Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-06


bad been prevented by the activity OF
the government.
Chetwynd had TO confess to bis dis
tinguishsd escort that these questions
seemed to be more openly discussed IN
Russia than he had believed possible;
but at the Same time he was fam TO re-
gard the fraukness of the officials whom
he had met as compliment to bis special
credentials and desire to stand well
with the English authorities.
Asked about the prisoner Forsyth the
governor had no particulars to give ex-
cept to indicate the band of which he
was member and the name of the COM
mander. He did not remember having
seen or noticed Forsyth. There had of
late been great many prisoners passing
through Moscow on their way to Siberia
for there had recently been very serious
risings and plots against the government;
but he thought it possible that if Chef
| wynd travelled with reasonable speed he
might overtake Capt. KarskaZov and
bis command on this side of the ST.
berian frontier; certainly within a
few days of its crossing the line.
AS rule the journey was commenced
earlier in the year, the prisoners passing
| through pleasant summer and autumn
weather. 1t might be that the difficult
ties of the latest bands of travellers would
be somewhat enhanced by winter SHOWS;
| there were signs of severe weather COM
ing upon them earlier than usual, but
every precaution was taken for protect
! ing the exiles, aud if they had hardships
to endure, the military escort, men aud
! officers, were not exempt from atmos"
! pheric influences. This hint sufficed for
| Dick Chetwynd to decline the governors
| invitation of hospitality on the next day.
From Moscow Chetwynd travelled night
! and day to Mini Novgorod, where he
halted in the midst of the latter days of
the great autumn fair, which under
! other circumstances would have had an
! immense attraction for him. There is
nothing like Mini Novgorod i'll the
world. In small way one might be re-
minded of it by some of the seaside re-
sorts on the other side of the Atlantic,
where enormous hotels, giant caravan
serais, are occupied during the season
by thousands OF guests, the seashore
crowded with summer attractions and
thronged with people; where, during
the winter, not a soul is to be seen, ex-
| cept, perhaps, one or two guardians of
the vast house of entertainment, and the
few wooden huts about it, all silent as
the dead.
This is Nijui NovgoTod during half the
year. 1t Is vast city of shops, stores,
houses, hotels, churches, wide, broad
streets, fine, snowy buildings, boule-
wards, theaters, market places, bazaars;
but in the early summer months entirely
deserted; shops barred and bolted, mar
kets closed, churches locked up, the
whole city OF the dead, to be awakened
as it was when Chetwind passed through
its busy thoroughfares, during the month
of August, by 500, 900 traders from all
parts of Russia, brought thither by rail
from st. Petersburg and the Balkans,
by canal from the White sea, by the
Oker and on the broad bosom OF the
mighty Volga.
Chetwynd was compelled to remain
here day and night, part of which
time he occupied in writing letters
home, in completing his outfit, and ar
ranging his method of travel.
In the evening, with thoughts far
away, he smoked a cigarette, and list
ened to the military bands playing oper-
attic airs opposite the governors house,
and watching the busy crowd passing
to and fro over the pontoon bridge
which connects the lower and upper
towns.
The music, which appeared to give
officers lounging around the governors !
house, smoking cigarettes and receiving |
with much condescension the evident ad- |
mIration of the crowd, was not a little |
painful to Dick. IL was a selection |
from fCarmen, the opera at which |
Philip Forsyth had first seen the face |
which had brought him and his friends
so much misery and distress,
During the next few days our English |
traveller in search of his friend was
steamlng down the Volga and up the
Kama in one of the vessels that run bs-
tween the great fair city and Persia,
where Mr.. George KEENAN,, the American
author, had his first skirmish with the
Russian police, and whose descriptions of
Russian peasant life will no doubt prove
to be one of the most interesting and i'm
portant revelations in the modern litera-
ture OF Russian travel and political de-
bate.
Dick Chetwynd found his credentials
and authoritative orders from ST. Peters
burg and Moscow talisman that opened
all gates and ways before him, and the
morning after his arrival in the city on
the Kama he was once more en- route,
this time by the Ural Mountains railroad
for Ekaterinburg.
Two days of travel brought him to the
station near the summit of the noun
tains. The weather was cold; there had
been heavy frosts in the hills; the faded
foliage was beginning to shrivel and fall.
The scenery was wild and impressive,
Switzerland and the Allie
ghany mountains, the country dotted
here and there with mining camps and
villages that might have belonged to the
early settlements of Canada and the
United States. The railway was a re-
narkable work of engineering, and,
while Dick was 10th to leave it at Ekater-
uburg for the wilder ana more difficult
country beyond, he was nevertheless sat-
SIZED to have reached the point where his
Quincy must be continued by road.
At this last railway station the Ural
lope he had information of a band of
YXiles who had passed through the city
If Ekaterinburg at about the time men,
Toned by the prison governor at Moscow.
Dick was now some $50 miles from the
siberian frontier, and on careful cal
ulation with local official he was in {
ormed that it might be quite possible to
vertake Capt. Karakazov before he
cached the boundary.
While the distance from Ekaterinburg I
lad to be covered by public vehicle, {
Yell horsed, but travelling over difficult 8