There is something quite classic in the Russian dress, and we frequently stood to admire the people at their employment. The straight, half-moon shaped head-dress of the girls is almost a copy of that on Diana’s brow; the narrow band confining the hair of the men could find its counterpart on many antique heads; the closely-setting folds of the women’s sarafane are very like those in Greek paintings and on Etruscan vases; the loose shirts tied round the waist worn by the men, their moustached and bearded faces, look very like the figures on the friezes of the Athenian temples. Perhaps the reader may smile at the idea of comparing the half-civilized boors of Russia with the productions of the celebrated Phidias; but let him see those people in their native villages, not wrapped up in their sheepskin-coats, but in their summer attire, and he will alter his opinion; or let him witness a “chariot-race” between two peasants standing upright in their small country-carts and driving at the top of their horses’ speed, holding the reins with outstretched arms, their heads uncovered, their fine figures clothed in the red or white shirt fluttering in the wind, and their faces, if not classically handsome, not devoid of manly beauty, and say then whether it does not recall to his mind the Greek chariot-races such as were depicted when Greece _was_ Greece. During the summer the inhabitants of a Russian château live almost entirely out of doors; they pass their time in sitting under the trees, reading or smoking (for many of the ladies smoke), embroidering, and chatting, or they stroll into the woods in parties to look for mushrooms, which form a favourite dish at their tables. Nothing indeed can be more pleasant than the life at a country-house; everything is easy and without restraint. There is not that splendour and opulence which we see in England; on the contrary, the rooms are but scantily furnished—only what is absolutely necessary for use is kept there, excepting when the family reside entirely on their estates, for the summer season lasts but two or three months in the year, so it would be scarcely worth while to go to the expense and trouble of keeping up an establishment there for the other ten. The peasants have their own recreations, and very often on Sunday afternoon they assemble before the proprietor’s house, all dressed in their best, and dance and sing, not only for their own amusement, but because they think it agreeable to their master and mistress, who, with their family and guests, come out in the balcony to see them, and to scatter apples, sweetmeats, bonbons, and small coin among them, which they are quite as eager to scramble for as so many children.