I left Nijni on Saturday the 10th. What surprised and struck me most about the Fair was the great size of it. One hears of the Fair of Nijni, and one pictures to oneself a quantity of small booths in a market-place. One does not realise--at least I did not--that the Fair is a large town consisting entirely of shops, hotels, and restaurants. The most important merchandise that passes hands at the Fair consists of furs. But there are goods of every variety; second-hand books, tea and silks from China, gems from the Urals, and “art nouveau” furniture. There are also old curiosity shops rich in old Church vestments, stiff copes and jewelled chasubles, which would be found most useful by those people who like to furnish their drawing-rooms entirely with objects diverted from their proper use; that is to say, with cigarette ash trays made of Venetian wells and teapots made out of musical instruments and old book bindings. Nijni during the Fair is almost entirely inhabited by merchants--merchants of every kind and description. The majority of them wear loose Russian shirts and top-boots. I noticed that at Nijni it did not in the least signify how untidily one was dressed; however untidy one looked one was sure of being treated with respect, because slovenliness at Nijni does not necessarily imply poverty, and the people of the place justly reason that however sordid one’s exterior appearance may be there is no knowing but that one may be a millionaire. Another thing which struck me here, a thing which has struck me in several other places, was the way in which people determine your nationality by your clothes. And while they paid no attention to degree in the matter of clothes at Nijni, as to whether they were shabby or new, they paid a great deal of attention to kind. For instance, the day I arrived I was wearing an ordinary English straw hat. This headgear caused quite a sensation amongst the sellers of Astrakan fur. They crowded round me, crying out, “Vairy nice, vairy cheap, Engleesh.” I bought a different kind of hat, a white yachting cap, and loose silk Russian shirt, such as the merchants wore.