on were denied. And I look upon the head
of Christ as the turning point in the Christian art of a nation.
If that head be conceived of unworthily there is no possibility
that prophets, apostles, martyrs, shall receive their due.

[Illustration: LA LAVRA, KIEF.]

_NIJNI-NOVGOROD_

_ANTONIO GALLENGA_

Nijni-Novgorod, or Lower New-town, is older than Moscow, and only
not so old as Novgorod the Great, which was a contemporary of Venice,
and was still new when the semi-fabulaus Ruric and his Varangians
are supposed to have given their name to Russia.

Nijni-Novgorod, which everybody here calls simply "Nijni," dates
from 1222; and mention of its fair occurs, we are told, in 1366,
since which epoch its celebration has suffered very rare and only
violent interruption.

To understand why this venerable spot should have been for so many
years, and should be still, so extensively favoured by the world's
trade, it is hardly necessary to see it. We only need bear in mind
that Nijni lies near the confluence of the Oka and the Volga, two
of the greatest rivers of this Russia which alone of all countries
of Europe may be said to have great rivers; the Volga having a
course of 2,320 miles, and the Oka, a mere tributary, of 850 miles.

It is the position which the Saoene and the Rhone have made for Lyons;
the position for which St. Louis is indebted to the Mississippi and
Missouri; the position which Corientes will soon owe to the Parana
and the Paraguay.

Nijni lies at the very centre of that water communication which
joins the Caspian and the Black Sea to the White Sea and the Baltic,
and which, were it always summer, might almost have enabled Russia
to dispense with roads and railroads.

But Nijni is, besides, the terminus of the railway from Moscow.
That line places this town and its fair in communication with all
the lines of Russia and the Western World, while the Volga, with
its tributary, the Kama, leads to Perm, and the Pass of the Ural
Mountains, and the vast regions of Siberia and Central Asia.

Nijni-Novgorod is thus one of the most important links between
the two great continents, the point of contact between Asiatic
wealth and European industry; and its fair the best meeting-place
for the interchange of commodities between the nations that still
walk, ride, or row at the rate of three to five miles an hour,
and those who fly on the wings of steam at the rate of thirty to
fifty.

The site of Nijni is so