ted activity,
such as General Kaulbars, may be seen quietly sipping their tea
and talking of the last ball to the young lady of the house. A fete
given by Madame Polovtsoff, wife of the Secretaire de l'Empire,
was wonderfully conducted and organized. It took place at a villa
on the Islands, as that part of St. Petersburg which lies between
the two principal branches of the Neva is called. It is to villas
here that the officials can retire after the season when obliged
to remain near the capital. The rooms and large conservatories
were lit by electricity. At the further end of the conservatory,
buried in palm-trees were the gipsies chanting and wailing their
savage national songs and choruses, while the guests wandered about
amongst groves of camellias, and green lawns studded with
lilies-of-the-valley and hyacinths; rose-bushes in full flower at
the corners. When the gipsies were exhausted, dancing began, and
later there was an excellent supper in another still more spacious
conservatory. The entertainment ended with a cotillon, and for
the stranger its originality was only marred by the fact that it
had been thawing, and the company could not arrive or depart in
"_troikas_,"--sleighs with three horses which seem to fly along the
glistening moonlit snow. A favourite amusement, even in winter, is
racing these "_troikas_," or sleighs, with fast trotters. The races
are to be seen from stands, as in England, and are only impeded by
falling snow. The pretty little horses are harnessed, for trotting
races, singly, to a low sleigh (in summer to a drosky) driven by
one man, wearing the colours of the owner. Two of these start at
once in opposite directions on a circular or oblong course marked
out on a flat expanse of snow and ice, which may be either land
or water, as is found most convenient. It is a picturesque sight,
and reminds one of the pictures of ancient chariot races on old
vases and carved monuments.

The character of a nation can scarcely fail to be affected by the
size of the country it inhabits, and a certain indifference to time
and distance is produced by this circumstance. There is also a
peculiar apathy as regards small annoyances and casualties. Whatever
accident befalls the Russian of the lower orders, his habitual
remark is "_Nitchivo_" ("It is nothing"). Nevertheless, Northern
blood and a Northern climate have mixed a marvellous amount of
energy and enterprise with this Oriental characteristic. Take for