In This Country, The Cold Of
Winter Is Very Severe, And The Rivers Are Long Frozen Over:
Taking
advantage of this circumstance, they carry oxen and other beasts to market
in winter, ready slaughtered, skinned, and
Embowelled; which they set up on
their feet in the market places, frozen as hard as a stone, and in such
numbers, that one may buy 200 or more of them at a time. Cutting them in
pieces, as in our markets, is quite impossible, as they are as hard as
marble, and are delivered out whole. The only fruits to be met with are
apples, nuts, and small walnuts. When the Russians have a mind to travel,
especially if the distance is very great, they prefer the winter season,
when the whole country is covered over with frozen snow, and all the rivers
are passable on the ice. They then travel with great convenience and
expedition, being only subjected to the severity of the cold. At this
season, they use sledges, which are to them as waggons are to us; and in
them they take every thing along with them, with the utmost ease, that they
have a mind to. In the summer, the roads are extremely miry, and full of
inequalities, proceeding from the country being extremely woody; and they
do not therefore take long journeys at that season, more especially as it
is very thinly inhabited. They have no grapes, but make a species of wine
from honey, and a kind of beer from millet, into which they put hop
blossoms, of which the odour is so strong, as to occasion sneezing, and
which intoxicates like wine.
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