Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1881-09-01
RUSSIAN VASTNESS.
Her Enormous Territory, and the
Drawbacks Incident to II.


Her Enormous Territory, and the
Drawbacks Incident to Il.
ST. Petersburg Letter to the London Times.
1t would hardly seem possible for a
sentimental traveler-supposing a per-
son answering that description to ex.
ist in our days-to arrive for the first
time in st. Petersburg at this moment
without a mixture of feelings in which
sadness predominated. He is aware
that he has crossed the frontier of a
large state, the largest of all compact
states, and, perhaps, only second to that
of the United Kingdom of Great Brit
ain and Ireland, with all its colonies
and possessions; so big state that
from the frontier station at Vierzbo.
low, or Wirballen, to the st. Peters.
burg terminus there is distance of
500 miles, far exceeding that between
London and Edinburgh, and yet this
first journey of two nights and two
days only brings one to the capital,
which lies in corner of the empire.
A glance at the map will satisfy us that
the surface of the smaller half of this
emplre-European Russia-is consider.
ably larger than that of all the other
states of Europe put together; while
the other half-Siberia, with the rest
of the Asiatic provinces not far
from covering One-third of tho Asiatic
continent; and that a recent traveller,
the Rev. Henry Lansdell, in his five
months journey from London to the
mouth of the Amoor, all across the
czar's dOminions, went over $500
miles by rail, $500 miles by steam,
and 5000 miles by horses, or, altogeth-
er, 1850 miles almost in a straight
line.
So far, then, as man may take
pride in the bigness of his country, a
Russian has ample reason to be proud.
But state, like a man, may be none
the happier for all that. A lofty
stature, to be sure, enables man to
look over the heads of the crowd, an
unquestionable advantage, and mere
height imparts an air of dignity and
command which the understood fully
appreciate. But a six-foot-six giant.
as l once saw, doubling himself up and
drawing in his legs to get in lady's
brougham, is ludicrous sight. Very
tall men are seldom we'll prOpOrtioned
or robust, and in war they offer too
easy target to the wicked breech-load-
ers of modern construction. In the
same manner Russia is made unwieldy
by her very bulk. She has to struggle
with her prodigious length and width,
and to do it at greater disadvantage
than other large states. In the western
continent, for instance, in the United
States, Brazil, and the republics of
South America, man was powerfully
aided by nature in his fight against
enormous distances by the length of
navigable water-courSes, the Mississip-
pi and Missouri, the st. Lawrence, the
Platte, Parana, and Uruguay, the
Amazon, the San Francisco, etc, even
before he could help himself by his
railways, whereas in Russia the north
ern streams both of Europe and Asia,
the NienIdn, the Dwina, the Obi, the
Yenisei, the Lena, etc., empty them
selves either in the White or Artic
seas, choked with ice for six or eight
months in the year, or in the Baltic,
also frozen in the winter months, and
for long time placed beyond reach of
the cars sway; and the southern
streams, the Volga, the Don, ETC., end
ed either in the Caspian or the Sea of
Azoff and the Euxine, both closed for
centuries against Russian enterprise
and expansion.
With respect to railways, it was
Russia's misfortune to 60 late about
their construction, and even what she
has achieved between the Crimean and
Turkish wars-1854-1 4-1876-scarcel
amounts now to IA 900 miles, to which,
after the peace of Berlin, she is barely
adding 700 miles yearly-a striking
contrast TO other large countries-as
the United States of North America,
for instance, which boasts of net of
railway lines of $4,000 miles, with an
average annual addition of 10000
miles. This backwardness of Russia
in her endeavOrs to annihilate space by
rapid and easy means of lOcomotion
cannot be without grave consequences
for her commercial and social, as well
as financial and political interests. 1t
is lost ground for her in her battle of
life; in the incessant struggle against
that geographical position which from
the beginning, doomed her to seclusion
from the civilized world-a struggle,
the evidence of which may be read in
every page of the country's history,
and may be followed in every shift of
its governments policy.