TWO SORTS OF WOLVES.

3

brandy-flask, bag of provisions, bottle of water, matches,
cigars, and portmanteau having been stowed away, I
was about to step into the open sledge when a Russian
neighbour came up and asked leave to join in the
journey to Jaroslav. My neighbour, though a gentle-
man for whom I had much respect, was the last man
I should have chosen as a travelling companion in a
narrow sledge, for he weighed over twenty stone, had
great difficulty in breathing, and, when once he was
seated, almost required horse-power to get him up
again. He was a phlegmatic, lazy, good-natured,
monosyllabic, cigaret-smoking monster who was not
to be refused; so, his request granted, he rolled in
on the right side and filled three parts of the sledge.
My Russian house-servants crossed themselves,
whereby they meant "God give you a safe journey!"
the members of my own family cried, "Good-bye,
God bless you!" and the driver having gathered up
the rope-reins, I jumped in, and with a noo-noo to the
cattle, off we went dead against a blinding drift.

Fat-sides having observed my weapons, grunted in
his own Russian, of which he made the least possible
use, "Pistolet. Wolves. Shoot. Good."

"Have you any weapons?" I asked.

"No."

"Well; take this bear-knife."

"Good," he said again, and relapsed into his
corner.

Daylight came struggling through the heavy
morning clouds, and disclosed a cheerless waste of
ridges and valleys of snow. The trees which at wide

4

RUSSIAN LIFE.

intervals indicated the route, did not save us from
often plunging into great pits of soft snow the moment
our driver turned but a few feet from the track. This
happened so often, and gave us so much trouble in
digging ourselves out, that it was noon before we had
made sixteen versts—hardly ten miles—having been
six hours on the way.

At this point in our journey the driver sent the
blood dancing through my veins, by the alarming
cry of "Volka! Volka!"—"Wolves! Wolves!" I
sprang from my seat, and, looking a-head, saw six
great, gaunt, and no doubt hungry wolves, sitting
exactly in our way, at the distance of about a hun-
dred yards or less. Our horses had huddled them-
selves together, trembling in every limb, and refused
to stir. We shouted and bawled, but the wolves also
refused to stir. My fat friend, gathering a large
handful of hay from the sledge bottom, rolled it into
the form of a ball and handed it to me, saying,
"Match." I understood him at once. The driver
managed, by awful lashing and noo-nooing, to get
the horses on until we came within a short distance
of our enemies. By this time I had succeeded in
setting fire to the ball of hay, and just as it began to
blaze out well, I threw it in among them. It worked
like a charm. Instantly the wretches parted, three
on each side, and skulked off slowly at right angles,
their tails dragging as if they were beaten curs. On
dashed our brave team—lash, lash—noo, noo.

"Hurrah!" I shouted, with a lightened heart;
"we are safe this time, thank God!"

TWO SORTS OF WOLVES.

5

"Wait. Look back," said Fat-sides.

I did so, and I saw the wolves, who had joined each other again in the centre track, pausing, as if to deliberate. Our horses were going at their utmost speed, the driver standing up and using lash and voice with all his might, to urge them on to the station, then only about a mile and a half ahead. Luckily, the road or track, as far as we could see, was free from drift, and our hope was that we could gain the station before the wolves, should they pursue us. Looking back just as we turned a bend in the track, I saw the whole pack in swift pursuit.

I had often been told that wolves will not attack a party unless in a large pack. Six was no large pack, yet here they were, coming up to attack us; there was now no doubt about that. Hunger through a long and severe winter must have made them daring. With the consciousness of an impending death-struggle, I prepared for the result. My thoughts went for one moment to my wife and children; for another, to the Great Disposer of events. Then, throwing off my sheepskin coat, so as not to impede the free action of my arms and legs, I sprang on the front seat beside the driver, but with my back to the horses and my face to the enemy. I said to the driver, "They are coming, brother; drive fast, but steadily. I have six bullets in this pistol. Don't move from your seat, but drive right in the centre of the track." My fat companion sat still in his corner, and neither moved nor spoke; but I saw the blade of my bear-knife gleaming in his hand.

6

RUSSIAN LIFE.

The track had become worse, so that the horses could not maintain their pace. In a short time the wolves ran beside the sledge; the horses strained and shot on, keeping their distance, but in forcing our way through a drift we came to a walking pace, and the first wolf on my side made a dash at the horse next him. The pistol was within a foot and a half of his head when I fired, and the ball went through his brain. I shouted my triumph in English; my companion echoed it with a "Bravo!" The second wolf received my second fire in the leg, which must have shattered the bone, for he dropped behind instantly. "Bravo!" was again cried from the corner. But the same moment was the moment of our greatest peril. My pistol fell into the sledge, as, with a sudden jolt, our horses floundered up to their bellies in a deep drift; then they came to a dead stop, and there was a wolf at each side of the sledge, attempting to get in.

My bludgeon still remained. With both hands I raised it high and brought it down with the desperate force of a man in mortal extremity, upon the head of the wolf on my side. He tumbled over on his back, and the skull was afterwards found to have been completely smashed. As I stooped to regain my pistol, I was astonished to see my companion coolly thrust one of his arms into the wolf's mouth, and as coolly, with the disengaged hand, drawing the knife, with a deep and sharp cut, across his throat. A peculiar cry among the horses arrested my attention. Looking round, I saw another wolf actually fastened on the off-horse by the neck. The driver was be-

TWO SORTS OF WOLVES.

7

tween me and the wolf. He cried, "Give me the
pistol!" I did so, and the poor horse was free. So
also were we; for the other wolf ran off, followed by
the one with the broken leg. The wolf last shot was
tumbling among the snow. The driver handed me
the pistol to put right, and begged another shot at the
brute. This finished the engagement.

I cannot tell how I felt. I could scarcely realise
our great deliverance. The driver secured the car-
cases to the sledge; and when we reached the station
I was completely exhausted from the reaction of the
strong excitement. My friend of the twenty stone
chuckled much at his own trick upon the wolf he had
killed. Instead of putting his arm into the animal's
open mouth, as I supposed, he had stuffed into it the
loose sleeves of his great sheepskin coat, thereby get-
ting plenty of time to cut the monster's throat. His
own arm was untouched. But the poor horse's neck
and shoulder were much torn.

After consuming an enormous quantity of tea and
part of our provisions, we left the station, and without
meeting more adventures, except several diggings-out,
arrived at Jaroslav at eight o'clock, having accom-
plished about thirty miles in thirteen hours. Next
morning we found ourselves popular characters in the
town. The driver's tongue had not been idle. My
revolver underwent many an examination. The go-
vernment or local reward for a dead wolf is three
roubles, which we claimed and received for three. So
the wolves, instead of killing us, paid our travelling
expenses. The fourth animal I caused to be skinned,

8

RUSSIAN LIFE.

for preservation, as a remembrance of the greatest peril I was ever in.

Jaroslav is the name of a large goobernie, or government. Russia is divided into such districts, the principal town of each being generally named after the district, and containing the whole machinery of local government—a governor-general, with soldiers, police, barracks, government offices, and officials of all sorts, who obtain their rank from, and obey the orders of, the supreme imperial power in St. Petersburg. I am not writing the history or geography of Russia, but am only recalling personal experiences and adventures, and therefore, having said so much, I go on with my story.

As this trip was made before the new law regarding foreigners' passports, which now enables them to travel for an entire year with one passport all over the empire, I was obliged to go before the governor-general for permission, in continuing my journey, to leave the government of Jaroslav. What is gained by the new passport system one may judge from what had to be endured before its time. I call at the offices entitled "Gubernator's Kansileery." The door-keeper tells me I must wait till to-morrow. Twenty kopecks, however, induce him to conduct me to the right clerk. This clerk looks over my old passport, and, for "a consideration," makes out a petition, praying the governor to give me a new one to go to St. Petersburg by way of Moscow; for another "consideration" he makes out the new passport itself, for which I pay

TWO SORTS OF WOLVES.

9

the legal sum of two roubles. I am then told to go
to the governor's own house, in a distant part of the
town, to get his signature. When I get there I am
told that it cannot be done without a certificate from
the chief of the police that I am quite clear on his
books. By this time it is near four o'clock, and I am
too late. A day is lost.

Next day, at ten, I am at the police-office, and,
among a crowd of people of all sorts, am obliged to
wait till two before the chief makes his appearance.
In the mean time I have coaxed a secretary with
another consideration to make out the certificate
on the back of my old passport, that there may be no
delay when he does come.

Well aware, as I was, of the practically irrespon-
sible position held, and the almost unlimited power
exercised by officials of this kind at such a distance
from head-quarters, still I was scarcely prepared for
the experience I acquired during a patient waiting of
four hours for this official. I had been, as usual,
asking questions and moving about from one part of
the large room to another. There were no mere
spectators present. That all had business was fully
manifested by the enormously large papers each held
in hand. These papers contained their various cases,
as they were to be submitted to the chief of the po-
lice, and as they had been written out by the under
functionaries of the police establishment for a con-
sideration, duly or unduly proportioned to the nature
of the cases and the demands of the officials. Accom-
modation in an inner room was offered to me, but

10

RUSSIAN LIFE.

declined; for I wanted to know more of a Russian police-court.

"What are you wanting here, brother?" I said to a decent-looking man.

"You are an Englishman. I will tell you. You see that man in the blue caftan?"

"Yes."

"Well, my brother and I caught him stealing from my premises six months ago. He had two horses with him for carting my goods off, and, as we caught him in the act, we gave him and the horses up to the police."

"Well," I said, "that is a plain case easily settled."

"God help me! I thought so too. But you see they have been sending for my brother and me, on one pretence or another, from our village, fifteen versts away, every week for six months, writing papers and giving evidence, until I have cause to believe that the affair itself must have been a dream. I am so tired out, I cannot go on telling the truth any longer. Besides, it's of no use. Last week my brother saw the very same two horses in the police-master's carriage."

"Ah! I see; the thief is free at the cost of two good horses. And what do you do now? That paper is—"

"A statement that the whole thing must have been a dream and delusion on the part of my brother and myself, and that we have nobody to accuse. I wish we were quit of the business." And he crossed himself.

TWO SORTS OF WOLVES.

11

"Why do you cry, my dear mother, and what is your petition about?" I said to a poor woman.

"Oh, my lord, I have been cheated. I am a widow; my husband died three months ago. He bought the little house and garden twelve months before that, and paid two hundred roubles—all the money except twenty roubles. The police-master signed the deed of sale for it, but has forgotten all about it. The man that sold the place denies the selling and the paying. I and my children are turned out, and this is the fourth petition I have presented. I have no money to give his excellency, to make him remember."

Poor woman! The only appeal from official ra-
pacity is to the emperor; his ears are indeed never
shut to the lowliest of his subjects; but how can
a poor woman tramp six hundred miles of Russian
road to sue for justice?

Wandering among these confused but silent
groups, I was heartily glad to be an Englishman.

An old gray-haired, long-bearded peasant, with
a head like an apostle, attracted my attention.

"Good father, why are you here? What is that
paper in your hand?"

"My son has been misbehaving and rebellious to
me, his father, and I am come to get him whipped
by the police."

"Is your son young, then?"

"He has seen thirty-four summers."

"How can you think of whipping a man of that
age?"

12

RUSSIAN LIFE.

"Well, you see, before he left me for St. Petersburg, nine years ago, he was, and had always been, a good and respectful son; but he has learnt bad manners amongst the fine folks. He drinks, sir; puts on fine airs; sets himself up against my authority, and is corrupting the rest of my children. I must get him whipped; for while I live I will be father of my own house."

Suddenly there was a bustle and stir. The waiting claimants for justice, with a score of prisoners under arrest, arranged themselves in rows all round the room, and I had time to ensconce myself behind a large and greasy merchant, when in came the longlooked-for chief of the police—judge, jury, law, and emperor in one. He was a colonel, dressed in full regimentals, — a man who seemed to be naturally bold, shrewd, and intelligent; but his nose was scarlet, his face blotched, and he reeled rather than walked. Doing his best to stand erect, he scowled upon the assembled mob, all of whom, except myself, stood bending and bowing before him.

He took paper after paper, glanced at and partially read some of them; gave his signature to contracts; passed, as the papers were read, sentence on each with marvellous rapidity; tossed some on the table, and ordered those who presented them under arrest; sent ten to be whipped—among the rest the old man's son; and before I was aware—so absorbed was I in observation of this swift torrent of justice—I found myself almost alone with his excellency, his eye resting on me for the first time.

TWO SORTS OF WOLVES.

13

"Ah!" he said, his tone and manner changing on the instant; "you are an Englishman, I perceive. What may your pleasure be?"

"Simply to beg that you will sign this certificate of good character, which I have here under your jurisdiction."

"It shall be done instantly; sorry to keep you waiting. You see how I am tormented by these canaille. Pray, excuse me. A safe journey. Adieu."

He thrusts me out, and I am driven to the governor-general's, to get his signature to my new passport. The governor-general has gone to dine: another day is to be lost. The hour of the diligence for Moscow for starting every morning is eight. The governor's office does not open until ten, so that the next day is also to be lost unless I choose to hire post, which would be a desperate proceeding in such weather. The signature is obtained, however, by the aid of a consideration to the clerk; the day passes heavily away; and next morning I start for Moscow, distant two hundred and sixty-three versts, in a public diligence, in company with four Russians and a German.

CHAPTER II.

THROUGH SNOW, BY DILIGENCE, TO MOSCOW.

IN ordinary weather the road to Moscow from Ja-
roslav is one of the best and busiest in the empire.
In both summer and winter it can be travelled over
in twenty-eight or thirty hours. There are post sta-
tions every sixteen or twenty versts, where horses
are changed, and a fresh driver is put on to every
fresh team. These drivers are the most reckless and
determined whips I have seen. No weather scares
them, no obstacles stop them; the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would put every
man and boy of them in jail. The knout or whip
is used without mercy; the men take especial delight
in beginning at the top of a steep hill a fierce gallop,
that grows to racing speed as they get near the bot-
tom; so that the cattle and passengers find them-
selves up the next acclivity before the momentum is
lost. They don't know the meaning of patent drag,
but drive determinedly on at full stretch to the end
of the station. The Russians cross themselves when
a start is made, lie back in the most convenient man-
ner possible, and amid jolting, bumping, cries, and
lashing, go to sleep as composedly as if they were

THROUGH SNOW TO MOSCOW.

15

in a railway carriage. Wheels will come off, poles break, and other casualties occur; but as spare ropes, hammer, axe, nails, and even spare wheels, are always carried, a break-down seldom causes a delay of ten minutes. This is summer travelling; the vehicle used being a "tarantas," a large double calèche without seats, placed on and tied to the centre of horizontal poles, for springs of the best steel would snap like glass. Passengers make seats of their luggage, and with straw and pillows save their joints from dislocation. Winter, however, brings other contrivances. The universal travelling "kibitka" is got out. This is a nearly square frame of wood covered with canvas, having a door on each side. The covered frame, which resembles a large box, is fixed on a low strong sledge. Primitive birch shafts are fastened to the front, the horses are put in, and the turn-out is perfect. Without the cattle it may cost two or three pounds, because it is all covered in. This is a luxurious winter equipage compared to the open sledge.

It was in a kibitka, dignified by the name of diligence, that we started at eight o'clock A.M. from Jaroslav. We had no sooner cleared the town than our difficulties began, not to come to an end for seven following days and nights. For three days since the great storm little snow had fallen, but there was a blinding wind lifting into clouds the snow already on the ground, and building it into mountain ridges right in our track. The smooth broad macadamised road was a myth, buried here six, or there ten, feet

16

RUSSIAN LIFE.

deep, and in case of ridges or wind-sweeps, thirty feet. Traffic was nevertheless going on; indeed, had been going on during the whole time of the storm. A snow-storm, however fierce, never deters the Russians from a journey. For this reason a single track was commonly available, but that track was by no means a level or smooth one: it worked like Toby Tosspot's, "with sinuosities along," not only transversely but vertically, in a continued succession of ups and downs, from six to ten feet in depth, so that the horses' heads were generally in the hollow. When the kibitka was on the crest of the snow-wave, we soon found that our team of three good horses was totally unable to pull us over these dreadful "yamas." In many cases the six passengers got out to help the cattle, and even then it took a good pull all together to accomplish it. To save this labour three additional horses were added, at the first small village, at our own expense, and then we got on rather better. It would be tedious to enumerate how many times we were overturned, and had to dig ourselves out of the soft snow. Many vehicles of like construction to ours were struggling on under the same difficulties, to or from Moscow. At nine P.M. one of our horses gave up, died, and, having been cut out of his traces, was left to the wolves. At eleven o'clock another burst a blood-vessel, and shared his fate. A third gave up within a mile of the town at which we intended to recruit; and finally we had to get out and walk to a place of refuge, leaving the three remaining animals to pull the empty

A HOTEL IN THE INTERIOR.

17

carriage after us. We had, in sixteen hours, with
three separate teams of fresh horses, accomplished
the distance of forty-five versts, our pace being little
better than two miles an hour.

The town we had entered is called Rostov, and
had been for the two previous weeks the scene of an
immense fair, second only to the great Nishni Nov-
gorod fair held in August. It was nearly over when
we reached the town. Had we come two days sooner,
there would have been great difficulty in finding
shelter: as it was, it was one o'clock in the morning
before we got under cover in a large traktera, or inn,
densely crowded with buyers and sellers from the
fair,—a place steaming with all manner of odours.
Wearied and worn out, and almost shaken to pieces,
we were all glad to be huddled into a room twelve
feet by fifteen; where, after drinking an enormous
quantity of tea, and eating a cutlet—or an imitation
of a cutlet in gutta percha—my companions went to
bed on the floor. I, desiring better quarters, sought
out the stables, where, rolled in my shirt and covered
with hay—procured for a consideration—I passed
four or five hours in a sound sleep.

A Russian hotel in the interior is the most filthy
of all filthy places; for, as the floors are never
washed, the mud and filth accumulate to an inch
and a half in thickness, the walls are black and fœtid,
tarakans—a horrible sort of large brown beetle—
crawl in myriads over every thing, invading even the
dishes out of which the traveller eats and drinks, and
the dirty deal tables are further defiled with a

c

18

RUSSIAN LIFE.

dirty linen cloth. The public rooms, generally lofty
and spacious, are constantly filled with the offensive
odour of the native tobacco. The waiters are all
men dressed in print trousers and shirts; the trousers
stuffed into long boots, and the shirts hanging out-
side the trousers; a parti-coloured band or scarf round
the waist completing the costume. Their hair, like
that of all the peasants, is worn long, cut straight
round the neck, and parted in front like a woman's,
while the beard is neither cut nor trimmed.

Most of the Russian merchants do all their bar-
gaining in the inns, and while doing business swallow
fabulous quantities of tea at a sitting. It is drunk
in glass tumblers, and the sugar is taken, not in the
tea, but with it—nibbled at, to sweeten the mouth
before every gulp: no milk is used. The brass urn,
or "samovar," contains the supply of hot water,
which is kept boiling by inserting burning charcoal
in the centre tube. Travellers may carry their own
tea, sugar, and bread, and by paying ten or twenty
kopecks will at any station or inn get the use of an
urn. The hot water being brought to the carriage-
door in summer, many travellers never enter one of
these places, but sleep, eat, and travel in their con-
veyances for weeks.

Next morning we started at six o'clock with five
horses, but had soon to add a sixth. This day was
like the day before it, except that we killed no
horses. As daylight vanished, we determined to
push on during the night; but at eleven o'clock we
lost the track in the dark, and stuck fast in a moun-

THROUGH SNOW TO MOSCOW.

19

tain ridge of snow. After an hour spent in fruitless
efforts at extrication, three of us set out in search of
assistance. To our astonishment we presently dis-
covered, by "the smoke that so gracefully curled"
from several points at once, that we were wrecked in
the midst of a straggling snow-covered village. A
kind peasant gave us admittance, and sent help to
our half-frozen companions. This day we made
about thirty-two miles in seventeen hours. As I
had slept with the horses on the previous night, so
this evening the cow gave me a part of her bed.

We had passed six dead horses, some of them
partially devoured, and four overturned conveyances,
embedded in deep snow, beyond recovery until the
spring. Where the passengers were, I know not:
my companions said, "God knows," and crossed
themselves. All along the track we had seen evi-
dences of distress: wrecks of sledges, horses up to
their necks in drift, men digging them out. But
just before starting the next morning we saw the
most horrible sight of all. Opposite the hut of our
poor entertainer there had been men digging, to get
into a house entirely buried in snow, and they had
succeeded in rescuing a family that had been four
days buried. This family was none the worse for its
mishap; but the diggers had come on a sledge with
its horse, driver, and two women frozen to death, and
buried in the drift. They had got fast, and perished
without help in the midst of a village. Caught in
the greatest fury of the storm, they had not known
their whereabout, nor had their cries been heard.

20

RUSSIAN LIFE.

Three months after this, and when the snows disappeared, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred corpses were found, all of whom had met their death in this fearful storm upon the Moscow road alone. So I have been told, and fully believe.

Ten at night found us within a station of Pereslaf. After getting our conveyance under cover, and our light luggage removed to the house or den, I had time to visit an adjoining peasant's cot.

Here was a whole family spinning and weaving flax. The family manufactory included every process, from the scutching to the linen-weaving, all carried on within the space of a room twenty feet square. In a corner stood a mild elderly father scutching the straw from the flax; the mother sat near him, helped by a son, combing out the tow with hand-brushes; every now and then throwing small twisted rolls of the tow into a bunker, and plaiting up the long flax ready for sale or spinning. Three rather good-looking girls were spinning and twirling the thread, several young ones were winding and unwinding the yarn, and one girl was the weaver at her loom plying the busy shuttle. The whole machinery employed in this primitive workshop and family manufactory—hear it, ye Baxters of Dundee, and Marshalls of Leeds—loom included, would not cost two sovereigns. My companion and fellow-traveller, a young Russian, very soon was on good terms with the young folks, and as I sat down by the dame, the old man joined us, and we talked of the late storm and its con-

IN A PEASANT'S COTTAGE.

21

sequences, of the flax-work, and of how they sold what they made, to pay the baron. They were communi-cative on the prices they got for the different qualities, told me how they worked at this all winter, and on the land all summer; how the baron was a good man, but spent in Moscow and Petersburg his time and money, leaving his poor slaves to the tender mercies of a German steward, who skinned them unmerci-fully. One of their boys, they said, had gone, or rather had been sent, to the Crimea as a soldier, and they had never heard of him since; another son was at Moscow in a woollen fabric, and had to pay fifty roubles a-year, "obrok," to the baron. The two eldest girls had been ordered to marry after Easter, and to marry men they did not like. One of the men was a drunken worthless fellow; but ah, dear Heaven, had not their father the emperor—God bless him!—decreed their emancipation? And were they not soon to do what they liked, and be freed from the "obrok"? Their notions of liberty or political rights amounted to this, and no more.

Having sent my companion for tea and sugar, I asked the girls to prepare the urn, and further ingra-tiated myself by buying a piece of the linen they had made and bleached on the grass the previous summer. While the tea was being handed about, an old woman came in: the "swakha," or ambassadress from one of the intended bridegrooms. All marriages among the common people in Russia are negotiated by such go-betweens, who arrange preliminaries, extol the quali-ties of their clients, examine and decide on the trous-

22

RUSSIAN LIFE.

seau of the bride, and act as head negotiators in the
whole affair. When the father of the bride can afford
it, money is demanded, and a written list of the "pre-
dania," or articles of the trousseau, is given in. The
articles accordingly supplied are scrutinised, and ac-
cepted, rejected, or exchanged, according to the fiat
of the old go-between. There is no courtship or per-
sonal affection before these marriages. The woman
generally submits, as a matter of course, and becomes
the slave of any brute appointed by the baron or
steward, or by her father when no master interferes.

I know a family of free Russians, in which the
father was of the rank of "chinovnick." He had
four daughters, all accomplished, the eldest decidedly
plain, the others good-looking. A suitor appeared
for the hand of the youngest and prettiest, in the
person of a young government official. His go-be-
tween, or swakha, required to know how much money
the father would give, and what the "predania." "I
give nothing," said the old man. "The elder sisters
must be married first, and it is robbing them to give
first to the youngest. If the young man will take
the eldest, I will give four thousand roubles; if the
second, fifteen hundred; if the third, a 'predane'
without money; but if he must have the youngest,
nothing." As the young man wanted to buy or bribe
his way into a higher station of life, he offered to
take the eldest of these girls for six thousand roubles.
This would have wronged the other daughters, and
the offer was refused. The youngest, who had set her
heart on the fellow, pined; the others offered to give

MARRYING MONEY.

23

up their claims to make her happy, but the father
was inexorable. The poor thing was dead of con-
sumption eighteen months afterwards, and the bar-
gaining swain is now married to the eldest, richest,
and least handsome. This happened in the capital,
among what we called the "French-polished" Rus-
sians. But I must return to my poor peasants of no
polish.

The swakha finding the field occupied by strange
guests, confined herself on this occasion to an enu-
meration of the many excellences of the appointed
husband, among which I remember one which sounded
curious—it was, that though fond of brandy, he knew
how to get it for nothing. Another was, that his
father would not live long, and so, he being the eldest
son, his wife would quickly become mistress of the
whole family, and own the hut, pig, cow, horse, and
other appurtenances of headship. When a woman
marries the eldest son of a house, she is taken home
to the paternal roof, and, on the death of the father,
becomes mistress, to the exclusion of the mother-in-
law, whose reign ceases at once.

As it was now late, the good people of this hut
offered me a mattress in another room; and I passed
the night luxuriously in clean linen, and with my
clothes off, for the first and only time during a long
Russian journey. Where the night was spent by my
young Russian fellow-traveller I cannot tell. In the
morning, when we were about to start, he had vanished
with his traps, no one knew whither. After waiting
at the station some time, I went back to inquire at

24

RUSSIAN LIFE.

my host's. One of the daughters met me at the door
with sparkling eyes, as pretty a country beauty as I
had seen any where in Russia. To my question she
answered, "I will tell you; you are a good fellow.
He cannot leave me yet, and will remain here a day
or two. But don't say to any body where he is. God
give you a safe journey! Good-by." Wherewith she
vanshed. Already my fellow-travellers were grumb-
ling at a long delay, so I had little difficulty in per-
suading them to travel on without him.

I may as well tell—since I know it—the sequel
to this little history. Nine months afterwards, I was
stepping out of a railway carriage at Moscow, when I
met my old companion of the hut; he seized my port-
manteau with one hand, and with the other he dragged
me to the gate, tumbled me with himself into a pre-
lotka (a small open carriage), and directed the driver
where to go. "You are going to my house," he said,
"to meet an old acquaintance, and to be our guest
while you remain in Moscow. Don't say no; it *shall*
be so." On arriving at his house, a small one, but
very respectable, I was agreeably surprised to meet
the beauty of the hut, who came forward as his wife,
looking as happy as man could desire. She had just
finished a music-lesson, was dressed very neatly, and
she did the honours of the house quite creditably
while I stayed.

"You remember telling me on that awful journey
in March last," said the young Russian when we sat
up together, "how they married for love in England,
and not for money; how women were not there slaves

MARRYING FOR LOVE.

25

to men, and so forth? Well, I saw this girl that very
night about to be sacrificed to a brute. I thought
her good and pure; and you know she is beautiful.
So I began that night to love her, told her so, and
told her father so. I could not tear myself away for
three days; and at the end of that time I determined
I would have her, let it cost me what it might. So
when I got to Moscow I called on her master, the
baron; offered to buy her; and begged him not to
allow her to be married to the bad man whom the
steward had appointed. But," he continued, taking
me by both hands, "you had been before me there.
He told me that he had seen an Englishman who so
represented the case, that he had given orders for the
stoppage of that marriage."

"Yes," I said, "I did see him, and found him a
kind-hearted gentleman, quite unaware of some of
his steward's pranks. He granted my request at
once, and in my presence sent a letter off to stop the
marriage."

"But," he said, "that is not all. He refused to
sell her; said that he knew the family well, that the
old man had charge of him while a boy, and once pro-
tected his life at some risk. He asked me what I was,
and what interest I had in the girl. I replied, that
I wanted to marry her. 'Then,' said he, 'the whole
family shall have its freedom as soon as we can make
out the necessary papers.' That is all done long ago.
The rascally steward is discharged, and I am to fill
his place."

26

RUSSIAN LIFE.

Again I turn to the snowy winter journey, of which
a part has been already described. The track on the
fourth day was worse than any we had yet encountered,
being more cut up with traffic. But we had good
cattle, and one man less to carry; so, although we
were upset more than once, we did not make less
than our usual progress. Once the kibitka turned
over in a deep valley of snow, and the passengers were
tossed together into a confused and struggling mass.
My breath was nearly choked out of me by the weight
of a fat Russian baron, whose thumb I was obliged to
bite as he was digging his hands into my face, before
he could be induced to tumble off. After scrambling,
as usual, out at the top door, and to the track again,
we found the whole wreck beyond remedy by our un-
assisted powers. Fortunately, however, a long line
of sledges with goods from Rastov fair, being just in
front of us, the poor peasants who were attached as
drivers and guards, although they had plenty of trou-
blesome work on their own hands, came back, and by
main force lifted us out of the hole. It was some
time before we were so far righted as to be able to go
on; and then when we were making up lost time, and
overtook our friends with their sledges, numbering
probably a hundred in a long line on the one solitary
track, it became necessary to pass them if we would
not be kept at a snail's pace for many hours. But
the passing was not easy. The whole line must draw
close to one side, and in some cases into the soft snow,
and this the men for a long time refused to do. It
was a difficult job, involving risk to some, and the

A BARON WITH THE POLISH OFF.

27

road was theirs as well as ours. The Russian baron,
who was one of us, at length lost all temper, and
began to swear as only a Russian can. Being cold
and hungry, exhausted and much shaken, he was
anxious to get to some shelter, especially as night was
now closing. Oaths having no effect, he lost the last
glimmer of polish, and came out the born Tartar that
he was. Dragging the cudgel from my hand, he began
belabouring with all his might the men and horses,
dealing blows right and left, and compelling the men
to draw up to one side as fast as we came up. For
an hour, this lasted, before we had passed all the
sledges.

"There, you canaille!" he cried as he struck.
"Take that! Give the road, you lazy vermin!
Make room, you pigs! I am a baron, don't you
see? A friend of the governor's! Sons of dogs!
Defilement of the earth! Your mothers are beasts!"
and so forth.

This was his gentlest style, while the blows fell in
a shower. Forty or fifty men submitted to all this,
grumbled, but cowed; they took the blows and in-
sults of this one man as dogs take their masters'
kicks; they were serfs, he was a baron. After he
had recovered his seat and his breath, and had wiped
the perspiration from his head, he turned to me, and
asked, with an air of national pride,

"What do you say to that, me lort?"

"I say, that had you struck the poorest of my
countrymen in that manner, they would either have
boxed you into a jelly, or they would have tied you

28

RUSSIAN LIFE.

to a sledge until they reached the first town, and then
given you up to a magistrate for an assault."

"O, as to that, I should soon get away from a
magistrate. A little money would soon do that."

"Indeed! I can tell you that your whole estate,
with a dozen like it, would not buy one of our magis-
trates."

This assertion only caused an incredulous laugh,
and a remark from the baron that he could buy
any country magistrates in Russia for fifty kopecks
(eighteenpence).

The baron referred to was a tall, stout man, well
acquainted with the French and German languages
as well as the Russ, and apparently, also, with the
literature of England. He had read, in French and
Russian, translations of the works of the chief Eng-
lish novelists and poets of the present century. He
spoke with enthusiasm of the English government and
people; and he recited Russian compositions, which,
in the time of Nicholas, and at St. Petersburg, would
have insured him a free passage to Siberia. He told
me he had just manumitted a great portion of his
serfs, and was on his way to the two capitals to sell
his estate and leave the country; or, failing in that,
to let his land, and bring it into proper cultivation.
The great curse of the country, he thought, were the
priests—a lazy, ignorant pack; immoral, drunken,
and filthy in the interior, polished and crafty in the
capitals. The emancipation of the serfs was nothing
without the abolition of the priestly influence. The

A SOLDIER FROM INKERMAN.

29

state finances, he said, were in a terribly low state. Why did not the emperor play Henry the Eighth, seize upon the numerous and enormously wealthy monasteries and churches, and melt down the gold and silver lying useless in their coffers, or covering their altars and pretended saints? My name not being asked, the baron and the others called me Lort Palmerston. My baron worshipped Palmerston; but he said it was "Henry the Eighth and Oliver Cromwell they wanted." In opinions and character this fellow-traveller was one of a large class that may one day play a cudgel for what it considers Russian regeneration; a man polite to excess, but, "when scraped, a Tartar." as the poor sledge-drivers who had pulled us out of the pit could witness. This baron's son, a young man of twenty-two, was with us, already proud to employ English oaths, and talk of "box," besides being so unpleasantly addicted to rather practical jokes, that on one occasion I was obliged to give him a little unexpected practice in the "noble science," for which his father most politely, and I think sincerely, thanked me.

An officer of infantry, wounded at Inkerman, and now invalided, was another of our party. He was very civil to me, and asked many questions about the English army and navy systems. Of Inkerman, "Ah!" he said, "I was there, and received my wound from an English officer's revolver. Poor fellow! I forgave him; it was his last barrel, and the last shot he ever fired; but he hurled the empty pistol at one of those who were pressing on

30

RUSSIAN LIFE.

him, so that he knocked the fellow down; but
the next moment he fell, pierced with balls and
bayonets. My God! how these few men did fight
and die, surprised by a whole army!" He related
what, indeed, I had often heard in Russia, that all
the detail of attack was carefully planned in St.
Petersburg by the Emperor Nicholas, who was per-
fectly convinced of its complete success. And it
would most certainly have sufficed, had that hand-
ful of Englishmen but known when it was over-
matched. "But this we could not make them un-
derstand," he said; "so in time the French came,
in overwhelming masses, and our troops were forced
to retire. English stupidity lost us the best chance
we had during that war." When the express courier
reached St. Petersburg with the first news of that
defeat, and the entire failure of the carefully-devised
plan that was to drive the allies into the sea, the em-
peror, scouting the rumour of defeat arrived the day
before, received the messenger—an officer of rank—
as the bearer of joyful tidings. Something, however,
in the officer's looks betokened any thing but joy,
and in breathless silence from the assembled court,
the emperor stalked up to the man, seized him by
both shoulders, and said with evident effort and con-
centrated emotion, "Say! speak! Is it victory?"

"My liege, I have instructions. There is the
despatch!"

"Speak one word: Victory!—quick."

"Nay, sire, I am distressed to say it is defeat,"
replied the officer, and hung his head.

RUSSIANISED GERMANS.

31

"Liar!" roared the emperor; and with his whole force he flung the messenger of evil to the other side of the room, and walked into the adjoining cabinet with the unopened despatch in his hand. How far this scene, repeated again by my friend the soldier, is true, I cannot tell; but as it is said to have had many witnesses, so I know it is widely credited among men likely to be right as to such matters.

The only other traveller in our kibitka was a Russianised German: one of a class very common in Russia, and, as a class, inquisitive, crafty, unscrupulous, hating the English with what soul they have, cheating and injuring them when they have the power. Russia is overrun with Germans of this sort, who are to be found in all places except where sound knowledge and honourable dealing are essential. Nearly all the apothecaries are such Germans, and the prices they sell drugs at are audacious. They get to be stewards, and then woe to the poor peasants. They largely import German girls, who are preferred to Russian by the dissolute. They are confectioners, factors, watchmakers, sausage- and hamdealers, organ- and knife-grinders, any thing. When they first invaded the country they were called "neimitz," or dummies, because, unable to speak the language, they talked only by signs. The army itself is overrun with greedy German officers and doctors: too commonly men who, while poor, will submit to any degradation; but who, when they get up in the world a little, are fastidious and proud. The Russians hate them with good cause, because they are

32

RUSSIAN LIFE.

cruel, extortionate, tyrannical, and practically useless. Many of the nobility and gentry are married to German women; for the Russian women are wan, and not usually good-looking. The German wives exert the influence of their husbands in advancing the interests of all their poor relations. Let me illustrate this by a short history, which will show also the state of Russian serfdom under German management.

General R. was a pure Russian, but having in his youth been employed as a diplomatist in England and elsewhere, he became so deeply sensible of the political degradation of his countrymen, and of his own responsibility in relation to his serfs, that when he returned to Russia he obtained the emperor's permission to retire from public life, and devote himself, assisted by his wife (also of an old Russian family), to the task of improving the condition of the ten thousand serfs on his estates. These estates were extensive, had a splendid soil, and happened to be situated in a genial climate. The general himself went to live in the midst of his people, looked into their wants, established schools and churches, as well as factories, corn-mills, sugar-works, adopted agricultural improvements, and increased his wealth. He was the first to set up a cotton-mill in Russia, in order to employ profitably his people and time during the long lazy winter months formerly spent in perfect idleness. The fortunate serfs increased their allotments; the sound of whip or stick was never heard; traders came far distances to trade in the thriving valleys of R., and their produce brought the

A GOOD MASTER.

33

best prices in the large town, distant only one hundred versts. In all disputes the general himself was judge and jury; he was adviser and friend in all difficulties. Incorrigible delinquents were punished by being sent off the estate to work, according to the common custom, under other owners, on the "obrok," and on this estate no heavier punishment could be inflicted. He built a country-house, a copy from some English gentleman's seat that he had seen and liked; surrounded it with gardens and a park; erected farm-houses on a large scale; imported implements, cattle, and experienced overseers: and when his barns and coffers were full, and all went well with him and his, he died, beloved and almost worshipped by the men to whom his life had been a blessing. Ten years after the old general's death, I inhabited a wing of his mansion for a twelvemonth, so that I know well what I am relating. Evidences were around me daily, on all sides, of the good that was done, and the cause of the change that followed.

"Ah!" said the old Russian overseer of the cotton-mill, "you should have come in the old general's time. Then we were men; now we are beasts. Then we were all rich; now we are skinned and robbed of our very flesh. Then we could eat beef; now we cannot get enough of 'casha' to keep us alive. Look at me. Am I not as thin as a ghost? The year the general died, I weighed fifteen stone; I had six hundred roubles, saved from rearing poultry, pigs, growing flax, and getting presents from the master.

D

34

RUSSIAN LIFE.

It's all gone—or,” said he whispering, “they think so. Some of it is buried where they never shall clutch it. Ah! the ‘neimitz’ came then. They ruined the estate.”

“Who is the ‘neimitz’?”

“Who indeed? There came here once an Englishman as superintendent of these works; I liked him. When the men first went to pay their respects to him, the poor starved-looking beings told their tale in their faces, but poured out also their grievances before him. He said that he was only come to superintend the mechanical processes, that with their social relations he had nothing to do; but whatever was in his power he would do to make them comfortable. In the mean time he gave them a day’s holiday, but our German steward forbade them to take it; ‘That,’ he said to the Englishman, ‘is against all rules. But come,’ said the sneak, ‘we can make things comfortable by playing into one another’s hands. Come to my house to-night and take a glass of schnaps, and we shall talk the matter over; in the mean time I have ordered the engines and works to go on tomorrow as usual.’ The Englishman turned him out of the room, and then got the keys of the factory and locked out the work-people, so that they could not go to work. The frightened serfs waited about the doors. The man who gave the keys to the English superintendent was flogged by the steward. On the same day the Englishman doubled his wages. But he could not fight against a fellow who might send what tales he pleased to a master in the capital, six hundred

A GERMAN STEWARD.

35

miles away; so he gave up the contest and left us to
our wretchedness."

It grieves me to tell what I learnt here, and what
I saw. The old general had left a son in the army,
who succeeded to the family inheritance. The son,
immediately on the old man's death, married a very
pretty German adventuress whom he had met in one
of the more questionable saloons of Moscow. A
daughter was born to them; and soon afterwards the
husband was seized with a fit and died in a ball-room,
also at Moscow. The child being then but three
years old, the lady's brother was appointed trustee
and administrator of the estate until she came of age
—that is to say, was seventeen years old or married.
This man's whole effort was to enrich himself by ex-
hausting the wealth of the place during his trustee-
ship. A German steward was put in, and every
possible thing was done to grind substance out of the
poor peasants. The widow, her brother, and daughter
lived at Moscow in a round of gaiety and dissipation,
never visiting the estates. The steward was becoming
very rich. Large sums were being sent to Moscow
out of mortgages effected; and instead of the old hap-
piness and contentment amongst the serfs, there was
an utter bitterness of destitution. The works were
not kept in repair nor properly managed, and the
people, become lazy and sullen, were forced to keep
the mill going day and night in order to keep up the
original rate of production. At four o'clock on Sun-
day afternoon the work began, and never stopped till
Sunday next at nine A.M., when six hours were allowed

36

RUSSIAN LIFE.

for church-going. A double set of hands, working alternately, kept the machinery in constant motion: one set working for six hours, while the other set lay sleeping in corners. A bell was rung at the end of each six hours, when the sleepers rose up, and those who had been working lay down. This went on night and day. Married women brought their babies to the factory, where I saw them stuck in cotton baskets, where mothers bred, fed, slept, worked, and did all manner of things in the grinding din of work —morality, decency, or cleanliness, impossible and far-off dreams. Indeed, these people had approached more nearly to the condition of brutes than I had thought possible for men and women; what I saw here and heard elsewhere did, let me own it, turn my heart to a strong prejudice against the Russian Germans. This widow of the last male of the R.'s was a German; her brother the trustee was a German; his steward was a German; and all of them were idle and rapacious voluptuaries. The poor girl when she comes of age will find the noble estate left by her Russian grandfather and father ruined irretrievably, and she will be one Russian more hating the "neimitz." I have no doubt whatever that, should a popular outbreak take place and the pent-up fury of the peasantry find vent, the first burst of retribution and vengeance will fall on this part of the population.

Even the neimitz who was our travelling companion did not allow us to reach our journey's end until he had played a revengeful trick on one of us,

BRUTALIZED SERFS.

37

which made it necessary for us to decide between
turning him out of our kibitka, or carrying him on,
bound, as a prisoner to Moscow. We turned him
out, and on the morning of the eighth day of a perilous
and fatiguing journey, reached Moscow without him.

CHAPTER III.

THE GREAT NATIONAL RAILWAY LINE.

ON a good Russian map of Russia, between Petersburg and Moscow, there is a red line drawn. That is the line of the Great National Railway. It is almost straight; it has no curves, no tunnels, in its whole distance of six hundred and twenty versts. It was, when made, a great deal longer than that; the government was charged seven hundred and twenty versts, and the line shrank to its present length after the contractors and officials interested were all paid. Thus the length of this line has always been in the Russian archives matter of doubt. Several persons, however, got their free passage to Siberia for counting the versts as seven hundred and twenty. There are also verst-posts now put up, and the number of these is a hundred less.

The Emperor Nicholas was not pleased with the plans first drawn for this line. There were too many twists and curves made, to accommodate towns lying about the route, to facilitate the traffic of the country between the two capitals. This was not his aim; he had his own use for a railway. It was a way to convey soldiers swiftly and directly to and from Mos-

39

cow. The straighter the line, the better for this purpose; so he took his pencil, drew it straight across the map from point to point between the two cities, and said, "Make the railway there." His line, of course, was adopted; and thus Nicholas was the off-hand engineer of a great railway, distinguished from all others by the fact that it does not pass through, or very near, any town but one in its whole course. The immense tract of country lying on both sides between Moscow and Petersburg has been, therefore, very little the better for railway communication: more particularly as not one branch line has been formed in connection with the main line.

When the line was finished, it was found that there would not be full work for it as a military road; so there was granted, as a great favour to the inhabitants of the two extreme cities, liberty to travel up and down it. After this they built magnificent refreshment-stations and engine-depôts at convenient distances; and now this is one of the finest, safest, best-arranged, and most comfortable travelling-lines in the world. The speed of travelling is limited to twenty miles an hour. The shortest stoppage is for ten minutes, allowing plenty of time to drink a cup of tea and smoke a cigarette; but at each of the principal stations the train stops for half an hour. Hot well-cooked dinners, breakfasts, and suppers, served by clean well-dressed waiters, are always ready. There is plenty of time to eat, and the price is not very high. Again, in travelling, a first- or second-class passenger can walk from one end of the

40

RUSSIAN LIFE.

train to the other. The carriages are excellent, and
built on the American plan; with a passage up the
centre, seats at right angles to the passage, doors in
the ends of the cars, and no division any where.
The guard has an assistant at the door of every car-
riage. The Russian third-class carriages are superior
to the English second, and the second-class are quite
equal to our first. Smoking is universal at all the
railway stations,— even the ladies accept offers of
cigars. The fares are, between Moscow and Peters-
burg (four hundred and eleven miles): third-class,
ten roubles (thirty shillings); second, thirteen roubles
(thirty-nine shillings); first, seventeen roubles (fifty-
one shillings). As a night has always to be passed
in the carriages, each passenger brings two pillows:
the first-class pillows are encased in silk, the second
in calico, the third in any thing. These pillows add
cushions to the seats, and support the back by day,
and form by night excellent extemporised beds. The
Russians make a journey to and from Moscow an
affair of pleasure, sleep and eat alternately, gorman-
dising at all stations where refreshments can be had;
not crowding them,—that is impossible, the rooms
being so large as to accommodate from six hundred
to eight hundred persons at once. The passengers
do strict justice to the good things on the tables, find
fault freely, and order what they require as if they
were at home in a good hotel. After the gutta-percha
pork-pies, mahogany cakes, and sawdust sandwiches,
bolted standing in the English refreshment-rooms, it
is pleasant to sit down comfortably when one is tired

41

and hungry—napkin on knee—to a half-hour's quiet discussion of a well-cooked meal. Beef, lamb, mutton, vegetables, fowl, game, potatoes, fish, cutlets, cheese, and dessert, are served by civil waiters, in black clothes and white cravats, at the small charge of one rouble (three shillings) each. One can also dine very well for half this sum at the side-table.

A place called Bullagonie is the centre station: there the up- and down-trains meet on opposite lines, and pour out their motley freights into the grand dining-saloon, to the number of four hundred from each train. Officers of all grades emerge in dashing uniforms; fine ladies in silks and brocades; lacqueys and attendants on the same in parti-coloured liveries; fat, greasy, long-bearded Russian merchants, their wives and daughters sparkling with rings and pins, chains, bracelets, and all manner of jewelry; German stewards, Turks and Greeks, Tartars, Circassians, Armenians, Jews, French, German, and English travellers for pleasure or for business; English and American engineers and mechanics; Russians, of divers provinces, with beards and without, in long caftans, long boots, long hair, with long faces and short purses; Russian women without hats or bonnets, their heads bound in handkerchiefs; and a host of nondescript creatures, which appear to belong to nothing known on earth or under the earth. They dine in twenty minutes, and then fall to smoking and to drinking beer, tea, spirits, wine—champagne among the rest—until the second bell sounds. There are three bells, with an interval of five minutes be-

42

RUSSIAN LIFE.

tween each ringing: the Russians cross themselves at the second bell, take the last puff, throw the rest of the cigar away, and then leisurely saunter each to his carriage. The last bell having sounded, gently and slowly the trains take their departure,—one to Moscow and the other to Petersburg. There is no hurry, no crushing, squeezing, running, or losing seats; yet sometimes a stranger will get out at the wrong side, get into the wrong train, and be fairly on the way back to his starting-point before he finds out his mistake.

A rather curious case of this kind happened on one of my journeys to Moscow. An old lavishnick, or shopkeeper of the peasant class, was my vis-à-vis in a second-class carriage. He might be sixty years of age; and, with his long white beard and hair, broad face and forehead, large hooked nose, calm and wondering eyes, loose caftan, broad belt, and long wide boots, he looked quite Abrahamic. Evidently he had never been on rails before. When we started from Petersburg he reverently crossed himself three times, and then gave himself up to whatever might come, with patient faith. As we proceeded he became astonished at the awful speed of twenty miles an hour, and I had to undergo a deal of cross-questioning: "Was I Neimitz?" "No." "An American?" "No." "Then you are an Anglichan?" "Yes."

"Have you iron roads in England?"

"Yes—many."

"How many?"

BEWILDERED PEASANTS.

43

"One almost to every town and village."

A long pause ensued after this answer; it took
time to get it down.

"And do they go as fast as we are going now?"

"Some three times faster."

"O, sir, you are joking with an old man."

Of course he did not believe me. When we got
to Bullagonie he got out like the rest, and in the
dining-saloon I saw him meet a friend who belonged
to the Moscow train: they kissed and shook hands
over and over again, and then sat down to eat and
talk and drink, all of which they did with a relish.
When the second bell rang they got up with the
rest, and in earnest conversation took their way to
our train, got in, and sat down side by side. I found
my new friend even more primitive than the other.
As the train started the crossing was resumed, and
then I had to undergo another fire of questions.
Endeavouring to amuse these patriarchs as well as I
could, the time passed until we were approaching a
station two hours from Bullagonie.

"How different," said one, "is this from the old
road to Moscow! It took seven days and about a
hundred horses. Now we do it without horses in
twenty hours."

"Yes," said the other; "and see how fast it goes
with such a heavy load. I cannot understand how
the steam drags it along. This gentleman says that
in England the steam is stronger, and they go sixty
versts an hour; but it is a romance."

"It is wonderful; but"—and a bright idea seemed

44

RUSSIAN LIFE.

to come into the speaker's head—"the most wonderful thing to me is, that here I am going to Petersburg and you to Moscow, and yet here we are in one carriage. Railways are wonderful things. I cannot understand it."

There was general laughter; and the simple old man, who had spoken in good time, was put out at the station, there to wait the next day's train. Many tales of this kind are told of the bewildered notions of the peasantry concerning railways.

The country through which this railway runs is a weary waste of bog and stunted wood. The eye and the mind sicken at the eternal sameness of the dreary prospect, as hour after hour passes and there is no change for the better. A dozen or two apparently of mud heaps—in reality of wooden huts—in the centre of a barren plain, stand for a village. A stranger might pass many such without knowing them to be human habitations: beavers are better housed. If we look narrowly, we may perceive that the ground for some distance around these places has been scratched over, and that the vegetation is of rye and beet, struggling out of the hungry earth. The want of fences, trees, parks, animal or human life, makes it difficult to believe that such growths represent cultivation. The principal stations are tastefully surrounded with gardens and trees, and have in their neighbourhood excellent dwelling-houses for the superintendents and workmen engaged in the engine-depôt; but the moment we pass these oases, the desert begins again.

AMERICAN CONTRACTORS.

45

The Tver station is the most important on the line, for here is the navigable commencement of that long river, the Volga, from which comes much wealth of grain, flax, hemp, timber, and all kinds of raw produce, not forgetting the sturgeon, and, to a Russian, its delicious "eckra," or caviare. At Tver, also, the traveller by rail may see, as he passes, two or three immense cotton-mills, suggestive of protective duties, with dear calicoes and prints, rich machine-makers and agents, sallow cheeks of peasant boys and girls, condemned to night work and day slavery. The Great National Railway Line has never paid the government a single copeck. It has, however, made large fortunes for several American contractors, who, for a fixed sum per verst, furnish engines and carriages, and keep the line in repair. Their contract is now about to terminate, but it has been of so extraordinary a character as to make it one of the curiosities of Russia. Nicholas himself always recommended strangers to see the American railway contract, as one of his greatest curiosities. It must be said, however, that if the American contractors were cute enough to make an amazing bargain, they have kept the line in splendid order; and up to this moment it is not too much to say that there are not better carriages, finer engines, and a better plant in the world, than are to be found on the Petersburg and Moscow Railway.

CHAPTER IV.

AMONG THE HORSEKEEPERS AT MOSCOW.

BUT my travel now extends more than five hundred English miles beyond the railway; and at Moscow I must give myself up to the tender mercies of yeamshicks, tarantasses, hack-horses, indescribable and unknown roads, filthy inns, and abominable station-houses. In an evil hour I had made a business-engagement in the south of Russia, which would require more than twelve months' residence on the spot; and as the climate and country were said to be fine, and a first-class residence, with other good things, were promised, I took my whole family with me, determined to make a pleasure-trip of it, if possible. So, I had with me a wife and half-a-dozen young children; also a handy man, who had just arrived from England seeking work, and who went to assist in the practical part of the business I had undertaken. This man turned out an invaluable friend for a rough journey, and an excellent comrade in all outdoor sports. He had broad shoulders, and the most powerful arms I ever saw. The only difficulty I had with him was to keep him from using

TRAVELLING IN THE INTERIOR.

47

his arms like sledge-hammers on Russians of every
degree, for real or imaginary outrages on our dignity
as true-born Englishmen. And as he did not under-
stand one word of Russ, he was constantly the prey
of false imaginations.

A journey of eight hundred versts in Russia is
an undertaking of some risk for able-bodied men;
but if females and children are added, there is need
of more than ordinary care in deciding on the best
method of taking it. So, in an English lodging-
house, on the second day of my arrival in Moscow,
I held after-dinner consultation with four or five ex-
perienced Englishmen, who had accomplished similar
journeys. Each was loud on behalf of the particular
plan he had himself adopted. One was clearly in
favour of the government diligence as far as it
went; but as this involved constant travelling with-
out stopping for five nights and days, at a cost of
twenty-five roubles each, on the chaussée; and after
that, two hundred versts across the country, without
stopping for rest,—the children might probably fall
sick, the women be knocked-up, and we might be
left in some outlandish desert to recover health or
strength. I was against that method of travel.

"Bargain, then, with a yearshick to take you
right through, all the way, with one set of horses.
You can stop when you like."

"Ay," said another, "and you'll have to stop
when you don't like, and as long as he may choose,
to rest the horses. You'll be twenty days on the
road."

48

RUSSIAN LIFE.

"That," I said, "is not a promising method of travel."

"Then get a padaroshni, and take the free post. So you can go forward or stop to recruit as you are inclined."

"Never do that," said another; "you will be detained at the stations hours and hours, waiting for horses, in spite of your padaroshni. It will take you as long to get to your journey's end as if you travelled with one set, and it will cost three times the money. I stick by the government diligence."

"Come," I said, to my helping hand, "let us go and see what bargain we can make with the yearn-shicks. I would rather make the journey leisurely; twenty days is certainly too much, but let us hear what they say."

Off we went to the quarter where the posting establishments of these people are situated. There was no difficulty in finding it; but as I crossed the bridge and went down into the low quarter sacred to yearn-shicks and their teams, I felt inclined to cross myself, like a good Russian. It was getting dark; the streets, houses, and people had a villanous, black, hang-dog look. I could almost have turned back, but it was too late. We looked like customers, and, before we could turn round, were surrounded by some twenty or thirty rival yearn-shicks, who rushed out upon us from yawning twisted wooden gateways and small tumble-down houses.

"I want two troikas to go as far as Karkoff. Where are your horses and conveyances?"

49

"Here—this way, baron."

And I was good-naturedly, but with firm decision, dragged through a dismal archway into a dirty court-yard, surrounded by sheds propped at all sorts of angles upon wooden posts. In these sheds were horses by the score, cattle that currycomb had never scratched nor wisp of straw defiled. By this time fifty drivers had assembled; and as nothing pleases a Russian so well as a good stiff bargain, I began my offers at the lowest figure.

"For two tarantasses, six horses, and straw for each to Karkoff, in ten days; if more time is taken, a reduction of ten roubles per day—forty roubles."

"Baron! my lord! your excellency! say one hundred roubles and fifteen days."

"No; forty."

"Go, then."

"No; forty-five."

"Eighty. Horses like deer and excellent carriages for eighty!"

This went on until I got to sixty roubles, then to seventy.

"Now hear my last word. I'll give seventy if —" Here the contending parties having, as they imagined, brought me to the point, began to pull me hither and thither, each that he might secure me to himself. I was first pulled to this side, then lifted to the other, and my hat fell off in the confusion. My handy man with the strong arms had been jostled to the outside of the circle, not understanding a word of our discourse; but when he saw, as he thought, vio-

E

50

RUSSIAN LIFE.

lent hands laid on me, he sprang among the fifty
drivers, and a right and left hand blow from his
sledge-hammers sent down two who had hold of me
to bite the dust. Before I could stop him, down
went another two: "There, you muck varmint, I'll
handle you! I'll larn you to lay hands on a freeborn
Englishman!" His eye lighting on the spoke of an
old broken cart-wheel, in another moment he was
flourishing it high in the air and chasing the poor as-
tonished fellows round the yard. "Now," he said,
panting as he came up to me, "let's bolt, gov'nur;
t'road's clear."

I thought it high time to escape, and we both
made a rush to the street, but just in time to fall into
the hands of four police. My handy man dropped
his cudgel in presence of the cutlasses, and amid the
yells and shouts of a great crowd, which, however, did
not follow us, we were marched through the streets to
the police-office.

One of our captors questioned me on the way; but
I prudently replied in their official language, by sim-
ply putting a rouble into the hands of each soldier.
That explained every thing. When we got into the
presence of the district magistrate, an officer in blue
clothes and brass buttons (a chinovnick), I made no
reply to any of his questions, but only shook my head,
while several of the yearnshicks making their appear-
ance with bruised heads and faces, told their tale:
how that they were quietly bargaining with me, and
had nearly concluded, when that mad Englishman

51

rushed amongst them with a great iron bar and in-
flicted all the wounds his excellency saw.

"Where is the iron bar? Soldiers, why did you
not bring the iron bar with you?"

"There was no iron bar, your honour, and we
saw no fighting. These two Englishmen, who can
speak no Russian (that is value for one rouble), were
quietly leaving the yard (good for another). We
would not have brought them here, but these pigs of
yeamshicks were like to devour them (well worth a
third), so we took charge of them for safety." (Value
received: four roubles.)

"Here, Vasilia, tell the interpreter to come from
the Stone Cabinet;" and to my astonishment there
entered one of the guests I had left at the dinner-table.

He looked at us a moment, as a perfect stranger
would, and turning to the magistrate, said, "What is
your pleasure?"

"Be pleased to ask them how this affair hap-
pened."

"I am astonished to find you here; but tell me
what it means," said the interpreter.

I told him plainly and truly, and said that as I did
not want to pass a night in the office, if ten roubles
would be of any use—"O!" he said, "that is the
very thing to settle the whole question; give them
to me." After getting the roubles, he turned to the
magistrate, and I heard him explaining the case ex-
actly as I told it. The magistrate laughed heartily
at my handy man's mistake. "But why pretend
ignorance of the language here?" he said to me.

52

RUSSIAN LIFE.

"I was afraid my tongue might get us into trouble with imperfect Russ. But had I known you better, I should have told all at once."

"Come here," he said to the yearnshicks. "Ye sons of dogs, here are four roubles from this gentleman to heal your faces, but take care you don't come hither again with such a lying tale about a mad Englishman and an iron bar. Begone, pigs!" They received the money and bowed themselves out, evidently well pleased with this morsel of justice.

On the way home, I asked the English interpreter what was done with the other six roubles?

"Hush!" he said; "I suppose they have neglected to give back the change."

"Shall I run back and ask for it?"

"I think you had better not. Let well alone."

But, my day's adventures with the police were not over. No sooner had I returned to my lodgings, than I found fresh trouble. My wife had laid down a diamond-ring on the washing-stand in her room when washing her hands, and had left it there. It was gone; so was a Russian girl, a servant of the house, who was the only person who had been in the room. Now, the ring being a favourite, and received on a momentous occasion, my wife was resolved to get it back, and she had taken instant measures for the purpose, just as she would have done in England: forgetting for the moment that she was in Russia, where no stolen property ever is got back. She had found some body to show her the nearest police-office, had gone there, and had given information of her

POLICE.

53

loss. Her statement had been taken down on a large document, which it had taken an hour to write; and this she had signed. After her return to the house two police-officers, who had come to make minute investigation of the premises, had asked and received food and vodka. They had also written out another long document, which both the landlord and my wife had to sign, and then they had gone away, saying that she should have to appear to-morrow again, and be reëxamined by the chief of the police. This was the state of things I found, on coming in. My wife was beginning to cool, and to perceive also that it was one thing to lose a diamond-ring in Russia, and quite another thing to hope to get it back. I took my hat without saying a word, and made for the police-office as fast as an "isvostchick" could take me, with the pleasant sense of another ten roubles gone. Making my way to the chief officer on duty, I said, "Pray excuse me, your honour. My wife has been here about a diamond-ring?"

"O yes, that affair is all in hand; we have taken two depositions already, and to-morrow we shall take a third. After that we shall want your testimony about the ring being in your wife's possession, and a description of it: where it was made, and its value. We shall then begin to look out for the girl."

"You are very kind. There is no doubt of your zeal in the affair, but I am come to say it is all a mistake on my wife's part. She has made a very unlucky mistake about this ring."

"How so, sir? After all the trouble she has put

54

RUSSIAN LIFE.

us to, she has not lost the ring? A fine story! But
the case must go on."

"Yes, she is quite aware of, and sorry for, the
great trouble you have had; and there are ten roubles
as a recompense for that trouble, and there are two
for the clerks. She will take it as a great favour if
you will do no more in the matter. Just let it pass
as the mistake of a woman. Now, will you be so
kind as to stop all further proceedings in this matter?"

"Why—ah!—yes; you see it is against rule this.
But as the papers have not gone before the chief, it
can be done, I daresay. I am glad you have found
the ring. You shall hear no more of it. Adieu!"

We had very nearly been in for six months' wait-
ing in Moscow, and endless worry and expense, with-
out the most remote chance of recovering the stolen
trinket.

CHAPTER V.

FROM MOSCOW TO TULA.

I HAVE a journey from Moscow southward of eight hundred versts before me; and the sooner I am off the better, for have I not, for no fault of my own, been twice in the hands of the police, and has it not cost me in two days four pounds for bribery? A long land-journey in Russia with one's wife and children is a thing to flinch from: but I desired to see Russia to its innermost; I desired also, yet more, to fulfil my engagements, and having already come six hundred versts upon the way, I could not, as an Englishman, turn back. Having decided, therefore, on the "padaroshni" and the free post route, I hastened to the governor-general's office, but was told that a padaroshni was not needed for that road.

"Go to the free post-office, show your passport, and you will get horses and tarantasses as far as you may require on the main road."

At the office referred to, which was at the other end of Moscow, I opened a negotiation for six horses and two conveyances. They had a fixed price of four kopecks, or three-halfpence, per horse per verst

56

RUSSIAN LIFE.

(a verst being about two-thirds of a mile) as far as Tula, then of three kopecks to Orel, and after that to Kharkov, or Charkoff, two-and-a-half kopecks, or rather less than a penny. For each of the tarantasses the charge was five roubles, or about fifteen and sixpence; to which had to be added ten roubles for road-money or tolls—in all the cost was about two-and-twenty pounds. After travelling thus on the main road, I was to leave it and proceed as best I could, for another one hundred and eighty versts, across the country, with roads or without. By adopting this plan I could travel at what rate I chose, as the conveyances were my own for the time being.

In the bottom then of two tarantasses we packed our trunks, portmanteaus, and carpet-bags as smoothly as possible, covered them first with straw, and then with feather-beds and many pillows, rugs, and blankets; while bread, tea, sugar, sardines, brandy, wine, pistol-case, blunderbuss (belonging to our friend Harry), fur-coats, cloaks, felt-boots with legs reaching up to the hips, and a mass of small miscellaneous luggage for the younger travellers, filled up the corners, or were hung round the inside of the vehicles, and boxes were strapped on the outside with strong ropes.

We saw the last of Russian civilisation as we passed out by the gate at twelve A.M., and dashed on at full stretch, changing horses at every sixteen or eighteen versts. Station after station passed and no rest from the bumping and jostling; but the road

TRAVEL BY FREE POST.

57

here was first-rate, and the arrangements with the
beds and pillows turned out famously. Let no man,
still less woman or child, travel in a tarantass without
such safety-breaks between the bones and the hard
wood. We stopped at four o'clock, went into a
station-house, asked for the urn, and dined on tea,
sardines, and bread. Then off again at the same
speed. Sundry bottles of milk-and-water, with more
solid victual, served for our family supper, eaten as
we ran. After this, the children sang themselves to
sleep, while Harry and I, fortified with brandy-and-
water and pistols, mounted guard on separate boxes
by the drivers, to be ready against mischance during
the night. All went well during the small hours,
except that watchful Harry fell from his box into a
ditch. We had to stop and pick him out. Soon
afterwards he nodded his fur-cap into the road, and
when we were obliged to pull up and search for it,
attacked the driver for having knocked it off.

At three o'clock, we lumbered into a town called
Serpuchov, passing, as we entered, a large cotton-mill
lighted up with gas, and even at that hour in full
work. Here occurred one of those unforeseen troubles
which mar Russian travelling, and bring out the in-
ventive money-making powers of the native. It was
December. "The little winter" had brought ice and
snow; thaw following, had melted these; then frost
enough had set in again to harden the roads, without
making the rivers safe for crossing. Now, it happens
that the river Ova, which rises in the south country,
near Koursk, and falls into the Volga near Nishni

58

RUSSIAN LIFE.

Novgorod, running through or by this town of Ser-
puchov, here lay across our path. But the pontoon
bridge had been as usual removed for the winter; the
river was enough frozen to prevent boats or barges
from crossing, and so we were told that here we must
wait two or three days, until the ice could be crossed
safely by horses and carriages. More than a hundred
travelling equipages, thus brought to a stand-still,
were drawn up on the banks, and every hour more
were arriving. All the inns and lodging-houses were
filled by the grumblings of river- and ice-bound tra-
vellers. Bread, tea, and all the necessaries of life,
including lodgings, had risen in price four hundred
per cent. Even a samovar, or urn of hot water, could
not be had under a rouble. By six o'clock we had
managed to obtain one of these excellent articles, and
got a capital breakfast out of our own stores, the
breakfast-room being the two tarantasses placed to-
gether. We had come too late to find other shelter,
and many about us were in a like position. The
delay continued until ten o'clock, when the cold was
becoming unendurable. Help then appeared in the
person of a very well-dressed, polite, and civil gentle-
man, a baron and landholder of the neighbourhood.
He took a philanthropic interest in our condition,
bewailed with us, and sympathised with us to our
hearts' content, but he said, "It must be endured!"

"What!" I cried, "two or three days starving
here in the cold with women and children?"

"Yes, here at Serpuchov the river won't bear for
that time. Now, at my place, twenty versts down,

AN UNSAFE RIVER.

59

the river is already quite firm all the way across. If
you were all there, you could get over easily, and
then 'cross country a few versts to the main road."

"But this is much better than waiting here!
And how are we to get to your place?"

"Ah!" he said, "if my time would permit, I
should be happy to show the way; I have spoken to
some others, and they are imploring me to go."

"Well, then, let me implore you also. But"—
and I hesitated to ask the question of a baron and
landowner—"how much will you expect for your
trouble?"

"O," he said, "you insult me now by such a
question! Am I a Moscovsky dog, or a Chinovnick,
to take money for an act of kindness? A little for
my men, who must assist, is all it will cost."

"Well, let us go, and with all my heart I thank
you for delivering us out of this difficulty."

By the time a bargain had been made with the
drivers for fresh horses, and another guinea paid for
each conveyance (because my posting receipt did not
include this deviation from the main road), I found
more than a dozen other equipages ready to start
with us. But they all took care to keep behind,
and let us have the post of honour, since it might
be also the post of danger. We were preceded,
however, by our kind, disinterested baron, who was
leading the way in a light car drawn by a good black
horse. There was no road, nor semblance of a road.
Our course lay through woods, fields, and ditches;
over hills, and down into pathless valleys, for the

60

RUSSIAN LIFE.

most part as uncultivated as the prairies of America,
but not so fertile. At length, after four hours of
horrible jolting, and many hair-breadth escapes from
overturning, our caravan arrived at the point indi-
cated. We drew up on the bank of the river, and
surveyed the scene. The river itself might be four
hundred feet broad; the opposite shore was steep
and precipitous. To within thirty feet of the banks
the ice seemed to be strong and firm, but for these
thirty feet, it was entirely free of ice, and a black
gulf of deep and rapid running water lay between.
This must be bridged across. The baron gave a
peculiar whistle, and soon about twenty men—his
own serfs—from the opposite bank made their way
across the ice, and where the open current at our
feet prevented them from getting to us, they stopped
and began jabbering, ordering, and crying, without
any sign of an idea as to what should be done. But
my handy friend Harry, taking an axe from the ta-
rantass, made for the nearest wood, and began cut-
ting down trees. Two of them we managed to
drag to the river, and throw, with one end across to
the solid ice, the other resting on the bank. The
baron's men then came to land, and a bridge was
soon made by them, under Harry's direction. Then
the question was, who would venture cattle and
conveyance across the slender and extemporised
path? The Russians all positively refused to stir,
so the Englishmen made the first passage, and
succeeded in getting safely to the ice; thence we
crawled very cautiously to the other side, and so

HARRY'S BRIDGE.

61

got safely to land with all our traps. Not so some
of the Russians.

It may easily be supposed that Harry's bridge was
not so strong and durable as London Bridge, and he
knew this, for he said to me, after we were fairly over,
"Some of you Russians had better mind their eyes
with that bridge. Fifteen tarantasses and forty-five
horses 'll try its mettle." And presently, indeed, the
bridge did give way in the centre, leaving a few of
the main trees at intervals, and with it down went
a tarantass into deep water, dragging its three horses
after it. The poor brutes struggled hard, but being
tied with strong ropes to the vehicle, they fought
in vain; down they were drawn farther and farther
below the ice. The Russians looked on and crossed
themselves. The driver of the struggling horses had
sunk with them, and was entangled in the harness,
a rope being twisted about one of his legs. He was
making desperate efforts to free himself, and had got
hold of one of the cross-trees forming part of the
bridge, but the struggling of the sinking horses soon
pulled him off. At this moment Harry slid along the
tree, holding by his powerful arms, and with his body
in the river. I saw a knife in his teeth, and in less
time than I can tell, he swung himself round, holding
on by one arm, and bending forward so that his face
touched the water. Then drawing his knife from
his teeth, he severed the rope that bound the un-
lucky driver. The lad's strength was exhausted.
He lost his hold on the tree, and sunk; but as he
rose a second time, perfectly helpless, Harry seized

62

RUSSIAN LIFE.

his long hair, and having dragged him by main
strength out of the water, laid him across the tree,
and gradually slid himself and his helpless burden
to the bank.

I shouted to him to leave the man's recovery to
the care of his countrymen, and come over instantly
for brandy and dry clothes. He came across the
same tree like a cat, and ran to the other side.
Brandy was applied liberally, both inside and out,
clothes were dragged from the trunk to replace the
wet and frozen ones. The chafing, rubbing, un-
dressing, dressing, and running about to keep up
the circulation, consumed some time, during which
the broken bridge had been repaired. All the
quadrupeds, bipeds, wheeled conveyances, and their
freights, had been safely got across, except the one
we saw go down with its three horses, and the poor
young driver. "Where is he?" I asked a traveller.

"O," said he, with the shrug indifferent, "he
lies yonder where your friend left him. I think he's
dead."

"Good God!" I cried, "among so many of you
has nothing been done to bring back life? Did you
suffer him to lie freezing to death?"

"Why, you see, he does not belong to any one
here; besides, he might have been dead when he was
brought out of the water, and if so we dare not touch
him till the 'stanovog' comes."

"And when will the stanovog come?"

"God knows," he said (with the shrug doubtful);
"to-morrow or next day, or perhaps longer. The

BAD SAMARITANS.

63

man is only a serf. God did it. What's to be done?
Let him lie."

"What! God did it! Did not God help my
friend to place him on the bank that you might save
him? And you have let him perish for want of a
little aid. Come, Harry, you and I will see what can
be done for him, if there be any life left. Bring the
brandy, and give me those rugs."

"Listen," said the same traveller in broken
English, and speaking low, that none of the rest
might hear: "I like the English, and I tell you to
let him go dead; you are getting much trouble if
you touch him more. The baron will make you pay
much money. Get gone directly. That is my advice,
take it."

"Your advice be ——" cried Harry. The
Russian gave the shrug conclusive, and left us to
our fate.

When we got across the river again we found the
poor fellow lying just where and as Harry had laid
him down. All perceptible life was gone, and he
was fast stiffening into a frozen lump. We did all
that we could, but rubbing, pouring, chafing with
brandy, were without effect; no one assisted us, no
one even looked in our direction. Harry had no
doubt that he was alive when he left him, and might
then have easily been recovered, but all efforts were
now in vain. An hour had elapsed, and, forced to
conclude that he was past saving, we reluctantly left
him, and returned to our anxious and weary women
and children.

64

RUSSIAN LIFE.

All was soon ready for a start up the alps. The other travellers had settled accounts with the baron (for three roubles each conveyance; my son, who had seen them paying, told me), and they were struggling up the precipitous banks, assisted by the serfs with ropes and poles. It seemed a desperate undertaking, for the formidable precipices we had to encounter rose shaft after shaft in a zigzag manner, and the slippery pathway was only about ten feet broad, with no ledges or parapets to save a vehicle from tumbling over, should the horses slip or run back; and the cattle were cold and tired, the roads were a mass of slippery ice. However, we determined to go with the rest. The women and children began the ascent on foot, and we were about to make a dash up the first acclivity, when our worthy and disinterested baron stepped forward, all smiles and bows, and said I must pay him the small sum of thirty roubles (more than four pounds ten).

"Thirty roubles!" I said; "and pray what for?"

"For helping you across the river."

"Why, you avaricious rascal, we have helped ourselves across. I shall give your men a little, but to you not a kopeck. You are no Moscovsky dog nor Chinovnick, you know."

"It may be so," he said; "you should not have come. Now you are here, what's to be done? You must pay, before you leave here, thirty roubles."

"Not a kopeck to you; but I shall give half a rouble to every one of your men who helps us to get safely up these hills."

PAYING THE BARON.

65

"Not one of these men dares lift a hand to help unless I tell him. I am master here. You are now on my ground and in my power. Pay you must. Besides," and here a peculiar grin illuminated his monkey features, "am I not acting against law to let you go on any terms? Do you not know that you have drowned a moushick, and must answer to the police? I have sent for the stanovog, and if you don't now pay me fifty roubles, I shall detain you till he comes."

I became perfectly speechless at the rascal's cool effrontery; and as he advanced with some of his men to lay hands on me, lost, naturally enough, all thought of consequences, and struck him a straight-forward blow, which sent him staggering back a few yards. "Now we are in for it, Harry; strong measures and sharp. Catch him by the neck; punch his head when I tell you."

"All right. That's your style," cried Harry; and, catching him with one hand, with the other he administered one of his gentle taps on one side of the baron's face, which no doubt made the sparks fly in his eyes.

"Turn t'other side, my lord," cried Harry; and, shifting his hold, he repeated the blow on the other cheek. I cannot tell how long this would have continued, had I not begged Harry to desist. The serfs seemed to be perfectly paralysed at our audacity. Their baron, their tyrant, their cruel taskmaster, was catching it in his turn. They did not seem to be in a violent hurry to help him. In fact, I

F

66

RUSSIAN LIFE.

could see a look of composed satisfaction and enjoy-
ment on their faces. But this mood was not to be
depended on, and two men are too few to cope with
twenty.

"Pitch him into the tarantass, Harry, and see
that he does not get out. That's it! Hand me the
pistols. Now look here, you ruffian, who disgrace
the name of a gentleman," and I pulled from under
my vest a certain medal with the imperial ribbon
attached to it. "See this; look well; I am under
the imperial protection, and if—" But the mo-
ment his eye caught the well-known stripes, his
cheeks, which had been crimsoned by the boxing of
his ears, were blanched with visions of Siberia. He
became on the instant as servile and crouching as
he had before been insolent.

"Ah," he said, "I am in fault. Pardon me, my
honourable sir. Let me out of this, to repair my
blunder. Dogs, pigs, why don't you help the gospo-
din? Ah, sir! why did you not tell me at first?
Pardon! I did not know! God help me! I am
lost."

"Remain where you are; and if my property and
these conveyances go over any of these precipices,
you shall go with them."

Harry danced round the fallen great man in
perfect ecstasies, shaking his great fists in his face,
and hardly to be restrained from giving him what he
eulogised as "a jolly good thrashing."

The serfs now lent their aid with a will, under
promise of a reward. So, after a long time and many

RISKS OF MERCY.

67

narrow escapes, we reached the high ground, and
were once more free to pursue the journey. The
baron was liberated; the money was paid to the
serfs, which might afterwards be taken from them;
and off we drove, carrying one of them, as pilot,
across the country, thirty-five versts, to gain the Tula
road, which we did not reach until about two hours
after midnight.

It may here be noticed that since ten the previous
morning we had had no regular meals, and I did not
now think it safe to remain in the neighbourhood.
Obtaining, therefore, fresh cattle, we set off again for
Tula, which we ultimately reached at noon, very cold,
very tired, and very hungry.

But for the difficulty in crossing the Serpuchov
river, we might have been in Tula twenty hours
sooner, quite fresh and ready to proceed with the
second division of our journey. But now, for the
sake of the weaker portion of our freight, we stopped
at an inn.

The most serious part of our recent adventure, let
me say as we pause, was not the craft and cupidity
of the baron in keeping the ice at the side of the
river open for days, and calculating on his levy of
black mail, but that, after saving a man's life (which
Harry most certainly did), and when the others had
allowed the man to die for want of attention, even
after our later efforts to restore him, we were liable
to be arrested, lodged in prison, tried without jury,
and condemned for murder. We could have been

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

fairly condemned by Russian law, and the consequence of the adventure to us, had we not been protected, would have been a Siberia job, or a quashing of the affair by a large compensation to the drowned man's master and the various police officials. The Russian law is terribly foolish and inhuman on this point. A dead body, or a person in jeopardy of life, must not be touched or helped except by the police. If any one interferes and the man dies, that interference brings after it a mass of trouble and expense past calculation, besides danger of punishment. A boat may be upset, its crew struggling in the water, and the banks lined with spectators. Yet if the men in the water cannot save themselves, they must perish. No assistance is attempted. Every thing is left to the police, unless the evidence be very strong that all danger is over. I saw three very respectable young men—two Germans and a Russian—drowned in the Neva, not a hundred yards from the shore. Their small pleasure-boat was capsized in one of those sudden gusts peculiar to his climate; one sank at once, the other two got on the keel of the boat and shouted for help. But, although many looked on, and plenty of boats were at hand, no rescue was attempted. Another gust came, after a time; the boat was light and was again capsized, keel down. Then round it went a third time, keel up; but this time it was empty. The two young men never rose, their lives being lost, when they might most easily have been saved if prompt help had been given. I have seen in a passage to Cron-

CORONER'S LAW.

69

stadt from Petersburg (twenty miles) four dead
bodies floating in the river. Although hundreds saw
them as well as I, they scarcely turned their heads to
look, and no remark was made. The bodies were
allowed to float on down the river into the gulf, like
logs of wood; and at the time of the ice breaking up
this is a daily occurrence.

One morning my servant woke me at six o'clock,
saying that a man had been murdered, and was lying
nearly opposite my house on the road. I got up, and
on proceeding to the spot, found a man lying in a
pool of his own blood. His head and face seemed
to be much smashed, but he was not dead. He im-
plored help and water; but although there were many
persons standing round about him, not one would
venture to move hand or foot for his assistance. He
had been attacked and thus bruised in a public-house,
and thrown into the road three hours before I saw
him. A woman had seen him thrown out, and im-
mediately informed the "stanovog;" but although
the place was not a verst from his house, this worthy
did not trouble himself to appear on the scene until
four hours had elapsed, and he had been thrice sum-
moned. There, meanwhile, the man had lain in the
frost and snow untouched. I saw him carried to the
hospital, and heard that he died an hour afterwards.
This man also might have been recovered had he
been taken in hand as soon as found.

As I was leaving my house one morning, I heard
my assistant, Harry, shouting to me from the door
of an outhouse for holding firewood. On entering

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

the place, I found a dead peasant lying on the floor
with a piece of rope round his neck, and from a beam
the other end of the rope was dangling. To my
inquiry, Harry replied that he had gone into the
place for a piece of wood to make a handle to an
axe, and found the man hanging by the neck. The
first natural impulse caused him to open his knife
and cut him down, and there he was lying. I found
the man quite dead, as he had been for some time.

"Now," I said, "Harry, you have got yourself
into a nice mess. The police will make you respon-
sible for his death. What's to be done?"

"Done?" says Harry, "why, tie him up again."

This never would have occurred to me; but
Harry was a practical man, and he was right. So
we managed to hang the poor fellow over again, and
left the spot, happily without being seen. The body
was found during the day, and a "stan." sent for,
who never suspected the part we had acted in the
tragedy. If he had, I have no doubt it would have
cost us many roubles to save Harry from being tried
for murder.

CHAPTER VI.

AT TULA AMONG THE TRADERS.

TULA is a large government town of the second class, with more than fifty thousand inhabitants. It lies on the direct southern military road to Odessa, rather more than a hundred miles from Moscow, and five hundred and twenty from St. Petersburg. Famous for cutlery and ironmongery, Tula is called the Birmingham of Russia, and in one sense it is so; for it is astonishing how fond the Tula manufacturers are of English names and marks. The name of Rodgers figures on many a bad Russian knife and razor. Goods can be, and are, made at Tula almost equal to the best English; the great bulk, however, of the manufacture is bad in material, and worse in workmanship.

A wise trader will endeavour to improve his quality, establish a good name, and beat his rivals. He will classify his wares, and depends for prosperity on the faith of his customers in his desire to let them have exactly what they want. A Russian (there are exceptions to all general rules, but in this matter unusually few) seems to care nothing for good name in trade, or for the prospect of future transactions with

72

RUSSIAN LIFE.

the person whom he serves. He is no speculator, even for his own benefit; he does not look past the first haul; and he gets the better of his customers, if he can, on all occasions. If he can reduce the quality of his goods while maintaining their appearance and prices, he is triumphant, and will cross himself in thankful devotion before his boss. I should be loth to libel any class of men, but I appeal to every Englishman who has been in Russia, and has had dealings with the natives, for a confirmation of my own fifteen years' experience. I appeal to their own saying, that "a Jew in bargain is outdone by an Armenian, but a Russian can outwit them both." There is no denying that a Russian moushick merchant is in all commercial dealings an incorrigible cheat. It takes more than a wide-awake Yankee to make a "deal" with a Muscovite.

The emperor, always honest and earnest for the improvement of the country, on one of his visits to Moscow called together a number of the principal merchants and manufacturers, and remonstrated with them on this prevailing bad practice. Great complaints had been made to him by his political agents, in those countries which bought from Russia, regarding the wholesale and shameful cheating used by the Moscow merchants in their dealings with the Officials. They had, it seemed, not only reduced the qualities of their merchandise to the lowest possible degree, but had sometimes even packed the insides of their bales with rubbish, leaving a slight coating of the real article at the top and bottom. This conduct

AT TULA AMONG THE TRADERS.

73

had given the government agents great trouble in
forming treaties and commercial relations, and if not
abandoned would bring down upon them (the emperor
justly told the merchants) the ruin of their trade.
This friendly and sensible remonstrance was accepted
by some of them in good and honest faith; they
pleaded guilty, and promised reformation. Whether
the promise has been kept, it is not yet possible to know.

A fair glimpse of the condition of a people may
be got through their commercial character. For this
reason, I turn from the merchant arraigned before
the Czar to the shopkeeper in the market or bazaar.
The system of chaffering, bargaining, beating-down,
and wrestling (so to speak) for copecks, is almost
universal. I don't think there are half-a-dozen shops
in Moscow and Petersburg together that sell on the
principle of a fixed price and no abatement. Trade
is huckstering, and no common huckstering either;
it is hard work—like nothing in England but the
sale of an old cow or horse at a country fair, by a
veteran cow- or horse-couper. To come off with a
few articles bought at their value is a work of time,
patience, and skill. A newly-imported foreigner, of
whatever nation, is a mark for plunder. If he go
alone to buy, he falls an easy prey. If he be accom-
panied by professional interpreters, it is not much
better, as the shopkeeper expects the interpreter to
call next day for twenty or thirty per cent commis-
sion on any purchase made. Let me illustrate the
system by a case (not uncommon), which is my own
case.

74

RUSSIAN LIFE.

I often prefer to do my own bargaining; and being in want of a pair of long fur-boots and a portmanteau, before taking a southern survey, I passed all the English magazines, the German, French, and other foreign establishments in Blacksmiths Bridge Street, and descended to the lower regions of Moscow, called the town or "gorod." This part is the old capital of Russia, and walled round, having the Kremlin in the centre. The entrance is under a heavy arch, guarded by images and lamps. One ought to feel the more secure from knavery after passing these representatives of saints; but let the Englishman here mount guard over his own pockets.

My search was along the interminable lines of dark booths which constitute the "Gostino Dvor," or favourite market-place (and here it is *always* twilight: that being the light in which a customer should examine what an able trader has to sell). At length, after an hour's search, I found the line sacred to Crispin and leather goods, and was hauled into one of its booths by the touter at the door. At first I could not discern objects distinctly; but when my eyes had adapted themselves to the obscure light of the place, I saw the presiding genius bending before me, in the shape of a venerable mild-visaged man with flowing beard, who held in one hand a tumbler of smoking tea, and in the other a lump of black bread, on which was a quantity of salt and half a raw herring. He took the last gulp of his tea, laid down his delicious sandwich, ran his dirty hands through his great beard, stroked it affectionately, rubbed off

DRIVING A BARGAIN.

75

the remaining grease of his hands on his caftan,
turned reverentially to the joss in the corner, crossed
himself, and then signified his desire to know what I
might want. How could such a man be an extor-
tioner? See his frugality—black bread and herring.
Look at his shop: a mere booth, containing no ex-
pensive shopmen. Besides, has he not in my presence
just appealed to Heaven? Surely that is a guarantee
for fair and honest dealing. Let us see.

"I want," I said, "a pair of the best fur-boots
and a good portmanteau."

Although the walls and ceiling were crowded with
all kinds of articles of his calling, he began to pull
out a large drawer. The handle came off while he
pulled, and he fell back on a great pyramid of boxes,
boots, portmanteaus, and trunks, built up in the
centre of the floor, overturning the whole in a con-
fused mass.

"Ough!" he said, "God help me! This is an
unlucky omen." And again he crossed himself, with
a view, as I supposed, to a fresh start. The wreck
having been put to rights, and the drawer opened at
length, the dealer produced a pair of long boots lined
with fur.

"There, your honour, is the very thing you want.
Most excellent boots; of the best quality to be found
in Moscow. Yea Boch!" (God's truth.)

Nevertheless, as my experience assured me that a
Russian shopkeeper invariably begins by producing
the worst article he has, I tossed the boots from me,
saying, "Won't do; better." Another drawer was

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

opened, a third and fourth were gone over, with the
same result. On the fifth attempt I condescended to
examine the articles produced; the good man having
declared, with the usual oath, that each in its turn
was the best he had. The soles of the boots in my
hand were of pasteboard, with a thin coating of
leather neatly glued over it, and nicely polished up.
The fur was cat's hair (without any skin), also glued
to the legs, and the legs themselves were of the
thinnest possible horse-hide.

"Listen; these will not do; you must not detain
me. If you have not any better, I must go."

"No, your honour, better than these cannot be
made. They will wear all your life, Yea Boch!"

"Then I must go to another shop."

"Stop! I will look again. Ah! Heaven help
me, here they are!"

Better, but not up to my mark. None of the boots
would do; and in despair I made for the door, but
was intercepted, and implored to remain a moment.
A pair of excellent-looking boots was now fished out
from a corner. The legs came considerably above
the knees, the fur was a real skin, and the soles were
evidently sewed, not pasted on. These I thought
would do, and I laid them aside until I should have
selected the portmanteau.

I was shown articles made of pasteboard to repre-
sent leather, of paper and wood, of paper and leather,
and of leather as thin and as useless as paper. As
they were produced, I was informed, with the usual
solemn asseveration, that each in its turn was the

DRIVING A BARGAIN.

77

best that could be made, and all solid leather.
Another attempted escape to the door brought out
the real thing: at least, what had to me all the ap-
pearance of a real solid leather portmanteau. Now
came the tug of war—the price. The last half-hour
had been mere skirmishing. My friend began a
long eulogium on the goods; the words pouring in a
torrent through his beard. They were every thing
conceivable that is good; would last an age; were
made specially for a prince; I might travel in the
boots to Siberia and back, if so inclined, and never
cool my feet; the portmanteau would go with me to
China, or one hundred times over the Urals; the
emperor had no better portmanteau. And between
each clause of his eulogy he cried “Yea Boch!” He
concluded by asking seventeen roubles for the boots,
and thirty-one for the portmanteau: in all forty-
eight roubles, or seven pounds ten, and at that price
he was making me a present of them, “Yea Boch!”

I offered sixteen roubles, or two pounds ten.

“Sixteen would not pay the making; but hear
me! Take them for forty. I shall lose the rest.
What’s to be done?”

“No; take sixteen, or I go instantly.”

“Yea Boch! it is too little by half; but hear for
the last time.” Here he seized me by one hand, put
an arm round my neck, and hissed in my ear,
“Thirty roubles. There! I am giving them.”

“Sixteen is my last word.” I said good-day, and
made for the door, but had scarcely got outside when
he fastened on me by both shoulders, dragged me

78

RUSSIAN LIFE.

back into the shop, and bringing his great beard and greasy face close before mine, as if to impart a great secret, recapitulated all his encomiums, with greater force and with more earnest appeals to "Boch" to attest his truth—all which he concluded by asking twenty-five roubles. This time I made so determined a bolt that I succeeded in getting two doors off, on the way to a rival establishment, and was already in the hands of five or six touters pulling me in different directions, when again my old friend came running after me.

"Come back, baron, come!' What a hurry you are in"—I had given him a precious hour—"I will take less."

Not wishing to go through the preliminaries in another shop to which I had already submitted, and knowing the shops to be all much alike, I returned to the fray, and after haggling and chaffering for another twenty minutes, during which my friend passed through stages of twenty, nineteen, eighteen and a half, eighteen, &c., we finally concluded the very stiff bargain at my original offer—sixteen roubles; which the dealer took with most placid satisfaction. I felt victorious, and said, "How shameful of you to ask three times more than you take, and tell so many lies!" "O!" he replied, "words do not rob your pocket. I am no thief. It is all fair bargaining."

As I left the place I saw him signing the cross before the joss, whether in thankfulness for a good bargain, or prayer for a pardon, I cannot tell; but

A SERF SHOPKEEPER.

79

after I got home I scrutinised the purchases in a
good light, and found that I had no cause to be vain-
glorious. I was no exception to the common rule,
but had been so completely cheated that I would
gladly have disposed of my bargain at a loss of
fifty per cent. I learnt afterwards that this same
shopkeeper is a serf, worth four hundred thousand
roubles; that he owns ten shops in Moscow, and
some in Petersburg; and that while he ate black
bread and herring, he had two extravagant sons at
the university, and daughters accomplished in all
the graces of a Russian education, enjoying horses,
equipages, and a grand house. Such instances of
wealth accumulated by frugality and extortion, are
not rare amongst the Russians.

In Tula I saw the usual abundance of churches
and popes (priests), barracks and soldiers, merchants
and hucksters, peasants in dirty sheep-skin coats,
officers and gospodins in uniform driving in stylish
equipages drawn by fast trotters from the steppes,
or cobs from Siberia. There were all forms of
Russian private vehicle and public conveyances, with
two, three, or four broken-winded, bent-knee'd, sore-
backed, uncleaned hacks to each, and driven by
ragged men in long gray coats of felt, and little hats
four inches high, stuck full of the ends of peacocks'
feathers. Burnt-down houses by the dozen lay in
ruins—the remains of fires. There were streets
paved with boulders, picked into confusion, and left
in a chaos of hills and chasms. The inns were, as

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

usual, full of tobacco-smoke, and paved with dirt,
alive with tarakans—the Russian representatives of
the black beetle—and busy with silent whispering
groups of tea-drinkers. But these are only the
common outside features of a town in the heart of
Russia. Of Tula proper I saw nothing; my time
being occupied in the care of our goods and repack-
ing of our conveyances. We found it necessary to
remove all our property to our own rooms, and to
keep good watch over it.

We only missed one pillow, a rug, two boxes of
sardines, and a bottle of wine, until Harry, who had
been storming about the place in search of the lost
articles, caught one of the red-shirted waiters coming
out of our room with a bottle under his shirt, which
proved to be castor-oil stolen out of the medicine-
chest. Harry considered it fit punishment to make
him swallow a large dose. But when the effects of
the dose began to display themselves, the man de-
clared himself poisoned, and was carried to a hospital
hard-by, while we and our packages were placed
under the surveillance of the police.

Policemen brought to the inn stood sentry at the
doors of our rooms, and we were prisoners for nearly
two hours, when a doctor from the hospital, fortu-
nately for us, a jolly Russ, came with a captain of
police. While the captain of police tackled Harry,
who, ignorant of the language, answered "Da, da"
(yes, yes), to every thing, I explained to the doctor
what had really happened. The worthy doctor
having got hold of the oil-bottle, cried,

THE DOCTOR.

81

"Bravo! Poison! The most excellent medicine in pharmacy. Look here, captain. The pig" (meaning the waiter) "was taken ill with cholera, cramps, spasms, vomiting here—mind you, here in this room—before madame and mademoiselle. They run to the next room, so does my friend here, a great English my lord. What could they do? But, sir, the case was desperate. This gentleman" (pointing to Harry) "is a great doctor, accompanying my lord and his family; there was no time to send for me. What does he do? He opens his great medicine-box—look, there it is—and gives the dying moushick a great dose of apernicocus celantacus heprecaincos masta, the best remedy in the world for cholera. I tell you, 'Yea Boch!' there now, that's the truth."

"But," said the captain, "the moushick, doctor, how is he?"

"Ah! the pig!" (and here he spat on the ground in contempt), "I left the beast quite well and sleeping. I will answer for him. Come, captain, let us go. Poison! That is a good joke! Come, captain. Safe journey. Good-bye!"

The police captain was satisfied, however, reluctantly. With two bottles of something better than castor-oil, and a fee, which the doctor might or might not divide with the captain, I paid the cost of Harry's thoughtlessness. As we were about to start, Galen approached the carriage, and took me aside.

"Terrible fellow, that fierce-looking friend of yours. He looks as if he could fight the town and

G

82

RUSSIAN LIFE.

eat up the governor-general; but tell him to 'box
'em,' and don't let him prescribe medicine again
for any moushick. No one dares give medicine here
but the faculty, and you cannot buy any but through
a certificate from one of our noble profession. When
you return this way, remember my name; send for
me. Grog, beef-steak, box'em, Palmerston! Ha, ha!
Adieu."

Thus throwing his whole stock of English into
his final speech, he waved his farewell, and off we
started for Orel, the next main point of our journey.

## CHAPTER VII.

### ACROSS COUNTRY FROM TULA SOUTHWARD.

WE had spent eight hours in Tula, so that it was eight at night before we left, and dark. One of our tarantasses had been exchanged for a fresh one, the other not being considered safe: and in the new vehicle I had put my children, taking my own post for the night beside the driver on the box. All had been comfortably arranged for a long four-days' journey without stopping, except to change horses. We had proceeded swiftly and comfortably for six hours, when, in leaving a small village where we had changed for the fourth time, and in turning a rather sharp corner, my tarantass upset with a smash. Thanks to the inside packing of pillows and beds, nobody was hurt. Our calls for help brought the "starosta" and his man from the station-house, and by their aid we were enabled to resume our journey. I should not have mentioned this small incident had it not been to show another phase of Russian manners.

The starosta here referred to was the chief or overseer of the stables, but the word has a more extended sense. It is applied to all overseers, bailiffs,

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

and chief men over the peasant class in stables,
hospitals, farms, villages, and estates. The starosta
has great influence over the peasants, and should be
appointed by the peasants themselves, as was the case
in days of yore, before the peasantry were serfs.
The name implies age and experience, and in those
more primitive times discrete elders were elected by
the peasants, in public meetings assembled, to repre-
sent them, and take care of their interests. To these
starostas they rendered a willing submission; indeed
they and the sotnicks (overseers of a hundred) formed
the only defences of the peasant against the baron.
Peter the Great found it almost impossible fully to
raise his taxes from the migratory peasantry, who in
his day possessed the land. The tax-gatherer could
never find the same men twice; they were gone,
and new tenants, or no tenants, occupied the land.
Peter made, therefore, a law, that at a certain date
every peasant or cultivator of the ground was to be a
 fixture on the land he was then farming, and that
land only was his. All that became surplus under
this arrangement the emperor appropriated to him-
self. Peter divided the country into governments or
districts; appointed a governor in the principal town
of each, giving him soldiers, police, and all the
machinery of command. He then established a poll-
tax, and, giving to the progenitors of the present
barons grants of land in these districts, made them
responsible for the yearly payment of this tax. The
government looked to the barons for it; and they,
backed by the military power of the governor, levied

THE STAROSTA.

85

it from the peasants. In the disputes arising out of
this arrangement, the starosta represented the people,
and he was chosen by them for this purpose amongst
others. They were not then serfs, but the levying of
these taxes in course of time furnished the barons
with an excuse for enslaving them. Peasants who
could not, or who would not, pay, had their land
taken from them, and were forced to work the land
belonging to the baron. The barons, having to pay
for all, introduced compulsory labour, more or less to
meet their difficulty; and the peasants, being igno-
rant and priest-ridden, were easily robbed of their
lands and rights by their self-constituted tax-collect-
ing masters. Thus it was that, in course of time,
they came to be regarded as the property of these
men, and were bought and sold with the land, as
beasts of burden. The government connived at all
this.

So long as the tax was paid on each soul, all was
right, and the passport gave means of determining
the numbers upon each estate and village. In this
way have the barons gradually, and surely, appro-
priated to themselves the land, labour, property, and
persons, of the peasantry. And, this being the case,
instead of calling the new edict an emancipation of
serfs, it ought strictly to be called a restoration of the
peasants' rights.

But the starosta, while this change was taking
place, was not what he was first designed to be—the
peasants' delegate. He has become a tool in the
hands of the baron and the stewards: chosen not for

86

RUSSIAN LIFE.

his age and experience, but more frequently because
of a certain kind of superior intelligence, and some-
times for a scrupulous devotion to his masters. Now,
if the steward be a bad one, the starosta must be bad,
because he is the exponent of the steward's will.
Woe to the poor peasant when this is the case! The
starosta knows intimately the domestic history, feel-
ings, and conduct, of every serf on an estate; he
pairs the young for marriage (not often compelling
them against their inclination), and takes them before
the baron or steward for his sanction. He selects
the conscripts for the army; those who are to be sent
out on "obrok;" and those who are to stay at home.
He has the appointment of the different gangs of
labourers on the estate, and it is he who, either with
his own hand or by deputy, punishes the serfs for real
or imaginary faults. In plain terms, he is the slave-
driver of the American plantations, with this very
material difference, that he is invariably a serf him-
self—one of the class over which he is placed; often,
therefore, it will happen that he hates the steward,
who is generally a German, and quietly contrives
with the other serfs to thwart the steward's plans.
Many tales are told of dreadful acts committed by
serfs, at the instigation of the starosta, when goaded
to madness by the tyranny and cruelty of stewards. I
could tell some of these tales of horror; but why rake
up the memory of past atrocities, when the whole
system is doomed to destruction by the late emanci-
pation edict?—one of those courageous acts for the
advance of civilisation by which Alexander the Second

THE YEAMSHICK.

87

will be honoured centuries hence, whatever may be
said in his own time by carping politicians. When
this edict has achieved its purpose the starosta's occu-
pation is gone.

The starosta who had come to our assistance
imagined that my yearnshick was drunk; so, without
more ado, he began to kick and beat the poor man in
a most brutal manner. Not content with his own
blows, he caused two of his satellites to aid in the
kicking and beating. The poor man, notwithstanding
our continual remonstrances, was kicked, beaten with
a stick, slapped in the face, and bore it all without
saying a word. Abuse and blows rained on him,
until my friend Harry could stand it no longer. His
English love of fair play was scandalised at seeing
one man thus beaten by three, and, had I not
restrained him, he would soon have made short work
of the starosta and his gang. But the hindrance of a
police difficulty could not be risked. We waited,
therefore, impatiently until the men were tired of
knocking the poor driver about. He was then sent
back to the stables, and a boy of twelve years, or
rather less, was put in his place on the box. Against
this proceeding I strongly protested, for I thought
the exchange much for the worse. Remonstrance,
however, had no effect. The starosta assured me
that he had not in all his gang a better driver than
the boy; besides, he was brother to the pig who had
overturned us; and as the horses belonged to them—
or rather to their master—they must be driven back
by one of them to the station whence they came.

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

So, to the very tender mercies of the boy we were committed until daybreak.

The yearnshick is a great Russian institution. He is not to be confounded, as is sometimes done by strangers, with the extortionate ruffian drosky, lanska, and britska drivers, in the streets of towns and cities, nor with the coachmen of the gentry and aristocracy. He is a distinct animal; the interior swarms with him; he "works" every macadamised and unmacadamised road in Russia, from the shores of the White to the shores of the Black Sea; and all roads are alike to him. Whether I make a bargain with one to take me to Siberia, or to the next town, it is all the same to him. He goes off to his gang, puts me into a hat, and I am drawn for. The fortunate drawer gets me for his job, and is responsible to the rest for his performance of the duty. I am quite safe with him; he will carry out his part of the bargain, if he can. The traveller, entirely at his mercy, over endless tracks and plains, through dismal forests, frost and snow, among wolves and bears, never distrusts the poor yearnshick. He is neither a ruffian nor a robber, but simply a peasant, who commenced driving troikas at six years of age, and who will drive them till he dies. He has one failing, the need of vodki: give it him the traveller must, but let the traveller give it sparingly; and if you hit the right mean between parsimony and indiscretion as to this point, he will do any thing for his charge short of keeping awake when he is sleepy, merely because he drives. Considering the immensity of the country,

THE YEAMSHICK.

89

the number, length, and character of the roads, and
that the yearnshick is the only reliable land-carrier
for passengers and goods (excepting the few rail-
ways), the number of these men must be immense.
They played no unimportant part in the Napoleon
invasion, and in the transport of troops and material
of war to the Crimea; and to write any thing about
interior travelling in Russia without giving a few
lines to the yearnshicks would be leaving Hamlet
out of his own play.

Let no man imagine that he has tried Russian
travel if he have merely visited Moscow and Peters-
burg, and run a few hundred versts on any of the
few main, well-kept roads. Wide of these, lies on
both sides the interior life of this immense country;
and to see it we must penetrate through forests
seventy miles long, jolt over wave-like undulations of
endless barren or poorly-cultivated land, and bid fare-
well to every vestige of macadam. In my case the
deviation from the main road took place at no indi-
cated point. No finger-post pointed the way, no road
led to it.

"I want to go to Evanofsky."

"Well," said the yearnshick, "that is the road."

"Where? I see no road."

"Ah, yes! but I'll find one." And with that he
turned the horses' heads at right angles to the straight
broad road we were on, lashed, screamed, and suc-
ceeded in plunging us across a deep, wide ditch,
into what appeared to me to be an endless, pathless
expanse of stubbled and unstubbled ground; tree,

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

shrub, fence, post-house, or hut, there was none, to
mark the route, as far as the eye could reach. The
frost tinged the expanse with white, and the wintry
sun, as it shone with a cool light over the long sweep-
ing undulations of the ground, made the surface of
the land glisten like water. Some of us, indeed,
could scarcely be persuaded that we were not about
to plunge into some trackless pool, without compass,
pilot, or chart. The inexperienced will always bid
a regretful farewell to the beaten road, as to an
old friend, and will face the trackless ground with
uncomfortable notions about grizzly bears, wolves,
ditches, precipices, and snow-storms. I confess that
I lost sight of the black-and-white striped mile-post
with some regret. Hitherto we had travelled with
these posts and the telegraphic wires constantly on
our right and left, as mute friends and companions.
We could read the number of versts on each post
when we had nothing else to do, and we could think
of human messages going and coming on the wires;
but now they are gone on far to the south, keeping
company with travellers on the one good broad road
that leads to Odessa. As for us, we were over the
ditch, and off through the fields.

The change was sudden and complete; but all
changes are sudden and complete in Russia. Sum-
mer goes in a day, and winter comes. One may
cross a river in a boat at night, and walk back on the
ice in the morning. Doors and windows stand wide
open in summer for a breath of cool air; but in winter
the cool air is barred out with double windows, triple

RUSSIAN CONTRASTS.

91

doors, and heated stoves. So in regard to clothing;
thin linen summer habiliments are thrown aside in a
day, and the reign of furs begins. Wheels are upon
all carriages of every sort one day; snow comes during
the night, and the wheels all vanish; in the morning
nothing is seen but sledges. The transitions from
class to class are of the same character. One class is
of gentlemen and barons; the next step is to mou-
shicks, peasant-serfs who live on black bread and
salt, seasoned with sour cabbage and garlic, and who
are covered with a dirty sheepskin instead of being
clothed in ermine, sables, and fine linen. Cronstadt
is reached from Petersburg by steamers in one week;
in the next, the traveller runs over the same water
with three horses before him. The people will leave
a hot bath, and plunge into a hole made in the ice;
they will leave a room heated to seventy or eighty
degrees, and follow a funeral for six miles with no
covering on their heads, in a frost twenty-five degrees
below zero; they will fast seven weeks on cabbage
and garlic, and then guzzle themselves in a few hours
into the hospital, take cholera, and die. Diseases are
generally swift and fatal—to-day well, to-morrow
dead. More than two-thirds of the cholera cases die.
Women are interesting, plump, and marriageable,
at fourteen; they are shrivelled at thirty. Despotic
power works in extreme without control, religion
without morality, commerce without honesty. There
is land illimitable, without cultivation. There are
splendid laws, and poverty of justice. Some of these

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

contrasts are now being softened down by the wise
progressive policy of Alexander the Second.

Off the beaten track it was that I first learned
what yearnshicks and horseflesh could accomplish.
If our courage and confidence sank a degree, and we
held on with bated breath as the tarantasses jolted
over the deep ruts, ran on one wheel along the edge
of a steep slope at an angle of forty-five, or plunged
into a chasm with a crash, to be pulled out by the
most desperate application of the whip, no such charge
can be brought against the drivers; they seemed to
rejoice in having quitted the monotonous road, and
their spirits appeared to spring into new life with
every obstacle. They had now got something to
drive over—something worth being a yearnshick for:
“Go, my angels!” “Step out, my dear pigeons!”
“Climb up, my sweetheart!” And at every ejacula-
tion down came the knout with terrible force and
effect.

At one o'clock in the afternoon of the second day
after leaving the main road, we came in sight of the
end of our wanderings, on the slope of a long hill.
We were obliged to pack up. The descent was steep,
and looked extremely dangerous; the yearnshicks,
for the first time, paused before taking it. I got out
to reconnoitre. On each side of us lay a dense and
gloomy forest of oaks, birch, and pines; the track
down which we had come a certain length had been
evidently cut through the hill for nearly a mile and
a half. Far below in the valley lay a considerable
number of what my servant Harry took to be peat-

A DANGEROUS DESCENT.

93

hills. Those were huts. I could see also the cupola
of a church, the chimney of a mill or works, and, on
an adjoining eminence, a residence of some pretension.
How to get down was a puzzle; the ground was slip-
pery from ice, the descent long and precipitous, and
the cattle were nearly exhausted; the last team having
come twenty miles. If our men chose to go down
with the usual clatter and dash (we had no drags), the
result might be disastrous. The yearnshicks, how-
ever, soon made up their minds to try the old way,
and I could see no better way. They crossed them-
selves (their infallible resource), and were gathering
up the ropes for a start, when a voice called out from
the wood on the left, "Hold, hold! Do you want
your necks broken, you fools?" I knew in a moment,
from the manner in which the Russian was spoken,
that this was the voice of an Englishman; and as he
came struggling through the brushes and low under-
wood that lined the edge of the wood, his appearance
did not belie his speech. He was short, fat, and
florid; dressed in a fur-coat, long boots, and fur-cap;
he carried a double-barrelled gun, and was followed
by a man much in the same garb, but younger, taller,
and stronger than himself. Two great shaggy cream-
coloured wolf-dogs followed the second man, who car-
ried a double-barrelled rifle, and had a large sheathed-
knife in his belt. While the one was collecting
breath, after abusing the yearnshicks for intending
to gallop down the hill, the other came up to me, and
after surveying us very deliberately, said, in the pure
Doric of canny Scotland:

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

"I'm just thinkin', but maybe I'm wrang, that ye're no unlike kintramen o' ours—that is, Englishmen, I mean?"

I acknowledged the proud relationship, and said,

"I seek a village called Evanofsky, and a man called Count Pomerin; can you help a countryman to find them?"

"Surely; the village is yonder in the glen, and the man is not far off. May I ask if ye are the party he wull be expecting from St. Petersburg? If sae, wull be right glad to see you, but at the present moment it is impossible to get speech of him. We've a bit hunting on hand, you see, and Pomerin is at his post, as we were when you cam' betwixt us and our line of fire."

"God bless me!" I said, rather quickly; "are we betwixt the game and the rifles?"

"That's just precesely the position we have all the honour o' occupying at this present moment, and in half an hour after this it might not be unco' pleasant; but for that time, I think, we're safe, unless for a stray beastie or sae. Now, if you like to join the hunt, you and the other gent-le-man, I would advise you to send on the conveyances and contents to wait you at Pomerin's; they will get a rayal welcome, and I shall send an escort with them." This being agreed on, he said to his friend, "Pins, whistle on that Dugal creature o' yours."

Mr. Pins put a whistle to his mouth and gave a shrill call, when presently a figure emerged from the wood, no inapt representative of the famous Dugal

MR. SAUNDERSON.

95

creature in Rob Roy. He had bandy legs, a great mass of tangled red hair on his head and face, red ferret eyes, and he dressed in a felt coat which reached only to the knees, a wolf-skin cape, and large boots, a world too wide for him; and a short-handed axe stuck in his belt. Mr. Saunderson had made some sign which I did not observe, that brought his henchman, a man of like sort, also to the spot. These having received their orders, proceeded to drag the wheels. In a few minutes two young trees were cut down, and, having been chopped into the right length, were thrust between the spokes and across the hind-wheels of the carriages. Having thus effectually put on a safety-drag, the two 'Dugal creatures,' large and small, mounted beside the drivers; but Harry and I remained behind with the ammunition, guns, and pistols; and then the vehicles began sliding down the hill without us, in a very comfortable manner.

## CHAPTER VIII.

### WITH THE HUNTSMEN.

I HAD often heard of a hunt in the interior, and was glad, although fatigued, to join one. The plan is something akin to the ancient practice of deer-hunting in the Scottish Highlands. In the present case, however, the game was different: not deer, but wolves, bears, foxes, and other vermin, which had been found very destructive and troublesome for some time past. The greater number of the men of several villages, including every man who could handle a gun, had turned out. I attached myself to Mr. Saunderson, Harry joined Mr. Pins, and we followed our new acquaintances into the wood from which they had come upon us. On entering, I could see that preparations had been made on a large scale. Just inside the wood, and extending a long way—perhaps to near the bottom of the hill to the left, and for a less distance to the right—men armed with guns, rifles, pistols, knives, old scythes, and other such weapons, were stationed thirty yards or less apart from one another, while, behind each, a horse was picketed to a tree. Many of the principal rifle and armed men, like my friends Pins and Saunderson,

WITH THE HUNTSMEN.

97

had ‘Dugal creatures,’ or peasant-serfs, attached to
them, having in charge dogs, horses, and other
accessories. The whole party formed two lines,
probably a mile and a half long; the first line armed;
behind it the unarmed and the horses. On the
opposite side of the road, and on the trees in front,
was a strong net, ten or twelve feet high, extending
up and down hill, as far as I could see, parallel with
the road, leaving the road itself convenient for the
work of slaughter, while the men might fire into the
net at pleasure from the cover, advance into the open,
or mount and run in case of danger. How the net
was secured, or what resistance it might make against
a large infuriated animal, I had no means of know-
ing; but I imagined that though it might hinder or
entangle, it could not stop, or offer any effectual bar
to a bear, or even a strong maddened wolf.

My companion enlightened me on sundry points :
How, I asked, did they get the game into the net ?

That was easily managed. Six hundred men had
been sent early that morning into the opposite wood,
at a point four or five miles from our present position :
these men had spread themselves in a line across the
wood, the two flanks gradually advancing faster than
the centre, so as to form a curve by the time they
reached the road where the net was placed, the flanks
touching the ends of the net; then the centre
advancing, drove all the game which was in front of
them, right into the toils to be shot down. These
men carried poles and other instruments for making
all kinds of hideous noises, and the number of them

H

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

being large, the whole wood became a wild Babel
of dreadful sounds, which frightened and daunted the
doomed animals.

"This is an inglorious system of hunting, only
worthy of barbarians."

"Oo ay; but ye ken the Russians can only operate
in the mass way—that is, when they have plenty to
keep them company. Besides, there is sometimes a
bit hand-to-hand struggle, to vary the thing."

"Where is Count Pomerin?"

The count was down the hill, on the left flank,
and commanded that side, while he (Saunderson) held
the like position on the right up the hill. Pomerin's
post was reckoned the more dangerous, as the chief
haunts of the vermin were well known to be down the
hill. Pomerin, he continued, was a dead shot, and
always on those occasions took the post of danger.
He was a gentleman every inch of him; "a wee
thing ower fast, ye ken; but he's young; and then
his grandfather died last year, and left the laddie
three millions of roubles, besides this immense estate,
with the ten thousand bodies on it, two sugar manu-
factories, our vodki works, and the cotton-mill. When
Mr. Saunderson cam' here, some years ago, the auld
man was hale and weel, and this young man—whose
faither got a trip to Siberia and never cam' back—
was the grandfather's pet. The young lad's mother
was a serf, a bonny winsome thing, it is said; she's
no ugly yet; she and her family were freed, and she
was highly educated at Moscow, before and after her
marriage; still this marriage was a cause of trouble.

COUNT POMERIN.

99

The proud aristocrats shut their doors on the pair of them. He fell into a revengeful spirit, and began writing papers on political economy, meaning to publish them abroad. Spies were in his house. Every line he wrote, and every word he said, they reported to the police, and so the end was that he vanished one night, and no one says they just say he is dead. No expense has been spared on the son's education; he can gabble in French, German, Italian, and all other modern languages; he has travelled in France, England, and Italy. He has a stud of horses, and keeps a table like a prince: but O, man, I've been told that he was spinnin' the auld man's bawbees last winter in Petersburg in fine style! If ye're a friend of his, gie him a canny advice to haud a better grup o' the siller. At this present time he is negotiatin' wi' a widow-woman, a 'generalshee,' to buy her bit estate. Her steward is a big rascal, an' Pomerin will pay grandly if he does not mind his hand. I ken what I ken aboot that place, and he might do waur than tak' my coonsel aboot it."

"Who is your friend Pins?" I asked.

"Pins!" he said; "a poor cotton-spinning, ignorant, upsetting cuif, but as sly and sleekit as a fox. He has managed to get Pomerin to quit four years of arrears of rent and his workers' obrak; and he is tryin' to persuade his landlord to build a great cotton-mill, and send him to England to buy the machinery. The commission he'll get on that is worth ten years of his present wee place."

"But," I said, "that might be a good investment

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

for the count." "Na, na, it's ower far to bring the
cotton and to send the yarn to market; there's no
railways here like England; and there's no outlet for
it in other countries, the demand is limited, and
pretty well supplied now. If the count is wisely
advised, or would tak' a practical man's advice like
mysel', he will invest his money in a safer channel.
Let him cultivate his ground; our auld mother Earth
is a generous and fruitful lass, if she is well nourished.
If he will manufacture, let him use the material his
land produces. There's flax and hemp at the door;
there's beetroot for sugar, and rye for bread, and
vodki. He'll want machinery, nae doot, for these—
corn-mills, saw-mills, and agricultural implements;
but he can sell the ropes and yarn, the vodki and
the sugar, without trouble or expense. These large
cotton-mills about Moscow and Petersburg are doing
well at present—not so long after the war. But just
suppose cotton was to grow scarce, or there was war
with America, or amongst the Yankees themselves—
not unlikely—or suppose the government was to take
the duty off the imported manufactured goods, there
is not one of these manufactories would be worth auld
iron. It's not a good doctrine of political economy,
and it will bring its recompense some day, to rob the
poor moushick bodies, who are the chief consumers of
the cotton cloth, to enrich a few foreign machine-
makers, capitalists, and agents. The extra wages
given to the workpeople is no equivalent for the
enormous prices taken from them; besides, they don't
get the benefit of the extra wages. It only goes into

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101

the pockets of the greedy barons whose slaves they are, while the estates are lying uncultivated, and the serfs are as poor and miserable as ever."

"But still," I said, "these manufactories are good civilisers. They require intelligence and skill in the workpeople, and this is much wanted in Russia."

"Civilisation in Russian cotton-mills! Hot-beds of vice and corruption! Whaur lae ye been, to speak that gate? I could tell ye something aboot that. But,—hear to that!"

Sounds from the six hundred men in the wood had long since been heard, increasing in volume; but now they had become deafening, and indicated the very near approach of the sport. Halloaing, shouting, yelling, whistling, blowing of horns, and a din as of heavy blows on iron kettles, formed a discordant chorus, and so loud that I could hardly hear the latter part of Mr. Saunderson's lecture on political economy. But his "hear to that," referred to a rifle-shot, immediately followed by a clattering of shots all down the line. I looked across the road, and could see the net vibrating, bulging, and in some places coming down, entangling heavy bodies in its meshes. Two large wolves, strong, and apparently fat, followed by a third, made their way cautiously at first from below the net, and then jumped into the road. Three or four shots went off at the same moment, but only one wolf dropped, the other two made as if for the wood on our side, but seemed to scent danger in that direction, for they turned round

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RUSSIAN LIFE.

and tore up the hill at rattling speed. "Don't fire,"
shouted Saunderson; "let off the dogs!" And
immediately four noble dogs sprang into the road,
right in front of our position. One wolf was caught
in a moment by the first two dogs, but the other ran
into the wood, hotly followed by the other couple.
Pins was reloading, when the three animals dashed
amongst his legs, and upset him as they passed. I
can only relate what I myself saw. A deer, or elk,
with magnificent broad horns, cleared the net at a
bound, right in front of us. "Now," said the
Scotchman, "that's my quarry." The animal had
scarcely touched the ground when a bullet struck
him in the brain, and down he went. This was the
first shot he had fired, and he hastily reloaded, for
he said he fully expected bears. At this time a
horseman on a splendid English hunter dashed up
the open steep, and the firing abated. "That's
Pomerin,—what's he after? He'll get shot," said
Saunderson. As he approached our position, he
shouted in English, "Two large bears are heading
up the wood inside the net, and the men are falling
back; they will escape if we don't mind. Mount
and follow who will." Saunderson was on his horse
in a moment, and after the young man up the hill.
Turning to look for Pins and Harry, I saw Pins, the
picture of fear, behind a tree. As I came up he was
imploring Harry to help him on his horse, that he
might quit the field; his own man had not returned.
"Blow me if I do," said Harry. "But I'll take the
loan of it. And here, old cock, take my blunderbuss,