g,
airy lamps festooned among the tall trees and the low shrubbery, as
they sway hither and thither, resembling clouds of huge fire-flies,
floating at evening over a tropical plantation. There are also
exhibitions nightly of fancy fire-works, minor theatricals, and comic
song-singing. Tramways lead from the centre of the town to these
popular resorts, or a drosky will take one thither at a mere trifling
charge. The drosky drivers of Moscow appear to be one degree more
stupid than those of St. Petersburg, impossible as that may seem.
Like the cocher of Paris they all expect and ask for a _pourboire_.
In the capital on the Neva the driver suggests "Na tchai" (tea), as
you hand him his fare,--that is, he desires a few pennies to procure
a drink of tea; but in Moscow the driver says more honestly, "Na
vodka" (brandy). And yet there are many who are satisfied with the
milder decoction, and will sit and sip it as long as any one will pay
for it,--recalling the jinrikisha men of Yokohama, who seemed to have
no desire for any stimulant but boiling hot tea, and plenty of it.
The drosky drivers of Moscow dress all alike, and precisely like
their brethren in the capital, in long blue padded pelisses, summer
and winter, with a low bell-crowned hat, from beneath which
protrudes an abundance of carrot-colored hair, of the consistency of
dried meadow-grass.

It will interest the traveller to visit briefly the great National
Riding-School of Moscow, a building embracing an area of five hundred
and sixty feet long by one hundred and fifty-eight feet wide. It is
covered with what appears to be a flat roof, but is without
supporting pillars of any sort on the inside. A full regiment of
cavalry can be exercised here with perfect convenience. This was the
largest building in the world unsupported by prop of any kind, until
the St. Pancras railway station was built in London. The interior is
ornamented with bas-reliefs of men in armor and with ancient
trophies. By ascending a winding staircase one can see the net-work
of massive beams which sustain the roof, a perfect forest of stays
and rafters. In a climate such as prevails here at least two thirds
of the year, it is impossible to manoeuvre troops in the open air
with any degree of comfort, not to say safety; hence this structure
was raised and supplied with huge stoves to afford the means of
exercising the troops even in mid-winter.

Moscow has four theatres, two only of which are wort