hs, theatres, swings, and slides. These
temporary structures are easily and speedily reared. A hole is dug in the
frozen ground, into which the end of a post is placed. It is then filled
with water, which under the influence of a Russian February binds it in
its place as firmly as though it were leaded into a solid rock. The
carnival commences on the first Sunday of the Butter Week, and all St.
Petersburg gives itself up to sliding and swinging, or to watching the
sliding and swinging of others. By a wise regulation eating and drinking
shops are not allowed in the square, and the staple potable and
comestibles are tea, cakes, and nuts. Few more animated and stirring
sights are to be seen than the Admiralty square at noon, when the mirth is
at the highest among the lower orders, and when all the higher classes
make their appearance driving in regular line along a broad space, in
front of the booths, reserved for the equipages. Every body in St.
Petersburg of any pretensions to rank or wealth keeps a carriage of some
kind; and every carriage, crowded with the family in their gayest attire,
joins in the procession.

Butter Week, with its _blinni_ and ice mountains passes away all too
quickly, and is succeeded by the grim seven weeks' fast. The Admiralty
square looks desolate enough, lumbered over with fragments of the late
joyous paraphernalia, and strewed with nut-shells and orange-peel. Public
amusements, of almost all kinds are prohibited, and time passes on with
gloomy monotony, only broken by a stray saint's day, like a gleam of
sunshine across a murky sky. It is worth while to be a saint, in Russia,
if his day falls during the Great Fast, for it will be sure to be
celebrated with most exemplary fervor.

As the fast draws near its close, preparation s on tiptoe for a change.
The egg-market begins to rise, owing to the demand for "Easter-eggs," for
on that day it is customary to present an egg to every acquaintance on
first greeting him. This has given rise to a very pretty custom of giving
presents of artificial eggs of every variety of material, and frequently
with the most elegant decorations. The Imperial glass manufactory
furnishes an immense number of eggs of glass, with cut flowers and
figures, designed as presents from the Czar and Czarina.

Saturday night before Easter at last comes and goes. As the midnight hour
which is to usher in Easter-day approaches, the churches begin to fill.
The court appears in the