e atmosphere and the cheerless aspect of the
streets, that you feel the cold more acutely than you would do on
a sunshiny morning in Moscow with ten degrees of frost. In St.
Petersburg, where the winter sun is, "as in northern climes, but
dimly bright," and where the city is frequently enveloped in a
mist (which is, however, ethereal vapour compared to the opaque
fogs of London), the cold is, on the same principle, more severely
felt than in Moscow. Nevertheless, in St. Petersburg people go
about far more lightly clad than in the more southern towns of
the empire,--for St. Petersburg is half a foreign city, and the
numerous pedestrians have found it necessary to reject the ponderous
_shouba_ for a long wadded paletot with a fur-collar. The real
Russian _shouba_ is undoubtedly very warm; for it enables the Moscow
merchant to go upon 'Change, which in the old capital, during the
coldest weather, is held in the open air.

In considering the advantages and disadvantages of a Russian winter,
one should not forget the question of rain. It is evident, then,
that where there is frost there can be no rain; and accordingly,
for nearly six months in the year, you can dispense altogether
with that most unpleasant encumbrance, the umbrella. For it must
be remembered that in Russia the snow does not fall in the soft
feathery flakes to which we are accustomed in the more temperate
latitudes. It comes down in showers of microscopic darts, which,
instead of intercepting the light of the sun, like the arrows of
Xerxes' army, glitter and sparkle in the rays as they reflect them
in every direction. The minute crystals, or rather crystalline
fragments, can be at once shaken from the collars of fur, on the
points of which they hang like needles, but above all like Epsom
salts; and on the cloth of the men's _shoubas_ and the satin of
the women's cloaks they have scarcely any hold.

The most pleasant time of the whole winter is during the moonlight
nights, when the wind is still and the snow deep on the ground.
In the streets the sparkling _trottoir_, which appears literally
paved with diamonds, is as hard as the agate floor of the Cathedral
of the Annunciation in the Kremlin. In the country, where alone you
can enjoy the night in all its beauty, the frozen surface crunches,
but scarcely sinks, beneath the sledge, as your _troika_ tears
along the road as fast as the centre horse can trot and the two
outsiders gallop. For it is a peculiarity