The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-02-22
VOV~KU ULAKs
From Chambers Journal. |

A small, lOw-roofed, sitting room,
from the rough-hewn log walls of which
the plaster Of clay and dried leaves,
which serves it as mortar, peeps in long
parallel lines up to the very roof; Il
huge tiled stove, with its invaliable
bed-place" on the top; an enormous
qDrairie of bed, recalling. Sergeant
Kites description Of the "bed of honor,
in which ten thousand men might lie
and never feel each other,' a LITTLE. oil
lamp, throwing into strong relief the
VOLTS head that grins OH the wall, the
gilt-edged picture of the saint in the
further corner, and the rough, bcared,
low-browed faces of the four men who
are supping cabbage-sOup with little
wooden ladies out of the immense pine
wood bowl on the rickety table; little
square double-WindOw, through which
the great waste of snow without, half
seen by the titfuI CLEANS of moonlight
that simmer through the driving
clouds, appears and Vanishes like q
nightmare. Such is the scene at which
! I find myself assisting, one bitter De-
cember night, amid the bOnndless s0li-
tudes of the Don. Strictly speaking,
a Cossack village or indeed a Russian
village of any kind can scarcely Ire pro-
nounced a desirable residence, thanks
to the presence of various unregistered
tenants, who exact rent instead of pay
! ing it; but my travels in snake breeding
Arabia, and cOckroach hunting Egypt,
among, the scorpions of Syria, and the
taralrtulas of the Greek Archipelago,
had long since case-hardened me to
! such phenomena below zero; and on q
| clustering winter night, with the ther-
mometer below zero, Fahrenheit, and a
genuine Russian storm bRrrying. the
roads fathom deep in drifting snow,
shelter is worth having even when at
tended by the risk of seeing a cock
roach take q header into your glass
ade of what Mark Tapley would call
vampires" going on in your coat
pocket.
1t seems to bu the fashion nowadays
for every tourist who has happened to
| deviate fifty miles from the beaten
track, to proclaim the feat, as if he were
Bruce and Livingstone in one, and to
hold up his "new route" for the adora-
ton of all true believers in Murray and
Bradshaw. Among such by-ways Of
travel, the line Of the Don merits a
higher place than it has yet attained.
All the great rivers of Russia are more
or less desolate; but the dcsOlatiOn of
the Don is unique. The loneliness of
the Volga, the Dnieper, the Dniester,
is that Of the. old world deserted; the
loneliness of the Don is that of a new
world still unpeopled. Towards sun
set, especially, the aspect of the whole
landscape becomes wild and dreary to
the last degree. The red light fading
slowly over the vast treeless plain; the
gathering shadows stealing over the
sandy shores and long low Islets, till
all is wrapped in ghostly dimness; the
dead, grim silence, broke only by the
plash and welter of the srllen waters,
or the long, shrill, melancholy cry of
some passing bird,-a1l produce an
effect impossible to describe.
And what q study is the COssack him
self! perhaps the most picturesque of
Eall the barbaric waits and strays which
the ebb of the fifteenth century has
stranded upon the shores of nineteenth.
timid lOunger of great cities, tending
horses or opening doors in Moscow and
ST. Petersburg, can hardly conceive
him as he appears in his native deserts,
embracing his comrade one minute and
knocking him down the next, now snor-
ing for hours on the top of his stove,
wrapped in q greasy sheepskin, and
now rushing over the steppe like a
hurricane, with his shaggy hair stream
ing in the, wind, and his small, deep-set,
glittering eyes glancing restlessly from
side to side like those Of a bird of prey,
magnificent relic of the men who were
the scourge Of Poland and Grim Tar
tary, in the grim old days when every
man did that which was right in his
own eyes, and wrong in those OF every
one else.
Among these men had been domi-
ci1ed for weeks, and had enjoyed, with
the keen relish of one testing a little
plain, wholesome barbarism after a
long surfeit of civilization their wild
war-sOngs and barbaric dances, their
hot fights and DOisterOus merry making,
their quaint Old-world traditions, and
even their recent tossing of myself on
high, as special honor, in imitation OF
the old custom of raising their chief OF
a shield after his election. Whenever
entered Cossack hut, I looked, as a
matter of course, for an abundance OF
good songs and racy stories, plenty OF
trough, good hr1mored banter, a little
boyish hOrse-play, and untiring flow OF
fun and jOllity. Button this particular
evening, am not ten minutes in the
company Of my four cOnviues without
seeing that there is something wrong
After the first greeting, the whole fOul
are utterly silent; and to me, who
know how these rough, jovial, over.
grown children shout, and chaff, and
push each other about, and laugh from
mere fTlness of high-spirits, this TN.
wonted silence has in it something
grim and portentOrls. From time t(
time nOtice them eyeing each Othel
furtively, as IL awaiting the mention OF
a subject which no one liked to be tht
first to introduce. At length ventured
, to give them an impetus to the converse
, ton myself. 49,; e a.st ... -ea-. ...r.r
"Wen, brothers, how are the wolves
behaving down here this winter?n
The question is q natural one at thil
place and season. and, to such bOrI
sp0rtsmen as these, ought to be special
Ily acceptable; but had I proposed thu
immediate assassination of the emper.
| or, my hearers could hardly seem more
: astounded and dismayed. .f~-. =
They're behaving well enough, mas
" ter" says one of the young men a.
Ilength, with an air of such extreme
.. frankness that I feel sure he is lying
i They must be keeping Christmas a
home, we see so little of them"
!" Ach, Alexey Stepanoyitch, won
there be Q lighted match on you
tongue for that?' breaks in a gTizzle(
old fellow beside him. !" IF God is an
gfy with us, can we mend the matte,
; by telling lies about itP If the Pal
Angfitohanin Master English stays Will
us another day or two. he'lI see enough
!, OF how the wolves are behaVing.n
( And then, as if this frank av0Wal haC
/ fairly broken the ice, one dismal stor1
after another.
clock at Ostop, the woodman, las
week, not enough Of him left to feed |
Ihea ~ r.. ae. s4s. .s-ss4 -s. .-.---g..s.r