Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/121

Rh "Frozen fish are piled in heaps like stove-wood, and frozen cabbages are rolled around like cannon-shot. A calf stands in front of a butcher's stall in the attitude of walking away, but an examination shows that he is hard as a stone, and may have been standing there for weeks. Milk is sold in bricks, with a stick or string frozen into one corner; the purchaser may carry it home by means of this improvised handle, or he may wrap it in paper or his handkerchief. In fact everything that can be frozen yields to the frost, and the Russians find it a most convenient form of preservation. One of the odd sights of the frozen market is the itinerant vender of sucking-pigs, who carries these articles of trade hung around his neck or waist, as though they were ornaments rather than merchandise.

"There is a market for old clothes which reminded us of Chatham Street, in New York. The dealers had little stalls where the garments were exposed for sale, and there were a good many peddlers who walked about with the goods they desired to dispose of. The old-clothes market of St. Petersburg is said to be inferior to that of Moscow in the number and character of the Israelitish merchants in whose hands the business is concentrated. The one at Moscow is also called the Elbow-market, on account of the continued elbowing of those who go there. Though people were crowded closely together when we were in the market, we saw no indications of anything but good-nature. The Russians are polite to each other as well as to strangers, and it was amusing to see how the rough fellows, when meeting face to face, bowed as though, they were great personages.

"And such flocks of pigeons as were flying all about! They tell us there are many more of them in winter than in summer, as the birds are then driven to the towns and cities to find their food. The Hay-market is their favorite resort, since grain as well as hay is sold there, and the pigeons manage to get off with all that is scattered on the ground.

"The pigeon or dove in Russia is a sacred bird. The Russians say that as the dove brought the olive-branch to the Ark, he should not be harmed, and it would be a great offence to kill one of these birds in the presence of an orthodox member of the Church. But all the grain that is scattered from the feed of the horses and in the market-place is not sufficient for the sustenance of the pigeons; many kind-hearted persons throw quantities of grain to them every morning, and not unfrequently it happens that a pious Russian will spend a considerable part of his income in this way. Kriloff, the Russian fable writer, is said to have supported all the pigeons of the Gostinna Dvor for some time at his own expense, or, more properly speaking, at that of his creditors.