The one vehicle of Russia is the drosky, the most uncomfortable and unavailable vehicle ever constructed for the use of man, but of which there are, nevertheless, over fifteen thousand in the streets of the imperial city. It has very low wheels, a heavy awkward body, and is as noisy as a Concord coach. Some one describes it as being a cross between a cab and an instrument of torture. There is no rest for the occupant's back; and while the seat is more than large enough for one, it is not large enough for two persons. It is a sort of sledge on wheels. The noise made by these low-running ugly conveyances as they are hurried by the drivers over the uneven rubble-stones of the streets is deafening. Why the Russians adhere so tenaciously to this ill-conceived four-wheeled conveyance, we could not divine. It has no special adaptability to the roads or streets of the country that we could understand, while there are half-a-dozen European or American substitutes combining comfort, economy, and comeliness, which might be profitably adopted in its place. The legal charge for conveyance in droskies is as moderate as is their accommodation, but a foreigner is always charged three or four times the regular fare. The poor ill-paid fellows who drive them form a distinct class, dressing all alike, in a short bell-crowned hat, a padded blue-cloth surtout, or wrapper, reaching to their feet and folded across the breast. This garment is buttoned under the left arm with a row of six small, close-set silver buttons, while a belt indicates where the waist should be. These drivers are a miserably ignorant class, sleeping doubled up on the front of the droskies night and day, when not employed. The vehicle is at once their house and their bed, and if one requires a drosky he first awakens the driver, who is usually curled up asleep like a dog. It is the only home these poor fellows have, in nine cases out of ten. The horses are changed at night after a day's service, but the driver remains at his post day and night. Unlike the reckless drivers of Paris, Naples, and New York, the Russian rarely strikes his horse with the whip, but is apt to talk to him incessantly,--"Go ahead! we are in a hurry, my infant;" or, "Take care of that stone!" "Turn to the left, my pigeon!" and so on.