lf a Frenchman,
the Frenchman is half an Englishman, and you, my friend, are half a
German. We have some respect for a German, for he is equal to a score
of Greeks, a dozen Italians, or six Frenchmen, but we have no respect
at all for the rest."

Twenty Arabs passed us at the stall--all pashas, a Georgian informed
me. They had arrived the night before from Trebizond and the desert
beyond. Their procession through the ragged market was something to
wonder at--a long file of warriors all over six feet high, broad,
erect, with full flowing cloaks from their shoulders to their ankles,
under the cloaks rich embroidered garments. Their faces were white and
wrinkled, proud with all the assurance of men who have never known
what it is to stoop before the law and trade.

"They have come to make a journey through Russia," said the Georgian,
"but their consul has turned them back. They will pray in the mosque
and then return. It is inconvenient that they should go to Europe
while there is the war."

A prowling gendarme in official blue and red came up to the stall and
sniffed at the company. He pounced on me.

"Your letters of identification?" he asked.

I handed him a recommendation I had from the Governor of Archangel. He
returned it with such deference that all the other customers stared.
Archangel was three thousand miles away. Russian governors have long
arms.

It is unpleasant, however, to be scrutinised and thought suspicious. I
finished my tea and then returned to the crowd. There was yet more of
the fair to see--the stalls of Caucasian wares, the silks, the guns,
the knives, Armenian and Persian carpets, Turkish slippers, sandals,
yards of brown pottery, where at each turn one sees huge pitchers and
water-jugs and jars that might have held the forty thieves. At one
booth harness is sold and high Turkish saddles, at another pannier
baskets for mules. A flood of colour on the pavement of a covered
way--a great disarray of little shrivelled lemons, with stalks in
many cases, for they have been gathered hard by. In the centre of the
market-place are all the meat and fish shops, and there one may see
huge sturgeon and salmon brought from the fisheries of the Caspian.
Garish notices inform in five languages that fresh caviare is received
each day. Round about the butchers are sodden wooden stalls, labelled

SNOW MERCHANTS,

and there, wrapped in old rags, is much grey muddy snow melting and
freezing itself. It has