Previous  - next

As he did so, the thought for the first time struck him that,
since the young Livonian girl was going to Perm, it was very
possible that her intention was also to embark in the Caucasus,
in which case he should accompany her.

The town above with its kremlin, whose circumference measures two versts,
and which resembles that of Moscow, was altogether abandoned.
Even the governor did not reside there. But if the town above was
like a city of the dead, the town below, at all events, was alive.

Michael Strogoff, having crossed the Volga on a bridge of boats,
guarded by mounted Cossacks, reached the square where the evening
before he had fallen in with the gipsy camp. This was somewhat
outside the town, where the fair of Nijni-Novgorod was held.
In a vast plain rose the temporary palace of the governor-general,
where by imperial orders that great functionary resided during
the whole of the fair, which, thanks to the people who composed it,
required an ever-watchful surveillance.

This plain was now covered with booths symmetrically arranged
in such a manner as to leave avenues broad enough to allow
the crowd to pass without a crush.

Each group of these booths, of all sizes and shapes, formed a separate
quarter particularly dedicated to some special branch of commerce.
There was the iron quarter, the furriers' quarter, the woolen quarter,
the quarter of the wood merchants, the weavers' quarter, the dried
fish quarter, etc. Some booths were even built of fancy materials,
some of bricks of tea, others of masses of salt meat--that is to say,
of samples of the goods which the owners thus announced were there to
the purchasers--a singular, and somewhat American, mode of advertisement.

In the avenues and long alleys there was already a large assemblage
of people--the sun, which had risen at four o'clock, being
well above the horizon--an extraordinary mixture of Europeans
and Asiatics, talking, wrangling, haranguing, and bargaining.
Everything which can be bought or sold seemed to be heaped up
in this square. Furs, precious stones, silks, Cashmere shawls,
Turkey carpets, weapons from the Caucasus, gauzes from Smyrna
and Ispahan. Tiflis armor, caravan teas. European bronzes,
Swiss clocks, velvets and silks from Lyons, English cottons,
harness, fruits, vegetables, minerals from the Ural,
malachite, lapis-lazuli, spices, perfumes, medicinal herbs,
wood, tar, rope, horn, pumpkins, water-melons, etc--
all the products of India, China, Persia, from the shores
of the Caspian and the Black Sea, from America and Europe,
were united at this corner of the globe.

It is scarcely possible truly to portray the moving mass of human
beings surging here and there, the excitement, the confusion,
the hubbub; demonstrative as were the natives and the inferior classes,
they were completely outdone by their visitors. There were
merchants from Central Asia, who had occupied a year in escorting
their merchandise across its vast plains, and who would not again

Previous  - next