of the bitter cold in the outer world, we contrive to construct an inner one where we can make ourselves tolerably comfortable. We never venture out without being well wrapped up in furs, and then we move from house to house as fast as we can, so as to avoid being exposed any length of time to the cold. We have also large fires lighted in front of the places of amusement and the palaces of the Emperor and nobility, where the drivers and servants may warm themselves while waiting for their masters. Generally

with great cold there is little wind; and people, as long as they are warmly clad and in motion, have no reason to fear its effects, but unhappy is the wretch who is overtaken by sleep while exposed to it. His death is certain. Death thus produced is said to be accompanied by no disagreeable sensations, at least so say those who have been partially frozen and recovered, but I would rather not try the experiment. When the thermometer falls to 50 or 55 degrees below Zero, it is time to be cautious. Nobody shows their noses out of doors unless compelled by urgent necessity, and when they do, they move along as fast as they can-keeping a watchful look-out after that prominent and most important feature of the human countenance. As no unusual sensation accompanies the first attack of frost on the nose, it is difficult to guard against it. A warning is, however, given by the peculiar white hue which it assumes, and immediately this sign is observed by a passer-by, he gives notice to the person attacked. 'Oh, father! father! thy nose, thy nose!' he will cry, rushing up to him with a handful of snow, with which he will rub the feature attacked, if, on a nearer inspection, he sees that it is in danger. Of course people generally take the best possible care of their noses, so that the dreaded catastrophe does

not often occur. We wrap up warmly, and leave only the eyes and mouth and nose exposed, so that nearly all the heat which escapes from the body has to pass through that channel, and thus effectually keeps it warm.

"We Russians are not so fond of violent exercise as are you English, and therefore we depend on the heat of our stoves and the thickness of our clothing, to keep ourselves warm. We sometimes forget that our servants are not so substantially clad as ourselves, and while we are entertaining ourselves indoors, they, foolish fellows, fall asleep, and get frozen to death outside the palace or theatre, or wherever we may happen to be. Every year also people lose their lives by getting drunk and falling asleep out of doors. They may try the experiment several times, but some night the thermometer sinks to Zero, and they never wake again. In summer, travelling is all very well, but in winter it is enjoyable; no dust, no dirt, no scorching heat. Well covered up with warm skins, and with fur boots on our feet, away we glide, dragged rapidly on by our prancing steeds over the hard snow, fleet almost as the bird on the wing, and like the bird directly across the country, where in summer no road can be found. Mighty streams also are bridged over, and we journey along the bed of

water-courses, which in spring are swept by foaming torrents. The thick mantle of ice and snow which clothes our country forms a superb highway, which the inhabitants of other lands may in vain desire. The snow, which seems so cold and inhospitable to the stranger, is our greatest and most valued friend. It is like a fur cloak; it keeps in the warmth generated in the bosom of the earth, and shelters the bulbs and roots and seeds from the biting cold which would otherwise destroy them. More than anything else we have to dread a snowless winter; then truly the earth is shut up by an iron grasp, and tall trees, and shrubs, and plants wither and die under its malign influence. The earth, deprived of its usual covering, the ruthless cold deeply penetrates it, and man and beast, and creeping things suffer from its effects. Oh, yes, we have reason to pray earnestly to be delivered from a snowless winter!"

Χ

CHAPTER XVII.

Sports in winter-Bear and wolf-hunting-Story of the Miller and the Wolves-Other tales about wolves Shooting wolves from sledges-Narrow escape from a wolf-Breaking up of the ice on the Volga-Dreadful sight of a boat's crew carried away with the ice-Loss of an old man on the ice-The Russian bath-Trial of vocal powers of two musicians.

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"BUT have you no sports in the winter season ?" asked Fred. “I thought that the country abounded in bears and wolves, and deer and game of all sorts. They are the sort of animals I should like to look after."

"We have an abundance of bears and wolves, and of smaller animals, too, but we are not very fond of leaving our comfortable homes to shoot them. Sometimes, when a bear becomes troublesome in a neighbourhood by his depredations, the villagers turn out in a body to destroy him, and wolves are the enemies of all. In winter, when hard pressed by hunger, a flock of these are very dangerous, and numberless persons have fallen victims to their voracity. A