you, you look upon
him as upon a clever professor of legerdemain, who has cheated you in
spite of your senses; but you hardly hold him morally responsible. Upon
the whole, though you can not respect the _mujik_, you can hardly avoid
having a sort of liking for him.

[Illustration.]

Punishment For Drunkenness.

Perhaps the most thoroughly Russian of all the _tschornoi narod_ are the
_isvoshtshiks_, or public drivers; at least they are the class with whom
the traveler comes most immediately and necessarily into contact, and from
whom he derives his idea of them. Such is the extent of St. Petersburg,
that when the foreigner has sated his curiosity with the general aspect of
the streets, he finds that he can not afford time to walk from one object
of interest to another. Moreover, in winter--and here winter means fully
six months in the year--the streets are spread with a thick covering of
snow, which soon becomes beaten up into powdered crystals, through which
locomotion is as difficult as through the deepest sands of Sahara; and the
wind whirls these keen crystals about like the sand-clouds of the desert.
Every body not to the manner born, whose pleasures or avocations call him
abroad, is glad to draw his mantle over his face, and creeping into a
sledge, wrap himself up as closely as he may in furs. In spring and
summer, when the streets are usually either a marsh or choked with
intolerable dust, pedestrianism is equally disagreeable. All this has
called into requisition a host of Jehus, so that the stranger who has
mastered enough Russian to call out _Davai ishvoshtshik_! "Here, driver!"
or even lifts his hand by way of signal, has seldom need to repeat the
summons.

Like his cart-borne kindred, the Tartars and Scythians, the _ishvoshtshik_
makes his vehicle his home. In it he eats, drinks, and often sleeps,
rolling himself up into a ball in the bottom, to present as little surface
as possible to the action of the cold.--Russian-like, he always names a
price for his services that will leave ample room for abatement. But once
engaged, and he is for the time being your servant, and accepts any amount
of abuse or beating as the natural condition of the bargain.

[Illustration.]

Ishvoshtshiks.

The _mujik_ of every class seems indeed to be born ready bitted, for the
use of anyone who has a hand steady e