St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1897-02-05
On the Road to r1OscOW.

he next morning we were within Is
minutes of the custom house.
1t was raining, and outside of the wet
window-panes miles of dark green grass
were drawn over the hills as far as the
eye could see No houses, no people, no
cattle, no living thing of any kind moved
under the low dark skies or rose from
the sodden prairie.
1t was gloomy picture OF emptiness
and desolation, landscape without
character or suggestion, and as | sur
veyed it sleepily had a disappointed
feeling OF being cheated in having come
so far to find that the Russian steppes
were merely our Western prairie. But
even as this was in my mind the scene
changed, and lived with meaning and
significance, for as the train rushed on
there rose out of the misty landscape
tall white pillar painted in bold black
stripes. And knew that it signalled to
Germany and to all the rest of the world,
$50 far can you go and no farther" and
that we had crossed into the domain of
the Great White Gar 1t must be a fine
thing to Gown your own home, as the
real estate advertisements are constantly
urging one to do, and it must give man
a sensation OF pride to see the surveyors
stakes at the corners Of his town site or
homestead holding, and to know that
all that lies within those stakes belongs
to him, but imagine what it must be to
stake out the half of Europe, planting
your painted posts from the Arctic ocean
to the Pacific, from the borders OF
Austria and Hungary down to the
shores OF the Black sea, to the Pamirs, in
the very face OF the British outposts, and
on to China, saying, as it were, Keep
out, please; this belongs to me-"
The land on either side of the track
was as level as our Western prairie, but
broken here and there with woods OF
trembling birch and dark fir trees. Seat
tered villages lay at great distances from
/ one another, and almost even with the
soil, their huts Of logs and mud seldom
standing higher than one story, and with
doors so low that tall man could enter
them only by STOPPING.
Between these log houses were roads
which the snow and rain had changed
into rivers of mud, and which seemed to
lead to nowhere, but to disappear from
off the face OF the earth as soon as they
had reached the last of each group OF
huts. There were no stores nor taverns
nor town halls visible from the car win
dows, such as one sees on our Western
prairie. Instead there were always the
same low-rooIed huts OF logs painted
brown, the church OF two stories in the
centre, the wide muddy road struggling
down to the station, the fields where
men and women ploughed the rich
chocolate-colored soil, and, overhead
countless hocks of crows that swept like
black clouds across the sky. When the
villages ceased the marshes began, anC
from them tall heron and bittern rose
and sailed heavily away, answering The
shrll whistle of the locomotive will
their hoarse, melancholy cries. Their,
are probably no two kinds of bird sc
depressing in every way as are the heror
and the crow, and they seemed to typily
the whole country between Alexandro'
and Moscow, where, in spite of the SUI
that shone brilliantly and the brieh
moist green of the grass, there was M
sign of movement or mirth or pleasure
but, instead, hopeless, dreary silence
and the marks OF an unceasing struggl
for the bare right to exist.
The railroad stations were the onI
bright spots on our horizon The.
stood in punches OF aspen and hrc
= trees, surrounded by ncat white In.
and inside there were eaaise sua
otars hrilmuy FURNISHED, and caw
SIS auus ho.s d'uvtgS II lit ie dishe
on clean linen cloths. and inuumerah.
hotties Of vodk and cavafe fresh bot
,bc river, ia large tn buckets As W
never knew when we should arrive a
the next station, we ate something a
each one, IN order thl, we nigh, be sur
OF that much a, least, and, in cons,
qucncc, my chdre.o.Ieetion o travolGt
ia Russia is ho, tea, which we scalde
ourselves in drinking, and cold CAVIAR
and waters in high boots, VIII
answered our inquiries as to how Ion
the train $ ,opped by cxclaiming, bee
" cak, aud dashing off delightcdly t
=, bring it.
At every cross.toad there were lit
semolicial stations, with the fences an
gates around them painted with It
- black and white stripes of the COVER
" meut, the whole in charge of a woma
who stood in the road with a green fla
> held out straight in front OF her.
~ Russia they feed the locomotive engin
~ with wood as well as coal, and lor
before we reached a station we won
know that we were approaching it |
1t the piles OF kindling heaped up on eth
~ side of The tracks for over a mile, so tn