Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-02-27
TRAVEL IN RUSSIA.

The London Daily Telegraph corre-
spondent, en- route for st. Petersburg from
Berlin, writes as follows: " A little
stream which even at its full a man could
Jump across, forms in the Baltic prov
inces the frontier line between the Ger
man and Muscovite Empires. In the
winter time, the .streamlet whose very
name is unrecorded in any guide book,
is frozen over, so that you can only trace
its existence by the slope of the banks
that break the dead level of the fat plain
across which your journey lies. 1t has
been my lot to know most Of the frontier
lines which divide the the great States
of the Continent; but | remember none
where the change from one country to
another is so suiden, so instant, so I'M
perceptible as that undergone as you
pass over the Muscovite frontier at Wir-
ballen, or Wierzbolow, to use the Rus.
sian name. You are at once in full
Russia. The Moujiks, with their gray
sheepskin coats hanging down on their
heels, the round fur caps, the squat Cal
muk features, crowd round the train as
you glide into the first Russian station.
| The German guards and porters have
disappeared, and you find it well.nigh
as useless to address the by ISLANDERS in
the Teutonic tongue as If the German
Empire were cut off by the great wall OF
China instead of by dried-up frozen
over ditch. Dress, food, language-all
is Russian. The very cars are made for
a realm of ice and snow. Built after the
American fashion, they are divided into
a number of separate compartments,
connected by long narrow passage run.
ming right through them, and are warmed
BY stoves fed from the piles of wood
logs stacked up in front Of the stove. A
Moujik, who appears to turn up from
nowhere and sleep outside upon the
steps, keeps feeding these stoves from
hour to hour. The carriages are lit up
with short, squat, wax candles, which
never get really bright, and are always
guttering out. Very few passengers get
out; fewef still get in; and altogether a
phantom air hangs over tie whole jour
ney. The day is well on before the
gray, dim light struggles through the
| ice-befrosted windows, and then for some
half dozen hours-rather less than more
the dull, dreary landscape Of Rus
sian plain, where the snow lies deep upon
the ground, shifts steadily before our
eyes as we journey slowly northward.
There is story told in America of an
itinerant Snowman, who exhibited, or
proposed to exhibit. a moving panorama
Of the Mississippi for two thousand
miles. The panorama rolled on aud on
to slow music, and the spectators saw,
time after time, the picture Of the same
snags floating down the same yellow
stream, beneath the same steep mud
banks. At last some one in the audi
ence grew impatient, and asked the
Snowman angrily if they were to see
anything new. Sir" the prototype of
Artemus Ward replied, my pictorial
exhibition is faithful representation of
nature. 1t would not be faithful if for
two thousand miles along the Mississippi
you did not see the same snags floating
on the same stream between the same
muc banks" After like fashion, no de-
scription Of Russian winter-bound rail-
way travel would be truthful unless it
depicted each mile or verst as the exact
counterpart Of every other. A wide
expanse Of snow, broken by patches Of
pine forests whose dark somber leaves
are crested with white fakes, forms
the never changing back ground Of
the scene. Throughout the whole
$50 miles which separate st. Petersburg
from the Russian boundary line there is
neither embankment or cutting or curve.
Across a dead waste of snow the line
stretches as far as the eye can reach.
The roadside houses you pass in that
long distance might be counted on the
fingers Of your hands. The number of
roads you see from the carriage windows
is scarcely greater. AT regular inter-
walls, usually some twenty miles apart,
the train stops at some roadside station.
No town, nor even village, is visible in
the near distance. Half dozen sleighs
stand outside the station; a score Of
sheepskiR-clad peasants loiier on the
platform; a sentry, with fixed bayonet,
stands at attention all the time the train
stops; nobody gets in or out. The sole
object Of the halt seems to be to pile up
anew the stacks Of logs with which the