A Russian Journey (osia)

A Russian Journey
by Edna Dean Proctor
Revised Edition, with Prelude
Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1890

Vain väriä koskevia osia

Asia at Nijni.

s. 106

Along the miles of wharves were many Tartars carrying merchandise to and from the boats and the shore now bars and sheets of iron from the Oural; now rolls of leather from Kazan; now bales of the cotton of Khiva; now skins filled with wine from the vineyards of Tiflis; now sacks of madder from Bokhara.

Kazan

s. 123

From its crest we looked over the broad country beyond a rolling region, with few habitations visible; here and there a thick grove, perhaps of the oaks of this province carefully preserved by the Government for ship-building; while about us, and crowning lower slopes, were forests of white birches growing strong and tall as in their native air; best of trees to the Russian - their bark tanning his leather, their leaves giving him a yellow dye, their sap furnishing him a kind of wine, their wood making his household utensils, and as dried splinters and fuel supplying him with candles and saving him from the rigors of winter.

Yalta and the Crimean Tartars.

s. 239

In the warm evening twilight we walked about Yalta. [...] In the shops were piles of gray-blue lamb-skins from the plains near Kertch — a color peculiar to the Crimea, and said, though I know not how truly, to be owing to a plant upon which the sheep feed.

Kichineff to Belzi

s. 297

At Orgeief, a town on the brink of a smooth expanse like a New England meadow, we stopped for dinner. Entering the inn by a flight of steep stairs, we sat down in its one large room to wait for the promised cutlets and tea. Everywhere along the route we found poor, ill-matched crockery in use, but here its variety was remarkable, and we had nothing to do but to watch the waiter at his work. On a small, square table there were pink plates and blue plates; a black and white sugar-bowl; a purple milk-pitcher; and cups and saucers of every color possible to coarse earthenware. It was plain that contrast was what the waiter desired. He never put brown cups and saucers together, but always mated them with red or green, and when he had set them out in a half-circle, folding his arms he stood at a little distance and contemplated the rainbow effect with entire satisfaction. I was sorry not to be able to speak to him. I wanted to ask on what occult principle of taste he proceeded, and where the landlord got such an astonishing collection. But alas! we had not a word in common, and the history of that dinner set I shall never know.