"You remember Mr. Mapps told you about the false Dimitris, and that, in the confusion and anarchy brought about by them, the crown was offered to Vladislas, son of the King of Poland, for the Poles were really the masters of the country. The Russians had been beaten by them in many battles, for the former had no suitable leader. When everything seemed to be lost, Kosma Minin, a butcher of this town, obscure and uneducated, but possessed of good judgment, brave, honest, and unselfish, roused his fellow-citizens to a sense of their peril. His words and his example induced the people to take up arms, and appropriate all their fortunes for the deliverance of the nation from its oppressors. This spirit of patriotic devotion extended to other places, and Prince Pojarski, was soon able to take the field at the head of a large force. Minin seconded all the efforts of the prince, and by this sudden uprising the Poles were driven from the country. The movement was followed by the election to the throne of Michael Romanoff. The bronze statues which you saw in Moscow, opposite the bazaar, represents Minin urging Pojarski to deliver Moscow from the Poles."
The tourists returned to the droskies, and the doctor directed his driver by pointing in the direction of the fair grounds.
"This does not look much as it does during the fair," said the surgeon, as they drove across the bridge of boats. "The rivers are crowded with boats of every description, from all parts of the vast empire. The Oka here is literally filled with them, so that there is hardly a channel for the passage of others. These craft are quite a study, for they comprise an immense variety, and it is said that the floating population of this vicinity during the fair is about fifty thousand. This bridge is quite as crowded as London Bridge during business hours, and mounted Cossacks are stationed upon it to keep it from being obstructed. These soldiers are also on duty in the crowded streets, to preserve order. The mud here is sometimes a foot deep—at least it was when I visited the fair several years ago. Even the paved streets are ploughed and furrowed by the wheels of heavily-loaded vehicles."
"It is a hard road to travel now," added Lincoln; for the vehicle jolted so that it was not easy for the passengers to keep their seats.
"Most of the goods for the fair come in boats, and have to be hauled to the shops in wagons, making bad work of the roads. When not muddy, it is very dusty."
The party entered the grounds of the fair, the doctor instructing his driver by signs. The entire space between the Volga and the Oka is laid out in streets and squares. There are ten miles of wharf on the two rivers. There are about four hundred steamers on the Volga, many of which were built in England, Belgium, and other countries, and have been brought to the river through the various canals, or in pieces, and put together again; but Russia can build her own steamers now. The streets are lined with shops, most of the buildings being of brick, a few of stone. Some of the open spaces are covered with booths and tents. The stores are generally quite small, not more than twenty by fifteen feet. In the rear of them are living-apartments for the merchants and their employees. In the centre of the fair are the headquarters of the governor; but the ground floor of the building is devoted to a bazaar for the sale of fancy articles and manufactured goods, and a band of music usually plays here. Concerts are also given in the square by a military band. Near the official residence are theatres and exhibitions of every description.
The Great Fair is the harvest time of beggars, and thousands of them visit it, some of them coming from great distances. The lame, the halt, and the blind come, and very many of them are impostors, who pretend to have bodily ailments, or who have produced sores on their persons by artificial means, to excite the sympathies of the benevolent.
The number of persons in attendance on the fair is estimated by the amount of bread consumed, and the bakers are required to make daily returns to the governor of the quantity sold. By this means it is ascertained that the fair is visited, during the season of eight weeks, by from one hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand persons. The amount of business transacted by sale and purchase, is about one hundred million dollars.
There is as much variety in the shops as in different parts of a large city. Certain sections are devoted to the wholesale trade, and others to the retail. Many of the shops are filled with large bundles and bales, while others glisten with ornamental articles. Some of the avenues hardly differ in appearance from Broadway in New York, except in the uniformity of the buildings. The windows are filled with displays of jewelry, fancy goods, toys, dry goods, clocks, and watches, furs, silks, and, indeed, everything that one would see in a great city. Some shops are devoted exclusively to furs, and the assortment is large and fine. Dried fish is a great article of commerce here. The value of the sturgeon fisheries on the Volga is estimated at two and a half million rubles, while thirty thousand casks of caviar have been sent up from Astrakhan in one year. The productions of Asia are largely represented at the fair, the most important of which is the tea of China. The Chinese quarter is fitted up in Celestial style, with verandas and pagodas; but very few Chinese attend the fair of late years. Fifteen million pounds of the finest tea are brought into Russia, most of it to this bazaar. It is transported to Perm by boats, sledges, and camels, and thence by the Kama and Volga to Nijni.
Along the rivers are the coarser articles of merchandise—iron in bars and sheets, and manufactured into kettles and household utensils, millstones, vast quantities of wheat, rolls of leather from Kazan, boxes of candles from Asia, copper and platinum from the Ural Mountains, and bells of all sizes, hung so that their tone can be tested.