much liked by Russians in their tea. The only
objection to this use of them is that both tea and cherries are spoiled.
Raspberries, plums, gooseberries, and currants were plentiful and cheap.
A vegetable delicacy of high order, according to Katiusha, who
introduced it to my notice, was a sort of radish with an extremely fine,
hard grain, and biting qualities much developed, which attains enormous
size, and is eaten in thin slices, salted and buttered. I presented the
solitary specimen which I bought, a ninepin in proportions, to the
grateful Katiusha. It was beyond my appreciation.

Pears do not thrive so far north, but in good years apples of fine sorts
are raised, to a certain extent, in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.
Really good specimens, however, come from Poland, the lower Volga,
Little Russia, and other distant points, which renders them always
rather dear. We saw few in our village that were worth buying, as the
season was phenomenally cold, and a month or three weeks late, so that
we got our strawberries in August, and our linden blossoms in September.
Apples, plums, grapes, and honey are not eaten--in theory--until after
they have been blessed at the feast of the Transfiguration, on August 18
(N. S.),--a very good scheme for giving them time to ripen fully for
health. Before that day, however, hucksters bearing trays of honey on
their heads are eagerly welcomed, and the peasant's special dainty--
fresh cucumbers thickly coated with honey--is indulged in unblessed.
Honey is not so plentiful that one can afford to fling away a premature
chance!

When the mushroom season came in, the market assumed an aspect of
half-subdued brilliancy with the many sombre and high-colored varieties
of that fungus. The poorer people indulge in numerous kinds which the
rich do not eat, and they furnish precious sustenance during fasts, when
so many viands are forbidden by the Russian Church and by poverty. One
of the really odd sights, during the fast of Saints Peter and Paul (the
first half of July), was that of people walking along the streets with
bunches of pea-vines, from which they were plucking the peas, and eating
them, pods and all, quite raw. It seemed a very summary and wasteful way
of gathering them. This fashion of eating vegetables raw was imported,
along with the liturgy, from the hot lands where the Eastern Church
first flourished, and where raw food was suitable. These traditions, and
probably also the economy of