All writers complain that the women painted without art; many blacked their teeth, and stained their nails with henna, a custom which obtained with the wives of Russian merchants to the present century. So, too, after Peter the Great forced women from the seclusion of the _terem_, it was the custom of ladies to present to each other in public their paint boxes, even as in the west men offered snuff. It was not until after the French invasion that this custom died out, and Pushkin endeavoured to advance the new order by deriding the practice and ridiculing the English governors who followed it. On the other hand, a lady of the court who, much to the chagrin of others, refused to paint her face, was compelled to do so by order of the Tsar, to whom complaint had been made. As women were free in the Russia of the Norsemen, the seclusion in the _terem_ was either a custom adopted from Byzantium or, more probably, a precautionary measure to protect them from Tartar invaders. The purpose of these invasions has already been stated, and as on one foray the Tartars are reported to have taken away 400,000 captives from Russia, the hiding of women and children in portions of the dwellings to which men at no time had access was doubtless considered to enhance their chances of escape during the temporary absence of the master in the front of the battle; and from being a temporary retreat it became the ordinary living apartments. But the custom was a town one; not practised by villagers. The Russians were largely flesh eaters, meat and fish constituted the diet not only of the well to do but of the peasants. In the north Le Bruyn found the natives feeding even their beasts on fish, and Ysbrant noted the same practice among the inhabitants east of the Ural. Jenkinson found that the Muscovites had "many sortes of meates, and delight in eating gross meates and stinking fish." Brandy was served round before eating commenced, a custom that still obtains and was originally derived from the Norsemen. Collins states that horse-flesh was forbidden; also hare, rabbit, and elk. At some seasons veal was forbidden; any thing sweetened with sugar, or candy, on fast days; and, at all times, dishes flavoured with musk, civet and beaver. The chief dish at a banquet given to Herberstein was of swan, served with sour milk, pickled gherkins and plums. There was abundance of corn, and some of the commoner vegetables; the fruits were insipid; except filberts, Herberstein found none of the sweeter kinds of fruit or nuts. Water melons were grown and then, as now, the Russians fed upon many different kinds of fungus; some thirteen varieties found in the neighbourhood of Moscow are edible, but the Russian regards as scarcely wholesome the only mushroom eaten in England.