gm of sheet-iron. Grease and
scalding-hot tea; _quass_ and cabbage soup; raw cucumbers; cold fish;
lumps of ice; decayed cheese and black bread, seem to have no other
effect upon it than to provoke an appetite. In warm weather it is
absolutely marvelous to see the quantities of fiery-hot liquids these
people pour down their throats. Just cast your eye upon that bearded
giant in the corner, with his hissing urn of tea before him, his
_batvina_ and his _shtshie_! What a spectacle of physical enjoyment!
His throat is bare; his face a glowing carbuncle; his body a monstrous
cauldron, seething and dripping with overflowing juices. Shade of
Hebe! how he swills the tea--how glass after glass of the steaming-hot
liquid flows into his capacious maw, and diffuses itself over his
entire person! It oozes from every pore of his skin; drops in globules
from his forehead; smokes through his shirt; makes a piebald chart of
seas and islands over his back; streams down and simmers in his boots!
He is saturated with tea, inside and out--a living sponge overflowing
at every pore. You might wring him out, and there would still be a
heavy balance left in him.

[Illustration: MUJIKS AT TEA.]

These traktirs are the general places of meeting, where matters of
business or pleasure are discussed; accounts settled and bargains
made. Here the merchant, the broker, the banker, and the votary of
pleasure meet in common. Here all the pursuits of human life are
represented, and the best qualities of men drawn out with the drawing
of the tea. Enmities are forgotten and friendships cemented in tea. In
short, the traktir is an institution, and its influence extends
through all the ramifications of society.

But it is in the gardens and various places of suburban resort that
the universal passion for tea is displayed in its most pleasing and
romantic phases. Surrounded by the beauties of nature, lovers make
their avowals over the irrepressible tea-pot; the hearts of fair
damsels are won in the intoxication of love and tea; quarrels between
man and wife are made up, and children weaned--I had almost said
baptized--in tea. The traveler must see the families seated under the
trees, with the burnished urn before them--the children romping about
over the grass; joy beaming upon every face; the whole neighborhood a
repetition of family groups and steaming urns, bound together by the
mystic tie of sympathy, before he can fully appreciate the important
part