This plain was now covered with booths symmetrically arranged
in such a manner as to leave avenues broad enough to allow
the crowd to pass without a crush.
Each group of these booths, of all sizes and shapes, formed a separate
quarter particularly dedicated to some special branch of commerce.
There was the iron quarter, the furriers' quarter, the woolen quarter,
the quarter of the wood merchants, the weavers' quarter, the dried
fish quarter, etc. Some booths were even built of fancy materials,
some of bricks of tea, others of masses of salt meat--that is to say,
of samples of the goods which the owners thus announced were there to
the purchasers--a singular, and somewhat American, mode of advertisement.
In the avenues and long alleys there was already a large assemblage
of people--the sun, which had risen at four o'clock, being
well above the horizon--an extraordinary mixture of Europeans
and Asiatics, talking, wrangling, haranguing, and bargaining.
Everything which can be bought or sold seemed to be heaped up
in this square. Furs, precious stones, silks, Cashmere shawls,
Turkey carpets, weapons from the Caucasus, gauzes from Smyrna
and Ispahan. Tiflis armor, caravan teas. European bronzes,
Swiss clocks, velvets and silks from Lyons, English cottons,
harness, fruits, vegetables, minerals from the Ural,
malachite, lapis-lazuli, spices, perfumes, medicinal herbs,
wood, tar, rope, horn, pumpkins, water-melons, etc--
all the products of India, China, Persia, from the shores
of the Caspian and the Black Sea, from America and Europe,
were united at this corner of the globe.
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