y English
merchants, canny Scotchmen, dwarfish Finlanders, stupid Lettes, diminutive
Kamtschatkians, each in his own national costume, make up a lively
picture; while underlying all, and more worthy of note than all, are the
true Russian peasantry; the original stock out of which Peter and his
successors have fashioned their mighty empire.

The Russian of the lower orders is any thing but an inviting personage, at
first sight. The name by which they have been designated, in their own
language, time out of mind, describes them precisely. It is _tschornoi
narod_, "the dirty people," or as we might more freely render it, "The
Great Unwashed." An individual of this class is called a _mujik_. He is
usually of middle stature, with small light eyes, level cheeks, and flat
nose, of which the tip is turned up so as to display the somewhat expanded
nostril. His pride and glory is his beard, which he wears as long and
shaggy as nature will allow. The back of the head is shaved closely; and
as he wears nothing about his neck, his head stands distinctly away from
his body. His ideal of the beauty of the human head, as seen from behind,
seems to be to make it resemble, as nearly as may be, a turnip. He is
always noisy and never clean; and when wrapped in his sheepskin mantle, or
_caftan_ of blue cloth reaching to his knees, might easily enough be taken
for a bandit. As he seldom thinks of changing his inner garments more than
once a week, and as his outer raiment lasts half his lifetime, and is
never laid aside during the night, and never washed, he constantly affords
evidence of his presence any thing but agreeable to the organs of smell.
But a closer acquaintance will bring to light many traits of character
which belie his rude exterior; and will show him to be at bottom a
good-natured, merry, friendly fellow. His most striking characteristic is
pliability and dexterity. If he does not possess the power of originating,
he has a wonderful faculty of copying the ideas of others, and of yielding
himself up to carry out the conceptions of any one who wishes to use him
for the accomplishment of his ends. There is an old German myth which says
that the Teutonic race was framed, in the depths of time, out of the hard,
unyielding granite. The original material of the Russian race must have
been Indian rubber, so easily are they compressed into any form, and so
readily do they resume their own, when the pressure is removed. The raw,
untraine