Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/211

Rh oven, and is kept burning for several hours. When it has burned down to a bed of coals, so that no more carbonic gas can be evolved, the chimney is closed, and port-holes near the top of the stove are opened into the room or rooms. The hot air comes out and warms the apartments, and there is enough of it to keep a good heat for twelve or fifteen boors.

"The port-holes must be carefully closed during the combustion of the wood, in order to prevent the escape of poisonous gas. Sometimes they are opened when there is still some flame burning. A Russian will instantly detect the presence of this gas, and open a window or rush into the open air, but strangers, in their ignorance, are occasionally overpowered by it.

"Several instances are on record of strangers losing their lives by ougar, as the Russians call this poisonous gas from the stove. Among them, some twenty years ago, was the son of a Persian ambassador, who was smothered in one of the principal hotels of Moscow. When a person is overpowered by ougar, and found insensible, he is carried out-of-doors and rolled in the snow—a severe but efficacious remedy.

"Then, too, the cold is excluded by means of double or triple windows, little cones of paper filled with salt being placed between the windows to absorb whatever moisture collects there. Russian houses are very poorly ventilated, and frequently, on entering from the open air, you are almost stifled by the foul atmosphere that seems to strike you in the face like a pugilist.

"It is probably the condition of the air in which they live, combined with late hours and the exactions of fashionable life, that gives such an aspect of paleness to nearly all the Russian women above the peasant class. A fresh, ruddy complexion, such as one sees almost universally throughout England, and quite generally in America, is almost unknown among Russian ladies. If the Emperor would issue a decree requiring the houses of the Empire to be properly ventilated, he would confer a blessing on his faithful subjects, and save or prolong thousands of lives.

"The peasants sometimes use their stoves for baths," said the Doctor, to the great surprise of his youthful auditors.

"How is that possible?" one of them asked. "Do they fill the stove with water the same as they would a bath-tub?"

"Not exactly," the Doctor answered, smilingly. "You know the character of the Russian bath as we find it in New York and other American cities?"

"Certainly," was the reply. "It is a room filled with steam, and with