The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1907-01-10

liNg along.
Some Moslems are facing the east.
fancytng they look toward Mecca,
which they do not, and are performing
their devotions in the street. Moscow
merchants are in an adjoining cafe,
and a gramophone blares II wouldn't
leave my little wooden hut for you."
There is the constant click Of the
abacus-beads on wires, ON which we
learned to count as children, and with
out which the Russian, inheriting its
use from Tartar ancestors, cannot
reckon how many two and three total.
A playful on the side OF a rickety
kiosk announces a performance-in
Russian, of course-of 1.-THE Geisha."
Nowhere have l seen such a jostling
Of East and West.
One likes to think Mini Novgorod
fair is Oriental. 1t is customary to
associate the Orient with the dazzling.
But there Is nothing dazzling about
the fair. The Eastern practice Is fol-
lowed Of having all the shops selling
PoA NASuAdA wal III Ou0 QloLAlCLs /
looked for old silver and found cart
loads Of crude Austrian electroplate.
/ sought antique rugs and got a head
ache looking at the vile, highly colored
and g~rotesquely patterned mats manu-
featured in German Poland. The only
embroideries were imitation rubbish
from Switzerland. In a dirty cafe I
did come across some melancholy Per-
slams who had turquoise and opal
stones to sell, and we spent a rainy
afternoon in haggling.
Yet there is a fascination in the null
titude Of articles. At times ONE can
imagine that all the manufactures Of
shoddy articles have dumped their
things on Volga-side. Try to picture
a third Of a mile Of tombstones for
sale-though, Hibernian like, most Of
the stones are of wood. Here the
merchant from the far interior may
acquire a really striking monument
which will make him the envy Of his
~neighbors who have never been to the
fair. A whole street is devoted to
the sale of ikons, pictures of saints
set out in Byzantine style in flaming
gilt, and to be found in every Russian
house in the right hand corner at the
upper end of the room.
There are streets sacred to the sale
of Russian boots-there must be mil
lions of them. Battalions of sacks
laden with raisins block one thorough
fare; another road is a maze of bales
of wool. A row of shops is given up
to the sale of umbrellas, and there is
merriment watching the astonished
countenance Of a simple peasant wo-
man having an umbrella opened In her
face for the first time. Miles upon
miles of cotton goods are here, with
no n~onsensical half shades about them
but strong and unmistakable reds and
greens and blues and yellows. Half
a street is given up to cheap German
toys.
In the centre OF the fair is a large
red brick arcade with shops selling
lhe usual tinsel and expensive things,
with the usual band playing in the
afternoon, and the usual row of wooden
faced individuals sitting on benches
and stlidly enjoying the music. There
is the usual Fostering by importunate
dealers. And there are literally bill.
lions of postcards.
Last evening at shutdown I climbed
the hill of the quaint walled fortress
which guards Mini Novgorod. The
failing sun was furnishing the doomes
Of innumerable churches, a hundred
sweet toned bells, beaten with wooden
hammers, made the evening melodious.
There was the heavy tramp of full
kftted Russian soldiers mounting the
hill to the fortress; there was the dis
tant babel of a city doing business at
the top of its voice; down below on
the Volga was the scurrying of tug.
boats hauling mammoth cattle boats
and snakelike RATS into place, and
the constant shrill warning boots of
the sirens; away eastward, Siberia
ward, stretched a fiat and unbroken
land to the very horizon, with a low.
ering purple sky deadening to black.