ed, especially on Sundays and holidays,
with a dense and varied throng, of so many nationalities and types that
it is a valuable lesson in ethnography to sort them, and that a secret
uttered is absolutely safe in no tongue,--unless, possibly, it be that
of Patagonia. But the universal language of the eye conquers all
difficulties, even for the remarkably fair Tatar women, whose national
garb includes only the baldest and gauziest apology for the obligatory
veil.

The plain facades of the older buildings on this part of the Prospekt,
which are but three or four stories in height,--elevators are rare
luxuries in Petersburg, and few buildings exceed five stories,--are
adorned, here and there, with gayly-colored pictorial representations of
the wares for sale within. But little variety in architecture is
furnished by the inconspicuous Armenian, and the uncharacteristic Dutch
Reformed and Lutheran churches which break the severe line of this
"Tolerance Street," as it has been called. Most fascinating of all the
shops are those of the furriers and goldsmiths, with their surprises and
fresh lessons for foreigners; the treasures of Caucasian and Asian art
in the Eastern bazaars; the "Colonial wares" establishments, with their
delicious game cheeses, and odd _studena_ (fishes in jelly), their
pineapples at five and ten dollars, their tiny oysters from the Black
Sea at twelve and a half cents apiece.

Enthralling as are the shop windows, the crowd on the sidewalk is more
enthralling still. There are Kazaks, dragoons, cadets of the military
schools, students, so varied, though their gay uniforms are hidden by
their coats, that their heads resemble a bed of verbenas in the sun.
There are officers of every sort: officers with rough gray overcoats and
round lambskin caps; officers in large, flat, peaked caps, and
smooth-surfaced voluminous cape-coats, wadded with eider-down and lined
with gray silk, which trail on their spurs, and with collars of costly
beaver or striped American raccoon, and long sleeves forever dangling
unused. A snippet of orange and black ribbon worn in the buttonhole
shows us that the wearer belongs to the much-coveted military Order of
St. George. There are civilians in black cape-coats of the military
pattern, topped off with cold, uncomfortable, but fashionable chimneypot
hats, or, more sensibly, with high caps of beaver.

It is curious to observe how many opinions exist as to the weather. The
officers lea