Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-07-20

| was not so fast The track perfect
and we were exactly on time. Under Prince
Khilkoff the Russian railway management
| is beyond criticism. The train conductor
was a splendid-ooking man in military
uniform, and when he first came aboard l
thought he must be lieutenant general at
least. The rest of the crew were intelli-
gent, good-looking men, and their uniforms
were not SO ridiculous and inappropriate a
those of the men who had taken charge of
US in Belgium.
Vast Desolate Plains.
The landscape of Baltic provinces of Rus
STA, as far as you can from the cars,
looks like Nova Scotia and Canada, and re-
sembles the stretch of country between
Bangor and Bar Harbor. The soil is sandy:
there are vast forests of pine and hemlock,
beech and 1arches, and a great deal of
swamp land. with long wastes without the
sign Of a habitation. Between them are
great fields of wheat, oats, barley and other
grains, and vast meadows from which the
nay Is being cut today. We are again In
a country of wooden houses, but towns are
scarce There are only eight or nine places
Petersburg, and the most important is
wilma, historic city where there Is
monument worth seeing. On one side of
lofty shaft OF granite is engraved the fact
that Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor OF
France, passed that way on a certain date
with an army of 100000 men. On the other
side Is a similar inscription announcing
that Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of
France, on certain day passed that way
with 5000 men, The significance and the
satire of these inscriptions have seldom
been equa led.
Most of the stations are surrounded by
wooden houses of one story. Half the
habitations in Russia are still built of logs
miserable one-story cabins, matched with
straw, and from the midst of every village
rises a church with half dozen domes and
spirits with crosses the peaks. gildpd
painted in brilliant colors. Old women
peddle tea at the platforms of the cars and
little children offer trays of wild straw
berries, the kind you picked In the woods
when you were boy, and the sweetest you
ever tasted. The stations surrounded
by mountainous piles of wood awaiting
shipment or intended fuel for the loco
motives. and we passed several saw mills
on the banks of streams. the first we had
seen In Europe.
Poverty and Primitive Conditions.
There are soldiers everywhere. and stupid
looking peasants. with their shirts outside
their trousers and their trousers tucked in
their boots. The aspect of poverty and
primitive conditions continues to the very
gates of st. Petersburg. There Is nothing
attractive. nothing picturesque. The sign
boards are bewlderinR They look as II the,
alphabet had gone on a strike and a new
lot of inexperienced letters had been en-
ployed as substitutes. In other countries
you can catch on easily to the meaning
Of things and the names of locations be-
cause OF the street signs and window adj
vertisements. but in Russia there isn't a
single sympathetic letter to be seen.
Years ago. when l first came here, pas
senger could not leave a railway station
without showing his passport and having It
carefully examined. but we did not see a
policeman this time. man from the hotel
In POS 0ro tn 0rrr m "A
took command of our persons and belong
ings. He put us into brand-new omnibus
and drove us over the cobbiestones to our
hotel In the center of the city. where we
fulfilled the old requirement OF writing our
names, ages. professions and residences on
blank and sending II. with our passports.
to police HEADQUARTERS Every person who
arrives in town II required to. do that,
whether he stops at q hotel or private
house. and whether he fs subject or for
eigner, hut Il h very little trouble. You
write the desired information upon the ofn-
cial blank tfiAt II offered you and the por-
ter ct the hOtea doee all the rest