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 TIIK CZAR.
 
 RUSSIAN JOURNEY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDNA dp:an proctor 
 
 117 TH ILL us TRA TIO^S 
 
 S^ 
 
 *»• 
 
 BOSTON 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 
 Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osqood, & Co. 
 
 1873 
 
 r V
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 
 Edna Deax Proctor, 
 
 In tlie Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 l: I v K K s I i> !■ . <• A M I! i: I p c k: 
 ri;INIKli 1'.^ II. <i. 11(11 (iiriuN AM' t mil -ANY.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -♦- 
 
 PAGE 
 
 St. Petersburg 1 
 
 St. Isaac's and the Crown Jewels .... 13 
 
 To Moscow 25 
 
 The Shrines of Moscow 33 
 
 Moscow beyond the Kremlin 47 
 
 Moscow Bells 61 
 
 Troitsa Monasterv 69 
 
 The Fair of Nuni 85 
 
 Asia at Ni.txi 97 
 
 Kazan Ill 
 
 The Volga, to Samara 125 
 
 A Gypsy Encampment 141 
 
 The Empire of the East 153 
 
 The Volga, to Kamysciiin 163 
 
 ICalmucks and Moravians 179 
 
 The Cossack Country 195 
 
 rostoff and the lower don 209 
 
 The Azoff and Euxine Seas 221 
 
 Yalta and the Crijiean Taktaus . . . .231 
 
 The Crimean Coast and Alupka .... 241
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Baidar Gate and Valley 253 
 
 Sevastopol 261 
 
 Odessa 269 
 
 Over the Steppe to Kichinefp 281 
 
 KiCHINEFF TO BeLZI 291 
 
 The Frontier 303 
 
 The Czar 313
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Czar Frontispiece. 
 
 The Marshes of the North 3 
 
 Nicholas Bridge and the Neva .... 6 
 The Alexander Column . . . . . .10 
 
 St. Isaac's Cathedral 18 
 
 Peasants or the Province of ISt. Plteksblru . . 30 
 
 Cathedral of the Assumption 3S 
 
 Droskt 56 
 
 Tower of John the Great ..... 64 
 Philaket, late Metropolitan of ^losco.v and Ai;cai- 
 
 mandrite of Troitsa 74 
 
 A Mendicant bO 
 
 Ivan and Nadia 94 
 
 Our Lady of Ivazan 118 
 
 Peasant Cabins 128 
 
 Grtsv Fortune Teller • 148 
 
 ICE-BOAT OF THE VOLGA 170 
 
 A Kalmuck Encampmen:' 18G 
 
 A Cossack Soldier 202 
 
 A Cossack Boy 214 
 
 A Young Circassian 228 
 
 Tartar Boys 23G 
 
 Sevastopol 26 4 
 
 Wjndmill of the Grain Region .... 294 
 
 Peasant of the Polish Border ... . 306
 
 ST. PETERSBURG.
 
 X 
 
 a
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 Seel From the Finland marshes there 
 'Tis grand St. Isaac's rears in air, 
 
 Column on column, that shining dome ! 
 And, just beyond its glorious swell, 
 'Tis the slender spire of the Citadel 
 Where great Czar Peter slumbers well 
 
 All by the Neva's flood and foam, — 
 That lifts its cross till the golden Bars 
 Gleam and burn with the midnight stars! 
 
 rriHE gray waste of the Baltic ; a cold, cloudy 
 sky and a wild wind blowing from the east. In 
 the distance a colorless line, the flat, dreary shore, 
 to which even the poor picturesqueness of Finland 
 is denied, and where a few pale birches and sickly 
 pines are all that unaided summer can coax from 
 the wet and ban'en soil. Yet out of this bleak 
 morass there began to rise s[)ires and domes and 
 columns, half revealed in the shifting light, and 
 then, as the sun struggled through the clouds, mul-
 
 4 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 tipljing and shining resplendent like an enchanted 
 city evoked from the gloom of the wave. Was it 
 Venice, fair and fascinating on the bosom of the 
 Adriatic ? Was it Amsterdam, solid and secure by 
 the Zuyder Zee ? 
 
 The wonder grew. Tail ships and laden boats 
 thronged about us ; great rows of stately houses 
 lifted themselves to view ; crowded streets opened 
 on every hand ; and while we were yet bewildered 
 with this mingled poverty of nature and splendor 
 of art, the steamer rounded into her dock upon the 
 Neva, and amid drays and droskies and a noisy 
 rabble of coachmen and porters, — some clad in 
 sheep-skins, and all in loose, long wrappings, — we 
 gained the wharf and knew that M-e were in the 
 capital of the Czars ! 
 
 What would those earliest founders, the impas- 
 sioned, beauty-loving race, that, wandering west- 
 wai-d from the banks of the Euphrates, saw the 
 plain of Damascus glowing in the Syrian sun, and 
 pitched their tents upon its paradise of green, — 
 what would they have said to the site of the City 
 of the North ? — a swamp, a quaking bog, scarcely
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 6 
 
 above the level of the Baltic, almost within the 
 Arctic Circle, frozen and snow-covered for five 
 months of the year, and subject, with the coming 
 on of spring, to fearful inundations. No marvel 
 is it that with bitter murmurino-s and regrets the 
 first inhabitants took up their forced abode in its 
 streets still reeking with marshy damps, and trem- 
 bling beneath the unusual Aveight imposed upon the 
 oozy soil. 
 
 What is St. Petersburg to-day? A city of more 
 than half a million people ; covering thirty square 
 miles ; with broad, regular streets and immense 
 squares lined with lofty buildings ; the most signal 
 triumph of human will over material obstacles that 
 the later centuries have shown. Compared with the 
 cities farther south, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and 
 Christiania seem like overgrown villages. St. Pe- 
 tersburg is peer of the proudest — the Paris of the 
 Baltic — an imperial Muscovite Berlin. 
 
 Yet it overwhelms rather than delights you. 
 It is vast ; it is amazing ; but it is the domain of 
 the Titans rather than of the Graces, and you look 
 in vain for the charming and the picturesque. St. 
 Isaac's Place and the open ai'ea in front of the 
 Winter Palace need a grand marshaling of troops
 
 6 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 or a holiday convocation of citizens to fill the void ; 
 and the finest street, the Nevski Prospekt, begin- 
 ning at the Isaac Cathedral and terminating three 
 miles away at the Monasteiy of Alexander Nevski, 
 calls for an unending procession to enliven its cen- 
 tre and unite its northern and southern borders in 
 one. For convenience on ceremonial occasions and 
 for sanitary purposes this is well ; but for beauty 
 give me rather Genoa with its narrow, winding, 
 climbing streets, where you may shake hands with 
 your neighbor at the opposite window and see above 
 a line of gleaming blue which is the sky — even the 
 covered, crowded ways of Cairo, where balcony and 
 lattice break the formal lines, and the varying pan- 
 orama below offers perpetual entertainment to the 
 stranger. 
 
 As to the architecture of the city, its churches 
 and rehVious establishments have all that is Rus- 
 sian. The rest of the buildings are mainly con- 
 structed on classic models, and though often impos- 
 ing from their colossal size and lavish decorations, 
 yet appear incongruous under that leaden sky. 
 The fine, smooth marbles of the Mediterranean pen- 
 insula are fit for fashioning into graceful temples 
 and lovely, rounded forms ; and nude and slightly
 
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 ST. PETERSBURG. 7 
 
 draped figures upholding roof and dome are natural 
 and pleasing where the landscape is steeped in the 
 warmth and splendor of a tropic sun ; but in this . 
 cold Russia why did they not rear of their dark 
 Finland granite bold, irregular piles that would rise 
 majestic from the marshy plains, and mould as 
 caryatides and ornamental groups, Muscovites in 
 their long sheep-skin coats, or Tartars clad in As- 
 trakhan caps and belted caftans, or Samoiedes or 
 Laplanders enveloped in furs ? Every land for its 
 own ! If the architecture of St. Petersburg were 
 thus individual and appropriate, it would be as at- 
 tractive as that of Athens or Rome. 
 
 From the gallery of the dome of St. Isaac's Ca- 
 thedral an excellent view is obtained of the city. 
 About you it lies upon the dead level Avhich, to the 
 north, loses itself in the Baltic and the swamps of 
 Finland ; and, to the south, in the great plain 
 stretching with slight interruption to the Crimea. 
 The uniformity of regular streets is relieved by the 
 river and the canals ; by the trees which care has 
 made to flourish in the unwonted soil ; by the pub- 
 lic monuments ; by the tall fire-towers — conspicu- 
 ous objects in every Russian city, with watchmen 
 ready, day and night, to give the proper signals in
 
 8 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 case of an alarm ; and, most of all, by the golden 
 and azure domes of the many churches and monas- 
 teries. The Neva, curbed by granite quays, rolls 
 its clear, strong tide through the city from Lake 
 Ladoga to the Gulf; and as you mark how sea and 
 river dominate over the plain, you wonder at the 
 magnificent boldness that planted the capital where 
 it must perpetually defy wind and wave. 
 
 That slender gilded spire piercing the sky like a 
 needle, and surmounted by an angel upholding the 
 cross at a height of nearly four hundred feet above 
 the earth, rises from the Cathedral of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, for the last century and a half the mau- 
 soleum of the royal family. Their white marble 
 tombs, beginning with that of Peter the Great, are 
 built up on the floor of the church, with a gilt cross 
 resting upon the upper slab and an inscription traced 
 upon the end ; alike, save that on the corners of 
 those of the sovereigns is blazoned the Imperial 
 eagle — the double-headed Byzantine eagle brought 
 to Moscow by Sophia, the Greek bride of Ivan the 
 Great, and adopted by him as the emblem of Russia. 
 The latest buried here was the eldest son and heir 
 of the present Emperor, the Grand Duke Nicholas 
 — the idol of his family and of the nation, and the
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 9 
 
 betrothed of the Princess Dagmar. Alas for earthly 
 joy and glory ! Death spoke to the heir of all the 
 Russias as to the meanest peasant of the realm ; 
 and neither the soft clime of Italy, nor maiden's 
 tender love, nor parent's yearning, nor an empire's 
 devotion could avail ; but, at the word, he must depart 
 to that sphere where the person of kings is unre- 
 garded, and leave to his brother both bride and 
 dominion ! The walls of this cathedral are covered 
 with banners and keys of conquered armies and 
 cities, some of them lying even upon the tombs of 
 the victors ; and flying echoes from martial fields 
 mingle with the prayers the priests intone for the 
 repose of the dead. 
 
 The conspicuous building a little up the Nevski 
 Prospekt is the cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, 
 named in honor of an image of the Virgin found 
 unharmed among the ashes of a conflagration in 
 the old Tartar city of Kazan, on the Volga, and 
 now set with gems of fabulous value, and placed in 
 the screen of this church, while above it the name 
 of God is traced with similar precious stones. The 
 screen itself — the partition between the nave and 
 the altar — is of silver plundered from the churches 
 of Moscow by the French, and retaken by Cos-
 
 10 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 sacks to be here consecrated anew. This church 
 is St. Petersburg's offering for the defeat of Na- 
 poleon, and to it the Imperial family repair for 
 special thanksgivings. Here the grand proces- 
 sion halted at the entry of the Princess Dagmar, 
 and while the crowd was hushed, and the impatient 
 horses pawed the ground, the royal party entered, 
 and a service of gratitude was performed for her 
 arrival. Here, five years ago, came the Emperor, 
 first alone and afterwards with his family, to give 
 thanks for his escape from death at the hands of 
 the assassin, Karokozoff. 
 
 At the end of the long avenue, that striking as- 
 semblage of domes and towers, is the third holiest 
 shrine in Russia — the Monastery of St. Alexan- 
 der Nevski, founded by Peter the Great. Alex- 
 ander was a Prince of the race of Rurik, and his 
 title, Nevski, comes from the battle he won on the 
 banks of the Neva over the Swedes. The present 
 Emperor bears his name, and is supposed to be 
 under his special care and protection, as each 
 Russian is under that of the saint for whom he is 
 called. In this monastery lies the canonized prince 
 for Russia's adoration, encased in solid silver, with 
 silver angels hovering about him blowing trumpets
 
 •y. 
 
 C 
 ft 
 
 "y. 
 
 1 ^^^^i::^^zz 
 
 III' 
 
 'iiiiill' '''^mm
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 11 
 
 of fame. Much wealth in the way of jewels and 
 rare manuscripts is gathered here, and so holy is 
 the place considered, that, in recompense for the 
 payment of a large sum to the monastery, many of 
 the highest families have their burial-places within 
 its walls. 
 
 Fronting the swift Neva, that huge pile half a 
 mile in length with the handsome central spire, is 
 the Admiralty, in which are the naval offices and 
 schools. Beyond is the Winter Palace, the most 
 spacious and splendid of the royal residences of 
 Europe. That column in front is the Column of 
 Alexander I., the largest monolith in the Avorld ; 
 yet in the vast square its grandeur is lost, and yon 
 must stand beneath it in order to appreciate its 
 size. Rows upon rows of piles were driven into 
 the ground for its foundation, and Turkish cannon 
 were melted down to form the capital and tlie 
 ornaments for its base. But the frost deals hardly 
 with its Finland granite, and each winter cracks 
 and cleavages are made which cement and patches 
 carefully repair. Everywhere groups and lines of 
 birch and linden trees break the monotony, and, 
 suggesting a firm soil, make you forget the bottom- 
 less bog which their deep roots penetrate ; while
 
 12 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 far away are the wide sea and the wider plain — 
 the sea lit at Tornea by the midnight sun, and the 
 plain washed on its southern verge by the warm 
 waters of the Caspian.
 
 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS.
 
 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 
 
 Eye of a god was this blazing stone, 
 
 Beyond the snows of the Himalaya ; 
 These dazzling stars might have lit the zone 
 
 Of the Queen of Jove or the Grace, Aglaia ; 
 And the rubies are such as the Burman king 
 Sends his elephants white to bring, 
 With a troop of soldiers and high grandees 
 Greeting the finder, on bended knees. 
 Here's an emerald rare as the rose of pride 
 Cortez gave his Castilian bride, 
 And lustrous-green as the Indian gem 
 Charlemagne wore in his diadem; 
 And pearls hard-won by the Ceylonese 
 From the silent depths of the tropic seas, 
 While the conjuror muttered his spells ashore 
 Till the diver's toils for the day were o'er; 
 And crystals, amber and amethyst. 
 
 That only the Oural caves could harden — 
 Bright as blossoms the sun has kissed 
 
 In the fairy plots of a palace garden. 
 
 "VTEVER do I think of St. Petersburg without 
 recalling St. Isaac's and the Crown Jewels.
 
 16 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 
 
 St. Isaac's is the grandest church in Russia, and 
 in all northern Europe; and if its magnificence 
 of bronze and rose-brown granite had been fashioned 
 into a Gothic instead of an Italian pile, it might, 
 perhaps, have been the grandest in the world. The 
 spot where it stands in the great square near the 
 river was, from the founding of the city, designed 
 for the site of the finest ecclesiastical structure. 
 The present edifice was begun by Alexander I 
 and completed and dedicated with all the splendor 
 of the Greek ceremonial a few years after the ac- 
 cession of the present Emperor. A million dollars 
 were expended in sinking piles for its foundation, 
 and untold sums have been lavished upon the 
 cathedral itself. Built of Finland granite, in the 
 usual Russian form of a Greek cross, at each of its 
 four sides you ascend by three flights of massive 
 steps — each flight cut from a single stone — to the 
 four noble entrances, the pillars of whose porticoes 
 are monoliths larger than those of the Roman Pan- 
 theon, and akin to the columns hewn by genii for 
 the Syrian Temple of the Sun. The bases and 
 Corinthian capitals of these columns are of bronze. 
 Of bronze, also, are the groups illustrative of Scrip- 
 ture history and commemorative of apostles, saints,
 
 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 17 
 
 and martyrs, filling the pediments and ornamenting 
 facade and roof, in rich harmony with the sombre 
 back-ground ; while the great Byzantine dome, en- 
 circled by smaller domes at the angles of the roof 
 and supported by thirty granite pillars, lifts itself 
 above the mass, ovei'laid with gold and surmounted 
 by a golden cross, which, in fair weather, to those 
 who miles away sail the sea or journey across the 
 inland plains, shines like an unfading star. Within, 
 all is gorgeous gloom. Perpetual twilight reigns 
 under the lofty vault ; and the lamps burning night 
 and day before the sacred pictures help to interpret 
 the wealth of mosaics and marbles and the splendor 
 of the tall columns of malachite and lapis lazuli up- 
 holdino- the ikonastas interposed before the inmost 
 shrine — their mingled tints of green and blue hav- 
 inof the weird eifect of an ice-cavern in the Alps or 
 a grotto under the wave. The shrine itself is in- 
 closed in a marvelous miniature temple of these 
 precious stones, adorned with gold ; while every- 
 where jasper and porphyry, and whatever rare and 
 beautiful materials Russian quarries can furnish, 
 are wrought into ceiling and floor. Artists may 
 point to its over-decoration ; architects may com- 
 plain of the space and iron wasted in supporting the
 
 18 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 
 
 dome ; but in spite of critics and defects it must 
 remain one of the superb buildings of the world. 
 
 With reverent faces the fair-haired, blue-eyed 
 Russians are continually entering for their devo- 
 tions. Purchasing; a small wax candle from a table 
 near the door, and advancing to one of the shrines, 
 with prostrations and signs of the cross, they light 
 the taper at the sacred lamp and place it in the 
 silver stand pierced with holes ; then, kissing the 
 pavement, say a short prayer and retire, still look- 
 ing towards the altar ; while without, those who pass 
 within the shadow of the dome, cross themselves 
 and utter a pious ejaculation. 
 
 Magnificent Temple of the North is St. Isaac's. 
 Yet with all its richness it is a saddening pile, dim 
 and chill even in a summer noon, and fitted to in- 
 spire fear and awe rather than hope and love. God 
 would speak to me more cheeringly on the broad 
 steppe, beneath the open sky, with the wild east 
 wind for anthem, than within these walls, massive 
 as the Pyramids, and echoing chant and prayer of 
 priest and devotee. 
 
 Whoever delights in jewels should seek admis- 
 sion to the Winter Palace. There, in a large room
 
 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 19 
 
 on the second floor, guarded night and day by offi- 
 cers of the household, are preserved tlie glittering 
 treasures of the empire. Most noticeable among 
 them is the great Orloff diamond, surmounting the 
 sceptre, the largest of the crown diamonds of Eu- 
 rope, and the gift of the politic, elegant, extrava- 
 gant Count Orloff to the Empress Catherine 11. 
 Like the Koh-i-noor, it is one of the royal jewels of 
 the East which, through misfortune and robbery, 
 have passed into Europe. The English stone has 
 been made into a brilliant, losing thereby nearly 
 half its weight; the Orloff is rose cut, as it came 
 from India. Its size and light suit it to the sceptre 
 of a realm like this, and until the Rajah of IMattum 
 or some other Oriental monarch loses his state and 
 his possessions with the advance of Western ci\ ili- 
 ration, it will doubtless retain its proud preeminence. 
 Yet for mere beauty I would choose rather the ex- 
 quisite diamond called the Polar Star; or that lesser 
 rose-tinted stone bought by the Emperor Paid loi* a 
 hundred thousand rubles; nay, — since sek-ciiim 
 ind fancy are so easy here, — I would even prefer 
 that mystic jewel, the Shah, gift of Persia, with 
 a Persian inscription upon its side ! 
 
 The Imperial crown is a dome of diamonds
 
 20 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 
 
 bound with pearls, its whiteness relieved by the 
 red of an immense ruby which burns upon its top 
 and supports a cross composed of five diamonds of 
 wondrous brilliancy. The golden crlobe upbears a 
 large sapphire shining with a light steady and ce- 
 rulean as the heaven of the Mediterranean, while 
 above it a limpid diamond rests upon the azure like 
 a white cloud upon the sky. The coronet of the 
 Empress is made altogether of diamonds of equal 
 size and lustre — a diadem so dainty and dazzling 
 that the most republican of women might be for- 
 given for being for a moment fascinated by a crown. 
 Besides these most noticeable thinffs there is a 
 long line of cases filled with jewels wrought into 
 necklaces and bracelets and brooches and combs ; 
 into buttons and buckles and bow^s and rosettes; into 
 girdles and plumes and fans and stars and eagles 
 and orders ; until the very profusion makes them 
 seem common, and you become critical of gems as 
 if they were but shells on the sea-shore, renewed 
 witli every tide. For centuries Russia has drawn 
 upon the hoarded treasures of Turkey and Persia 
 and India — region of jewels and of races that 
 delio-ht to wear them : and now the mines of Si- 
 beria have come to swell her stores. Nothing can
 
 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 21 
 
 be more beautiful than some of the Siberian crys- 
 tals here with their delicate tints, — green, rose, 
 violet — for the settino; of which the clearest dia- 
 monds have not been thought too costly. 
 
 Standincr in this reoi::vl room you cease to wonder 
 at the world's estimate of precious stones, and know 
 why St. Jolni fashioned of their splendors the walls 
 and gates of the New Jerusalem. The dew-drop 
 vanishes with the sun ; the rose, the pansy, and the 
 lily droo[) and fall ; clouds obscure the serenest blue ; 
 and it is only in moments of propitious light and air 
 that we catch a glimpse of the rare green of the 
 sea ; but the diamond, the ruby, the amethyst, the 
 pearl, the topaz, the sapphire, the emerald, keep 
 their charms imperishable, and gleam in changeless 
 beauty beyond the reach of time. 
 
 The School of Mines displays a collection of 
 minerals and stones only less valuable and beautiful 
 than the crown jewels ; and these, with the great 
 vases and urns of malachite and porphyry and 
 jasper, classic in shape and faidtless in finish, wliich 
 adorn palace and hall, show Russia's wealth beneath 
 the soil and the excellence of her lapidaries. The 
 Academy of Sciences harbors the skeleton of the
 
 22 57'. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 
 
 huge mammoth found seventy years ago imbedded 
 in an ice bank of the Lena, with its flesh so well 
 preserved tiiat bears and wolves came to feed upon 
 it when the breaking of the cliff exposed it to view. 
 And on every side is some institution which impe- 
 rial power has dedicated to letters, or science, or 
 art, and where you may while away a morning, 
 oblivious of the world without. The old palace of 
 the Ilermitajre is converted into an Art Museum 
 and its cralleries are adorned with some of the best 
 pictures of every land, and with the marvels of an- 
 cient and modern sculpture. Rivaling these in 
 interest are the antiquities from the Greek colonies 
 on the northern shores of the Black Sea ; vases 
 and personal ornaments of exquisite workmanship, 
 buried in tombs, and now, after two thousand years, 
 brought to the light of day. One graceful painted 
 vase bears the inscription, " Enrion has made it." 
 Who was Enrion, the skillful Greek, charmed with 
 his work and calling to us thus, out of the silence 
 of centuries, to assure him of immortality ? These 
 noble collections are grandly housed, but the 
 fine tracery of Grecian art and the impassioned 
 creations of the great masters of Italy and Spain 
 seem alien in this northern zone, and I fancied the
 
 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 23 
 
 rapt and glowing Madonnas and the sunny land- 
 scapes would gradually fade and dim till they be- 
 came pallid and misty as the light that fell through 
 the lofty windows. 
 
 An imposing and yet a mournful summer city is 
 St. Petersburg. Even when the sky is clear, the 
 sun's rays are pale and subdued like those of late 
 afternoon in our November; and though in its 
 streets we saw peasants in their peculiar attire, and 
 swift-driven droskies, and gray-coated soldiers, and 
 long-robed priests, and heard on every side the rich 
 Slavonic tongue ; yet, remembering the saying of 
 the Emperor Nicholas, " St. Petersburg is Russian, 
 but it is not Russia," without regret we bid fare- 
 well to its splendors, and looked eagerly forward 
 to Moscow.
 
 TO MOSCOW.
 
 TO MOSCOW. 
 
 Across tlie steppe we journeyed, 
 
 The brown, fir-darkened plain 
 That rolls to east and rolls to west, 
 
 Broad as the billowy main, 
 When lo 1 a sudden splendor 
 
 Came shimmering through the air, 
 As if the clouds should melt and leave 
 
 The heights of heaven bare, — 
 A maze of rainbow domes and spires 
 
 Full glorious on the sky. 
 With wafted chimes from many a tower 
 
 As the south wind went by. 
 And a thousand crosses lightly hung 
 
 That shone like morning stars — 
 'Twas the Kremlin wall I 'twas Mosrow — - 
 
 The jewel of the Czars ! 
 
 Y the broad guage, arrowy railway, one lim 
 afternoon, we left St. Petersburg for Moscow. 
 On that wide level the city sank like a retiring fleet 
 at sea, the high towers and domes of the Monastei7 
 
 B
 
 28 TO MOSCOW. 
 
 of Alexander Nevski lino;eniio; lonorest in the north- 
 
 o o o 
 
 eastern horizon. For some miles, on our left, a 
 straggling suburb extended south along the old post- 
 road between the two cities. Gradually the houses 
 became fewer, and at lenjrth we were alone in the 
 great pine-covered plain. 
 
 Only the last of July, but already the summer 
 approached its dissolution. Ciiill mists and vapors 
 hung in the air, and every breath wafted showers 
 of yellow leaves from the birch trees and filled the 
 low pines with answering sighs. There is no sad- 
 der sound in nature than the wail of these Russian 
 winds blowincT straight from the wastes of ice and 
 death that encompass the Pole — their force un- 
 broken from the Arctic Sea to the Caspian, save by 
 the forests through which they sweep with hollow, 
 mournful tones that have in them some secret of 
 eternity. The wind of the desert uplifts the soul ; 
 that of these northern steppes paralyzes it with 
 fear. 
 
 Now, for the first time, we began to see the vil- 
 lages and hamlets of the former serf population, 
 not yet changed under the new regime. Nothing 
 drearier can be imacrined than these loor huts with 
 a roof of boards and often but a single window,
 
 TO MOSCOW. 29 
 
 poor sheds which seem dropped without the least 
 order upon the bare plain. Though sometimes 
 miles from any town, they had often no apparent 
 shop of any kind, nor street, nor winding path, nor 
 tree, nor shrub, nor window flower to relieve the 
 hard monotony. The poorest Highland shieling 
 has its gorse and heather and its mountain setting ; 
 for the Irish cot there is the little jiarden and the 
 encircling green ; over the mud Imt of the Egyp- 
 tian the palm waves its plumes ; but neither nature 
 nor art cheers these mean abodes which subserve 
 only the rudest necessities of existence. Enter 
 them and you see but a few clumsy articles of fur- 
 niture of the peasant's own manufacture, with noth- 
 ino- to raise the thouo;hts above erovellno- cares but 
 the little picture of the JNIadonna or some patron 
 saint huuCT hioh in the fartliest corner of the room, 
 before which a lamp is suspended and kept, if pos- 
 sible, always burning, and to which all the events 
 of the humble household are made known. Yet as 
 the prison captive finds a world of delight in the 
 unfolding of a tiny flower or the weaving of a 
 spider's web, so, doubtless, even here the loving 
 human heart sees much to make life sAveet and 
 desirable.
 
 80 V TO MOSCOW. 
 
 The Petersburg and Moscow railway was built 
 without the slightest regard to important towns be- 
 tween the two places. From end to end its appoint- 
 ments are noble and uniform. The station-houses 
 are handsome structures, built of brick, while 
 about them are carefully kept grounds, filled with 
 trees and plants adapted to the country. In the 
 appartment next us was the Grand Duke Constan- 
 tino going to Moscow, a man with- the stately, 
 florid beauty of the Romanoff familv. Wherever 
 the train stopped the soldiers of the adjoining bar- 
 racks were drawn up on the platform to receive 
 him, still as statues, their right hands raised in the 
 military salute as he appeared and passed them in 
 review. How can men become so automatic, a 
 hundred moving absolutely as one ? It seemed 
 impossible that separate human hearts beat beneath 
 those gray caftans. 
 
 To the cloudy afternoon succeeded the long twi- 
 liorht which is the night of the northern summer, 
 and through it we held our way southward, ovei 
 the lonely, forest-dark plain. At five o'clock the 
 next morning we crossed Europe's great river, the 
 V^olga, at Tver, where its navigation begins, and 
 from whence you may sail to distant Persia. 
 Here, two hnndrod miles from its source in the
 
 i/bvA'^''^';^ 
 
 o 
 
 
 5 ^/y'ffM 
 
 O 
 
 K 
 O
 
 TO MOSCOW. 81 
 
 only elevations of central Russia, the Valdai hills, 
 it is a shallow stream some six hundred feet in 
 breadth, flowing with a calm current, and as if 
 quite unconscious of all the tribes and territories 
 its waters must greet before they find the sea. The 
 boats and barges which crowd it show the impor- 
 tance it even here attains as an avenue of com- 
 merce. Tver rises picturesquely on its right bank, 
 an ancient town famous in the past for its invasions 
 by Poles and Tartars, and for the murder, in its 
 convent, of the Metropolitan Philip ; and in the 
 present, for its manufacture of nails from the iron 
 of the Ourals. 
 
 Advancing day revealed an atmosphere undim- 
 med by the fogs of St. Petersburg, and through 
 which the sun shone with warmer ray. Fields of 
 rye and barley began to gain upon the fir-woods ; 
 the grass was greener ; the trees taller ; the mo- 
 notony of the vast plain relieved by marked undula- 
 tions; and at length, — like Madrid shining in the 
 morning sun as you approach it over the wind- 
 swept table-lands of Castile, but far more glorious, 
 — before us rose an assemblage of brilHant white 
 walls and of glittering domes and towers, and we 
 were in that Asiatic city planted on the steppes of 
 Europe, *' Holy Mother Moscow !"
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW.
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 Above each gate a blessed Saint 
 
 Asks favor of the skies, 
 And the hosts of the foe do fail and faint 
 
 At the gleam of their watchful eyas ; 
 And Pole, and Tartar, and haughty Gaul, 
 Flee, dismayed, from the Kremlin wall. 
 
 Here lie our ancient Czars, asleeo. — 
 
 Ivan and Feodor, — 
 AVhile loving angels round them keep 
 
 Sweet peace forevermore ! 
 Only when Easter bells ring loud, 
 They sign the cross taeneath the shroud. 
 
 O Troitsa's altar is divine, — 
 
 St. Sergius 1 hear our prayers ! 
 And Kieff', Olga's lofty shrine, 
 
 The name of " The Holy " bears ; 
 But Moscow blends all rays in one — 
 They are the stars, and she the sun ! 
 
 ^T^HE story of Moscow is written on its streets 
 
 and walls. Every roof and dome bears tJie 
 
 impress of Tartar domination, and the dark faces
 
 36 THE SHEINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 amono; its fair Muscovite crowds sliow that the 
 Asiatic still liiio-ers in the louo; contested land. Its 
 dwellings, white or pink or yellow, green-roofed 
 and encompassed with gardens ; its palaces and 
 conventual piles ; its churches with loftj towers 
 tilled with bells ; its numberless domes and cupolas, 
 gilded, silvered, enameled, — each upholding above 
 the crescent a cross of gold attached by shining 
 chains of filagree work, — and, high in the midst, 
 the strange gateways and battlements and spires 
 of the Kremlin, make up a Christian, Mohammedan, 
 wondrous whole, more impressive for the solitary 
 waste which encircles its grotesque, yet unrivaled 
 splendors. 
 
 The Kremlin is both fortress and altar ; the re- 
 ligious heart of Russia ; the place of her holiest 
 shrines and the deposit of her proudest trophies. 
 About it the streets of Moscow range themselves 
 as those of an English cathedral city do about the 
 minster. Triangular in shape and somewhat over 
 a mile in circumference, it rises on the elevated 
 bank of the Moskwa, quaint, and grand, and inde- 
 scribable. Massive stone walls — now surmounting 
 an elevation, now dipping into a ravine — close it 
 round, irregular, bold, and fanciful in design, pierced
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 37 
 
 by gates and overhung with towers. The most 
 famous of these is the " Redeemer Gate," near the 
 middle of the eastern wall, built by a Milanese the 
 year before the discovery of America. Above it 
 hangs an adored picture of the Redeemer of Smo- 
 lensk, at sight of which (so says tradition) the awe- 
 struck Tartars, in their last invasion, turned away 
 from the fortress, while, a century later, the Poles 
 fled before it Avhen it was borne by Pojarski to the 
 battle-field ; and ever since, for these gracious inter- 
 positions, all who enter, Czar as well as peasant, bare 
 their heads and cross themselves in devotion. Next 
 in importance is the Nicholas Gate, with its picture 
 of St. Nicholas of Mojaisk, who abhors lies, and in 
 face of which, in old days, oaths were administered 
 to contesting parties. Over it is written the proud 
 inscription of Alexander I., that Napoleon's order 
 to destroy this gate w;xs only effectual in cleaving 
 the tower at its base, while neither the glass of the 
 picture nor its hanging lamp were broken. The 
 moat which once encircled the walls is now trans- 
 formed into gardens planted with trees and shrubs 
 and flowers, and thronged with pleasure seekers 
 durinnr the warm evenintfs of the fleetino; summer. 
 Perhaps the best point from which to view tlie
 
 38 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 Kremlin is at its southwestern angle, on the stone 
 bridge across the Moskwa, in the late afternoon. 
 There it rises before you, stately with domes and 
 towers ; defiant with battlements and turrets and 
 lance-like spires ; gay with golden pinnacles and 
 roofs of green and azure, and bearing aloft its glit- 
 tering crosses like lines of fire against the sky. 
 Last summer, in the high Rocky Mountains, before 
 an assemblage of unusual jagged peaks, and bare, 
 regular walls, suddenly the settinii sun broke from 
 the clouds and lit up the whole range with glory. 
 The snow-masses were dazzling in their whiteness ; 
 the ravines lay in blackest shadow ; each crag and 
 splinter was bathed in crimson liglit ; the pines 
 stood in intensest green, and, beyond, many a lofty 
 projecting point shone like a star. Memories of 
 Moscow came vividly back, and, enchanted, I said, 
 " It is the Kremlin of Colorado ! " 
 
 Although St. Petersburg is the residence of the 
 Czars, the most important events of their lives are 
 solemnized in the Kremlin of Moscow ; — crowned 
 in the Cathedral of the Assumption ; wedded in 
 that of the Annunciation ; buried, until the time of 
 Peter the Great, in the Church of the Archangel 
 Michael. The Cathedral of the Assumption is the
 
 V.
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 39 
 
 Russian Holy of Holies, adorned with the oldest 
 and most sacred pictures and containing the tombs 
 of the famous patriarchs who have officiated there. 
 Solidly built of stone, the plainness of its exterior is 
 only relieved by the five golden domes ; but within 
 there is no space which is not covered with paint- 
 ings or mosaics on a gilded ground, — the most 
 precious set with costly gems, — and so unchanged 
 is it by the lapse of time that the most conservative 
 sects of the Orthodox Church can worship here un- 
 disturbed by heretical iimovations. Every Easter, 
 when the huge bell of the adjacent tower sends its 
 summons abroad, they crowd its court-yard and its 
 narrow but lofty nave, and prostrate themselves as 
 before an unpolluted shrine. Through the doors of 
 its silver screen, the Czar at his coronation, after 
 reciting, as Head of the Church, the Orthodox 
 Confession of Faith, and praying for the empire, 
 enters the sacred place and takes the consecrated 
 bread and wine from the altar in the holy com- 
 munion. From this priestly act the doors of every 
 church screen throughout the land bear the title of 
 " Royal." 
 
 Yet, like most Russian cathedrals, its interior is 
 oppressive in its gloom. The incense-laden air.
 
 40 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 tempered by no artificial heat, is always chill. The 
 sun falls obliquely through the high windows, and 
 in the lower dimness the lamps burning before the 
 sacred shrines seem like twinkling stars. There is 
 scarcely light enough to display the patriarchal 
 tombs — the mummied hand of the Metropolitan 
 Philip exposed for the kisses of the devout — the 
 jeweled pictures of the screen behind which no 
 woman is allowed to pass, and which rises, massive 
 and high, as if to bar the soul from more intimate 
 communion. The martyrs stare with hard, fixed 
 features from the square, gilded pillars that uphold 
 the dome, and madonnas and saints, with the same 
 faces here as everywhere from Abo to Odessa (for 
 no departure is allowed from the old Byzantine 
 models), look out meagre and sombre and grim 
 from their imprisoning frames. 
 
 Two thino;s lio-hten the solemn melancholy of 
 the service — the equality of classes, and the music 
 of the chants and responses. Here are no pews or 
 privileged seats, but high and low bow side by side 
 before the altar, the costly furs and velvets and 
 rich shawls of the nobles brushing the worn felt 
 and ragged sheep-skin of the serf. The old Greek 
 chants are employed, rearranged in the last century
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 41 
 
 by Italian masters, but retaining their noble sim- 
 plicity ; wholly vocal, yet so pui-e, so sweet, so 
 harmonious, that they float through the gloom like 
 songs of seraphs ministering to souls in prison. 
 I shall never forget a vesper service in the church 
 of the Kremlin Convent of the Ascension — the 
 devout, silent crowd, the priest in his blue tunic 
 and lono- fair curls makino; the round of the sacred 
 pictures with incense and candles, and the celestial 
 warbling of the nuns in an adjoining chapel, high 
 and clear as if with the sound their souls were ex- 
 haling to heaven ! 
 
 On the site of the old residence of the Czars in 
 the Kremlin, the Emperor Nicholas erected a mar- 
 ble palace crowned with a gilded dome, its white 
 mass conspicuous from every point of view. Its 
 interior is singularly splendid, from the great hall 
 used only for the banquet given by the emperor 
 to the nobles, after his coronation, to the private 
 apai'tments for the royal family during their visits 
 to Moscow. All that remained entire of the old 
 palace was incorporated with the new, the most 
 important relic being the " Red Staircase " leading 
 to the Cathedral of the Assumption, and connected 
 with many notable events in Russian history. It
 
 42 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 was up these stairs Napoleon strode to take posses- 
 sion. Ah, could he but have looked forward fifty 
 years, and seen that the only trace of him there 
 would be the pictures on the walls portraying his 
 defeat! But there was no wizard to give Lochiel 
 a warning. 
 
 In the treasury adjoining, are gathered the tro- 
 phies and mementoes which invading armies and 
 I'avaging fires have left to Russia. Here are the 
 standards of the ancient Czars ; captui'ed colors — 
 the pride of Turkey and Persia — and the banners 
 borne to the conquest of Siberia ; the coronation 
 robes and thrones and crowns and sceptres of the 
 Russian royal line, and those taken from the kings 
 who have submitted to them — of Kazan, of Poland, 
 of Astrakhan, of Georgia — with countless other 
 things illustrative of the past, and valuable for rich- 
 ness of material or association. The Church Treas- 
 ury, in the House of the Holy Synod, close to the 
 Cathedral of the Assumption, is filled with supei'b 
 ecclesiastical relics — robes and mitres thick set with 
 pearls and precious stones, gems engraved with 
 sacred subjects, and worn by bishops on a chain 
 about the neck — and, most interesting of all, the 
 silver vessels for the preparation of the holy oil of
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 43 
 
 baptism, mingled here during Lent by the metro- 
 poHtan and his associate clergy ; composed of the 
 purest wines and oils and spices and balsams, and 
 sent hence to each bishop in the empire. Every 
 church is consecrated with it ; every communicant 
 (and all Orthodox Russians are communicants), 
 from Czar to peasant, is anointed with it in bap- 
 tism. A small, curious flask is still preserved 
 here, in which it is said the first oil was sent to 
 the Russian Church from Constantinople. The 
 soft-voiced monk in black robes, who was in at- 
 tendance, took up this flask with the utmost ven- 
 eration, and told us how every year a few drops 
 were poured from it to sanctify the new chrism, 
 and an equal quantity of the fresh mixture re- 
 turned, so that it remains always full. 
 
 The treasure-rooms of Russia make jewels seem 
 valueless through abundance. You would hardly 
 be surprised if at length you were shown an apart- 
 ment blazing from floor to ceilino; with rubies and 
 diamonds. And these riches are but a part of the 
 wealth and glory of the Kremlin. Every stone has 
 its memories ; every room has its relics ; and all 
 are consecrated to patriotism and to religion.
 
 44 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 Just outside the Redeemer Gate of the Kremlin 
 stands tlie most pictui'esque edifice in Russia, — 
 that conglomerate of rainbow domes and towers, — ■ 
 that tuHp of architecture, — the Church of St. Basil. 
 Erected in the sixteenth century to commemorate 
 the taking of Kazan, it is the wildest dream of a 
 mosque, except that for the light, airy spaces of the 
 Arab structures, there are tlie heavy walls and the 
 gaily-painted, dungeon-like chapels of the Musco- 
 vite north. 
 
 Rivaling the ancient edifices in splendor and in- 
 terest is the Temple of the Saviour, on an elevated 
 position above the river and a little southwest of 
 the Kremlin. Built in memory of Russia's triumph 
 over the French, it was begun the very year of their 
 invasion, and it will be yet some years before its 
 completion. The site originally selected was upon 
 the hills from whence Napoleon had his first view 
 of the city, but the ground was not firm, and it 
 was removed from thence to its present locality. 
 It is constructed of a light stone, in the simplest 
 form of a Greek cross, and — what is rare in a 
 Russian Church, where statues are forbidden, and 
 anything in the form of sculpture is unusual — it is
 
 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 45 
 
 adorned on the exterior, for half its lieight, with 
 well-wrought bas-reliefs of scenes from Scripture 
 and from Russian history, appropriate to the event 
 it celebrates. Its oolJen Oriental domes are far 
 more beautiful than the smoothly rounded ones of 
 St. Isaac's, and the crosses which surmount them 
 are not of the Latin type, but such as are found on 
 the early churches of the Empire, with three trans- 
 verse bars, according to the tradition which makes 
 the cross of Christ to have been fashioned of cedar, 
 and palm, and cypress, and olive. Over the en- 
 trance is the watchword, " God with vis," and 
 within, the Temple is massive with rich marbles, 
 conspicuous among them a dark-veined, lustrous 
 stone from the Crimea. Blent with Christmas cere- 
 monies, how grand will rise beneath this roof, the 
 thankscrivlnffs of the nation for deliverance from 
 the foe ! One might well cross the sea and the 
 steppe to listen here to the words with which the 
 service opens, " How art thou fallen from heaven, 
 O Lucifer, son of the morning ! " 
 
 When we saw the cathedral, workmen were 
 busy quietly fitting and polishing the costly blocks, 
 — tokens of Russia's patriotism and devotion, — and 
 on the grassy space without, bluebells and butter-
 
 46 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 cups nodded in the wind beneath the shadow of the 
 great dome, and the Moskwa rippled cahnly below 
 as if neither invader's foot nor clash of arms had 
 ever disturbed their tranquillity. 
 
 And this is the end of Napoleon in Russia.
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN.
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 O the splendor of the city, 
 
 When the sun is in the west ! 
 Ruddy gold on spire and belfry, 
 
 Gold on Moskwa's placid breast ; 
 Till the twilight soft and sombre 
 
 Falls on wall and street and square, 
 And the domes and towers in shadow 
 
 Stand like silent monks at prayer. 
 
 'Tis the hour for dream and legend : 
 
 Meet me by the Sacred Gate ! 
 We will watch the crowd go by us ; 
 
 We will stories old relate ; 
 Till the bugle of the barracks 
 
 Calls the soldier to repose, 
 And from off the steppe to northward 
 
 Chill the wind of midnight blows. 
 
 1%/rOSCOW is full of interest outside of Krem- 
 
 lin and clnirch and palace. Its situation 
 
 is liio-h and healthful, and its half million inhab- 
 
 itants are spread over an area greater than that of 
 
 4
 
 50 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 any otlier European city except London. It is the 
 lai'gest manufacturing town in Russia, — liaving 
 within its walls and suburbs nearly two hundred 
 factories for the weaving of silk alone, — and when 
 more railways have penetrated the East, it will be 
 the mart of exchange for Europe and Asia. Its 
 nobles follow the court to St. Petersburg. Mer- 
 chant princes are taking their place. 
 
 On reaching the city we established ourselves, 
 after trying the pretentious "Hotel Dusaux," at the 
 house of Mr. Billot, which we found very comforta- 
 ble. The landlord, a gentlemanly Swiss, had what 
 seems to be thought a necessity here, a little place 
 out of town, where he spent every night, returning 
 in the morning with spotless linen, a floAver in his 
 button-hole, and bouquets for the rooms, from his 
 own o-arden. We sometimes dined at the public 
 table to see the varied company assembled there, 
 and had occasionally striking proofs of the union of 
 countries and races, to which the world is tending. 
 One day a man extolled to his neighbor, a London 
 merchant, " the delicious pumpkin pies of New 
 Eno-land." He was a Tyrolese, who had been in 
 this country as the leader of a band of singers, and 
 in the same capacity was then on his way to Nijni.
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 51 
 
 At another time, a Hungarian, who had spent sev- 
 eral years in America as a political exile, narrated 
 a sharp story of a New Hampshire man's evasion 
 of the Maine Liquor Law. It excited such laughter 
 in those who understood it, that he was pressed to 
 repeat it in Russ, which he did, and afterwards in 
 Italian, in French, and in German. Its sly Yankee 
 humor appeared to be as much appreciated by all 
 these people, as it would have been at home. A 
 stout Nuremberger laughed till he seemed on the 
 point of apoplexy, and the Italian cried " Bravo ! " 
 till the ceiling rang. 
 
 From this house, Avhich was near the Kremlin, 
 we explored, at leisure, the city and its suburbs. 
 Nothing can be more entertaining than that laby- 
 rinth of shops, the Great Bazaar, in whose long 
 arcades each trade has its quarter ; none among 
 them more inviting than that devoted to jewelers 
 and silversmiths, whose shelves and counters shine 
 with the ciystals and gems of Siberia and India, and 
 with articles of the exquisite niello work peculiar 
 to the country. At each merchant's right hand 
 was seen a small frame filled with ivory balls, strung 
 on wires, by which he reckoned his accounts, and 
 perhaps standing near it was a glass of tea. Scarce-
 
 52 AWSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 ly less attractive is the Riadi, an open bazaar, the 
 centre of the traffic in wax tapers, sacred pictures, 
 and the lamps which burn before them. When 
 one remembers that no Russian room, whether in 
 hut or palace or place of public resort, is complete 
 without its holy picture hung high in the farthest 
 corner, it explains these piles upon piles of Madon- 
 nas and heaps of saints and apostles, framed in 
 every form and fashion to suit varying tastes and 
 means. Then there is the Fair held on Sundays 
 in the street, — the bazaar of the poorest classes, 
 where every variety of trash spread over rude 
 tables or upon mats on the ground, finds a market, 
 and where, if you mingle with the crowd, you must 
 be careful not to press too near to the peasants lest 
 you should take home with you some of the vermin 
 of which their greasy sheep-skin coats are often 
 full ; for the batli that must always precede their 
 church communion, does not extend to their clothes, 
 which are worn without washing, night and day, 
 for months and perhaps years, until they become 
 rags, and are exchanged for new. 
 
 The tea-houses with their white-robed attend- 
 ants who serve the delicate overland tea — to the 
 ladies in cups, to the gentlemen in deep glass turn-
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 58 
 
 biers — with a slice of lemon dropped into it instead 
 of cream, are a novel feature of the city. To these 
 quiet tables, with their fragrant beverage, come 
 friends for genial talk ; buyers and sellers to con- 
 summate their bargains ; civilians and soldiers to 
 discuss politics and promotion, and all classes for 
 recreation and cheer. The finest tea here costs 
 about ten dollars a pound, and a leaf or two will 
 make a full cup. When drawn it is of a faint 
 amber color and has a delicious aroma. Hot tea is 
 sold about the streets in winter as lemonade is in 
 summer. When sugar is used it is not dropped into 
 the cup or glass, but the lump is held in the hand 
 and a bite taken now and then — an inconvenient 
 way, for the fine-grained, solid beet-root sugar is as 
 hard as a stone. 
 
 Most of the Tartars here are in a menial condition 
 and employed as coachmen and servants. Manv 
 families are, however, of mingled Tartar and Rus- 
 sian blood. Several of the churches in the city 
 might seem to have been reared for the worship of 
 *' the Faithful" if only on the swelling domes the 
 crescent replaced the cross, and from the high towers 
 the bells were removed to make way for the muez- 
 zin calling to prayer. But the rule of the Prophet
 
 54 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 is over. There is but a single mosque, at the ex 
 tremity of the city — a poor, plain affair where the 
 few Mohammedans gather meekly to their devotions, 
 in mockery of the day when the Duke of Muscovy 
 went forth to meet tlie Tartar ambassadors, spread- 
 ing a mat of rich sables for their feet, presenting 
 them with a goblet of mare's milk, — the wine of 
 the Mongol steppes, — and humbly licking up tjie 
 drops that fell on the manes of their fiery horses ! 
 
 The great Foundling Hospital, established by 
 Catherine II., has, as one source of its revenue, the 
 profits derived from the government manufacture 
 of playing cards — no inconsiderable sum, for card- 
 playing is almost universal. The girls brought up 
 here are, at a proper age, shown on certain days to 
 visitors. Five kopecks a week are laid up by the 
 state as their dowry. They are often pleasing and 
 well educated, and are frequently chosen for wives 
 by the lesser merchants, as they have no trouble- 
 some relations. 
 
 Yet neither cathedral nor bazaar nor hospital 
 has more charms for the stranger than the out-door 
 life of the city. The streets are of varying width ; 
 crooked, paved with sharp, flinty stones, and lined 
 with buildings of every style of architecture.
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 55 
 
 Clmrclies, palaces, and the pink or yellow white- 
 washed cottages of peasants are jumbled together, 
 and from whatever point you look some picturesque 
 group of domes and towers delights the eye, or 
 perchance down the vista you catch a glimpse of 
 the Kremlin wall. Through these avenues pours 
 the varied population. Princes pass in their swift 
 carriages, and perhaps the Metropolitan, hidden in 
 his stately coach drawn bj'' sleek ' black horses of 
 noble breed: merchants dash bv in their droskies — 
 men, it may be, of enormous wealth, and whose 
 transactions are now with Paris and now with 
 Pekin ; drays and country carts lumber along, 
 driven by peasants with wide trousers tucked into 
 hiah boots, or tied with a strino; — their feet en- 
 cased in shoes made of plaited reeds or strips of 
 lime-tree bark — a blouse-like shirt of pink calico 
 (why, with their florid faces, they should choose 
 ])ink, I cannot understand) over the trousers, con- 
 fined at the waist bv a sash or a belt of leather, 
 and above this, unless in heat of noon, a wrappei' 
 of sheep-skin reaching below the knees — while 
 often there is no coverino: for the head but the 
 yellow, matted hair, bound with a fillet and falling 
 low on the shoulders as the full beard falls on the
 
 56 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 breast. In the open spaces stand the coachmen 
 with their veliicles waitino; to be hired — dressed in 
 low, broad-crowned, black hats ; long caftans of 
 dark cloth fittino; close about the neck but without 
 a collar, padded at the hips, double in front and 
 fastened under the left arm with six metal buttons ; 
 while their thick white gloves, when not in use, are 
 secured by the thumbs to their girdles. Men carry 
 about buckets filled with salted cucumbers, selling 
 them, one by one, to the peasant crowd as a relish 
 for their black bread, which they eat as they go. 
 At the churches and the street shrines of the Vir- 
 gin, passers-by make the sign of the cross and eyen 
 prostrate themselves in their reverence. Nurses 
 appear clad in the Russian national costume — a 
 white under-garment, rather low in the neck, with 
 full, short sleeves ; a dark skirt gathered into a 
 band just above the bosom and suspended by straps 
 over the shoulders, and a belt about the waist from 
 which depends a long white apron. Earrings and a 
 necklace of beads are worn, and on the head a high, 
 turban-like cap of some bright color. This striking 
 but rather formless attire, seems now to be given 
 over to nurses, and court ladies for state occasions, 
 when the head-dress blazes with jewels. Mer-
 
 w 
 
 O 
 
 CO
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 57 
 
 chants' clerks, when not busy, may be seen sitting 
 in the shop doors playing chess or dominoes and 
 perhaps holding a pet cat the while. Loads of 
 birch wood go by, sold at twenty rubles a cord — 
 a large sum for the peasants ; but a little wood 
 lasts them long, as their brick ovens are not al- 
 lowed to cool and air is excluded. Soldiers con- 
 scious and unbending in their uniforms are always 
 in view, and the dark faces of Gypsies, Tartars, 
 Persians, and Jews are a pleasant relief after 
 the fair monotony of the average Russians. Why 
 is it that the men of the Slavonic family are so 
 much comelier than the women ? Handsome men 
 abound, and doubtless there are lovely, graceful 
 women here, but they are rarely visible in church, 
 or street, or bazaar. I saw only one or two who 
 could be called beautiful, but they showed the possi- 
 bilities of the race — dainty creatures with the lily 
 complexion, blue eyes, and blonde hair, which we 
 ascribe to angels ; tlie type, perhaps, of the An- 
 astasias and Natalies whom the early Czars chose 
 out of all the land to share their throne. The 
 women of the lower classes, with their flat features, 
 and hair and eyes and skin of much the same hue, 
 have ordinarily nothing but an honest, good-natured
 
 58 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 expression to redeem their round faces from positive 
 ugliness. They wear loose boots, short skirts, long 
 sacques of wadded cloth or sheep-skin, tie a thick 
 handkerchief over their heads, and at a little dis- 
 tance look so much like men that you can hardly 
 tell whether you are gazing at Ivan or Nadia. 
 
 These shifting scenes through the day ; but if at 
 dawn a trumpet blast should wake you, and, rising, 
 you should look from your window, you would see 
 a different sight, — a mournful procession threading 
 the yet quiet streets, — first a mounted police officer, 
 then a trumpeter, then a company of soldiers, and 
 lastly a high cart drawn by four horses abreast, and 
 on its top, in convict garb, a criminal who is to be 
 thus exposed for three successive mornings and then 
 set out on his long journey to Siberia. They round 
 the corner ; the brazen notes ring out again ; the 
 Cossacks close their line and the poor wretch hangs 
 his head as he disappears. Melancholy as is the 
 scene, let us remember that exile to Siberia is not 
 now the terrible fate it was in former days, and 
 that death on the gallows, so common with us, is 
 unknown in Russia except as the penalty of high 
 treason. 
 
 In the suburbs of Moscow are various ornamen-
 
 MOSCOW BEYOND TEE KREMLIN. 59 
 
 tal gardens, to which the people resort, especially 
 on Sundays; for Sunday, after morning church, is a 
 holiday, the Russians, both men and women, smok- 
 ing cigarettes, sipping tea, and playing cards, of 
 which they are passionately fond ; the Germans, 
 and there are many here, drinking beer, smoking 
 their pipes, or listening to the music of an orchestra, 
 or to the singing of some band of Tyrolese or 
 Gvpsies. We even saw them one day sitting be- 
 neath their umbrellas in a chill, misty rain, and 
 drinking in the sweet sounds as complacently as if 
 they had been by the sunny Rhine. These gar- 
 dens are kept with care, and every shrub and tree 
 is cultivated which the climate favors. There are 
 trim hedges, plots of bright flowers, lindens and 
 elms and locusts ; and if you do not look beyond to 
 see the native forests — the sombre firs and thin 
 birches that stretch away to the horizon — you will 
 hardly credit your high latitude. 
 
 I know not which is the more beautiful city, 
 Constantinople as you approach it from the Sea of 
 Marmora, or Moscow from the Sparrow Hills. The 
 one rises from the Avater's edge, its white minarets 
 melting into the blue sky of the south ; the other 
 towers and flashes from the northern plain. About
 
 60 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 
 
 the Turkish capital cluster the storied hills of Eu- 
 rope and Asia ; around that of Muscovy the river 
 winds like a line of enchantment, and the lofty 
 domed monasteries on its borders stand like sen- 
 tinels keeping watch over the sacred shrines. I 
 know not ; but had I one drop of Russian blood in 
 my veins, Moscow should be to me Queen of the 
 World !
 
 MOSCOW BELLS.
 
 MOSCOW BELLS. 
 
 That distant chime ! As soft it swells, 
 
 What memories o'er me steal! 
 A"-ain I hear the Moscow bells 
 
 Across the moorland peal ! 
 The bells that rock the Kremlin tower 
 
 Like a strong wind, to and fro, — 
 Silver sweet in its topmost bower, 
 
 And fhe thunder's boom below. 
 
 They say that oft at Easter dawn 
 
 When all the world is fair, 
 God's angels out of heaven are drawn 
 
 To list the music there. 
 And while the rose-clouds with the breeze 
 
 Drift onward, — like a dream, 
 High in the ether's pearly seas 
 
 Their radiant faces gleam. 
 
 O when some Merlin witli his spells 
 
 A new delight would bring, 
 Say : I will hear the Moscow bells 
 
 Across the moorland ring I
 
 64 MOSCOW BELLS. 
 
 The bells that rock the Kremlin tower 
 
 Like a strong wind, to and fro, — 
 Silver sweet in its topmost bower. 
 
 And the thunder's boom below I 
 
 T OFTIEST of all the structures in Moscow Is 
 the Tower of John the Great, near to the Ca- 
 thedral of the Assumption. Erected just before tiie 
 incoming of the Romanoff' dynasty, it looks solid 
 enough to send its peals down the centuries and 
 welcome the latest sovereicrn of the line. Its base- 
 ment is a chapel dedicated to St. John, over which 
 rises story aft^r story filled with bells, the largest 
 weighing sixty-four tons — nearly five times the 
 weight of the great bell of England, at York Min- 
 ster, yet only half that of tlie " Czar Kolokol," the 
 broken bell which rests on a granite pedestal at the 
 foot of the tower. The smallest two are of silver, 
 most sweet, most musical ; and above them expands 
 the golden dome, its crowning cross nearly three 
 hundred feet in air. From whatever point one 
 views the city this tower rises proud, majestic, the 
 central figure of the Kremlin. The peasants re- 
 gard it with reverential awe, and when, at impor- 
 tant festivals of the Church, its huge bell, like the 
 discharge of artillery, booms over the plain, they
 
 TOWER OK .lOIlN TIIK <;KKAT
 
 MOSCOW BELLS. 65 
 
 listen to it as to the voice of God. At Easter all 
 the bells are rung in unison, making the earth 
 tremble and burdening the air with their rich 
 volume of sound. " Christ is risen I " thunders 
 the lowest bell, grand and solemn as a call to 
 judgment. " Christ is risen ! " repeats each story 
 with its peculiar harmony and power. " Christ is 
 risen ! " echoes, like an angel's song, from the sil- 
 ver tongues beneath the dome. 
 
 Ah, what wild music must the bells of Moscow 
 have made at the burning of the city ! Rung at 
 first in dread alarm, and then as the town was 
 abandoned to its fate, answering with a dull sound 
 the stroke of falling timbers, and at the crash of 
 the steeples plunging with weird, woeful knell into 
 the fiery death below I 
 
 Russia, through its whole extent, is the land of 
 bells. Every church and monastery and convent 
 has its tower, where they hang, in number and size 
 proportioned to the wealth of the community. The 
 church or relicious house is the most attractive 
 feature of the landscape in northern and central 
 Russia, and the bells are the life and joy of the 
 parish. Over the dark forests, across the dreary 
 plains, by the still lakes, along the winding rivers,
 
 66 MOSCOW BELLS. 
 
 they send their harmonious peals, gladdening and 
 elevating the soul. The peasant crosses himself as 
 he listens, and believes that the saints are near and 
 heaven awaits him yonder. 
 
 Tliere are no chimes, however, nor are the bells 
 rung as elsewhere ; they are stationary, and the 
 tongue is struck against the side, — the larger bells 
 requiring for this the united efforts of several men. 
 One feast morning, in Moscow, we saw in a low, 
 open church-tower a man ringing half a dozen bells 
 at once by ropes in his hands and attached to his 
 arms. By the peculiar tolling of the larger bells, 
 and the clang when all are struck together, the 
 worshippers know to what service they are called 
 and when it will begin. Full clashes of bells often 
 introduce and conclude special ceremonies and sol- 
 emn moments in the mass. There are no wedding 
 peals nor tolling bells for ordinary funerals, as in 
 many places with us ; but the great bell tolls when 
 a priest dies, and all are rung with tremendous 
 clamor while an archbishop enters or leaves a place 
 in his diocese. All the larger bells are ornamented 
 with bas-reliefs, with arabesque figures, with sacred 
 texts, and with an inscription relating to the date 
 of their casting and the church for which they are
 
 MOSCOyV BELLS. 67 
 
 intended. As they are raised to the belfry they 
 are sprinkled with holy water, and prayers are read 
 and hvmns sung to consecrate them to their ofBce. 
 
 Woe to the souls hovering in this sky of the north 
 if there be truth in the Moslem fancy that the ring- 
 ing of bells disturbs their repose ! Over the land 
 they call with multitudinous tongues, and the chill, 
 pure air vibrates unceasingly to their utterance of 
 pathos or of power. I have heard — 
 
 " The bells of Shandcn 
 Tliat sound so grand on 
 The pleasant waters of the lliver Lee ; " 
 
 the curfew from the towers of Canterbury; the 
 wondrous bell of the cathedral at Lyons, and those 
 that swing in the sunny campaniles along the Medi- 
 terranean ; the chimes of Burgos, and the mourn- 
 ful notes from the belfries of the old Jesuit missions 
 in California ; but as I write their tones die away, 
 and before me rise the domes of Russia — gold 
 against the pale azure of her sky — while from their 
 depths resound those sonorous peals that fill the 
 blue vault with harmony and float in fainter music 
 to the far horizon. Nay, were I to frame an oath 
 of grand and melodious sounds, I would say. By 
 the thunder of the Kremlin tower, and the sweet- 
 ness of the bells of Valdai !
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY.
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY. 
 
 O sacred Troitsal when the skies 
 
 Of morn are blue I lift my eyes 
 
 To see again in azure air 
 
 Thy starry domes and turrets fair, 
 
 And to hear from thy gray cathedral walla 
 
 The chanted hymn as it swells and falls. 
 
 Then with the pilgrim train I wait 
 
 And enter, glad, thy wide-flung gate, 
 
 To drink of St. Sergius' holy well 
 
 That heals the griefs no soul may tell. 
 
 Or kneel with them at his wondrous shrine. 
 
 His staff and his simple robe beside, — 
 And trace on my breast the mystic sign, 
 
 And pray for the peace of the glorified I 
 
 Then fade thy towers ; the music dies ; 
 Above me are my native skies, 
 Blue and clear in the August morn, 
 Over the pines and the rustling corn,
 
 72 TROITSA MONASTERY. 
 
 With a song from brook and breeze and bird 
 Sweet as the hymn in thy cloisters heard, — 
 And I know the fields are a shrine as fair, 
 For the Lord of the saints is here as there I 
 
 /^NE bright morning we went l)y rail from Mos- 
 cow forty miles north to the Troitsa (Trinity) 
 Monastery. This monastery, founded in the four- 
 teenth century by the devout hermit St. Sergius, is 
 the most sacred shrine in Russia. The first struc- 
 ture was taken and destroyed by the Mongols, but 
 it was at once built up again, and since, though 
 often besieged, neither Tartars nor Poles nor 
 French have been able to overcome it ; plague and 
 cholera have never ventured within its walls ; but, 
 " strong in the Lord," it has been the refuge of 
 Czar and prince in time of trouble, and " the gates 
 of hell (say the Russians) could not prevail against 
 it." The way thither lies through the great color- 
 less plain which encircles Moscow, — colorless ex- 
 cept for the fir woods and the occasional grain fields, 
 — and as the train moved slowly over it, stopping 
 at every few versts for relays of pilgrims, it was 
 natural to think of the vast influence this and kin- 
 dred establishments have had upon the nation. 
 When Vladimir accepted the God of the Greeks,
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY. 73 
 
 priests and pictures and manuscripts and relics were 
 brought at once from Constantinople and Mount 
 Athos to Kieff, and convents and monasteries were 
 founded after the fashion of the East. Great privi- 
 leges were granted to the priests, and even under 
 the Tartar conquerors they were exempt from all 
 tribute and service. Enormous sums were be 
 queathed to them that the givers might be sure ol 
 salvation, and most of the princes of the race of 
 Rurik clothed themselves for death in the monkish 
 habit that they might be at once received to heaven. 
 Russia was filled with religious houses — shrines 
 for the devotion of a simple, superstitious people — 
 and the inmates wearing the black robes of the 
 Greeks, and inheriting their manners, their tradi- 
 tions, and their pride, looked, and look to this day, 
 with a patronizing, half-contemptuous air upon the 
 secular clergy who marry, and who perform all the 
 lowly, social offices of religion. These parish 
 priests, called the White Clergy to distinguish 
 them from the Black Clergy, the monks, rarely 
 receive a salary of more than three hundred ru- 
 bles, — usually it is much less, — and were it not for 
 the garden and field attached to their houses, the 
 gifts they receive from the peasants, and the small
 
 74 TROITSA MONASTERY. 
 
 fees for weddings, baptisms, and sacrament certifi- 
 cates, their lot would be hard indeed. Yet " happy 
 as a priest's wife " is a proverb here, for a priest 
 can marry but once, nor can a widower officiate, so 
 that when the wife dies the husband must drop 
 back into the world or take monastic vows. (In- 
 deed, for all Orthodox Russians only the first mar- 
 riage is made easy. A second marriage necessitates 
 two years absence from Holy Communion ; a third, . 
 five years ; and a fourth marriage cannot take 
 place. Not the Emperor nor the Metropolitan can 
 authorize the latter.) The high officers of the 
 Church, the bishops, the archbishops, the metro- 
 politans, are almost without exception taken from 
 the Black Clergy; and the Holy Synod in which 
 the Patriarchate was merged by Peter the Great, 
 consists of twelve of these dignitaries presided over 
 by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. This synod 
 decides all ecclesiastical questions, but the Emperor, 
 as head of the Church, must sanction their decrees 
 before they are valid. It is monks who instruct 
 the priests in theology, and who are the directors 
 and inspectors of academies and colleges and uni- 
 versities. There has long been dissatisfaction on 
 the part of the priests at their subordinate position^
 
 I'lm.AKin', I.ATK METliOl'OLITAX OK MOSCOW AM) 
 AKCin.MA.NDIllTK OK TIIOIT.-^A.
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY. 75 
 
 out the system has remained unchanged because 
 nothino- could be pubhshed about Church matters 
 which had not been approved by the bishop of the 
 diocese. Under Alexander II., however, there is 
 far more liberty of opinion and expression, and it is 
 evident that his sympathies are with the six hun- 
 dred thousand parish priests, rather than with the 
 ten thousand monks. Two years ago, when Phila- 
 ret, Metropolitan of Moscow, died, he appointed to 
 the place Innocent, a priest who had become emi- 
 nent by his labors in Siberia, and who, though his 
 wife was dead, refused to become a monk, declaring 
 that it was " a custom rather than a canon of the 
 Church." The monks were horrified, but the more 
 intelligent among the people applauded. Since 
 then another married priest has been made rector 
 of the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg. 
 As in the Latin Church, the rule of the monks 
 begins to wane. 
 
 But, through the belief in miracles entertained 
 by the masses of the people, and a reverence foi 
 that spirit of renunciation which is supposed to in 
 duce men to make their home in the cloister and 
 the desert, the monasteries are still stately and rich 
 and strong. The largest have a yearly income of
 
 76 TROITSA MONASTERY. 
 
 half a million rubles derived from the state, from 
 their mills and gardens and fisheries, and still more 
 fi*om the public. Great sums are paid them for the 
 privilege of burial within the walls, for masses said 
 in remembrance of the dead, and for intercessory 
 prayers for the living. Over a certain extent of 
 the country about them they have the right of 
 soliciting alms and of putting up boxes to receive 
 contributions. In every station of the Moscow and 
 St. Petersburg railway there is a box belonging to 
 the Troitsa monastery, and its income from this 
 source has reached two hundred thousand rubles. 
 To the monasteries belong most of the famous relics 
 and miracle-working pictures; they are, therefore, 
 the resort of numberless pilgrims, who bring gifts or 
 purchase something made by the monks — a cross, 
 a carved spoon, tapers, and loaves of bread stamped 
 with a sacred text. They gain much money also 
 for the loan of these venerated pictures to a city 
 where an epidemic prevails, or even to private 
 families in which there is severe sickness. It is 
 said that in Moscow, during the last cholera visita- 
 tion, one such picture obtained nearly thirty thou- 
 sand rubles. There are no Mendicant Friars in 
 Russia. All the monks have a life of comfort if not
 
 TR0IT8A MONASTERY. 77 
 
 of ease, and to many of the monasteries villas are 
 attached where the superiors, and perhaps the 
 whole body, pass the summer. 
 
 A gleam of domes on a high plateau ; a sharp 
 outline of towers against the sky ; and Troitsa rose 
 before us, a second Kremlin, lordly in the illimit- 
 able waste. 
 
 Leaving the train we found ourselves in the 
 midst of a throng of pilgrims setting towards the 
 gates — the counterpart of those devout Russians 
 whom, a few months before, we had seen at the 
 shrines of the Holy Land ; old men with flowing 
 beards and leaning on staves, some well attired, 
 some in rags, but all apparently forgetful of every- 
 thing but the sanctuary they approached j women 
 with the same meek faces their sisters bore to 
 Bethlehem and to the sepulchre, and in whose 
 coarse pehsses and dark handkerchiefs tied beneath 
 the chin, not the least vanity or coquetry could be 
 discerned. Crossing themselves, they passed under 
 the arch ; the strangers from the West followed, 
 and all were within the sacred inclosure. 
 
 The massive walls of Troitsa are nearly a mile 
 in circumference, and surmounted by a cloistered
 
 78 TROITSA MONASTERY. 
 
 walk, with towers at their eight angles. Within 
 their circuit, besides the buildings of the mon- 
 astery proper, there are ten churches, the prin 
 cipal of which is the cathedral, where lies St. 
 Sergius shrined in massive silver. Service was 
 progressing there, and we made our way to the 
 door, but could hardly enter for the crowd — a 
 crowd as dense and varied in character as that 
 which fills the Cathedral of the Assumption at 
 Moscotv. The chants and the responses of the 
 priests came faintly down to us from the altar, 
 and the fragrant incense was lost in the vile odor 
 of sheep-skins and leather and cabbage exhaled by 
 the peasants, among whom we were wedged. Re- 
 treating, we gained the open court again, and sat 
 down upon the steps of one of the churches where 
 we could command a view of the whole scene. 
 
 O, the wondrous beauty of the domes ! I had 
 been enchanted with their Oriental form and color 
 from our first sight of Russia, but here they were 
 transfigured, and, blue, with golden stars, they 
 lifted themselves above the towers and spires, and 
 lay against the clear, soft sky, like azure blossoms 
 unfolding in ethereal air. Their loveliness enrap- 
 tured me, lifted me heavenward like a burst of
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY. 79 
 
 Boul-stirring music at midnight — like the first per- 
 fect day of spring, when all the buds are swelling, 
 and blue-birds sway and sing in the elms — and it 
 seemed as though any prayer uttered within their 
 charmed circle would be granted. When I think 
 of the New Jerusalem, its temples rise with 
 domes like those of Troitsa that summer morn- 
 ing ! 
 
 Presently service was over and forth came the 
 worshippers. Some of them were evidently peo- 
 ple of high degree, but by far the larger number 
 were the poorest of the poor — peasants and men- 
 dicants who had, perhaps, begged their way from 
 the remotest provinces of the empire to gain the 
 blessing of the Saint. A Russian devotee of the 
 extremest class is twin brother to a dervish. He 
 may be more sincere and earnest in his nobler 
 faith than the Mohammedan ; but, in his filthy 
 rags, in his ignorant and slavish adherence to 
 forms and traditions, and in the glory he esteems 
 it to scorn all worldly decencies and delights, he 
 is the same. As I looked about and saw these 
 abject creatures prostrating themselves, making the 
 sign of the cross and drinking the water of the 
 holy well discovered by St. Sergius, as if each
 
 80 TROITSA MONASTERY. 
 
 drop were an assurance of salvation, I thought, 
 should a being from a loftier sphere poise himself 
 in the blue above and watch them at their devo- 
 tions, and then wing his flight to Mecca and see 
 the ceremonies around the Caaba and the well 
 Zem-Zem, he would be at a loss which to con- 
 demn most deeply for fanaticism and superstition. 
 Yet, so reverent were they in feature and atti- 
 tude, so apparently forgetful of all but God and 
 the shrine, that the pity with which I regarded 
 them was mingled with sympathetic admiration. 
 Perhaps the Mongol Khan of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, whom St. Louis of France hoped to convert 
 to Christianity through the agency of his monk, 
 Rubruquis, had seen religion take this questionable 
 shape among his Western neighbors, and it was 
 therefore he replied to the envoy : " The Mongols 
 are not ignorant of the existence of a God, and 
 they love Him with all their hearts. There are 
 as many and more ways of being saved than there 
 are fingers on your hands. If God has given you 
 the Bible, he has given us the Magi. Do you go 
 your way and w^e will go ours." 
 
 After visiting the sacristy, which is only inferior 
 in treasures to that of Moscow, and ascending the
 
 jsxBjmt^ 
 
 A MENDICANT
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY. 81 
 
 tower to see the huge bell that could almost sum- 
 mon the province to prayer ; after quaffing the clear 
 water of the moss-grown M'ell, and filling our hands 
 with the little articles which the monks made haste 
 to sell and the pilgrims to buy; with lingering looks 
 at the domes, we passed under the arched gateway 
 and trod again on common ground. 
 
 At a little distance from the monastery, and on 
 the borders of a still, dark lake, is the Convent of 
 Gethsemane, and near it are catacombs for the her- 
 mits of the Church. We drove thither through the 
 fir woods and found the convent a plain log struc- 
 ture under the strictest rule. 
 
 Could it be that this forest was the home of an- 
 chorites ? We asked to see their subterranean 
 abodes, and forthwith a monk, giving each of us a 
 lighted taper, and crossing himself and repeating 
 some form of prayer, opened a small door and beck- 
 oned us to follow him down the dark stairs beyond. 
 If it were not that before me lies the half consumed 
 taper which I brought away as a memento, the 
 whole would seem to me now like a feverish dream. 
 On we went till we reached a gallery lower than 
 the lake, and where the walls were wet with its 
 unwholesome damp. Out of it opened doors bound
 
 82 TROirSA MONASTERY. 
 
 with iron bands, and above them small grated win- 
 tlows — the doors and windows of cells. At its 
 extremity was a small chapel finished with brass. 
 Daily service is held here, but it was then over and 
 the lamp burned dimly before the solitary shrine. 
 
 Beside the chapel was a miraculous well. The 
 monk stooped down, and dipping up some of the 
 water o-ave it to us to taste as if it had been a cup 
 of nectar. The only miracle about it is that in that 
 low, saturated soil the water does not rise and drown 
 chapel and hermit together. 
 
 As we turned back, we asked to see one of the 
 cells. The monk replied that there was one which 
 its occupant had left for an hour, and, crossing him- 
 self, he undid tlie fastenings and bid us enter. It 
 was a tomb in shape and size. A narrow slab with 
 a dark blanket on it served for a bed. In one cor- 
 ner was an image of the Virgin with a small lamp 
 burning before it. On a shelf against the wall lay 
 an old leather-covered book that looked as though 
 it mio-ht have come with the first monk from Mount 
 Athos, and beside it hung a coarse black robe. 
 All that indicated comfort was a tiny stove with a 
 Httle pile of wood, at the foot of the bed. What 
 would the early recluses of Kieff have said to a
 
 TROITSA MONASTERY. 83 
 
 stove ? This poor furniture left just room enough 
 to turn in, and the air was so heavy and sickly 
 that the lamp burned blue, and breathing was 
 difficult. Yet here a man, made in the image of 
 God, had immured himself, and was slowly com- 
 mitting suicide that he mio;ht win heaven ! 
 
 Faint, from that atmosphere of the grave, we 
 hastened to the upper day. How glorious seemed 
 the soft blue sky and the sun flooding with his 
 golden beams the still lake and the fir woods, where 
 a light wind made music with the boughs I Ah, 
 thought I, if Christ, in whose name this monstrous 
 service is rendered, could walk the earth again, 
 how would He knock at that iron door and cry, 
 " Come forth, O thou that art as dead ! Neither 
 in dungeons nor yet at Jerusalem shall ye wor- 
 ship the Father, but in spirit and in truth. Away 
 with this mockery of holiness, and take thy place 
 among his nobler saints in the bright, working 
 world ! "
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNI.
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 
 
 Now, by the Tower of Babel, 
 
 Was ever such a crowd V 
 Here Turks and Jews and G)'i)sies, 
 
 There Persians haughty browed ; 
 With silken-robed Celestials, 
 
 And Frenchmen from the Seine, 
 And Khivans and Bokhariotes — 
 
 Heirs of the Oxus plain. 
 
 Here stalk Siberian hunters ; 
 
 There tents a Kirghiz clan 
 By mournful-eyed Armenians 
 
 From wave-girt Astrakhan ; 
 And Russ and Pole and Tartar, 
 
 And mounted Cossack proud — ■ 
 Now, by the Tower of Babel, 
 
 Was ever such a crowd 't 
 
 "VTEARS ago, when tliere was but a post-ruad 
 from Moscow to Nijni Novgorod, encamp- 
 ments of Cossacks were stationed all the way to
 
 88 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 
 
 protect merchants, going to and fro, from robbers 
 and wolves. Now the train moves swiftly and 
 quietly to its destination, and the brigands have fled 
 to the provinces beyond the Volga, where as yet 
 the whistle of the engine is unheard. 
 
 The great Fair had been open for a fortnight, 
 when, by the night express, we left Moscow to visit 
 it. The cars were filled with people journeying 
 thither — traders and sight-seers from various lands. 
 The only town of importance through which we 
 passed was Vladimir ; but in the darker night of 
 the waning summer we only saw its lofty cathedral 
 tower, dim against the northern sky. The region 
 is one of the richest agricultural districts in Russia, 
 but there was the same monotonous level until, at 
 ten o'clock the next morning, Nijni rose before us, 
 crownino: with its Kremlin a bold bluff at the con- 
 fluence of the Volga and the Oka — a bluff that 
 seemed a mountain after the flatness of the plain. 
 
 From the station we drove at once to the Hotel 
 Russie, in the old town, where we had fortunately 
 secured rooms a week previous. This large hotel 
 was a fair in itself. The first floor opened on to 
 the street, where a throng of vehicles of all sorts 
 was constantly arriving and departing. The next
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 89 
 
 floor was given up to dining-rooms, in which you 
 iniffht see all the costumes and hear all the Ian- 
 guages of Europe. Here, too, was an apartment 
 where tanks of running water, bordered by grow- 
 ing: ferns and flowers, were filled with the famous 
 sterlet of the Volga, swimming at ease, and ready 
 to be served up at any moment to the epicurean 
 guest. This fish is a small species of sturgeon, 
 more dehcate than the salmon in tint and flavor, 
 and sent from its native rivers to all the cities of the 
 Continent. Above were the bed-chambers with 
 floors of wood or of brick ; uncarpeted, but airy 
 and comfortable. 
 
 Breakfast over, we walked up the steep, narrow 
 ravine behind the house to the top of the bluff. 
 Here is the old town. At our right was the Kremlin 
 with its massive white-washed walls, thirty feet in 
 height, within which are the arsenal, the barracks, 
 the governor's house, and the cathedral where 
 lies buried Minin, the peasant patriot of Nijni, who 
 early in the seventeenth century roused Russia to 
 free herself from the Poles. Two hundred years 
 later, during the French invasion, his battle-flag 
 was unfurled again and carried at the head of the 
 army to inspire the people. His name is still a
 
 90 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 
 
 watchword of loyalty. A noble obelisk stands here 
 to perpetuatQ his fame, and the finest monument of 
 Moscow, modeled in enduring bronze, represents 
 him clad in his peasant's blouse, standing in a com- 
 manding attitude and calling upon Prince Pojarski 
 to rise and go forth with him for the i-edemption of 
 their common country. 
 
 At the foot of the bluff was modern Nijni, crowd- 
 ing up to the Oka, here as large as the Volga, and 
 so covered with all sorts of craft that it seemed but 
 an extension of the town. Across it was a bridge 
 of boats leading to the tongue of land between the 
 two rivers on which are the streets of shops and 
 bazaars that make up the city of the Fair. Beyond 
 were the broad meadows, dotted with liay-stacks 
 and stretching away to the horizon — a great allu- 
 vial plain enriched by the yearly inundations of the 
 Volga, which rolls its royal tide through their midst, 
 and deigns to receive the Oka, on its way to the 
 Caspian. For natural beauty there is no such view 
 in Northern and Central Russia as this from the 
 Kremlin of Nijni. Below us were the hurrying 
 crowds of two continents ; and taking a last look 
 at the striking landscape, we descended to mingle 
 with them and see the interior of this gigantic ex- 
 chancre.
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 91 
 
 Since tlie middle of the fourteenth century a fair 
 has been held at Nijni, or in the neighborhood. 
 For some time it was fixed at Makarief, a place 
 farther down the Volga, and it is still known to the 
 Central Asiatics as the Fair of Miikaria. The pro- 
 ductions of the West come here by railway ; those 
 of the East bv the old channels of sledge and barge 
 and caravan — indeed, some Asiatic travellers 
 spend all the rest of the year in going to and fro. 
 Nijni of itself lias some forty thousand inhabitants. 
 Durincr the Fair it often counts two hundred thou- 
 sand. The number present at any one time is still 
 calculated by the amount of bread sold by the 
 bakers, and perhaps a million different persons visit 
 it during the two months of its continuance; while 
 goods to the value of a hundred millions of rubles 
 are bousht and sold. Under Alexander I., the low, 
 marshy point of land between the two rivers was 
 prepared for building with as much care as was the 
 swamp of the Neva for the erection of St. Peters- 
 burg. Beneath each street is a great sewer built ot 
 stone and cleansed several times a day by streams 
 of water from the river. At regular intervals are 
 small white towers containing staircases for descent 
 into the sewers, which are under the care of Cos-
 
 92 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 
 
 sacks. Around all is a canal, and, for further secu- 
 rity against fire, a fine of twenty-five rubles is 
 imposed for smoking anywhere except in these 
 underground apartments. Along the streets are 
 the bazaars containing several thousand stalls filled 
 with the lighter and more fanciful articles of mer- 
 chandise, while the heavy goods are disposed in 
 sheds and booths, or on boats and barges, or heaped 
 upon matting on the ground. 
 
 At the door of the hotel we took droskies for the 
 Fair, a mile away. The street was filled with peo- 
 ple on foot, and with carriages and drays and carts 
 of every description going back and forth ; and as 
 we whirled down the steep slope that leads to the 
 bridge over the Oka, the crowd was so great that 
 it was with difficulty we could make our way. 
 Cossacks, as mounted police, with flashing eyes, and 
 fiery horses which they sat like centaurs, were rid- 
 ing up and down ; and, what with the strange cos- 
 tumes and languages, the blinding dust which the 
 rising wind swept through the air, and the hum 
 from the boats on the river, we began to under- 
 stand what is meant by the Fair of Nijni. 
 
 Opposite the bridge and in the centre of the 
 bazaar, is the house occupied by the governor dur-
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 93 
 
 ing the Fair. From its top floated the Russian flag, 
 while from the small church near, built by the 
 merchants to commemorate the Czar's escape from 
 the murderer Karokozoff, waved the Oriental 
 banners of the Fair proper. Beneath the gov 
 ernor's house we entered the bazaars, the first de- 
 voted mainly to articles of dress and personal 
 adornment. Here, each in his stall filled with 
 shelves and cases covered with glass, the traders 
 displayed their wares. First were Russians from 
 beyond the Oural with various stones cut at the 
 Works at Ekaterineburg, or by the artisans at their 
 homes with a foot-lathe, in the evenings or on holi- 
 days ; brooches and buttons and seals of perfect 
 malachite, that vivid green overspread with mys- 
 terious figures which made it the favorite amulet of 
 antiquity ; crystals of amethyst, violet enough to 
 be still a charm against wine ; and of aqua-marine, 
 with a clear sea tint in shade or sun ; and of topaz, 
 from the pale yellow to the orange-brown ; — beauti- 
 ful crems which it is a shame for fashion to discard 
 — and rose tourmalines, fair enough to be set in 
 diamonds; and pure white crystals, cut into globes 
 for necklaces, or wrought into twelve-sided seals 
 engraved with the signs of the zodiac ; transparent
 
 94 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 
 
 as the cups the luxurious Romau emperors brought 
 from India to be used on their feast-days, and cool 
 as the balls these same voluptuaries gave the dainty 
 Lollias and Julias to hold in their hands during the 
 heats of summer ; and, rarest of all, paper-weights 
 where upon a base of jasper were grouped the half- 
 precious stones of Siberia, fashioned into fruit and 
 leaves. Near by Avere men of Khorassan and 
 Bokhara with ornaments and slender bars of lapis- 
 lazuli, and turquoises from the old mine of Nishft- 
 pur stuck by the dozen into rolls of wax ; while 
 over ao;ainst them stood Prussians from the Baltic 
 with amber for the Chinese to burn as fragrant in- 
 cense before their sods. Then came Persians from 
 the south shore of the Caspian, displaying carpets 
 and shawls and cashmeres — handsome, dark- 
 bearded men clad in caftans of their own silk 
 trimmed with gilt bands, and speaking French 
 with ease to Europeans. From some of the stalls 
 Armenians looked out with sad, and Jews with 
 eager eyes ; while, beyond, were men of every race 
 between Nijni and the Atlantic, with the varied 
 fabrics and small wares of their respective coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Of course Russian manufactures were in the
 
 
 /'-^^/^/^' ^d£iMl* 
 
 
 y. 
 
 ^ >• ; \ . 1
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNL 95 
 
 ascendant. Here were piles of the silks and satins 
 and tissues of Moscow, some of them woven with 
 eold and silver threads to suit the markets of the 
 East, and heaps of printed cloths, gay-colored, for 
 the same buyers ; elegant articles of silver and of 
 leather; cutlery from Tula, and stores of samovars 
 (tea-urns), which no family, however poor, can do 
 without; wooden trunks bound with bands of brass 
 or iron, the bureau of the peasant and the recepta- 
 cle for the humble trousseau of the bride on her 
 wedding-day ; while among heavier things were 
 stacks of boxes filled with beet-root sugar from cen- 
 tral Russia, and long lines of kegs of caviare from 
 the sturgeon fisheries of the Volga, the Kama, and 
 the Oural. 
 
 Many of the Russian mercha!its here belonged 
 formeily to the serf class, and by law the credit 
 allowed them was limited to five rubles, but, on 
 the security of their word alone, large sums were 
 annually intrusted to them, for which they were 
 expected to make large returns. Now, thanks to 
 the enlightened wisdom of the present Emperor, 
 they trade in tlieir own right, and pay tribute to no 
 master. Some of them were men of noble mien 
 and of rare business ability, able to hold high place 
 in any commercial centre of the world.
 
 96 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 
 
 To this Fair crowd all the light trades and pro- 
 fessions, — theatrical companies, bands of Tyrolese 
 and Gypsies, fortune-tellers, showmen of every 
 kind, peddlers, beggars by the hundred, from the 
 black-robed monk soliciting alms for his monastery 
 in the name of St. George or St. Sergius, to the 
 wretched creature in tattered sheep-skin, who puts 
 out his withered hand for a kopeck. Beyond the 
 bazaars are restaurants, concert and dancing halls, 
 rooms of meeting for merchants, and a multitude 
 of small inns and tea-houses. 
 
 What we saw of the Fair at our first visit be- 
 longed largely to Europe. The next day we went 
 farther, and found Asia.
 
 ASIA AT NIJNI.
 
 ASIA AT NIJNI. 
 
 Give me a melon of Khiva, 
 
 Luscious and round and yellow — 
 It 's mate for the Lord of China 
 
 Hardly so fair and mellow — 
 And place on the tray beside it, 
 
 Worthy of sheikh or khan, 
 Peaches tliat grew in the gardens 
 
 Of the golden Zerefshan. 
 
 And a cup of Flowery Pekoe — 
 
 Tea of the mandarins — 
 Gathered in dewy morning. 
 
 Just when the spring begins. 
 (Keep for the peasant and Tartar, 
 
 The bowls of the dark Bohea 
 Plucked when the heats of summer 
 
 With rank leaves load the tree.) 
 
 Ah, what ravishing flavors ! 
 
 Not the wine of the Rhine, 
 Not of Tokay, nor the nectar 
 
 Won from the Cyprian vine,
 
 100 ASIA AT NI.JNT. 
 
 Nor Sicily's oranges rarest, 
 
 Nor sweetest figs of Dalm.it ia, 
 Rival the Flowery Pekoe 
 
 And the spicy melons of Asia ! 
 
 ri iHE most important article of merchandise at 
 Nijni is tea. Of the fifteen million pounds of fine 
 quality brought to Russia through Kiachta, some 
 goes direct to Moscow, but the larger part finds its 
 Avaj to the Fair, whence it is distributed over the 
 empire. Piled up in the warehouses were thou- 
 sands of packages about two feet square — frames 
 covered with skins in which the precious contents 
 had come securely on boats and camels and sledges 
 to Perm, and thence down the Kama and up the 
 Volga to Nijni. 
 
 Over the whole Russian Empire and Central 
 Asia tea is the universal drink and luxuiy. Here 
 was the delicate green tea for the dainty Moslems 
 of the cities who would sip it in the booths, between 
 their prayers, and when the effusion was exhausted, 
 eat the leaves, holdinfj them between the thumb 
 and finger ; and brick tea for the mass of the peo- 
 ple, and for the Kirghiz and Kalmuck rovers of the 
 steppe — the refuse of the tea-crop, pressed into 
 solid cakes, and in the towns mixed with milk and
 
 ASIA AT NIJNL 101 
 
 drank from bowls into which bread is dipped the 
 while, and in the nomad yourts boiled in great caul- 
 drons and seasoned with mutton fat and salt and 
 parched millet, or whatever the inmates may have 
 to make it more nutritious ; while if they be Kal- 
 mucks, before any of the family fills his Chinese 
 wooden bowl a spoonful or two will be thrown to 
 the four winds for the gods. Then there was the 
 great bulk of teas for Russia proper, — those pure 
 black teas raised in northern China and brought 
 fresh and unimpaired to the market ; teas some of 
 which are sold at twelve rubles the pound ; almost 
 colorless when drawn, but possessing an exquisite 
 flavor and bouquet, and stirring the blood like wine. 
 Here, too, was rhubarb, of 'which China sends an- 
 nually through Kiachta some half million pounds ; 
 and silk in curious bales, and robes embroidered in 
 brilliant hues. But few Chinese merchants were 
 seen, Russians and Tartars saving them the long 
 journey. 
 
 Next to tea the most important article of traffic 
 here is the iron of Siberia. Under a raile-lono; cral- 
 lery by the rivei', and even upon a sand-bank which 
 the falling waters had left bare, it was heaped up 
 in every form from solid burs and sheets and rails
 
 102 ASIA AT NIJNI. 
 
 to cauldrons for the wandering tribes, and small 
 household utensils for the cabins of the peasants. 
 Still skirting the river were warehouses filled with 
 cotton ; pyramids of mill-stones from the Oural ; 
 great piles of rags collected from every quarter for 
 the paper-makers (think what the rags of eastern 
 Europe and Asia must be !) ; with hides from the 
 steppes, and grain from the productive fields of the 
 South. 
 
 Most attractive was the store of furs, from the 
 coarse, despised wolf-skin which you could buy for 
 a handful of kopeks, to the tiny, fine, glossy sable, 
 trophy of the skill and daring of some native hun- 
 ter on Lake Baikal or the Amoor ; valued now at 
 two hundred rubles arid likely to be purchased to 
 deck the robe of some proud Osmanli at Constan- 
 tinople, — for sables, like diamonds, are prized the 
 world over, and captivate alike the Chinese manda- 
 rin, the Turkish pasha, the European prince, and 
 the luxurious American. Near to these were felts 
 both fine and coarse, for hats and blankets and win- 
 ter boots ; and vugs of Siberian wool for carpets and 
 sledge-covers. At a little distance a broad space 
 was covered with timber from beyond the Oural, 
 which had floated hither in rafts and barges ; and,
 
 ASTA AT NIJNI. 103 
 
 close to the water, lying in piles on the ground or 
 waitino- to be removed from the boats, were tons of 
 dried fish from the Caspian and the lower Volga — 
 principal food of the poorer classes during the 
 Church fasts which occupy one third of the year. 
 
 A large and growing trade with Khiva, Bokhara, 
 and Khokand centres at Nijni. Peter the Great 
 saw the importance of these oases in the Tartar 
 desert, and opened roads from the lower Volga to 
 the Oxus which remain in use to this day. From 
 five to six thousand camels are employed in the 
 caravans which leave Bokhara during the spring for 
 different points on the Russian frontier, especially 
 Orenburg distant eleven hundred miles, and where 
 they arrive in two months' time. From thence 
 their goods are transported to the Volga, by which 
 they reach Nijni. 
 
 And what do they bring to the Slavonian mart, 
 these Moslems of " the noble Bokhara " and its 
 sister states ? 
 
 Wheat and barley and rice from their irrigated 
 fields ; silk and cotton in bales, the latter of fine 
 quality but not wholly free from seeds, which are 
 laboriously separated from the fibre by the fingers 
 of the women ; sheep-skins and countless bales of
 
 104 ASIA AT NIJNI. 
 
 wool, both of goats and of sheep ; the jet-black, 
 curly lamb-skins of Karakool which are only pro- 
 duced in a small tei'ritory between Bokhara and 
 the Oxus, and wliich, like rare furs, always com- 
 mand their price in gold. The handsomest go to 
 Teheran and Constantinople, and the black, white, 
 and gray skins, which make the hats of ordinarj' 
 Persians and Tartars, as well as most of those 
 which under the name of " Astrakhan " o-o to Eu- 
 rope and America, are quite inferior, and from a 
 different locality. Then there are striped and em- 
 broidered kalats from Khiva — garments cut like 
 dressing-gowns and highly prized by the Tartars 
 of Russia ; and gay silken shawls and handker- 
 chiefs of the soft, loosely woven fabrics of Bokhai'a. 
 Their dried fruits are unrivaled — peaches, grapes 
 and apricots from the gardens of the Jaxartes and 
 the Zerefshan ; and, if it be in season, melons from 
 the banks of the Oxus — those delicious green and 
 yellow Urgendji melons whose fame has gone even 
 to Pekin, where they are sometimes sent as a gift to 
 the emperor, and which, in Russia, are often ex- 
 changed for their bulk in sugar when sugar is bar- 
 tered at a ruble a pound. 
 
 A part of this Asiatic merchandise is sold for
 
 ASIA AT NIJNI. 105 
 
 money, but most of It is exchanged for manufac 
 tured articles at great profit to the Russians ; for 
 irpn kettles, cutlery, large copper samovars, jew- 
 elry, coral beads and various trinkets ; leather for 
 water skins, broadcloth, white muslins, chintzes, 
 velvet, gold thread for embroidery, bright colored 
 shawls and ribbons, thread, and sugar, — but neither 
 guns nor ammunition, for Russia will not furnish 
 these to her turbulent neighbors. The goods are 
 dispatched from Nijni to Orenburg, and early in 
 November the caravans set out on their return 
 journey. 
 
 Most of the Kirghizes who conduct them stay on 
 the frontier, but here and there in the throng 
 was one dark and stalwart, with bright eyes, flat 
 and almost beardless face, and clumsy motions ; 
 wearing a felt cap, a shabby kalat girt about the 
 loins, and full trousers thrust into rough boots, who 
 surveyed the scene with the wondering curiosity of 
 a chihl. Possibly he had no errand there but to 
 see the Franks ; more likely he had brought for sale 
 some of the sturdy horses of the steppe. As I 
 looked at these men and thought of the long march 
 they would soon begin across the desert wastes with 
 their infrequent, brackish springs; exposed to the
 
 106 ASIA AT NIJNI. 
 
 mirage that shines but to betray, to the sand-storms 
 with their suffocating breath, to the terrible snow- 
 hurricanes that blind and overwhelm, and, yet 
 worse, to the fierce attacks of plundering Turko- 
 mans, their heavy Mongol forms and faces were in- 
 vested with a kind of heroic dignity, and I would 
 fain have spoken to them in their rude Tui'kish 
 tongue, and bid them God speed on their perilous 
 way. 
 
 There is another manufacture here to which 
 these nomads contribute. Those piles of boxes 
 filled with stearlne candles are the product of the 
 tallow of their sheep, which in flocks of many 
 thousands they drive across the steppes to the 
 Siberian frontier, and from thence to Ekaterine- 
 burg, where they are killed and converted into 
 tallow. 
 
 Along the miles of wharves were many Tartars 
 carrying merchandise to and from the boats and 
 the shore — now bars and sheets of iron from the 
 Oural ; now rolls of leather from Kazan ; now 
 bales of the cotton of Khiva ; now skins filled with 
 wine from the vineyards of Tiflis ; now sacks of 
 madder from Bokhara. Some were clad in caftans 
 of blue cotton, some in coats of sheep-skin, witli
 
 ASIA AT NIJNI. 107 
 
 turbans on their heads, or hats of light felt, or caps 
 with a rim of fur. The more devout among them 
 said their prayers daily in the mosque which rises 
 beside the Armenian chapel and tlie handsome 
 Russian church beyond the bazaars, and they 
 formed part of the multitude that slept every 
 night on the barges and boats of the rivers. 
 
 At evening the city was given up to diversion. 
 Myriad lights gleamed through the streets and 
 along the Oka, whose placid waters reflected dis- 
 tinctly every object upon the shore. Colored lan- 
 terns lent their glow to the grounds; music and 
 the hum of voices filled the air, but there was no 
 open rioting or confusion ; the police were every- 
 where ; the Cossacks paced slowly up and down 
 the bridge, and in momentary lulls the peeping 
 of frogs was heard, showing that civilization has 
 not yet wholly reclaimed the ancient marsh. 
 
 The citv was given up to diversion, but mainly 
 for Europeans. The Asiatics keep here the prim- 
 itive customs of Bokhara and the steppe ; and, 
 when night fell, they lay down to rest by their 
 bales, or crept into boats and barges, or stretched 
 themselves on mats along the ground, and slept 
 like children, oblivious of care, and at one with 
 destiny.
 
 108 ASIA AT NIJNI. 
 
 From this throncf of various nations two indi- 
 viduals come vividly to mind : the one, a Bokha- 
 riot, vthom we saw repeatedly near the Oriental 
 stalls, an observer rather than an actor — his Tar 
 tar features softened into a noble, serene melan 
 choly — the dignity of an emir in the poise of his 
 turbaned head — and, as he surveyed the bustling 
 Europeans, his thoughts busy, I fancied, with the 
 wanincr fortunes of his race. The other was a 
 young Russian girl belonging to. a band of singers, 
 whose office it was to solicit money from the by- 
 standers when the songs were done. It was evi- 
 dently new work for her. Her face was like a 
 spring flower, fair and sweet, and she blushed and 
 trembled as she held out her hand, — a woman 
 who should have been shrined in some happy 
 home, instead of being the gaze of restaurant and 
 saloon. How fares the Tartar by the distant 
 Oxus ? And what fate has overtaken the inno- 
 cent maiden ? 
 
 The Fair of Nijni is an institution for Asia, and 
 will endure and grow until better means of com- 
 munication throw open the interior of that vast 
 continent to the commerce of the world. Now, 
 from the Oural to the Pacific, it is through the
 
 ASIA AT NT.TNI. 109 
 
 medium of caravans ninl fnirs that business is 
 transacted ; and croods are bartered ratlier than 
 sold. The hunter on tlie Amoor gives liis sables 
 and fox-skins; the Kirghiz his flocks and herds; 
 and the Tartar of the south his fruit and silk and 
 cotton for the products of Europe. Nay, even 
 the nomads of remote and thinly populated dis- 
 tricts have their fairs of the steppe, to which they 
 repair on hoiseback, dressed in their best, and 
 gravely bargain for a few trifles, returning Avith 
 them to their tents. Rut o;ra dually, as intercourse 
 becomes freer, this state of things will pass away. 
 With every year the West gains upon the East. 
 Deserts and mountains are no longer impassable 
 barriers. Ah-eady Russia is planning a railway 
 across Siberia, and another from the Caspian to 
 the Aral Sea; and the day will come when the 
 great Fair of Nijni will be as much a thing of 
 the past, as is that wonder of naturalists, the mam- 
 moth of the Lena.
 
 KAZAN.
 
 KAZAN. 
 
 Kazan looks down from the Volga wall, 
 
 Brio-lit in the darkest weather ; 
 And the Christian chime and the Moslem call 
 
 Sound from her towers together. 
 
 Shrine of the Golden Horde was she ; 
 
 Boast of the proud Bokhara ; 
 And her fame was wafted over the sea, 
 
 And sung in the far Sahara. 
 
 Woe to her Faith and her turbaned Lord ! 
 
 The Cross and the Russ were stronger ; 
 Her splendors now are the Czar's reward, 
 
 And her lOians are kings no longer ! 
 
 Yet still she looks from the Volga wall, 
 
 Bri"-ht in the darkest weather ; 
 And the Christian chime and the Moslem call 
 
 Sound from her towers together. 
 
 ■\TTITH the novelty and interest of the Fair 
 unexhausted, we left Nijni for Kazan, three 
 hundred miles east. A furious wind was blowing, 
 8
 
 114 KAZAN. 
 
 as under tlie hhAi bluff of the old town we wound 
 along the rouglily paved street to the Volga side 
 — a wind that filled the air with clouds of sand, 
 obscuring the view, and recalling the story of 
 the hurricane which rao-ed at Moscow when the 
 pretender, Dimitri, approached the Kremlin ; an 
 awful blast whose whirling dust enveloped the 
 false Czar and his attendants, and made the peo- 
 ple, stricken with suspicious terror at the sight, 
 cross themselves and cry out, " God keep us from 
 harm ! " 
 
 It was one of the boats of the " Volga and Cas- 
 pian Steamship) Company " in which we had taken 
 passage, and we were no sooner on board than she 
 was under way. Several hundred steamers plj^ 
 the Volo-a between Tver and Astrakhan, beo;in- 
 ning with those of very light draught for the uppei 
 stream, and growing larger as the river deepens. 
 They have neither saloon nor state-room on deck, 
 but, below, a cabin and a small apartment for 
 ladies. Our captain was one of that race of born 
 sailors, a Finn, and spoke tolerable English, which 
 he had picked up on a voyage he once made to 
 New York. We were the only " first-class " pas- 
 sengers, and our meals were daintily served in 
 the ladies' cabin.
 
 KAZAN. 115 
 
 The Volga, at Nijni, is about three fourths of 
 a mile wide, and as its average fall is but a little 
 over three inches to the mile, it flows with a calm, 
 equable current until it loses itself in the Caspian, 
 eiglity feet below the level of the ocean. In win- 
 ter it is a sledge-road, a mass of ice from the 
 Valdai Hills to Astrakhan ; in summer, covered 
 with countless boats that carry the products of the 
 East and South to St. Petersburg and the Baltic. 
 A little below Nijni the bold bluff slopes rapidly 
 to the water, and thenceforth, throughout its whole 
 extent, the banks are comparatively low and mo- 
 notonous. 
 
 The wild wind had brought an autumn rain, 
 fine and chill. The region through which we 
 passed is very productive, yet, bare of harvests 
 and baked in the summer sun, it presented little 
 of interest as seen from the deck through the 
 storm. Now and then large barges passed us 
 towed by steamers, and loaded with dried fish 
 from Astrakhan, which, at a little distance, re- 
 sembled piles of wood. At night the boat an- 
 chored near the shore, and we made ourselves as 
 comfortable as we might upon the divans and 
 cushions of the cabin — beds and bedding being 
 things unknown on the boats of the Volga.
 
 116 KAZAN. 
 
 Mornino- found the rain still fallinor ; the shores 
 flat and noteless; and laden boats and barges beat- 
 ing up the gray, slow-moving river. A little 
 after noon the clouds began to give place to clear 
 kies, and at three o'clock, we reached a small 
 settlement on the left bank, and saw, crowning a 
 hiffh rido;e, the domes and towers of Kazan. 
 
 This Tartar city, capital of the kingdom founded 
 in the middle of the thirteenth century by Batu 
 Khan, grandson of the great Ghengis, derives its 
 name, so says one of its own historians, from the 
 golden kettle (kazan) wliich a servant of the first 
 Khan let fall into the little river, Kazanka, when 
 dipping up water for his thirsty master. By this 
 hill the fierce Golden Horde halted in their advance 
 from the East, and laid the foundations of a lordly 
 state. Behind them was Asia, already theirs ; be- 
 fore them Europe, trembling at their approach. 
 On their fleet horses they overran Muscovy, plun- 
 dering and despoiling as they went ; and it was 
 gravely proposed in a council of their rulers, to 
 destroy every town and city of the Unbelievers, 
 and turn the whole land into a pasture for their 
 flocks ! But Mohammed was not to reign in Russia. 
 After centuries of fear and oppression and war.
 
 KAZAN. 117 
 
 John the Terrible, the last powerful sovereign of 
 
 the race of Rurik, besieged Kazan and took it by 
 
 springing a mine beneath the walls. The Tartars 
 
 made a heroic resistance ; and hard and cruel as 
 
 this monarch was, and miserably as his people had 
 
 suffered, he is said to have wept when he forced 
 
 the gates and saw the heaps of dead bodies that 
 
 blocked the streets and courts of the beleaguered 
 
 city. A few years later, the Tartar kingdom of 
 
 Astrakhan yielded to his arms, and thenceforth 
 
 those who remained of these dark-eyed followers 
 
 of the Prophet were humble subjects of the Czars. 
 
 We took droskies at the river side and drove up 
 
 the long ascent to the town. The broad, sandy, 
 
 uneven road was filled with vehicles going to and 
 
 fro, — droskies and carts laden with merchandise, 
 
 most of them driven by Tartars in white felt hats, 
 
 sheep-skin coats, high boots, and wide trousers. On 
 
 our left was a huge pyramidal monument of stone 
 
 to the memory of the Muscovites who fell in the 
 
 sieo-e. Few buildings were to be seen, for the 
 
 Volga sometimes makes a lake of the whole space 
 
 between the shore and the iiill. Reaching the 
 
 summit, we turned into the broad street, lined with 
 
 bazaars and stately buildings, which runs along its
 
 118 KAZAN. 
 
 brow, and were soon at liome in a spacious new 
 hotel kept by a Finn, whose beds were more luxu- 
 rious and whose table more inviting than any we 
 found afterwards in Russia. 
 
 An hour's repose and we went forth to see the 
 town. At the crest of the hill, on the ruins of the 
 old Tartar fortifications, the Russians have built 
 their Kremlin, — one massive gateway still standing 
 of the city of the Khans. Within the walls is the 
 cathedral, begun soon after the siege, and to com- 
 memorate the victory ; and near by is the convent, 
 of a little later date, in whose chapel is a copy of 
 the miraculous picture of the Virgin now shrined 
 in the Kazan Church at St. Petersburg. The 
 chapel copy wears a crown of diamonds, the gift 
 of the Empress Catherine. The face is perhaps 
 the most pleasing one of all the Virgins of the 
 Church, and under the name of " Our Lady of 
 Kazan," it is adored from the White Sea to the 
 Euxine. Service was progressing as we stood in 
 the chapel, and the space before the altar wasJilled 
 with nuns in high close caps, and long black veils, 
 while on the wall behind them was painted a hor- 
 rible representation of the torments of hell, — yel- 
 low wreathing flames, into -which devils with shar[i
 
 !||a^^ 
 
 mi 
 
 
 
 sil'iU-'^, 
 
 
 ' ' ■ :'r ■ r-.r-- 
 
 I'lTi 
 
 ■,' , '■■ ■ ■ '- 
 
 
 s'xISil;:: 
 
 "?5^!ffflRf^.ll[v^l^''' 
 
 OUK 1-ADY OF KAZAN.
 
 KAZAN. 119 
 
 forks were thrusting the condemned. If this was 
 their thouglit of the future, and only the Church 
 could save, the wonder was, not that the Sisters 
 were so many, but rather that any woman of Kazan 
 was left in the outside world. After prayers we 
 went into the convent, an ancient building in whose 
 unadorned rooms the younger nuns were embroid- 
 erins sacred banners and vestments, with crowns 
 and crosses and wreaths of flowers, in bright floss 
 and thread of gold and silver. Their fair, broad 
 faces wore an anxious look, and they bent over 
 their frames as if each stitch made them surer of 
 heaven. The afternoon sun looked in at the high, 
 uncurtained windows ; the swelling domes of the 
 cathedral shone in the upper blue ; but not one 
 raised her eyes from her work, or spoke above her 
 breath in reply to the directions of her teacher; 
 and it was with a sigh of compassion that I stepped 
 over the worn threshold into the free air. 
 
 From her commanding height Kazan looks al- 
 ways towards Asia. The trade of Siberia pours 
 throuo-h her streets. Her manufactures of cloth 
 and leather and silk and soap, go east rather than 
 west for a market. Her university gives special 
 attention to Oriental languages and literature ; nay.
 
 120 KAZAN. 
 
 nearly one fifth of her seventy thousand inhab- 
 itants are of Tartar race and creed, and turn to 
 Bokhara rather than to St. Petersburg for guidance 
 and inspiration. 
 
 Below the crest of the hill is a narrow sheet of 
 water, the Kaiban Lake. On its shores is the work- 
 inof town of shops and factories, and beyond is the 
 Tartar quarter, into which we drove in the late 
 afternoon. It was difficult to believe we were in 
 cold and Orthodox Russia. The houses wore the 
 colors of Damascus ; minarets rose before us tipped 
 with upright, glittering crescents attached by a 
 sincrle horn ; doo;s with the true bark and bound of 
 Stamboul rushed forth as we passed ; fat, rosy 
 children, in queer ca))s and trousers, peeped from 
 the courts ; a solitary woman went by, attired in a 
 lono- robe, and drawino; her shawl over her face like 
 a veil, so that only one eye was free to regard the 
 strangers ; the shoemakers' shops were filled with 
 boots and slippers of bright morocco leather, some 
 of them gayly worked with gold ; the merchants 
 w^aited with Cairene indifference our pleasure to 
 buv ; and, to complete the illusion, from a near 
 minaret came the cry, " To prayer ! to prayer ! 
 There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his
 
 KAZAN. 121 
 
 Prophet ! " We had just come from a Russian 
 church, whose woi'shippers crossed themselves de- 
 voutly before the image of Our Lady of Kazan ; 
 and as the Tartars, without shrine or picture, ad- 
 dressed their prayers to the one God, I saw how, 
 from their point of view, they might call their 
 Christian neighbors idolaters, and scorn to yield the 
 Faith pf their fathers. 
 
 Quiet, but alien, these people dwell among the 
 Russians. Has a vouth among them a studious 
 turn ? He goes to the colleo;es of Bokhara. 
 Would one see the world? He journeys to Con- 
 stantinople ; possibly to the holy cities of Arabia. 
 The West and the Franks have no part in their 
 love or their ambition. As a race they are comely. 
 Robust in form without being stout, their motions 
 are easy and of a certain dignity ; their complex- 
 ions are dark and fresh, their features regular, their 
 eyes of black or grayisj^-blue shaded by heavy 
 lashes, and in them there is often a patient sadness 
 that belongs not to their blood, but is born of their 
 fortunes and the resignation taught by their relig- 
 ion. Their lives are simple and frugal. They ai'e 
 all tauo;ht in their own schools to read and write 
 and cast accounts, and their honesty and sobriety
 
 122 KAZAN. 
 
 make tliem sought as servants, clerks, and crafts 
 men. In the country they are small farmers, and 
 almost every house has its hives of bees. Wine 
 being forbidden, they make of their honey a kind 
 of mead, and prepare their tea like the Tartars of 
 the steppe. Their unleavened cakes still bake 
 upon the hearth like those Sarah kneaded for the 
 angels, and their greatest delicacy is parched corn 
 — perhaps the same which Boaz gave to Ruth — 
 boiled in milk or fried in butter. All delight in 
 tobacco, and as there are no Wahabee Zelators 
 near to scent its odor and bring them to trial, their 
 pipes are always in use or worn at their girdles. 
 Few of them cumber their dwellings with beds or 
 chairs. The cushioned divan, or the bench spread 
 with mats of felt, suits them better than all the 
 elaborate upholstery of Europe. Proud of their 
 race and their traditions, they cling fondly to the 
 past; and although the Government has established 
 churches and schools among them whose services 
 and instructions are in their own tongue, they hear 
 the mass and learn the lessons, but are as far from 
 conversion as ever. Yet they must be affected by 
 the life and progress of the nation, and doubtless 
 with every year they will grow more like their 
 conquerors.
 
 KAZAN. 123 
 
 On our way back to the hotel we drove a few 
 versts east of the city to see a spot whose pictu- 
 resque, woody ravmes have gained it the name of 
 the Russian Switzerland. It was a ridge hke that 
 upon which Kazan is built, but tree-covered and 
 broken into miniature hills and valleys. From its 
 crest we looked over the broad country beyond — 
 a rolling region, with few habitations visible ; here 
 and there a thick grove, perhaps of the oaks of this 
 province carefully preserved by the Government for 
 ship-building ; while about us, and crowning lower 
 slopes, were forests of white birches growing strong 
 and tall as in their native air ; best of trees to the 
 Russian — their bark tanning his leather, their leaves 
 giving him a yellow dye, their sap furnishing him a 
 kind of wine, their wood making his household 
 utensils, and as dried splinters and fuel supplying 
 him with candles and saving him from the rigors of 
 
 winter. 
 
 A golden glow suffused the landscape, and turn- 
 ing west again we saw the sun go down in splendor 
 with an orb above it, a second sun. A chill wind 
 sprang up, tossing the thin foliage of the birch 
 trees, sighing through the pines, and dying away in 
 mournful murmurs on the horizon of Asia. The
 
 X24 KAZAN. 
 
 sunset glory faded, and in its room appeared a 
 cloud tliat spread rosy wings and floated like a 
 britTlit bird over the dark and sluggish river. 
 
 Ali'ditino- in the wide, modern street, Russian 
 officers erect and haughty, went to and fro; Rus- 
 sian ladies, in the costumes of Paris, drove or saun- 
 tered by ; the roll of the evening drum came from 
 the barracks, and there was nothing but the name 
 to remind us that we were in the city of the 
 Khans.
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA.
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 Did you say serf, sir? serf! there's not one 
 Living to-day in the light of our sun 1 
 Russians, free Russians, we all of us are, 
 From Osip and Michael, my boys, to the Czar 1 
 
 This cabin is old, but the garden is mine; 
 And mine are these fields, and that forest of pine ; 
 "Wlien I will I can build me a house strong and good 
 With logs of my own I shall hew in the wood. 
 
 O could my poor father but dwell by my side ! 
 He toiled all his days for a master, and died 
 So worn and so hopeless, he told me that morn 
 He wished T and Esper had never been born. 
 
 One year, and God gave us our glorious Czar! — 
 How strange seems that servitude now, and how far — 
 On my wall hangs his picture full facing the sun, 
 With the cross on his breast, in the Caucasus won;
 
 128 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 From Moscow it came witli its wide, gilded rim ; — 
 Wilt enter and see it, sir? Daylight grows dim 
 Here under the fir trees, and yonder I see 
 Osip and Michael stand waiting for me. 
 
 XN a larger boat we reembarked tlie next morning. 
 The deck was crowded with soldiers goino; to 
 distant barracks, and with Tartars, reclining, after 
 the fashion of the East, upon mats of felt or skin, 
 but we were still the only occupants of the saloon. 
 The sky, though cloudless, had a grayish hue, and 
 a strong cold wind blew with uninterrupted fury 
 from the north — the sirocco of the Pole. The low 
 banks were occasionally varied by bluffs covered 
 with trees, but sometimes for miles together the 
 widening river hardly allowed us a ghmpse inland. 
 At intervals a church with its glittering dome rose 
 to view, making the Russians cross themselves 
 devoutly and the Tartars relapse into still deeper 
 apathy ; or we passed a serf village, always the 
 same assemblage of barn-like huts before the dreary 
 background of interminable pines. 
 
 I never could look at them without picturing the 
 life within, — the cracks in the walls stuffed with 
 moss, the low smoky ceiling, the table and benches 
 fashioned with a hatchet, the chest containing the
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 129 
 
 few family treasures, the bowls and spoons of birch 
 wood which serve for the cabbage soups and the 
 fish stews of the fast-days, the steaming foul air 
 of the long winter nights when all the family, 
 wrapped in their garments of sheep-skin or coarse 
 woolen cloth, lie huddled together on the top of the 
 great brick stove or its adjoining shelf, \vhile per- 
 haps a calf or a pig is shut in a pen below. So, 
 during the snows of winter, the wandering Kir- 
 ghizes of the plains crowd their felt-covered yourts, 
 and in summer both alike take to the ground and 
 ask only the shelter of the sky. The peasants 
 have a proverb, " With plenty of bread it is para- 
 dise under the pines," and I always ended by trust- 
 ing they had at least an abundance of food, and 
 remembering that a better day has, dawned for 
 
 them. 
 
 An isolated cabin was rarely seen. Drifting 
 snows, the great uninhabitetl spaces between the 
 towns, the wolves and bears which infest some re- 
 gions, and a feeling of individual weakness born 
 of their long social degradation, combine to keep 
 the peasants massed in villages. A deeper cause, 
 perhaps, is their Oriental love of patriarchal rule 
 and tribal association. 
 
 9
 
 130 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 Wlien at the close of the sixteenth century serf- 
 dom was introduced, it was perhaps a necessary- 
 evil. For more than two hundred years the Tar- 
 tars had ravaged the country, and through their 
 tyranny and example the nation was in danger of 
 becomino; nomadic. The cities were thnmsed and 
 there was a constant migration of northern peasants 
 to the warm plains of the South. Serfdom, making 
 them stationary, insured quiet and the cultivation 
 of the soil. But what woes it brought to the poor 
 rustic, forced to toil without hope of change on the 
 field where he was born, with flocro-iiiil or banish- 
 ment as the penalty of his lord's displeasure ; to 
 whom the law allowed only a credit of five 
 rubles, and who, in some provinces, was obliged 
 even to yield his bride, on her wedding night, to 
 the pleasure of his master! Happily humanity is 
 often better than its institutions. Of course there 
 were here and there* indulgent proprietors whose 
 serfs engaged in enterprises of their own and won 
 wealth and name and fame, but these were the 
 I'are exceptions. In general, if a serf accumulated 
 a little monev he dared not let it be known ; and 
 nothino; is more common than to find such secreted 
 coins buried in the o-i'ow'id of old hamlets. No
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 131 
 
 wonder the brave, philanthropic Alexander II. on 
 cominff to the throne made it his first care to re- 
 move these burdens that pressed so heavily on half 
 of his subjects. Yet so great was the fear of a re- 
 turn to wandering habits that, though the serf be- 
 came at once personally free, the process of acquir- 
 ing land was to be gradual ; and to induce him to 
 remain where he was, upon his payment to the 
 pi'oprietor of one fifth of the sum required for seven 
 acres of land, the Government paid the remaining 
 four fifths, charging him six per cent, interest upon 
 the loan for forty-nine years. In addition to this, 
 he could not leave the community without forfeit- 
 inor his right to the common lands. There is no 
 lonsrer solicitude regarding; the effect of the change. 
 Already under this arrangement three fourths of 
 the former serfs are land-owners, and there is con- 
 stant improvement in their manner of living. They 
 have the faults and vices of a subject race, but, 
 with them, qualities of a noble manhood which 
 education and opportunity will display. Ignorant 
 and intoxicated with the idea of liberty, at first 
 many of them were idle, and, like children, 
 thoughtless of the future. A gentleman of Moscow 
 told me this story of his experience in the province 
 of old Novgorod two years after the emancipation.
 
 132 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 " I had contracted with the inhabitants of a cer- 
 tain village to furnish a large quantity of wood cut 
 in the forest and made ready for transportation to 
 the city. When I went among them I found they 
 had been idle, and were in great distress because 
 their taxes were unpaid, and the sheriff had threat- 
 ened to sell all their effects the next mornine at 
 public auction. They pressed into my house 
 weeping and lamenting, and the patriarch ex- 
 plained that their debt was eleven hundred silver 
 rubles, towards which they could raise but two 
 hundred. 
 
 " ' But,' said I, ' if I see the sheriff and ad- 
 vance part of this money for you and stay the sale, 
 will you go to work ? ' 
 
 '" ' With the first fall of snow that we can take 
 our sledges to the woods,' replied the gray-haired 
 father of the village. The next morning I drove 
 some fifteen versts to see the sheriff; explained 
 their situation to him, and, by advancing five hun- 
 dred rubles towards their taxes, persuaded him to 
 wait for the rest. 
 
 " ' But you'll regret it,' said he ; ' they are an 
 idle, good-for-nothing set, and you'll never get 
 your money back.'
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 133 
 
 " I had confidence in the people, however, and 
 when I returned and told them the I'esult they 
 crowded about me and kissed my hand and blessed 
 me with tears in their eyes, while they again 
 promised to begin work with the first snow. Then 
 they sent me little presents — a few eggs, a fish, a 
 bowl of meal — anything they could spare from 
 their narrow stores. For some days the weather 
 continued mild ; then one evening the snow began 
 to fall and the next morning the ground was 
 covered to the depth of six inches. My house was 
 away from the village, and after breakfast I said 
 to my companion, a young man from Moscow : 
 ' Now we will ride over to the woods and see 
 about the work.' 
 
 " He shook his head, and exclaimed, as we started 
 off, ' There 's not the least use in going. Not a 
 soul will stir.' 
 
 " ' Wait and see,' said I. ' I have kept faith 
 with them, and I believe they will with me.' 
 
 " At the first point where we should have seen 
 them we halted, but no one was in sight. 'There,' 
 shouted my friend, ' I told you so ! ' 
 
 " ' Wait a little longer,' said I, and we drove on 
 till at a turn in the road, lo 1 the whole popula-
 
 134 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 tion, young and old, men and women, boys and 
 irirls, with sledges and axes and hatchets, on their 
 way to the woods ! They worked steadily ; ful- 
 filled their contract with me, and soon discharged 
 their debt. When I told Count Pushkin about it 
 afterwards, he listened with tearful eyes and said, 
 ' Ah ! Our people are truthful. We shall yet be 
 proud of the Russians ! ' " 
 
 In spite, however, of their long subjection and 
 itrnorance, it is from this class that some of the 
 most illustrious Russians have sprung. Kozma 
 Minin, the patriot, through whose eflPorts the coun- 
 trv was freed from the Poles, was a peasant of 
 Nijni Novgorod. Nikita Demidoflf, ancestor of the 
 princely family of that name, whose discovery and 
 development of the mines of the Oural added in- 
 calculable wealth to the empire, was a serf of the 
 province of Tula. Michael Lomonosoff, poet and 
 savan, who discarded the foreign languages of the 
 court and the schools, and made the rich, flowing, 
 vernacular Russ the languaga of science and litera- 
 ture, was a poor fisherman of Archangel. Re- 
 membering men like them, it was always with pro- 
 found interest that I looked at these simple folk 
 and their humble abodes — a race whose capacities
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 1:35 
 
 are yet unknown, and who may one day lead the 
 world. 
 
 Some fifty miles below Kazan we came to the 
 mouth of the Kama, — longest and most important 
 of the two hundred rivers that flow into the Volija. 
 From its source in the Oural it has a course of 
 more than twelve hundred miles, and bears on its 
 tide the products of the mines, the leather and tal- 
 low furnished by the herds of the steppes, and the 
 furs and teas of far Siberia and China. On its 
 high, bleak plains rises Perm, nearest town, of 
 note, to Asia, — Perm, through whose streets goes 
 the great road to Siberia, and where exiles bid fare- 
 well to Europe and to hope. During the summer 
 nearly forty thousand men are employed upon its 
 boats and rafts which, at Nijni, exchange the com- 
 modities of the East for those of the West. 
 
 The Volga grows perceptibly larger after receiv- 
 ing its great tributary, and on its broad current we 
 went swiftly down to Simbirsk, capital of the gov- 
 ernment of that name and point of export for the 
 wheat of the rich provinces of Pensa and Tambov 
 which lie behind it. Here we rested for several 
 hours durino; the nisht, which was dark and cloudv,
 
 lo6 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 witli a chill, mournful wind blowing over the river. 
 We slept again upon the plush-spread divans of the 
 saloon with cloaks and shawls for wrappings, while 
 the Russians were camped in the cabin and under 
 awnings upon deck, with blankets and huge feather 
 pillows in chintz or leather covers. It was amus- 
 ing to see tall, stiff, uniformed officers bustling 
 about with bed-clothes in one hand and a baff of 
 tea and sugar in the other, calling for hot water 
 and arranging for an unoccupied corner. " Si- 
 chas" (directly), was the invariable response of the 
 waiters; but here, as elsewhere in the country, they 
 seemed to have little idea of time, and if you saw 
 them again within an hour you were fortunate. 
 
 At dawn the steamer was under wav, and as 
 breakfast was brought in we reached Stavropol, a 
 town of the last century, built to gain control over 
 a horde of Kalmucks established there, and having 
 some four thousand inhabitants. Here the Volga 
 turns sharply to the east, and running thus for 
 forty miles, bends south and then west again, mak- 
 ing a circuit of a hundred miles. The land it 
 incloses is the property of the OrlofF family, fa- 
 mous for the partiality of the Empress Catherine 
 and for the great diamond in the Imperial sceptre,
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 137 
 
 with which Gregory Orloff bought, for a time, the 
 favor of his splendid and capricious mistress. 
 
 At one o'clock we reached the farthest point of 
 the bend and were at Samara, a town at the con- 
 fluence of the Samara with the Volga, farther east 
 than Bagdad and almost in the lonmtude of Tehe- 
 ran. Here we proposed to spend a day, and, going 
 ashore, we were conducted by the German agent of 
 the steamship company through the broad, roughly- 
 paved streets to a hotel which nomads and western 
 Europeans might have united in devising and con- 
 ducting. It was a great rambling structure with 
 high, empty rooms, passages that led nowhere, and 
 handsome staircases and doors of mahogany set in 
 bare and plaster-crumbling walls. There were no 
 beds ready — nothing but leather-covered benches 
 and low, cushioned divans, and our meals, though 
 palatable, were spoiled by being brought through 
 the windy halls. Samara was founded nearly three 
 Imndred years ago as a frontier post against the 
 Asiatic tribes. Its fortifications have long ago dis- 
 appeared, but as the largest grain market on the 
 Volga, and the port of Orenburg, it is one of the 
 <nost important towns on the river. For Orenburg, 
 three davs' iournev to the east, is on the line of
 
 138 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 Asia, and the rendezvous of the caravans from 
 Bokhara and the Kirghiz steppes. In her bazaars 
 they discharge their goods, and from thence they 
 return laden with tlie products and manufactures 
 of the West. There, too, the Government has 
 founded a military school for two hundred pupils, 
 more than half of whom are to be selected from the 
 sons of Tartar and Kirghiz chiefs ; and thus it is a 
 point of influence for the whole interior. 
 
 After dinner we drove out several versts to see 
 an establishment for the cure of pulmonary diseases 
 by the drinking of mare's milk — a Tartar remedy 
 here thought very efficacious. The house was on 
 the Volga bank ; an airy, pretty, wooden structure, 
 with gardens about, where petunias, verbenas, mari- 
 golds, and dahlias were still in flower. On the 
 plain beyond, some forty mares, each with a bell 
 around her neck, were feeding quietly. The " sea- 
 son " is from May to September ; the charges eight 
 rubles a week for board and twenty kopecks a 
 bottle for milk, from three to eight bottles of which 
 are taken daily. The number of patients was from 
 sixty to one hundred, many of them belonging to 
 the Russian nobility and a few from western Eu- 
 rope. The director was an Armenian, and the
 
 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 139 
 
 domestics all Tartars — black-eyed, rosy-cheeked 
 women, with bright handkerchiefs knotted over 
 their braided hair. We went into the room where 
 they were churning the sweet milk to sour it, and 
 then putting it into tight bottles for use — an apart- 
 ment as daintily clean as Mrs. Poyser's dairy at the 
 Hall Farm. While we stood there, several deli- 
 cate looking young men came in, and presenting 
 their checks, drank off the milk, foaming like cham- 
 pagne, as if it were the most delicious of beverages. 
 The house was tasteful, the gardens well kept, 
 and yet it seemed to me a melancholy place for an 
 invalid ; to the west the great gray river — to the 
 east the monotonous steppe — and, over all, the 
 hazy autumn sky. 
 
 We I'eturned to the town by a different route," 
 and met on the wide, sandy road many ox-teams, 
 some of them driven by women clad in sheep-skins, 
 carrying stout whips in their hands and calling in a 
 rough voice to their oxen, so that it was difficult, 
 until we were close upon them, to distinguish thoni 
 from men. Tliere were farms on either hand, and 
 one of the low-roofed houses was surrounded by an 
 apple orchard. The sight was so novel that we 
 drove out of our way to see it. As we approached.
 
 140 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 
 
 a huge clog bounded over the wall and came to- 
 wards us with a ferocious bark. We were turning 
 away when the master approached, and sending the 
 wolfish creature back to his kennel, picked up a 
 handful of apples from the ground and courteousl;y 
 j)resented them to us. They were small and sour, 
 but they reminded us of laden orchards across the 
 sea, and their taste was grateful after the dust of 
 the highway. 
 
 To regain the road we crossed a bare common, 
 and there came upon a group of a stranger race 
 than any we had that day encountered.
 
 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT.
 
 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 
 
 Nay ! tell us not of curtained walls 1 
 
 To us they were a prison. 
 Better than all your stately halls, 
 Is the heath Avhere the blessed sunlight falls, 
 And the free wind blows, and the plover calls 
 
 When the mellow moon has risen. 
 And the sod, for us, is a nobler bed 
 Than the couch with richest damask spread, 
 For ours are the stars and the mystic ties, 
 That link the earth to the rolling skies. 
 
 Do you see that girl with the glance of fire ? 
 Woe to the man that dares her ire 1 
 She knows Avhat planet has power to harm; 
 What beam of the moon will fall as balm ; 
 And the hour when the stormy Pleiads rise, 
 And the Star of Love gives bliss for sighs ; 
 And over your palm, with secret lore, 
 She'll read what the dark years have i.i store.
 
 144 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 
 
 Keep your wealth and your gilded bowers ! 
 The glory of field and sky is ours ; 
 And all the spirits of earth and air, 
 Follow our bidding, foul or fair 1 
 
 rriHERE are few pleasanter moments in life 
 than those in which, for the first time, we 
 see some object, or hear some sound, long de- 
 sired, but previously known only through the 
 imagination. 
 
 Journeying, some months before, from Damas- 
 cus to Baalbec, we encamped for the night near 
 a little An'llage in the valley of the Barada. The 
 furious wind, which had been blowing through the 
 day, still continued, and almost drowned the voice 
 of the river, swollen with the melting; snows of 
 Mount Hermon, and hastening down to the rills 
 and fountains of the Damascus plain. At length 
 there was a momentary lull in the air, and I 
 lifted the curtain -door of the tent and looked 
 out upon the Syrian night. The sky was deeply 
 blue, and the stars shone with the brilliancy of 
 a northern latitude. Not a sound was to be heard 
 from the village or the camp. Suddenly there 
 burst from the river-thicket a song so clear, so 
 rich, so rapturous, that it seemed as if a passing 
 seraph, flying too near the earth, had warbled some
 
 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 145 
 
 strain of paradise above the spot ! 1 knew it was 
 the nightingale, and stood breathless, enchanted, 
 when down came the wild wind from Lebanon, and 
 wafted the celestial melody away. 
 
 Not less thrilling was the moment, when a few 
 weeks later, in the Prado of Madrid, I first saw a 
 veritable Gypsy. We were taking an early walk, 
 my frieYids and I; the fashionable world was not 
 yet astir, and the street was almost empty, when a 
 young woman approached us, and in liquid Spanish 
 asked for alms. She was of medium height, and 
 of compact, lithe, and exquisitely rounded form ; 
 her skin was of a ruddy brown rather than the 
 pallid olive of the Spaniard; her head and face 
 small ; her features regular and delicate ; her black 
 eyes brilliant and unflinching; her teeth tiny and 
 dazzlingly white ; her hair black and heavy, and 
 coiled low on her shapely neck. Clad in a petti- 
 coat that scarcely reached her bare, slender ankles, 
 with a gaudy shawl over her shoulders, the folds 
 drawn together by her left hand, while her right 
 was extended in entreaty, she was the prettiest, 
 wiliest, boldest creature the sun shone upon, and 
 the moment I saw her I exclaimed involuntarily, 
 "The GItano!" 
 
 Afterwards, in various countries, we met many 
 
 10
 
 146 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 
 
 of the tribe, — in England, tented on the downs at 
 the Epsom races, hei-e a httle tamed, but having 
 still the unmistakable charactei-istics of their peo- 
 ple ; in Hungary and Turkey, sometimes labor- 
 ino; in the fields, but oftener wanderers, as be- 
 ;^'i* comes their blood; in Greece, roaming over the 
 plain about Eleusis, fierce-eyed, squalid, men and 
 women whom you would not like to meet when 
 the sun was down ; in Moscow and Nijni, prized 
 for their musical o-ifts, singing and dancing at the 
 cafds and the restaurants attached to the public 
 gardens ; indeed, in the former city, a Galitzin did 
 not disdain to make one of them his wife (or 
 rather a Gypsy did not disdain to wed a Galitzin, 
 though it is said that for months, amid the lux- 
 uries of his palace, she wept and pined for the 
 hberty and companionship of her kindred); and 
 here, east of the Volga, and almost on the con- 
 fines of Asia, we found them again. 
 
 Part of the mystery which has shrouded the 
 Gj^'psies since their first appearance in Europe, 
 early in the fifteenth century, has been dissolved. 
 Professor Pott of Halle has shown that tlieir 
 language is nearly allied to the old Sanskrit, and, 
 by the foreign words and idioms it has gained,
 
 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 147 
 
 he traces something of the route' they must have 
 taken to the West. But when or why they left 
 their home in India, and what are the instincts 
 and influences of race and relioion, which have 
 made and kept them as they are, will perhaps 
 never be fully known. It is computed that in all 
 the world they number five millions, and they are 
 most numerous in southern Europe. Abhorring 
 confinement and steady labor as they do, and 
 loving the open sky, it seems strange that they 
 should rove these steppes where life cannot be 
 supported without exertion, and where cutting 
 winds and drifting snows make winter a terror 
 to those exposed to their fury. But here was a 
 company of more than fifty resting on the plain, 
 with no visible means of subsistence, yet careless 
 and content as if they had all been kings and 
 queens. 
 
 The scene, in its essential features, Avas such as 
 Scott might have pictured for the band of Meg 
 Merrilies. A group of eight or ten square Avhite 
 tents supported on poles ; rude carts standing by 
 with poor old horses fettered and feeding beside 
 them, while over a fire on the ffi'ound huns; iron 
 pots suspended from a bar upheld by forked sticka
 
 148 ^i GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 
 
 driven into the sod. The men were probably ab- 
 sent on some pilfering expedition or plying their 
 small trades in the town, for we saw only two, who, 
 ill or lazier than the rest, were stretched on a pile 
 of rags at the entrance to one of the tents. As 
 we came opposite them, dogs started up from the 
 earth, growling savagely, and women and children 
 swarmed forth and surrounded our droskies. They 
 were of all ages, from the withered crone whose 
 tanned and wrinkled skin drawn tightly over her 
 bones made her look like a veritable mummv, and 
 set you wondering why the winds of the steppe had 
 not long before blown her away, to the velvet- 
 cheeked, six-months-old baby that laughed and 
 crowed, and held up its fat, brown hands beneath 
 the shelter of its mother's shawl. Fine-limbed and 
 erect, with lustrous hair and piercing eyes, many 
 of them would have been exceedingly handsome 
 but for the hardness and roughness of their livas. 
 Their dress was like that of the poorest Rus.sian 
 peasants, — a wrap of coarse cloth or sheep-skin, — 
 but there was a picturesqueness all their own in the 
 handkerchief tied round the head like a turban, and 
 the shawl draping the well-formed shoulders. All 
 wore earrings and trinkets of some sort, princi-
 
 GYPSY FORTUXE TELLER.
 
 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 149 
 
 pally colored glass beads, mixed with coral ; and 
 one had, attached to her showy necklace, a medal 
 with an image in relief of Christ on the cross, 
 — doubtless a mere unknown amulet to her on 
 Avhose neck it hung. 
 
 An old woman separated herself from the crowd 
 and through our interpreter asked in Russ to tell 
 our fortunes. Looking into her listener's palm and 
 compelling attention by the magnetic fire of her 
 eyes, she poured forth statements and prophecies 
 shrewdly adapted to the apparent age and circum- 
 stances of each individual she addressed, and whicli 
 could hardly be explained except on the supposition 
 that she possessed something of that strange clair- 
 voyant power which makes the thoughts of another 
 as our own. Then they proposed to sing, and form- 
 ing a circle they broke into a wild, mournful, mo- 
 notonous strain, while a poor blind girl, whom we 
 had not hitherto seen, came from the nearest tent, 
 and making her way to the middle of the ring, 
 began to dance to the music. It was like the dance 
 we had seen among the Gypsies of the caf^s at 
 Moscow and Nijni, only slower and more mysteri- 
 ous in its motion. For a moment she stood as 
 thougb under a spell : then swayed herself gently
 
 150 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 
 
 to and fro ; tlien extended her arms as if in suppli- 
 cation ; then, poising herself, whirled to the singing 
 like one in an ecstasy of inspiration ; and then, ex- 
 hausted, witli drooping head and folded hands, she 
 sank back and was lost in the circle at her side. 
 Instantly another sprang forward, went through 
 the same postures and silent invocations and re- 
 turned to her place ; then another, and another, 
 until nearly all the young women had borne a part, 
 and from weariness both singers and dancers were 
 still. As I watched them, I did not wonder that 
 they have always been accused of magic, and of a 
 leao;ue with " the Prince of the Powers of the 
 air." It was not a voluptuous measure, but a 
 weird incantation ; and I could but regard it as 
 derived from some ancient religion, some early 
 worship or superstition of their race. 
 
 As the circle broke up, two young girls came 
 across the heath, the exact counterparts of the 
 Gypsy of the Prado. Their cheeks were aglow 
 with exercise ; their long hair, escaped from con- 
 finement, fell in rich masses over their shoulders , 
 and they advanced, chatting gayly to themselves, 
 and eating sunflower seeds which they had gath- 
 ered from the stalks yet standing in the fields. It
 
 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 151 
 
 was a picture of slmpHcity and beauty and health 
 and freedom that carried one back to the youth of 
 the workl. 
 
 With our farewells we gave them money, which 
 seemed highly to delight them, but just as we drove 
 away, they called after us in an unintelligible 
 dialect, whether with blessings or curses we could 
 not divine. I fancy, however, it was the latter, 
 for at once their dogs set up an angry howl, which 
 did not cease until we were out of sight of tent and 
 common.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 
 
 Hail to the glorious morning 
 
 AVlien the Cross again shall Shine 
 On the summit of Saint Sophia, 
 
 O city of Constantine ! 
 And that day of sack and slaughter 
 
 When the wild, despairing cries 
 Of " Kyrie Eleison ! " fainter 
 
 Went wailing up to the skies. 
 Shall be lost in the splendid triumph 
 
 As the Church reclaims her own,* 
 And the Patriarch welcomes our Lord, the Czar, 
 
 To the Cffisars' ancient throne ! 
 
 In the sky of the south, at midnight, 
 
 We have seen God's flaming sign, 
 And we know He will drive the Moslem horde, 
 
 As chaff, from his sacred shrine I 
 Silent will be the muezzin 
 
 As the sun on Asia sets ; 
 Folded the crescent banner; 
 
 Crumbled the minarets.
 
 156 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 
 
 Then, in the grand Cathedral, 
 
 Victorious chants we'll raise, 
 While the saints look down with loving eyes, 
 
 And the gems of the altar blaze. 
 Hail to the day when the Eagles 
 
 And the Cross shall jxain their own. 
 As the Patriarch welcomes our Lord, the Czar, 
 
 To tlie Caisars' ancient throne ! 
 
 ^T^HE next day was Sunday, and we were wak- 
 ened by the chimes of the church-towers, bold 
 and clear as the clano;ino; music of the Kremhn. 
 For at every point where Russia rests on her road 
 to the East, by fort and barrack she rears the 
 siirines of her rehgion, and drowns the muezzin's 
 cry with the louder call of her bells, " To prayer ! 
 To prayer! There is no God but God, and the 
 Orthodox Cimrch is his Prophet ! " 
 
 At the same time she is too broad and politic in 
 her views not to humor the tastes and prejudices 
 of the conquered. Five years ago, when the cor- 
 ner-stone of a Greek church was laid at the newly- 
 acquired city of Tashkend, the ceremonies were fol- 
 K)wed bv a festival with frames and races in which 
 the inhabitants delight, and concluded by a ban- 
 quet for the multitude.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 157 
 
 With true Asiatic diplomacy, Russia gives when 
 she would gain ; she yields when she seeks submis- 
 sion; and thus, through the unavoidable press of 
 trade, and the necessity for peace on her frontiers 
 and for better communication with distant points; 
 and perhaps still more through her ambition which 
 takes advantage of every favorable opportunity, she 
 has pushed her way till from this former outpost on 
 the Volga she has gone almost to Kuldja and Kash- 
 gar ; nay, till at one point but a hundred miles in- 
 tervene between her rule and that of the Rajah of 
 Cashmere; while to the east she has seized upon 
 the Amoor, the great river outlet of central Asia, 
 which for more than two thousand miles rolls 
 through a region rich in forests and pastures, in 
 meadows and mines, down to its mouth, where, 
 guarded now by the guns of the fortress of Nik- 
 olaefsk, it pours its majestic tide into the Pacific, at 
 the Okhotsk Sea. 
 
 Wherever Russia gains a foothold she raises a 
 fort and lays down a military road, along which, if 
 it be needful, she digs wells ; and her daring pio- 
 neers, the Cossacks, are both builders and guards- 
 men. Next siie establishes a fair at which the na- 
 tives can buy or barter after their own fashion, and
 
 158 rriE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 
 
 speedily tlie surrounding country is under her con- 
 trol. The Fair of Nijni was opened on what was 
 then tlie frontier of Asia. The Fair of Irhit is tlie 
 centre of trade for western Siberia ; and through 
 the steppes and all along the Amoor and its afflu- 
 ents, it is at the yermaks (fairs) that tlie Rus- 
 sian merchants and Cossacks barter their bright 
 cloths and beads and ribbons for the horses and 
 cattle of the Kirghizes ; and exchange their flour 
 and powder and lead and whiskey for the fox and 
 squirrel and sable skins of the Toungouz and Goldi 
 and Gelyak hunters. 
 
 Since that Sunday morning of 1867, when the 
 bells of Samara brought her victories to mind, she 
 has added " silken Samarcand," the capital of Ti- 
 niour, to her possessions ; and so far overcome the 
 " noble Bokhara " that its emir, hereditary " Keep- 
 er of the Faith " of Islam, has allowed her to con- 
 struct three fortresses on the bordei' which virtually 
 command his territory ; has given libeity and pro- 
 tection to Russian trade ; and has even sent his son 
 to St. Petersburg to beg the Emperor's assistance 
 in securino; him succession to the throne — thus de- 
 daring himself her vassal. At Tashkend she has 
 established the " Bank of Central Asia," with a 
 
 •■.i
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 159 
 
 branch at Orenburg, and founded a library where 
 are ah-eady gathered many manuscripts important 
 to the liistory of the region ; while a journal, the 
 " Tashkend Messenger," records duly the news of 
 the West and the state of trade along the fron- 
 tier. 
 
 Independent Turkestan will soon cease to exist. 
 Its cities of mysterious and poetic renown will 
 be but garrisons for Russian governors ; and the 
 fertile fields of the Oxus and the Jaxartes with 
 their silk, their cotton, their grain, their fruit, and 
 the boundless steppes that stretch away on either 
 liand, yielding herds and flocks innumerable, will 
 be but tributary to Russian commerce and Russian 
 pride. 
 
 Perhaps this is but the natural and necessary 
 result of her position. Certainly it is a beneficent 
 chancre which brincrs law and order and the germs 
 of a purer religion and a better civilization into this 
 realm of ignorance and reckless rule ; and for tlie 
 progress of the world Ave may desire the swifr 
 coming of the day when the Czar shall be acknowl- 
 edged as tlie Great White Khan by all the tribes 
 from the Volo-a to the mountains of Thibet and 
 the Chinese Wall. But when I read of a scene
 
 160 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 
 
 like that which the traveller Atkinson describes, 
 where coming towards nightfall to a valley of the 
 Alatau range he was warmly welcomed by a 
 Kirghiz chief who sat at the door of his yourt, in 
 the midst of that superb landscape, with his flocks 
 and herds feeding all about him on the mountain 
 slopes ; or of the migration of the ti'ibes and their 
 herds to the high summer pastures ; or of the 
 group he encountered at an encampment on the 
 plain, whose patriarch rose to receive him and 
 made room for him on his own carpet where, en- 
 circled by his family and followers, he listened to a 
 bard singino: before him the brave deeds of his 
 ancestors, — I wish these Turkish, Tartar tribes 
 could be developed and elevated in ways congenial 
 to their own instincts and peculiarities, and not 
 forced to accept our modes of life and thought. 
 In mind and manners and costume the world tends 
 towards a uniformity which is fatal to individuality 
 and picturesqueness. Let the plundering foray 
 and the deadly feud be done away ; but perpetuate 
 the daring, the simplicity, the hospitality, the manly 
 exercises and the easy robes of these shepherds of 
 the steppes — inherited, it may be, from the first 
 rover who left his fellows to pitch his tent on the 
 open plain !
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 161 
 
 Yet it is with her gaze fixed always on the South 
 that Russia advances in the East ; and while her 
 word is becoming law for the vast central region 
 beyond the Volga, while she covers the Caspian 
 and the Euxine with her fleets, and from the 
 mountains of the Caucasus and ancient Ararat 
 threatens Asia Minor, she can bide her time for the 
 possession of the Fair City by the Golden Horn. 
 
 " How soon," I asked of a Russian on the Black 
 Sea, — " how soon do you think to gain Constanti- 
 nople?" 
 
 " Ah," he replied, " I cannot tell. It may be 
 ten years ; it may be a hundred ; but Constanti- 
 nople is ours.^' 
 
 " That will be a proud day when you uncover 
 the frescoes of Justinian on the walls of St. Sophia, 
 and rear the cross above its sacred dome." 
 
 ."Yes, a proud day for Russia and for the Church. 
 God grant I may live to see it ! " 
 
 And when the dav comes ; — when it is Russia 
 from the White Sea to the Sea of Marmora, and 
 from the Carpathians to the Pacific ; when the 
 lonof dream of the Muscovites has become a reality 
 and the Czar's summer palace is by the Bosphorus 
 instead of the Bay of Yalta ; when the city of 
 11
 
 162 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 
 
 Constantine is again the head of the Eastern 
 Church, and the glory has come back to St. Sophia 
 — the music, the incense, the splendid ceremonial 
 that dazzled and won the first Russian envoys ; 
 and when, with the dignity of the ages and more 
 than the authority of any Romish Vatican, she 
 gives the law to all of her creed — what Power will 
 be the peer of the Empire of the East ? 
 
 There will be but one. The Power that, like 
 her, calls a continent its own — under whose 
 banner all races dwell securely and every man of 
 them a Czar — whose religion is more Orthodox 
 than the Faith of the Greeks ; for, through ordina- 
 tion older than that of bishop or patriarch, each 
 soul is free to find God in its own way — the Power 
 grand as the Empire — the Republic of the West 1
 
 '^4?* 
 
 THE VOLGA TO KAMYSCHIN.
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 And still we kept the Volga's tide, 
 
 The Volga rolling gray and wide ; 
 
 While the gulls of the Caspian over it flew, 
 
 A flash of silver and jet in the sun, 
 And, chill though the blast from the Oural blew, 
 
 Circled and hovered till day was done. 
 
 Faint, in the lulls of the wind, from shore 
 
 Came the lowing of herds that roved the plain ; 
 And the bells rang over the water's roar 
 
 Calling the hamlet to holy fane. 
 And slowly the fishers of Astrakhan 
 
 Stemmed the current with laden keel; 
 While the barges the Kama peasants man, 
 And the barks of the Oka past them ran. 
 
 Heaped with iron and wheat and steel ; 
 And as far as the wind could wander free. 
 
 On either side was the grassy sea. 
 
 rpHROUGH tlie broad streets we walked leis- 
 urely down to take the afternoon boat which 
 was to leave the wharf at three o'clock. Few
 
 166 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 women were to be seen, but groups of men stood 
 on the corners or strolled about, many of them 
 rough, wild looking people with sandals of basket- 
 work and strips of coarse cloth wrapped around 
 their legs. From a cellar a man emerged and 
 strode past us who startled me by his resemblance 
 to a North American Indian ; the same brown skin 
 and high cheek bones and straight black hair, with 
 a blanket flung; over his shoulders like a true Ute 
 or Pawnee. He was a Kalmuck from the steppe, 
 and, whatever ethnologists may say, his race always 
 vividly recalled the Red man. 
 
 On the river again, flowing west now, instead of 
 east, and bearing us with every wave farther from 
 Samara and Orenburg and the strange regions to 
 which they are the gates. Taking a last look at 
 the town stretching along the shore and over the 
 plain, with its great pine warehouses for the re- 
 ception of grain, its many small dwelhngs and its 
 lofty churches and barracks, we thought it was not 
 unlike a crude city of the prairies. 
 
 The sky was obscured ; the air cold ; the shores 
 low and objectless. A moonless night followed the 
 leaden day, and the boat anchored for several hours 
 at a small station where wood was taken on — the
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 167 
 
 heavy sticks falling with such a crash into the hold 
 that sleep was impossible. It is no wonder the 
 Russian forests have grown thin and in some re- 
 gions disappeared. The cold makes fires a neces- 
 sity for the greater part of the year, and only wood 
 is used for fuel, while in many provinces dry laths 
 are burned for lights. Nearly all the houses are 
 made of wood ; those of the poorer classes of 
 hewii logs. All furniture and household utensils 
 are of wood, and a vast number of young lindens 
 have been annually cut for the manufacture of 
 shoes. Three shoots of three years' growth are 
 required for a single pair, and a Avorkingman will 
 wear out fifty such pairs in a year. Timber is one 
 of the principal articles of inland traffic; the forests 
 of the north and of the Oural supplying the 
 steppes, as with us those of the great lakes do the 
 prairies. But of late the wood lands have received 
 much attention, and now stringent laws regulate 
 the felling of trees. Logs are sawed into planks 
 instead of being wasted by hewing. Leather boots 
 are gradually supplanting bark shoes. Tallow can- 
 dles are taking the place of torches of birch and 
 pine. Li many districts live hedges supersede 
 board fences, and wide tracts are planted with
 
 L68 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 larches. Now, too, large coal deposits have been 
 found in the basin of the Don, along the Caspian, 
 and on the Kama, near Perm. 
 
 As usual we were on our way with the dawn. 
 The shores were flat and sandy, and flocks of dark- 
 winged gulls flew over the river. At ten o'clock 
 we came to Volsk, a town of thirty thousand inhab- 
 itants, on the right bank, and the centre of a region 
 of orchards and gardens where the fruits and veg- 
 etables suited to the climate are grown and dis- 
 posed of chiefly at Nijni Novgorod. Here most of 
 the second and third class passengers went ashore 
 to buy black bread and water-melons or cucumbers 
 which were lying in heaps on the bank waiting for 
 purchasers. 
 
 Cabbages, cucumbers, and onions are the most 
 common vegetables of Russia, and, either fresh or 
 salted, they form, with the lower classes at least, a 
 part of almost every meal. In all the southern 
 provinces melons of large size and excellent flavor 
 are raised in great numbers and sent from thence 
 up the rivers to the north. What a fine pear or 
 peach is to an American, that a slice of water- 
 melon is to a Russian. Cherries, and apples of 
 varieties brought originally from Astrakhan and
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 169 
 
 Persia, are common as far north as Vladimir ; but, 
 perhaps because it was too early in the season, we 
 saw few that were not small and poor. All the 
 fruits of the temperate zone are grown farther 
 south ; and in greenhouses, even north of St. Pe- 
 tersburg, they are brought to perfection. Many 
 small fruits grow wild, and are eaten fresh, and 
 made into sweetmeats and cordials. The marshes 
 of the north are red with cranberries, which supply 
 the place of lemons to the inhabitants ; strawber- 
 ries and blueberries abound, and raspberries, loved 
 of bears and children, ripen everywhere. The 
 director of a band of laborers in a rm*al district 
 north of Moscow told me that in the raspberry 
 season the men in his employ were desirous to 
 obtain some of the fruit, which was not plenty 
 there. They had noticed that one of the women 
 of the village came home every morning about 
 nine o'clock with her basket full of fine berries. 
 Strangers in the place, they asked her where she 
 found them. She refused to tell, and they deter- 
 mined the next morning to watch and follow her. 
 Suspecting their intention, she was up and off with 
 the dawn ; but just as they had risen she came 
 flying back to the village half wild with terror, her
 
 170 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 basket gone, her dress torn, and her hair streaming 
 over her shoulders. As soon as she could speak 
 she said that she had walked to the raspberry patch 
 as usual and was quietly filling her basket when 
 just before her she saw an enormous bear standing 
 on his hind legs, and with his fore paws drawing 
 the bushes to his mouth and leisurely devouring 
 the fruit. Leaping to the path, and imagining the 
 bear in close pursuit, she ran at the top of her 
 speed across the fields and never stopped till she 
 had reached her own door. Her secret garden was 
 discovered, but the villagers sought in vain throuo-h 
 the summer months for the bear. Perhaps he was 
 reserved for a o'l'ander end when in mid-winter the 
 vapor of his breath disclosing to the keen-eyed 
 peasants his den beneath the snow, the Czar him- 
 self, in a royal hunt, gave him his death wound. 
 Hazel-nuts are common, and, in the Oural, the 
 spicy nuts of the cedar. Thus, though compara- 
 tively little attention is paid to horticulture, the 
 Russians, even of the north, are not so destitute 
 of fruits and vegetables as would at first appear. 
 
 Wood was brought on board here by two women 
 fastened together with straps over their shoulders, 
 to which poles, some four feet in length, were at-
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 171 
 
 tached, and across these the sticks were laid. 
 Stout and hardy as men, bare-headed, with sliort, 
 coarse petticoats and loose jackets, they went to 
 and fro till the last load was transferred to the 
 hold, steady and stolid and untiring as well-trained 
 mules or oxen. 
 
 Below Volsk the river widens, flowing with a 
 slow, majestic current. As we dropped down its 
 tide crreat steamers and rafts from Astrakhan and 
 the Caspian passed us on their way to the north, 
 many of them laden with the products of the fish- 
 eries. For of all the rivers and seas of the world 
 none are more abundantly stocked with fish than 
 the Volga and the Caspian ; indeed, at some sea- 
 sons, the stream below Astrakhan, and the sea, 
 near its mouth, are literally crowded with the finny 
 tribes. The most important of these are the va- 
 rious species of sturgeon, from the small sterlet, so 
 much in repute for its delicate flavor, to the great 
 belugas which weigh from one to three thou- 
 sand pounds. All tlie affluents of the Volga are 
 filled with fish, but those of the cold waters of the 
 Kama are considered best, and there can be no 
 greater table luxury to a Russian than caviare 
 made from the roes of the sterlet of this river. 
 The Tartar name for the Volga is Edel — Plenty.
 
 172 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 Everything relating to the fisheries is regulated 
 by law. They eoiploy many thousands of men 
 and boats through a large part of the year, and 
 furnish vast quantities, not only of fi-esh and cured 
 fish, but also of caviare, isinglass, and oil, for home 
 use and for exportation. Astrakhan is the store- 
 house of the fisheries, and from thence their wealth 
 is distributed over the empire. For some time 
 after the conquest of this Khanate, the fisheries, 
 which had been diligently maintained by the Tar- 
 tars, were the property of the Church. Then they 
 reverted to the Crown, and later, upon the payment 
 of an annual tribute, they passed into the hands of 
 private companies, but for more than fifty years 
 they have been free to all. 
 
 At five o'clock we reached SaratofF, the most 
 populous city on the Volga, with bazaars, annual 
 fairs, and great trade in fish, grain, salt, cattle, 
 leather and skins. Yet, large as it is, it lacks the 
 dignity and beauty of Kazan. Its streets, broad 
 and well-built as they are towards the river, end in 
 forlorn, sandy roads bordered with poor cabins that 
 straggle up the bare, barren slope beyond the town. 
 The Volga here is a superb stream, three miles 
 wide at low water, and fifteen miles during the
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 173 
 
 floods of spring, when it inundates the low lands to 
 the east. 
 
 We took droskies, in form like an Irish jaunt- 
 ing-car, and drove up the steep hill through the 
 principal streets. The bells for some church ser- 
 vice were ringing blithe and clear beneath the star- 
 spangled domes of the belfries ; but the busy day 
 was not yet over, and only a few women seemed 
 to be responding to the summons. Aside from 
 their natural religious bias, I do not wonder at 
 the devotion of the Russians to their Church ; for 
 these lofty towers, with glittering crosses and 
 pealing bells, are often all that the landscape has 
 of beauty and cheer. 
 
 Saratoff is famous for its manufactures of silk 
 and leather, and of gold and silver ware. At a 
 jeweler's we found many articles novel in design 
 and exquisite in finish — bells of silver-gilt in the 
 shape of a pear, supported on a branch with 
 leaves ; salvers and pitchers rich with clustering 
 flowers in dark enamel, and various personal orna- 
 ments of the beautiful crystals of the Oural. 
 Here, too, were well-executed bronze statuettes 
 of Lincoln exposed in the window — the grave, 
 kindly face having the same charm on the Volga 
 as by the Sano;amon.
 
 174 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 Standing in the handsome square, with gay 
 spires and roofs rising about us, and carriages 
 dashing past, we might quite have admired bust- 
 hng, ambitious SaratofF, if we could have shut 
 from view the dreary sand-hills and mean huts 
 beyond. 
 
 The boat lay all night at her moorings, and 
 having become accustomed to the saloon divan for 
 a couch, we slept quietly beside the noisy bank. 
 The next day was wonderfully clear, with a 
 strong, cold wind blowing from sunrise to sunset, 
 and covering with white waves the broad, gray 
 river. The shores were low, scarcely above the 
 water's edge, or else mere sandy bluffs stretching 
 off to the plain. All day the most noticeable ob- 
 jects were the great herds of cattle, sometimes 
 feeding near the brink, sometimes just visible on 
 the horizon. Yet this monotonous region has been 
 the scene of more migrations, tumults, battles, and 
 piracies than almost any other on earth. For we 
 were now parallel to that open space of nearly 
 three hundred miles between the Caspian and 
 the Oural ; the gate through which the tribes of 
 Asia have always poured into Europe, from the
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 175 
 
 first adventurers timidly entering unknown lands, 
 to the fierce Huns, the hordes of Genghis and 
 Timour, and the later companies of Kalmucks, 
 Turkomans, and Tartars roaming to and fro as 
 fancy or necessity " might decide. As the gusty 
 wind swept over the boat, the shouts of Hun and 
 Mongol and Tartar, and the shrieks and death- 
 cries of their victims, seemed to live and linger 
 in its wail. 
 
 Under a splendid sunset we came to anchor 
 at Kamyschin, a small place with the usual bar- 
 racks, and warehouses for grain. As at Volsk, 
 heaps of melons and poor apples were for sale on 
 the bank, and a flight of steep stairs led to the 
 streets bej-ond. For at the breaking up of win- 
 ter the Volga becomes an inland sea, and thus, 
 as on the Mississippi, the highest points are se- 
 lected for the towns. As we walked about we 
 heard that a theatrical company had ai'rived, and 
 would give a performance at eight o'clock, ad- 
 mittance one ruble. Glad of a little variety, 
 tickets were purchased, and just before the time 
 we went to the designated building. A crowd 
 of shabbily dressed people stood about and looked 
 on with evident envy, as the door-keeper made
 
 176 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 
 
 way for us and handed us two programmes of the 
 entertainment, written with a pen, in Russ, and 
 each covering two pages of foolscap. For all the 
 good they did us, he might as well have furnished 
 us with a list of the plays in the moon. I doubt 
 if the alphabet of that, or any other orb, would 
 be so tormenting to the American eye as is the 
 written Russ, with its letters so like, and yet so 
 unlike our own, deluding and baffling at every line. 
 It was a barn-like structure into which we en- 
 tered ; its floor of earth and its seats rude benches. 
 An audience of perhaps a hundred people, half of 
 them army officers with their families, waited the 
 opening of the entertainment. Eight o'clock came, 
 but the fall of faded calico, which hid the stage 
 and wavered in the wind that found entrance on 
 every side, refused to rise. Voices as in angry 
 altercation were heard behind it, now repressed, 
 now rising with the passion of the speaker ; and 
 although profane swearing is almost unknown in 
 Russia, if we had been familiar with the language 
 we should doubtless have heard some astonishing 
 epithets. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed 
 thus, while the three weary musicians laid down 
 their instruments, and the candles flared and the
 
 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 177 
 
 curtain trembled in the draught. The seats were 
 hard ; the sandy floor cold ; yet there was no 
 calling, or hissing, or stamping of feet, but all, in 
 patient silence, waited the pleasure of the per- 
 formers. At length, their quarrels over, there 
 was a stir and rustle, and the thin screen rose 
 slowly, disclosing a farm-house interior, with a 
 pretty young girl in peasant costume standing by 
 the table in earnest conversation with her lover, 
 who was evidently agitated and fearful of being 
 discovered by the family. I could not see how 
 their wooing was in aught different from that of 
 the lovers of the West, or their grief less heart- 
 breaking than theirs, when the enraged father 
 burst in and, rudely seizing his daughter, compelled 
 the young man to fly. The action was natural 
 and spirited, and the audience listened with closest 
 attention. But as only now and then a word was 
 intelligible to us, the cold got the better of our 
 enthusiasm, and we left at the end of the first 
 act, without waiting to see whether Romeo and 
 Juliet went forward to a wedding or a funeral. 
 
 The throng outside was greater than when we 
 came — poor people, to whom a ruble was a little 
 fortune, pushing close to the door that they might 
 
 12
 
 178 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. . 
 
 * 
 
 catch some word or hint of the delight within. 
 For a love of mnsic and the drama is the birth- 
 gift of the Slavonians, though, in cultured guise, 
 they have been, thus far, almost out of the reach 
 of any but the upper classes. But with the new 
 life of the nation, art in all its manifestations will 
 gradually come to be a universal inheritance, and 
 only the future can show what rare forms grace 
 and beauty and harmony will assume with this 
 people whose development has hardly begun, and 
 in whom the European and the Asiatic are so 
 subtly blended. 
 
 Over the western steppes the wind had gone 
 down with the sun, and as, in the darkness, we 
 descended the stairs and crossed the platform to 
 the boat, there was no sound but the ripple of 
 the river beneath her bows.
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS.
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 Farewell, O River of the Plain, 
 
 O River of the Sea I 
 Fain would I follow to the main 
 
 Thy current strong and free ; 
 And find, beyond thy reedy islands, 
 The sullen Caspian's ocean silence. 
 
 The Kalmuck girls with braided hair, 
 
 And cap of scarlet crown, 
 Beside their tents, in evening fair. 
 
 Will watch thy tide go down ; 
 And songs of the steppe and its rovers sing, 
 Their swarthy lovers listening. 
 
 And Kirghis, dark with desert suns. 
 
 Will halt beside thy brink. 
 While the steed, the brackish spring that shuns, 
 
 Stoops low, thy wave to drink ; 
 Then, fresh and fleet as at dawn of day, 
 Over the plain they'll haste away. 
 
 Farewell. I feel the west wind blow ; 
 The Asian dream is o'er ;
 
 182 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 And Europe 's in the sunset glow, 
 
 That gilds thy sandy shore. 
 I 20 where other streams will shine, 
 But none so lone, so grand as thine. 
 
 \TTE had purposed keeping the Volga as far as 
 * ' Astraklian, that we miglit see something of 
 the City of the IsU\nds, and of the seventy arms by 
 which the great river discharges its waters ; but 
 the season was v;nhealthy along the Caspian, and 
 reluctantly the plan was abandoned. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the next morning we reached 
 Tzaritsin, from whence we were to find our way 
 south by the railway, seventy-five versts in length, 
 to Kalatch on the Don, and thence by steamer 
 down that river. Too late, however, for the morn- 
 ing train, we decided to go twenty miles farther on 
 the Volga to Sarepta, returning in the evening. 
 
 The country about Tzaritsin is ftjrtile and at- 
 tractive, compared wdth the arid, saline steppes and 
 marshes of the lower river. In April, which is 
 here the loveliest month of the year, the fields and 
 plains are bright with crocuses and red and yellow 
 tulips, and rich with succulent grasses, luxurious 
 food for the herds that, unhoused, have supported 
 the cold of \\inter. But the hot winds from the
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 183 
 
 southeast soon destroy the verdure, and the earth 
 is parched and bare till autumn rains bring forth a 
 new generation of plants and flowers. On our 
 right was the rolling plain reaching to the Don ; on 
 our left the wide and barren steppe of the Oural, 
 still called the Kalmuck steppe, from its occupation 
 by the Mongolian horde that in the latter part of 
 the last century took the long march to Chinese 
 Tartary rather than submit to the rule of the Rus- 
 sians. Since then their old conquerors have taken 
 a lono; march also, and the followers of Buddha 
 only postponed their fate. The thousands whom 
 various circumstances compelled to remain, are 
 scattered over the country between the Sea of 
 Azoff and the Kirghiz frontier. 
 
 This region was once the residence of the Tartar 
 Golden Horde, and ruins are yet found, a little 
 way to the east, where their capital is fabled to 
 have stood. Near the river, plantations of mul- 
 berry trees, now mixed with other growths of the 
 forest, and of which the Russians have no record, 
 survive to tell of their skillful industry. The trees 
 still brinor forth leaves and fruit, but where are the 
 Khans clad in silk and glittei'ing with gems, whose 
 word was law over these steppes and streams ?
 
 184 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 And whither have they fled, the dark-eyed beau- 
 ties, with braided hair and flowing robes, who min- 
 istered to their delight ? 
 
 Wherever the shore was low and open, we had 
 glimpses of a country burnt and brown as Califor 
 nia at midsummer, but without the evergreen oaks 
 which in that American Asia preserve always the 
 memory of spring. On the steppe, to the east, 
 grow wild rue, and a species of wormwood not un- 
 like the sage-brush of our western plains. Heath 
 hens, and small, fleet antelopes feed on it during 
 the season of drought ; while the reedy marshes 
 along the river are filled with water-fowl that sub- 
 sist upon the small grains and seeds of their various 
 plants and grasses. 
 
 Of the many German colonies along the Volga, 
 Sarepta is perhaps the most important. It was 
 founded a hundred years ago as a Moravian mis- 
 sionary station among the Kalmucks, and was then 
 the only settlement between Tzaritsin and Astra- 
 khan. To guard it from the incursions of wander- 
 ing tribes it was fortified, and had the protection of 
 a small resident garrison. Rare privileges were 
 granted it by the Imperial government ; for then, 
 as now, wherever Germans were found, there was
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORA HANS. 185 
 
 the nucleus of a better civilization. Priestly efforts 
 to bring the Kalmucks into the Orthodox com- 
 munion interfered with the religious plans of the 
 colony, but in material things it is both prosperous 
 and influential. 
 
 We landed at a wooden pier, near which was a 
 small station-house that overhung the water, and 
 in an open wagon rode over the two or three versts 
 that lay between the river and the town. The soil 
 was sandy, and part of the way a growth of low 
 oaks and pines lined the road. The village, with its 
 yellow houses built about a square, looks thoroughly 
 German, and a little like a settlement of Shakers. 
 Its five hundred inhabitants are a most industrious, 
 thrifty community. From their cattle, their fish- 
 eries, their flax and tobacco, their manufactures of 
 cotton and linen fabrics, of soap and of brandy, 
 they derive an excellent income ; and among the 
 idle, ignorant population about them they are a 
 perpetual proof of the advantages of intelligent 
 labor. They employ their Kalmuck neighbors in 
 the fields and as herdsmen whenever they can ob- 
 tain them, but it is only at intervals that this peo- 
 ple, whose wants are so few, will forsake the lazy 
 quiet which is to them the first of luxuries.
 
 186 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 Wishing to have a siglit of these Russian Mon- 
 gols, relics of the half million that followed their 
 Khan back to the pastures of Central Asia, we 
 took a Moravian o-uide and drove straight through 
 the town to the steppe beyond — the great rolling 
 plain that loses itself in the salt waves of the Cas- 
 pian. At the distance of a verst we came to some 
 of their tents or yourts ; round frames of wood 
 covered with skins, with a curtain of skin hano-jnor 
 before the opening — just such habitations as shel- 
 ter their kindi'ed in Mongolia and Tartary, and 
 which for ages have not changed their shape or 
 size. We entered several and were pleasantly re- 
 ceived by the inmates. The space within was 
 like that of an ordinary room, and the only furni- 
 ture a wooden chest or two, and sheep-skins and 
 blankets serving as carpets by day and beds by 
 njght. On the ground, in the middle of the tent, 
 was a fire of roots and dry dung, burning without 
 blaze but with a steady glow, and about it the in- 
 mates reclined or sat cross-legged, the elder women 
 at work upon some of their coarse garments, and 
 the half-grown children and the few men present 
 lolling about in absolute idleness. They were very 
 dark but had a rich color with straight, jet-black
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 187 
 
 hair, and in spite of the flat nose and high cheek 
 bones some of them were really handsome. If 
 the Huns were Kalmucks, and Herodotus pictures 
 them truly, the race, judging from those of Sarepta, 
 has vastly improved since his day. As we entered 
 one tent a young girl retreated timidly to the far- 
 ther side and stood, regarding us, in an attitude 
 which was grace itself. Her features were less 
 marked than those of her companions, and in every 
 glance and movement there was a soft languor as 
 charming as it was un-European. She doubtless 
 wore, like all the rest, a long garment tied loosely 
 about the Avaist ; but I only remember her easy 
 pose and the high cap of scarlet and yellow beneath 
 which her dark hair descended to her shoulders. 
 Such a Monsol maiden must have been the bride 
 of the earth-spirit — the fabled virgin mother of 
 the great Genghis ; and in this Kalmuck girl of the 
 Volga I fancied I saw again the flowering of her 
 race. 
 
 All the men and women Avore earrings, — some 
 of them a large ring in one ear only, — and on their 
 heads a lamb-skin turban, those of the women 
 having a centre of bright cloth. The very young 
 children rolled about, nearly naked, upon the skins
 
 188 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 before the fire, while the elder amused themselves 
 outside and seemed much pleased with the gift of a 
 few kopecks and confections. 
 
 These Mongolians are probably on the way to 
 civilization, but, undeveloped as they are, in the 
 tameness and security of their present life they are 
 far less interesting than their Asiatic kindred, to 
 whom daring bravery and skill in horsemanship, in 
 the chase, and in arts of defense and aggression, are 
 necessities of existence. Any one is a prince 
 among them who possesses flocks of sheep ; and 
 their severest malediction is, " May you live in one 
 place and work like a Russian ! " 
 
 As we walked away we saw sheep-skins stretched 
 over poles, and rows of flat cakes of dung set up 
 to dry in the sun, but neither grain, nor shrub, nor 
 flower planted by the hand of man. A few horses 
 fed on the brown grass at the edge of the pine 
 woods, and in front was the interminable plain. 
 
 It was a pleasant change from the Mongol tents 
 to the quaint, neat parlor of the Moravian hotel, 
 with its plain, ancient furniture and blue-painted 
 walls. Here we had lunch — toast and tea, with 
 new-laid eggs and bacon — served by a comely
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 189 
 
 maiden in a checked cotton dress, with her fair 
 hair braided and coiled in true German fashion. 
 Everything about the house bespoke order, thrift, 
 and extreme simphcity. Good water was brought in 
 pipes from a spring a mile distant, and about every 
 house were vegetable gardens. Kindly, industri- 
 ous people are these Moravians ; and if they are 
 not now the earnest propagators of their faith they 
 were a hundred years since, as agriculturists and 
 peaceful, moral citizens they are still missionaries. 
 
 At six o'clock we went back to the river to meet 
 the boat for Tzaritsin. In the small cabin by the 
 pier lived a Russian and his wife whose charge it 
 was to attend to the passengers and freight of the 
 landing. The woman, stout and florid, was a very 
 rainbow in attire. She had a green skirt with a 
 red waist ; a bright plaid apron ; blue and yellow 
 beads and earrings, and a pink cap with purple 
 strings ; and from their midst her round, smiling 
 face beamed like the full moon. 
 
 We sat by the window looking down the broad 
 river towards Astrakhan and watching for the 
 steamer. On the platform without were two or 
 three peasants catcliing silver fish — tiny creatures, 
 like sardines for size, that glittered in the sun as
 
 190 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 they were drawn up the high bank and thrown 
 into the waiting basket. Tliere was no sound but 
 the dash of the river against the shore. A few 
 laden rafts went by, and steamers upward bound 
 that did not deign to call at Sarepta. The sun 
 sank in a blaze of gold with a flush of the same hue 
 over all the horizon, prolonged till twilight and the 
 coming of the stars. The air grew chill, and the 
 good-natured woman brought her shining samovar 
 and made us tea. At eight o'clock we learned 
 definitely that through some delay there would be 
 no boat till morning, and in a peasant's wagon we 
 returned to the village. 
 
 It was eighteen versts — twelve miles — across 
 the country to Tzaritsin, and we resolved to ride 
 over. A carriage was soon made ready ; a roomy 
 affair with four horses abreast and a Moravian 
 driver. There was no moon, but the night was 
 clear and cold, with innumerable stars, and rapidly 
 we sped along the wide, dusty road, over the roll- 
 ing plain ; dismounting twice, at tributaries of the 
 Volga, to walk across the bridges which were 
 deemed unsafe for a heavy carriage. I never re- 
 member having such a sense of remoteness and 
 isolation from my accustomed world as during
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 191 
 
 tliat eveniiiff ride. One or two hamlets were 
 passed with lights twinkling through their win- 
 dows, and, at a turn of the road, some loaded 
 teams plodding their way to the south ; but most 
 of the distance the earth lay as void beneath the 
 sky, and the wind blew over it as mournfully, as if 
 it had never known the presence of man. 
 
 At midnight, descending the slope towards the 
 river, we reached Tzaritsin. Felicitating ourselves 
 upon rest and quiet after the fatigues of the day, 
 we hastened through the empty streets only to 
 learn that the single hotel had been burned a short 
 time previous, and that the only place where we 
 could spend the night was the railway station. At 
 the station then we alighted ; said frood-night to 
 the skillful driver ; returned with thanks the warm 
 wrappings which the kind villagers had furnished 
 us ; and entered the door to find what cheer we 
 could in the upright wooden chairs and bare 
 benches of the great saloon. 
 
 Even now it gives me a feeling of weariness to 
 think of the utter discomfort of that night. There 
 was a ladies' room, but it was crowded with moth- 
 ers, nurses, and crying children ; and the large 
 apartment where men were coming and going,
 
 102 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 
 
 public thougli it was, was far more inviting. Here 
 then, upon bench or chair, we disposed ourselves, 
 with officers, Cossacks, peasants, and Tartars for 
 companions ; some snoring, some pouring forth a 
 tide of Russ in narration and argument. Now 
 and tiien thei'e would come a lull when even the 
 sleepers drew their breath quietly; but just as I 
 was lapsing into grateful oblivion a child would 
 scream, or the great door opening on to the street 
 slam with unusual violence ; and when at last I sank 
 into momentary slumber it was to dream that I was 
 in a Kalmuck tent arrayed in the tunic and high 
 cap of the women — that the tribe was about to mi- 
 grate to the plains of Tartary — and that through 
 searching for my lost silver necklace I was in dan- 
 ger of being left to tlie vengeance of the Russians. 
 
 So the long hours wore away until daylight 
 looked in through the unshaded windows and the 
 whole caravanserai was awake and astir. O the 
 easy toilets of those shaggy fellows ! A settlincr 
 into the enormous boots ; a shake of the head, the 
 fingers running through the matted hair; a tight- 
 ening of the girdle about the loose caftan; and they 
 were ready for the day. One by one the mothers 
 and nurses appeared with the children, most of
 
 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 193 
 
 them now in good-humor. The waiters set the 
 steaming samovars upon the deal tables, and soon 
 all were busy making and drinking tea, sipping it 
 from glass tumblers and holding the sugar in the 
 hand as is the universal custom. This, with bread 
 cut from the loaf — often with a knife carried in 
 the belt — and perhaps a water-melon, not deli- 
 cately scooped out as with us, but eaten close to 
 the rind, made up the meal. 
 
 Walking in the breezy open court to dispel the 
 heaviness of the night, we heard the shrill whistle 
 of the locomotive, and at seven o'clock went on 
 board the train for Kalatch. ' 
 
 Farewell to the noble current of the Volga! 
 
 Un watched of our eyes it would go down to the 
 
 sea, while westward we followed its neighbor river 
 
 to the Euxine. 
 13
 
 THE COSSACK COUNTRY.
 
 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 
 
 The Cossack ! the Cossack ! his steed is his throne ; 
 
 On the steppe and the desert his glory is known ; 
 For he sweeps like the wind from the camp to the fray, 
 
 And woe to the foe and the flying that day ! 
 " False Pagan ! " he cries, " are you slave — are you Shah — 
 
 Now die by this lance, or take oath to the Czar ! " 
 
 The Cossack ! the Cossack ! a flame of the South 
 Is the glance of his eye, is the word of his mouth, 
 
 For the steed that he rides — for the saint he implores — 
 And, fairer and dearer, the girl he adores. 
 
 The maiden's fond lover — the Czar's faithful wardi'r — 
 
 Ho ! drink to the Cossack, from border to border ! 
 
 ri^HE old Tartar Khans, and after them PoIlt 
 the Great, tried to construct a canal iie:u- 
 Tzaritsin, uniting the Volga and the Don. Inter- 
 vening granite ridges and the lawless population of 
 the region caused them to abandon the work. The 
 railway, fifty miles long, which now connects them, 
 — the only one in southeastern Russia except the
 
 198 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 
 
 line nearly completed from Samara to Orenburg, — 
 was built by an American company, and two trains 
 run over it daily upon the arrival of the boats. 
 The only water communication between tlie Black 
 Sea and the Caspian is a canal leading from the 
 Don, near its source, to the Oka which joins the 
 Volga at Nijni Novgorod. 
 
 A sandy, rolling, wind-blown plain stretches from 
 river to river, with neither trees nor marked undu- 
 lations except along the borders of the streams, 
 which run in deep ravines. Wild thyme and rue 
 grow here in abundance ; and melons, everyMdier^ 
 cultivated, thrive wonderfully in the light, warm 
 soil. Here and there w^ere hamlets of rude houses, 
 bare upon the plain, and great flocks of sheep crop- 
 ping the coarse, brown grass. A little before ten 
 o'clock a line of verdure appeared on the Avestern 
 horizon, and a few minutes later we reached Ka- 
 latch, by the Don. The commodious station was 
 close to the I'iver bank, and, descending the long 
 stairs, we found the boat lying at the wharf and not 
 to leave until the next mornincr. 
 
 At Kalatch, a small town owing its existence to 
 the railway, the Don is divided by an island, and 
 where the boat lay it was a narrow stream, looking
 
 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 199 
 
 insignificant indeed compared with the majestic tide 
 of the Volo;a. All was quiet about. The few pas- 
 seno-ers, all Russians, who had come over with us, 
 dropped into their .appointed places on deck or in 
 the cabin, and betook themselves to rest with Ori- 
 ental resignation. A pile of bales and boxes was 
 beino- leisurely stowed away on board, the stout 
 porters moving as if they knew they had the day 
 before them. So, also, moved the pliant waiter of 
 whom we ordered breakfast and dinner in one. 
 "Directly," was his amiable response, and in ex- 
 actly three hours we were summoned to the table. 
 
 Towards evening we went on shore and walked 
 about the town. The wide, dusty road leading to 
 it was hardly browner than the sod ; and the coarse 
 grass, undisturbed by shrub or flower, grew to the 
 very doors. There were perhaps twenty good 
 houses of hewn logs built by the Government ; all 
 the rest were poor cabins. It was market time in 
 the central square, but there was little offered tliat 
 was inviting, and no fruit except small, sour apples 
 at five kopecks apiece. However, business hours 
 were nearly over, and the only customers we saw 
 tvere two old women hobbling home with their 
 bread and cucumbei's, and several rough dogs hang- 
 ing: about the merit stall.
 
 200 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 
 
 With the late train came a multitude of passen- 
 gers filling our boat to its utmost capacity. The 
 deck was crowded with people wrapped in sheep- 
 skins and coarse blankets, and carrying their pro 
 visions — tea, black bread, and often dried fish an 
 melons. The saloon, where we were already estab- 
 lished, was appropriated to the " first class " lady 
 voyagers, who came in with exclamations of fatigue, 
 and, throwing off their travelling garments, slipped 
 into the amplest of dressing-gowns, and sinking 
 down on the pillows they had brought, abandoned 
 themselves to the luxury of cigarettes. I had al- 
 ready become accustomed to the sight of women 
 smoking. Indeed, I doubt if ever Turk or Russian 
 was more devoted to tobacco than a lady from Bu- 
 charest, elegant in person and attire, who went 
 with us up the Danube, and who spent the most 
 of her time in the close cabin below, that she might 
 indulge in her favorite habit. One morning when 
 we were passing through a beautiful district, I went 
 down, and seeing her sitting in a cloud of smoke 
 said to her, — 
 
 " The air is delicious this morning, Madame, and 
 the views on shore charming. Will you not come 
 on deck a little while ? "
 
 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 201 
 
 " Thank you," she replied, in languid French, 
 ■' but I prefer my cigarette." 
 
 One of these Russians perhaps might have 
 rivaled her, — an elderly woman with a gentle face 
 and white, taper fingers that seemed quite at home 
 in the nice art of rolling up the precious, pulver- 
 ized leaves, — for when she was not smoking or 
 sleeping, with her slips of paper and her pretty bag 
 filled with fragrant Latakia, she was thus preparing 
 to smoke. 
 
 At six o'clock the next morning the steamer was 
 under way. All was animation on board. The 
 officers and crew, calling and answering each other, 
 had enough to do to keep the channel ; the cabin 
 passengers, having their own provisions, were busy 
 with breakfast ; while those on deck, accustomed 
 to sleep upon bench and stove, or in summer upon 
 the ground in the open air, sprang up, elastic, from 
 the hard floor and addressed themselves to their 
 bread and tea. "We soon passed the island and 
 came into the full river, but it was still so much 
 narrower than the Volga that it seemed but an 
 ordinary stream. Rising in a small lake in the 
 government of Tula, the Don, once the eastern 
 boundary of Europe, winds south a thousand miles,
 
 202 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 
 
 and, receiving eiglitv tributaries, empties by several 
 mouths into the Sea of Azoff. Full of sand banks 
 and islands, it runs usually with a calm, shallow 
 current, but it is subject to violent inundations, 
 when it converts the low shores into morasses and 
 allows large ships to ascend hundreds of miles. In 
 its valley are some of the most fertile lands of 
 Russia, and forests of oak and pine accompany it 
 through much of its course. 
 
 We iiad not gone far before the keel scraped the 
 sand and we Avere aground. Overboard jumped 
 the crew, and standing up to tlieir knees in water, 
 aided the engine with pusliing and prying and 
 screaming till the boat was clear again. This 
 scene was repeated frequently during the day, and 
 the men appeared to be as much at home in the 
 river as on deck. At ten o'clock we stopped at a 
 small town Avhere the steward and many of the 
 passengers Ment ashore to buy bread, sweet and 
 white. Here also Ave found grapes, enormous 
 clusters but scarcely ripe, and melons which all on 
 board seemed to be eating for the rest of the day. 
 The shores were low and bordered partly with 
 trees, apparently willows, while between the ver- 
 dure and the water was often a line of snowy 
 sand.
 
 A ('(is^.vt'K s(ii.nn:i!
 
 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 203 
 
 This is the land of the Don Cossacks, who fur- 
 nish the army with more than seventy regiments 
 and batteries of cavalry and horse artillery. Most 
 individual of Russians, their country was for cen- 
 turies the battle-ground of Pole and Muscovite, of 
 Turk and Tartar, and they would have been driven 
 out or exterminated if they had not possessed a 
 genius for war. The Tartar term Cossack — light- 
 armed warrior — refers not to race but to mode of 
 life. It is, with those who bear it, a name of 
 honor, and any one of whose valor they are as- 
 sured may be received as one of the tribe. Thus 
 Mazeppa was adopted and in time chosen as chief. 
 Their Headman is the Crown Prince, but all in- 
 ferior rulers they elect from their own people with- 
 out dependence upon the Government. Daring 
 courage with them constitutes nobility. All are 
 brothers and their lands are in common. Darker 
 than the north-Russians, with full beards, which 
 even the authority of Peter the Great could not 
 force them to give up, the impetuous fire of their 
 ancestors still burns in their blood and glows in 
 their eyes. Exempt from taxation, from fifteen 
 years oid to sixty they are liable to military service 
 as cavalry soldiers, and no Arab of the desert is
 
 204 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 
 
 more at home upon his steed than these sons of 
 the steppe upon theirs. They conquered Siberia. 
 They lead the way in Central Asia. They garri- 
 son the forts, and keep the ever-advancing frontiers 
 of the East and South. Woe to the foe, Christian 
 or Mohammedan, when with lances in rest, and 
 banners bright with their patron saints, shoutmg, 
 they dash to the charge ! 
 
 Their religion is that of Olga and Vladimir. 
 They reverence the usages and cling to the super- 
 stitions of the Ancient Faith, counting reform sacri- 
 lege. No village of theirs but has its church and 
 chime ; no house but shrines its sacred picture ; no 
 soldier but goes to battle with the cross and the 
 image of his guardian saint pressed to his breast. 
 
 Trained to war, they pay little attention to agri- 
 culture. Those near the river draw their support 
 largely from the fisheries, and those on the steppe 
 from their flocks and herds, while whatever arts 
 and manufactures exist amono; them are in the 
 hands of strangers. Their villages are rudely for- 
 tified, and in regions exposed to plunder the cattle 
 are, for safety, driven nightly within the inclosure. 
 Each house has its garden for grapes and melons, 
 and perhaps its patch of corn.
 
 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 205 
 
 It was pleasant to breathe the air of this wild 
 land which had known neither serf nor lord, and 
 to whose people liberty and peril are one ; for 
 something of primitive nature lingers still in every 
 breast and creates instant sympathy with the ex 
 hilaration, the freedom, the simplicity of life in the 
 saddle, the tent, the plain. The winds blowing 
 from the steppe had floated their banners on a hun- 
 dred fields. The liorses that neighed or bounded 
 away from the river brink at our appi'oach, amid 
 the wastes of Asia micrht bear their masters swift 
 to victory, and then to fort or mountain pass, safe 
 from the vengeful foe. The deep-mouthed dogs, 
 baying from the hamlets, would defend tbe camp 
 with their lives should Kalmuck or Kirghiz ma- 
 rauder dare to enter. 
 
 The boat anchored for the night at a little vil- 
 lage whose straw-thatched roofs were just visible 
 from the deck. 
 
 Dawn ushered in the last day of summer, and on 
 a broader but still shallow river, with posts driven 
 here and there to mark the sand-bars, we held our 
 way to the south. Many birds were about the 
 shores — cranes, herons, ducks, and various wild
 
 206 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 
 
 fowl, hovering over the water or solemnly watch- 
 ing for fish along its margin. As the boat ap- 
 proached tliey took wing and, following the stream, 
 alighted long reaches in advance ; and thus, alter- 
 nately resting and flying, some of them accompa- 
 nied us half the mornins;. 
 
 There are no large towns near this part of the 
 river, and the villages ai-e quite unlike those of the 
 Volga. Instead of square cabins, all of hewn logs 
 or rough boards, tiie houses are like a tent in shape 
 and their steep roofs are thatched with straw, so 
 that it is often difficult to distinguish them from the 
 large hay-stacks with which they are interspersed. 
 
 All day the rolling plain stretched away on either 
 hand with herds, and hamlets, and scattered corn- 
 fields, and now and then a wind-mill lifting its 
 arms to the air. Towards night, however, there 
 appeared on the right a range of low, sandy hills, 
 divided by ravines and dotted with thatched cot- 
 tages — a peculiar, dreary scene, yet pleasing here 
 from its novelty. The grass was greener than to 
 the north, and great companies of cattle and horses 
 were feeding on the lower slopes. This was a sub- 
 urb of Constantinovka, and passing a bend of the 
 river we came to the town, an assemblao;e of the 
 same thatched houses with a few better structures.
 
 THE COSSACK COUyTRY. 207 
 
 Here we exclianged our small, flat-bottomed boat 
 for one larirer and more acjreeable. The amusins 
 scenes we had witnessed before were repeated — 
 people, high and low, hurrying back and forth with 
 pillows and blankets and bags of sugar and tea — 
 only that now the crowd was greater and Oriental 
 dislike of haste had to yield to the necessity of se- 
 curing sofa and deck -room. Plump went a pillow 
 into the water. Down the gangway rolled the 
 precious lumps that would have sweetened many a 
 glass of tea. Blankets trailed along the planks and 
 were trodden under foot of the throno;. And the 
 bewildered victims seemed to take it all as part of 
 the penalty of travelling by steam !
 
 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 
 
 u
 
 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 
 
 O placid Don 1 I see thee flow 
 With shallow, snowy-sanded stream, 
 
 While light the steppe-winds o'er thee blow, 
 And cranes and gray-winged herons dream — 
 
 Safe as beside some dark lagoon — 
 
 Along thy banks in breezeless noon. 
 
 ■ITie Cossack wanders from thy shore, ^ 
 
 But never finds a wave so fair; 
 Tliy summer lapse, thy winter roar, 
 
 Still greet him in remotest air ; 
 And death is sweet if he may lie. 
 With cross above, thy waters by. 
 
 COMPANY of people dark of skin and eyes 
 and liair were on the shore as tlie boat came 
 to anchor. Observant, yet indifferent, they chatted 
 a moment over the new comer and then strode 
 away, careless, it seemed, whether we went uj) or 
 down the river. A mounted herdsman, in slouched 
 hat and sheep-skin jacket, drove his horses down to 
 
 A
 
 212 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 
 
 the stream to drink, and halted a few feet from the 
 landing. Sitting in his saddle, he looked straight 
 before him, and when the last colt lifted its head, 
 satisfied, from the water, he turned about and fol- 
 lowed his charge away without having deigned to 
 bestow upon us a single glance. 
 
 Several women came on board here, adding to 
 our number in the saloon. Black-eyed, stout, and 
 vivacious, they had evidently journeyed from the 
 interior, for they were brown with dust, and the 
 waitino--maid was at once summoned to assist them 
 at their toilets. Hastily laying aside their wide- 
 waisted gowns (with the exception of those who in 
 towns and cities follow French fashions, the Rus- 
 sian women seem to believe in the old Muscovite 
 idea that it is immodest for a woman to let the 
 form of her waist be seen, or to go with her hair 
 uncovered), they stood in turn before the one basin 
 while the patient girl poured the water for their 
 ablutions — not at once into the bowl, but in a 
 small stream over their hands as they washed ; 
 running water being here, as throughout the East, 
 considered necessary to cleanliness and purity. All 
 this without the least interrui)tion to their voluble 
 Russ, which seems, in the South, a softer language 
 than one hears above Kazan.
 
 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 21S 
 
 Gradually the boat grew quiet. Night came on. 
 The last loiterer left the bank, and the only sounds 
 heard from shore were the occasional barking of 
 dogs and the distant lowing of cattle. 
 
 The next morning ushered in September, but 
 with us it was going towards summer, for every 
 day brought milder air. The river-shores were 
 still low and the distance varied by sandy ridges 
 alive with water-fowl. It was Sunday, but there 
 was nothing on board the steamer to distinguish it 
 from the rest of the week. 
 
 In our descent we passed, on the right, the 
 mouth of the small river Aksai. Staroi Tcher- 
 kask, the former Cossack capital, is on an island 
 formed by this tributary and the Don ; but it was 
 so often inundated that early in this century a new 
 site was chosen, twelve miles up the Aksai, and 
 Novo Tcherkask became the capital of the country. 
 The new town, away from the Don and unloved of 
 the people, grows slowly. The old town, refusing 
 to die, has still some fifteen thousand inhabitants, 
 while its Greek and Armenian merchants carry on 
 a brisk trade in the products of the fisheries and the 
 wine from the neighboring vineyards. The one
 
 214 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 
 
 with broad reijular streets, with barracks and 
 hbrary and imposnig cathedral, is Imperial. The 
 other, with narrow lanes, and thatched houses, and 
 dirt, and dogs, and inundations, is Cossack. 
 
 At four o'clock we reached Rostoff, at the head 
 of the delta of the Don, and twenty miles above 
 the Sea of Azoif ; the most important town on the 
 river, and the centre of trade for all this part of 
 Russia. A hundred years ago a strong fort was 
 built here as a store-house for munitions of war, — 
 Fort St. Dimitri, — and about it the town has 
 grown. Government has favored it and made it 
 also a depot of provisions for the army, the for- 
 tresses of the Caucasus, and the eastern shores of 
 the Black Sea ; and now, with the adjacent Ar- 
 menian town of Nakitchevan, it has some fifty 
 thousand inhabitants. Stretching along the river, 
 its great stacks of wool and skins, of timber and 
 bark and leather heaped close to the shore, with 
 its larire warehouses, barracks, and churches, and 
 the activity everywhere displayed, show its life and 
 importance. 
 
 The Armenians, driven from their own country 
 by wars and oppressions, are found everywhere in 
 eastern Europe, and are especially numerous in
 
 A COSSACK liOY.
 
 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 215 
 
 Russia, with whose people they easily fiaternize on 
 account of the similarity of their Church creeds. 
 Their capacity for trade is such, that a Turkish 
 proverb says : " A Copt, two Greeks, and three 
 Jews are required to deceive an Armenian." They 
 are merchants, bankers, agents, peddlers. They 
 manufacture woolen cloths and silks and jewelry, 
 and everywhere by their quickness and sagacity 
 they become prominent in commercial and financial 
 affairs. Through the Ai-menian colonies of Mos- 
 dok, Kisliar, and Astrakhan, those of Nakitchevan 
 obtain rice, silk, wine, brandy, and all the other 
 productions of the Caucasus ; and by frequenting 
 the fairs of the provinces bordering upon the Don 
 they have come, in large measure, to control the 
 business of the region. Handsomest of races, you 
 rarely see one among them that is not comely, 
 and many are of striking beauty, — the eyes large 
 and mournful, the nose prominent but finely out- 
 lined, the mouth small and sweet. They formed 
 more than half the busy crowd at the Rostoff land- 
 in o-, and to their dark, delicate faces the coarser 
 Cossack physiognomy was an admirable foil. If 
 their ancient king Ara possessed in royal degree 
 the charms of his people, with an unsusceptible
 
 216 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 
 
 heart, it is no marvel he won the passionate, de- 
 stroying love of Semiramis. 
 
 The boat, which would not go below Rostoff, was 
 in a few minutes deserted of its passengers, and we 
 found it then so quiet and pleasant that we decided 
 to remain on board till morning. At sunset we 
 walked up the long slope into the town. There 
 were many tall, noticeable public buildings, but 
 most of the dwelling-houses were small structures, 
 painted yellow, with thatched roofs and clumsy 
 blinds at the windows. At the crest of the ridge 
 on which the town is built was an open square, from 
 whence we had a broad view over the river and the 
 plain bathed in the rosy light. Here was a market 
 and a church with beautiful green, star-spangled 
 domes. The doors were open and we went in. 
 Service was over, but a few late worshippers lin- 
 gered at the shrines whose s'aints lost something 
 of their grimness in that mellow gleam, and shone 
 resplendent, if not merciful, from their settings of 
 cTold and silver. An odor of incense lingered in 
 the air which the fresh breath from the river could 
 not dispel. The conventional pictures of the Last 
 Judo-ment and the Councils were on the walls, but 
 altogether, with its side windows and its bright col-
 
 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 217 
 
 ors, it was the most cheerful clmrch interior we had 
 seen in Russia — most of the cliurches, tine as is 
 the exterior, being so dark and gloomy as to sad- 
 den rather than elevate the soul. In the square 
 without, companies of people, chatting and laugh- 
 ing, walked to and fro ; and a drunken man, the 
 second we had chanced to see in the country, reeled 
 down the street and disappeared in a cellar; but 
 there was no noise or disorder. Opposite the 
 church was a fruit-booth kept by an Armenian, his 
 glowing face well set off by the piles of lemons and 
 oranges about him. Among his stores were great 
 baskets of grapes from the early vintage, the native 
 plums of the Don, and the berries of the wild rose. 
 The sun had gone down as we descended the hill, 
 but, shinino; as it might have shone on the Hud- 
 son, in its stead was the crescent moon, and under 
 its soft rays we betook ourselves to slumber. 
 
 No more fair-haired Russians. The multitude 
 on the Taganrog steamer where we embarked next 
 morning was a blending of the Tartar, Cossack, 
 Greek, and Circassian peoples, inhabitants of these 
 southern shores. The change was pleasant to the 
 eye tired of the pale, blonde races that look faded 
 and expressionless beside these children of the sun.
 
 218 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 
 
 We were now in the delta of the Don, and as the 
 day was fine, we sat on tlie upper deck that we 
 might command the view. While I write, I recall 
 the exhilaration of that morning, dropping down an 
 unknown river to an unknown sea. The broad 
 stream was full of turns and windings, and its 
 shores enlivened by a succession of small towns and 
 villages similar to those we had seen in its upper 
 course. Great herds of horses and gray cattle 
 stood along the banks and in the water, and some- 
 times the keepers with them up to their necks 
 in the flood, as if it were the luxury that the 
 Nile is to the Egyptians. Fishermen were busy 
 with their nets, and gulls and myriad wild fowl 
 wheeled and poised above, intent upon the waves. 
 At one point we passed a small boat filled with 
 women, towed by a horse which a boy was ridino- 
 along the bank. The little craft swayed with the 
 current and seemed in constant dano-er of over- 
 turn or collision ; but its inmates, wrapped in rough 
 jackets and with handkerchiefs tied over their 
 heads, appeared as much at ease as if seated on 
 the floors of their own cabins. Sloops and sail- 
 boats of every kind became numerous. The coun- 
 try grew flatter till at length it was a green plain
 
 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 219 
 
 scarcely above the level of the water. The river 
 spread itself like a tranquil lake, and soon, rounding 
 a curve, in the distant horizon wave and sky were 
 one, and lo I we had passed from the Don to the 
 Azoff Sea !
 
 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS.
 
 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 
 
 Saw you ever face so fearless, 
 
 Saw you ever face so fair, 
 As the young Circassian's yonder, 
 
 Gazing, mournful, into air ? 
 How his glance, his kingly carriage, 
 
 Shame the Mongols couched below ! - 
 Bliss to her who'll call him lover ; 
 
 Death to him who'll find him foe. 
 
 Shade of Helen ! there 's a Greek girl 
 
 Might have dazzled Priam's son I 
 ^V^ith such eyes, such shining tresses. 
 
 Was thy Trojan bold, undone 1 
 And if Paris were as princely 
 
 As the Persian by her side. 
 All the gods might give thee pity, 
 
 Though a royal Spartan's bride. 
 
 O these Border-Lands of Asia I 
 What is in their sun, their air. 
 
 That the women grow so beauteous. 
 That the men such grandeur wear ?
 
 224 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 
 
 Not the Lily loved of Odin, 
 
 (Palest brow and daintiest mouth,). 
 
 Mates the dark Levantine maiden. 
 Blossom of the glowing South I 
 
 w 
 
 HEN we readied Taganroo; the dust was 
 Avhirlino; throu2;li its streets, and as there is 
 nothing there of especial interest but the room in 
 which Alexander I. breathed his last, we went 
 directly on board the steamer for Kertch. 
 
 Taganrog was founded by Peter the Great, as a 
 port for the South. In his time a decrease was 
 noticed in the waters of the Sea of Azofi', and since, 
 through sand brought down by the Don, it has 
 grown, in this vicinity, so shallow that ships lie off 
 a league from land, and divide their cargo among 
 small boats which convey it ashore, or perhaps are 
 met half-way by carts driven out to relieve them 
 of their load. At present the chief business of 
 Taganrog is the transfer of military stores to the 
 Caucasus, but year by year its trade is slipping 
 away to Kertch and RostofF. 
 
 Early the next morning we began our voyage to 
 the south. The day was fine, the sea smooth, and 
 as we skirted its western border the land was al- 
 most constantly in view on our right, with the
 
 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 2'2,b 
 
 churches, as along the rivers, the most conspicuous 
 objects. This sea has nowhere a depth of more 
 than fifty feet, while in many parts it is much less. 
 When a strong wind blows from shore, its adjacent 
 bed is sometimes laid bare, and ships are at once 
 aground, but as its bottom is a soft mud they are 
 rarely injured. It abounds in fish, which are 
 among the principal exports of its towns, — hence 
 its Tartar name, Balik Denghis, — Fish Sea. 
 
 All day the sun shone warm, and for the first 
 time in Russia the thick clothing, so necessary 
 farther north, began to be uncomfortable. Late in 
 the afternoon we came to Marienpol, a town with 
 an extensive trade. The Greek blood of its early 
 colonists showed in the features and the picturesque 
 attire of the boatmen busy with transferring freight 
 to the hold of our steamer. I remember especially 
 one man as he leaned over the boat, — his feet 
 bare, his wide trousers rolled up to the knee and 
 confined at the waist by a girdle, his scarlet shirt 
 open at the throat, and his dark eyes and clustering 
 hair made more remarkable by a straw hat, the 
 brim loosely braided, and the unsplit strands gath- 
 ered into a point to form the crown, and finished 
 with a gay silken tassel. Here, among other things, 
 
 15
 
 226 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 
 
 we took on board various jars filled with butter, for 
 the use of the Emperor's household at Yalta. I 
 noticed them because each cover was fastened with 
 a seal. Everything is sealed in Russia, even the 
 padlocks of the boxes for the poor in the churches 
 the people, it is said, thinking it a small sin to pick 
 a lock, but having a regard for seals. 
 
 Towards evening the sea became literally "a sea 
 of glass," with neither ripple nor foam, but only a 
 gentle sway and swell. Many ships with white, 
 listless sails, stood here and there motionless on the 
 flood. The sky was perfectly clear, and after the 
 sun went down it was a great vault of changing 
 blue and crimson, faint and warm, with every tint 
 reflected in the sea, so that one could scarcely tell 
 where wave ended and atmosphere began. 
 
 The next morning we were at Kertch, on the 
 straits of Yeni Kal^, the quarantine station and the 
 most important town of the Sea of Azoff". Though 
 still a busy place, with exports of corn and wool, 
 of salt from the adjacent lakes, and of fish from its 
 own waters, it has never recovered from its bom- 
 bardment during the Crimean war. Fortunately 
 its valuable collection of antiquities had been pre- 
 viously removed to St. Petersburg, so that only the
 
 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 227 
 
 museum building was left to be destroyed by the 
 cannonade. In spite of its modern bouses, and its 
 fifteen thousand inhabitants, it has a lonely appear- 
 ance, and the troops of dogs that infest its streets 
 irive it the semblance of an Oriental town. In the 
 bare hill beyond it, site of the ancient Greek city, 
 excavations are constantly carried on, and many 
 beautiful and interesting relics of that civilization 
 which once flourished on these Scythian shores are 
 brought asain to lisht, — memorials of the time 
 when Anacharsis the Younger walked through its 
 orchards and gardens, and thought it the finest city 
 of the world. In its vicinity was the great tumu- 
 lus known to the Tartars as the " Hillock of the 
 Brave," which^ opened forty years ago, disclosed a 
 chamber of hewn stone, Avherein were found the 
 remains of a Scythian chief with his wife, his at- 
 tendants, and his favorite steed. His golden crown, 
 his ornaments and robes and weapons, with the 
 offerings made at his tomb, were found, untouched, 
 as they had lain since before our era ; and now, 
 with similar objects obtained in this region, they 
 adorn the rooms of the Hermitage at St. Peters- 
 burg. What a Wonderful realm is Russia, since, 
 without quitting the firm land, she can enrich her
 
 228 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 
 
 museums with the mammoths of the Polar rivers, 
 and the Greek art of Southern seas ! 
 
 Now we went on board a spacious boat of the 
 Black Sea Line, the Grrand Duchess Olga. Never 
 was a more varied company assembled than that 
 gathered in its elegant saloons and on its broad 
 decks : — Russians from the interior goino; to the 
 summer court and watering-place of Yalta, people 
 following French fashions and speaking French or 
 German as readily as Russ ; Greek women (one 
 of them lovely as the fairest antique statue) with 
 level eyebrows and abundant hair half concealed 
 by the scarlet cap witii its long, drooping tassel, 
 women, all of whom needed only the illumination 
 of the soul to become beautiful, and who looked up 
 with' a kind of childish helplessness to their hus- 
 bands or fathers wrapped in loose garments bor- 
 dered with fur ; natives of the Caucasus in their 
 peculiar costumes, with features so regular that any 
 one of the number might have sat for the typical 
 Caucasian of an illustrated work on ethnology, 
 most distinguished among them a Georgian Prince 
 in the service of the Czar, an Apollo for face and 
 form, with a long tunic of fine yellow cloth, a cap 
 of gray lamb-skin, and belt and cartridge boxes in-
 
 ■■WiBliilliil!lli!lll!ll!!!liilll 
 
 A VUL:N(; ('IIU'A.SqAN.
 
 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 228 
 
 laid witli silver ; Armenian traders sitting apart^ 
 handsome as the Caucasians, but with sharp, sad 
 lines in their faces ; Jews in their dark robes*; Tar- 
 tars, slow-moving and indifferent ; nurses wearing 
 turbans shaped of a bright handkerchief and car- 
 rying infants swathed, after the ancient custom, 
 with bands of linen ; part of a regiment of soldiers 
 ordered to Yalta, and a nondescript crowd of all 
 the neighboring races, Asiatic and European. One 
 of the Russians was a lady from the province of 
 Kharkov who spoke English and seemed much 
 pleased to meet Americans. " I am going to 
 Odessa," said she. " I always go, once a year, to 
 get the modes, for in the oounti'y where I live we 
 have little of fashion. How much I should like 
 to see America 1 I once made a journey to Paris 
 and London, and sometime, although it is so far, I 
 hope to go to New York. America is the land 
 of Lincoln. Ah, how terrible was the news of 
 his death ! For three days I did nothing but walk 
 about my house and say, Lincoln is dead ! Lincoln 
 is dead!" 
 
 A fresh wind blew through the straits of Yeni 
 Kal<5, and the tranquil shallows of the Sea of AzofF
 
 230 THE AZOFF AND EUXIN^ SEAS. 
 
 gave place to deeper water, green and covered with 
 spray. As we swept into the Euxine, lo ! at our 
 left the mountains of Caucasus dark on the horizon, 
 but fadins: as we held our course to the southwest. 
 All day the light breeze and cloudless sun of morn- 
 ing attended us, and the shore was just visible on 
 our right. At sunset we reached Kaffa and an- 
 chored in its beautiful bay, thinking of the days 
 when it was Theodosia, and Athenian barks 
 thronged its port for corn and honey and slaves. 
 Kaffa has been Russian for more than a hundred 
 years, but in that time most of its Tartar inhabi- 
 tants have emigrated to Turkey ; its mosque, copied 
 from St. Sophia, and the finest in the Crimea, has 
 fallen to decay ; and at present it is inferior to 
 Kertch in trade and population. Yet it looks well 
 as seen from the water, with its tall buildings, its 
 picturesque ruined forts, and its line of w^ind-mills, 
 grotesque against the sky. 
 
 Many bales of wool were taken on board here 
 for England ; and then, in the cool twilight, we 
 sought the open sea and the Bay of Yalta.
 
 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS.
 
 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 
 
 And still the Tartar loves the shores 
 The Euxine washes, and deplores 
 The glories of his race, gone by ! 
 And often when the east winds sigh — 
 The winds that warm from Asia blow — 
 He dreams 'tis the murmur of hosts that go 
 Forth with Genghis and Timour strong; 
 And his dark eyes flash, and he hears the song 
 Of the victors sung where the tent lines glisten, 
 While, couched on carpets Bokhara wove 
 For the chiefs that over their pastures rove. 
 The Khan and his jeweled ladies listen. 
 
 • But the wind goes by, and a roll of drums 
 From the fort of the conquering Russian comes ; 
 And their ships sail over the Euxine's foam 
 And their bells ring clear from tower and dome : 
 " It was written in Fate's decree ; " he cries, 
 " A llah requite us in Paradise ! " 
 
 A ROSY sunrise flushed the sea as we anchored 
 
 in the Bay of Yalta. Precipitous wooded 
 
 mountains circle it round, and the town,, beginning
 
 234 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 
 
 at the water's edge, climbs a little way up the 
 slope. It would be a lovely spot anywhere upon 
 earth, but after the steppe it is Paradise. No 
 wonder the Imperial family take the long journey 
 from the cold marshes of St. Petersburg: to look 
 upon such scenes and breathe such air. Small 
 boats conveyed the passengers ashore, and as we 
 stepped on to the wharf we saw the soldiers, already 
 disembarked, sitting and standing in groups on the 
 beach, cleaning their guns and adjusting their uni- 
 forms preparatory to entering the royal grounds. 
 
 As the summer residence of the Czar, a favorite 
 bathing-place, and the centre of traffic in Crimean 
 wine, Yalta is important. During the warm season 
 it is thronged with visitors, and it was with some 
 trouble that we obtained rooms at the H6tel de 
 Yalta — a rambling old house built round an inte- 
 rior court, with bare floors and ancient furniture, 
 yet delightful to us who, since leaving Kazan, had 
 spent but a single night away from a boat, and that 
 in the station-house at Tzaritsin. One must de- 
 scend the Volga and the Don to appreciate tlie 
 luxury of an ample apartment and a bed with two 
 sheets and a white pillow cover. 
 
 After breakfast we went in an open carriage,
 
 YALTA AXD THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 235 
 
 with tliree horses abreast and a Tartar driver, 
 across the lieio-hts above the town to the Tartar 
 village of Usof upon a hill-side fronting the sea. O 
 the pleasure of that ride ! The sky blue as ours, 
 with great fleecy clouds drifting over it ; the 
 balmy air lightly stirred by the breeze blowing to 
 shore ; below us the Euxine flashing in the sun, 
 and about us the rich vegetation of this favored 
 clime — pines, larches, junipers, cypresses, oaks, 
 and walnuts ; vineyards on the southern exposures, 
 and in the valleys the mulberry, the pomegranate, 
 the olive, the laurel, the fig, and sometimes the 
 orange ; fields of tobacco ; blackberry bushes laden 
 with fruit, and the lavish clematis overrunning the 
 walls. 
 
 With a fine instinct for natural beauty the Tar- 
 tars have everywhere chosen the loveliest sites for 
 their villao-es. This of Usof clusters in the hollow 
 and clint^s to the hill-side overlooking the sea, while 
 just beyond it precipitous cliffs rise from the water 
 as if to guard the retreat, and the whole air is filled 
 with the music of dashing wave and spray. It 
 might have been transported from the slopes of 
 Lebanon, so like was it to a Syrian town with its 
 small, flat-roofed houses rising terrace above ter-
 
 2:G YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 
 
 race, and its dogs that started up to bark at the 
 strangers. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, the Tartars are a comely 
 race; stout but symmetrical in form, the face 
 broad, the e^'es black or bluish-gray with heavy 
 lashes, and the nose often high and aquiline. The 
 dress of the men was half way between that of an 
 Arab and a Russian. The women, shy but un- 
 veiled, wore wide trousers and loose upper gar- 
 ments ; some were barefoot, others had boots of 
 yellow leather, and all let their hair hang to the 
 waist in fine braids. Rarely have I seen prettier 
 children — plumj), grave little creatures in queer 
 caps and frocks, peeping timidly round the corners 
 of the houses as we apj)roached, and then suddenly 
 darting within. Two groups were collected in an 
 open balcony with an old man for a teacher, and 
 from small books before them they chanted to- 
 gether with only less noise than those Vamb^ry 
 heard in the bazaar of Bokhara. 
 
 In an inclosure near one of the houses several 
 men and women were at work making cider ; the 
 women first pounding the apples in a large wood- 
 en trough after which they were put into a rude 
 press, while the juice was " boiling down " in a
 
 TARTAR liOYS
 
 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 237 
 
 large, shallow copper pan over a fire kindled on 
 the ground. The picturesquely attired men and 
 women busy with the fruit ; the bright-eyed chil- 
 dren ])laying about ; the grain, the apricots, the 
 nuts, the tobacco, the onions and red peppers dry- 
 ing in and around every house, made a scene of 
 rustic plenty and simplicity, charming to behold. 
 One of the young women offered us cider in a 
 wooden bowl ; another brought a basket of hazel- 
 nuts ; and we were free to pick the ripe, delicious 
 berries of the great mulberry trees at the foot of 
 the hill. It was a mode of existence that en- 
 chanted me, tired of the artificial, complicated life 
 of the West, and had I followed the impulse of the 
 moment I should have sworn allegiance to the 
 Prophet and taken up my abode in Usof by the 
 sea ! 
 
 Tartars make up the larger part of the popula- 
 tion of the Crimea. The power of their haughty 
 Khans decreased until, nearly a hundred years ago, 
 Sahim, the last of the line, gave up his domains to 
 the Russians, and for this was enticed to Constanti- 
 nople by the indignant Turks, whose vassal he had 
 been, and put to death. It was one of his luxui'i- 
 ous predecessors who, when poisoned by a Greek at
 
 238 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 
 
 Bender, sent for his musicians that he might fall 
 asleep pleasantly. And now their ancient palace, 
 " Seraglio of Gardens," stands like the Alhambra, a 
 monument of splendor passed away. Many of their 
 mosques are in ruins, while those families among 
 them most i-igidly attached to their Faith and their 
 traditions have sought on Turkish soil fi'eedom from 
 Christian rule. Yet those who remain seem con- 
 tent and light-hearted ; their bearing is easy and 
 independent ; and with the belief that all events 
 are decreed, they resign themselves to their fate. 
 Doubtless in an extreme of trial and mortification 
 they are consoled by that saying of Mohammed's 
 so (grateful to their fierce kindred, the Turkomans : 
 " This world is a Prison for Believers and a Para- 
 dise for Unbelievers." As a race they take life 
 sunnily, and with their primitive habits, and their 
 trust in destiny, are disposed to idleness ; yet they 
 readily endure fatigue and are courageous and true- 
 hearted. They have some manufactures of felts 
 and camel's hair cloth, but most of them are agri- 
 culturists or shepherds. Their land is irrigated and 
 often well tilled ; and on the steppes they have large 
 herds of sheep and cattle, and by thoir nomadic in- 
 stinct can find their way even when the trackless
 
 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 239 
 
 plains are white with snow. Their favorite food 
 is mutton roasted on skewers, with thin cakes of 
 bread, after the fashion of the East. They dehght 
 in fruits, and are enormous consumers of tobacco. 
 Unavoidably they will share the progress of the 
 Empire, and they will perhaps play an important 
 
 part in its future. 
 
 I 
 
 In the warm evening twilight we walked about 
 Yalta. The whole population, on foot or in car- 
 riages, thronged the streets, from the Emperor, 
 attired as a private gentleman, to the Tartars in 
 black lamb -skin caps ornamented with colored 
 beads. The music of a military band came from 
 the barracks, and laughter and the hum of voices 
 were heard on every side. Here and there were 
 booths for the sale of fruit, especially the grapes of 
 the country, large white and purple pyramids, deli- 
 cious for eating, but which have not yet produced 
 superior wines. In the shops were piles of gray- 
 blue lamb-skins from the plains near Kertch — a 
 color peculiar to the Crimea, and said, though I 
 know not how truly, to be owing to a plant upon 
 which the sheep feed. 
 
 The varied crowd, the soft air, the mountains,
 
 240 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 
 
 and the sea won us to prolong our stroll till the 
 pines were dim against the horizon and day had 
 given place to stars. Then we turned back to the ' 
 hotel in company with a group of Tartars saunter- 
 ng homewards, — for, like all Mohammedans, they 
 keep early hours, — and the last person we saw on 
 the promenade was the Georgian prince, looking 
 strikingly handsome in an embroidered white tunic 
 and a cap of snowy lamb-skin, which he raised in 
 graceful recognition as we passed him by.
 
 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 
 
 V
 
 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 
 
 Cross but this rocky height, and lol 
 
 A valley rare as Rasselas 
 
 Found in the Abyssinian pass, 
 With warmth and beauty all aglow ! 
 "Where for Tartar mosque and royal villa 
 Is many a shining porphyry pillar, 
 With marbles for altar and floor and stair 
 Veined with vermilion or amber fair; 
 And fountains fed by the rills that fall 
 Cool and clear from the mountain wall. 
 Where the olive and orange and nectarine 
 Ripen the sea-side gardens in, 
 And the winds are sweet as the breeze that sighs 
 Over the meadows of Paradise ! — 
 Yea, and the Blessed there might crave 
 Alupka, pride of the cliff and wave 1 
 
 TTTHEN the next clay's sliadows began to slope 
 
 eastward we left Yalta for the drive across 
 
 the country to Sevastopol. The September sky 
 
 was without a cloud, and thfe warmth of the sun
 
 244 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 
 
 -was lessened by a breeze from the water, produ- 
 cing that perfect temperature in which one is nei- 
 ther conscious of heat nor cold. 
 
 Our road lay along the slope of the hills between 
 the heights and the sea. Yalta, with its pictu- 
 resque church, its back-groimd of pines, and its 
 circular bay, soon disappeared. Passing on by 
 pleasant homes we reached, at a little distance, the 
 villa of the Empress — Livadia. It is a handsome 
 structure — warm brown in color, with beautiful 
 grounds descending to the shore — a cheerful, un- 
 pretending place, where, if anywhere, it would 
 seem care might be forgotten. On the green 
 sward just beyond the gate, companies of soldiers 
 were dining in the open air, and officers in Circas- 
 sian costume went to and fro. Beyond, and still 
 between the road and the sea, was the palace of 
 the Grand Duke Michael, and, still further, that of 
 the Grand Duchess Helen ; but long reaches of 
 park-like grounds separate them and leave each 
 alone in loveliness and dignity. 
 
 It is not solely the royal family who come hither 
 for summer delight. All the coast is dotted with 
 the villas of the noble and the wealthy, while those 
 who cannot keep a permanent residence spend a few
 
 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 245 
 
 weeks liere durinir the bathino; season, and go back, 
 refreslied, to the monotony of the interior. 
 
 The Crimean rano;e of mountains becrins near 
 Kertch, and following mainly the line of the coast, 
 ends in a bold promontory near Sevastopol. Its 
 highest peak, the" Tent Mountain" of the Tar- 
 tars, rises more than five thonsand feet above the 
 Euxine level, and is a mark for steppe and sea. 
 To the north is a boundless plain with brackish 
 lakes but neither springs nor rivers — a plain 
 where chill winds blow and hot suns beat without 
 barrier or shade to soften their power ; and where 
 in a long day's ride you would see only wanderers 
 with their herds, and flocks of solemn storks and 
 eager gulls hovering over the lagoons. 
 
 Cross the range to the south, and you are in the 
 paradise of Russia. The air is bland. The trees 
 and fruits have almost a tropical richness and va- 
 riety. Noble forests, vineyards, and gardens every- 
 where meet the eve, while streams of pure water 
 flow through the ravines, irrigating the soil and 
 supplying the fountains, and beneath all spreads 
 the Euxine, smooth or ruffled, as the wind may 
 blow. The blue sky, the transparent air, the val- 
 levs steeped in light and warmth, the mountains
 
 2-16 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 
 
 clear-cut at^ainst tlie horizon, the dark-eyed Mos- 
 lem villagers, and the tideless sea washing the 
 shores, constantly recalled Syria and the landscapes 
 of Lebanon. 
 
 But although the value of land here has greatly 
 increased since the introduction of the vine, its fer- 
 tility and beauty are still only half developed. The 
 mountains, too, have unknown riches of marbles — 
 some red and white, some of a sienna tint, some 
 dark with lustrous veins — witli fissures which 
 earthquakes have made, inviting builders to the 
 quarry. Ah, the stately dwellings they yet shall 
 fashion, and the gardens that shall bloom about 
 them ! 
 
 Now our road plunged into the shadow of oaks 
 which mio-ht have framed a man-of-war, and of 
 walnuts broad-bouo-hed and fragrant as those that 
 line the Barada above Damascus. Then it emerged 
 upon an open slope with the mountains towering 
 above us, and, below, the sea, blue that day as the 
 Mediterranean, and sparkling in the sun. And 
 everywhere. In quiet dells and sheltered nooks, and 
 by the side of a narrow stream that wound its way 
 down the steep, were the rustic houses and vil- 
 lages of the Tartars. One would suppose that on
 
 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 247 
 
 this iugli-road across the Crimea they would lose 
 their shyness ; but the pretty children fled at our 
 approach, and a woman whom we overtook, a 
 woman who from her attire — full trousers, yellow 
 slippers, hair in tiny braids, and a head-dress orna- 
 niented with coins — might have walked out of 
 Nablus or Ramleh, drew quickly across her face 
 the bright-figured mantle that covered her shoul- 
 ders, and turned away till we passed by. 
 
 We had been for some miles on the domain of 
 Prince Woronzoflf — the distinguished Russian no- 
 ble who has done so much to benefit this region 
 and make known its attractions — and soon we 
 came to Alupka, his sea-side residence, and halted 
 at its comfortable inn. 
 
 Palace is a word of indefinite signification. 
 There are royal abodes in Europe, popularly called 
 palaces, which are far less grand and luxurious 
 than many American homes ; but this of Alupka 
 deserves the name in its fullest meaning. The 
 mountains here come almost within a stone's throw 
 of the shore. The palace stands upon a bank that 
 slopes to the water, and behind it A'i Petri climbs 
 a thousand feet, broken itito bare, picturesque
 
 2^8 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 
 
 points which resemble, in miniature, the Needles 
 of tlie Alps. Square in form and Oriental in style, 
 it is built of a greenish porphyry taken from the 
 adjacent cliff, and is in perfect harmony with the 
 landscape, as are all buildings whose materials are 
 from the quarries peculiar to the region about 
 them. The Finland granite of St. Isaac's is as fine 
 in the dull atmosphere of the North as the shining 
 marble of the Parthenon beneath the brilliant sky 
 of Greece ; and, under the Crimean heaven, this 
 pile of olive-tinted stone, warm as the sunbeams 
 and rich as the shadows, rises, a natural feature 
 of the scene. 
 
 Between high, winding walls uf the same stone 
 overgrown with vines, and nt)t uidike the entrance 
 to Warwick Castle, you approach the house. Be- 
 fore you it stands, beautiful in symmetry of design, 
 and in the delicate carving of its mouldings and 
 ornaments. The encircling grounds are set with 
 walimt and apricot and orange and fig and pome- 
 granate trees; varied with thickets of odorous ever- 
 greens, and adorned with blossoming vines and 
 shrubs, and Avith beds of gorgeous flowers ; while 
 through them runs a crystal stream which descends 
 from the hills. Beyond, and a little way up the
 
 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 249 
 
 slope, — toleration j)leasnnt to behold ! — out of the 
 mass of foliage gleams a Tartar mosque, with swell- 
 inji dome and minaret, where, every day, turning 
 east and west and north and south, the muezzin 
 calls the Faithful to prayer ; and above soar the 
 cliffs, — now sharp against the sky, now wreathed 
 with clouds, — and seeming lofty and inaccessible 
 enough to be the haunt of eagles and the inspira- 
 tion of dreams. 
 
 Within all was as rare and strikino- as \vithotit. — 
 a mansion fit for a Russian prince to rear on Mos- 
 lem soil. A Tartar who seemed, in the absence of 
 the family, to have a certain charge, showed us 
 over it with entire politeness and propriety. The 
 ceilings were of oak, and the mantles and the foun- 
 tains in tlie spacious dining-room, — fountains fed 
 by the mountain stream, — of the most elegant na- 
 tive marbles ; while the furniture and tapestries 
 were ^.Imost wholly Turkish or Persian in pattern 
 and arrangement. 
 
 In the library, a noble room at one end of the 
 main building, besides the treasures of Continental 
 learning, there were many English books and peri- 
 odicals lying within easy reach, with leaves freshly 
 cut as if they had been read and enjoyed. Among
 
 250 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 
 
 the artistic things scattered about, I particularly re- 
 member one of those exquisite paper-weights from 
 EkaterineburcT, — a bunch of chei-ries of reddest 
 cornehan, with leaves of a green Siberian stone, 
 the branch dropped upon a slab of dark-hued, pol- 
 ished jasper. 
 
 But the splendor of the house is on the side 
 fx'onting the sea. The great windows open upon 
 it, and to the shore you go down by stately stairs, 
 broken into three flights, with erect, sitting, and re- 
 clining lions, — the last copied from Canova's in St. 
 Peter's, — at either side of the three broad spaces 
 of the descent. And before you spread its waves, 
 blue and far to the horizon, with white sails here 
 and there, and a fresh breeze blowing landward 
 that may have cooled itself on the px'ecipitous sides 
 of the Balkan or among the snow-covered peaks 
 of the Caucasus. 
 
 As we stood upon the terrace and looked above 
 and below, I called to mind the delightful resi- 
 dences we had seen in the Old World, — Eton 
 Hall, with its forest avenues, and the Dee winding 
 through its meadows ; Chatsworth in its beaute- 
 ous valley; Inverary, with its beeches and its high- 
 land setting of loch and mountain ; the Villa of
 
 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 251 
 
 Prince Oscar near Christiania, with its wide out- 
 look over green fields and clear fiords and reaches 
 of sombre pines ; castles by tlie Rhine and the 
 Rhone, and palaces beneath Italian skies and in 
 Eastern lands, — and I thought if one were to say 
 to nie, " Choose for yourself the rarest of these," 
 I would answer, " Give me Alupka by the Eux- 
 ine!"
 
 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY.
 
 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 
 
 O Baidar Gate ! lone Baidar Gate ! 
 What glories by thy portals wait ! — 
 Beyond the pines, wide-boughed and old, 
 Cliffs such as climb in Alpine hold ; 
 Above, the blue Crimean sky 
 Where, in still noons, the eagles fly, 
 And poise as if 'twere bliss to be 
 Becalmed upon that azure sea ! 
 Below, the Euxine with its sails 
 Fanned by the cool Caucasian gales; 
 And, all between, the glen, the glade. 
 Where Tartar girls theu- tresses braid. 
 And slopes where silver streamlets run. 
 And grapes hang, purple, in the sun. 
 
 And when, within the wood-fire's glow, 
 Fond friends tell tales of long ago, 
 And each recalls some lovely scene 
 By mountain pass or meadow green, —
 
 2.36 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 
 
 II" they shall turn and ask of me, 
 The rarest glimpse of earth and sea, 
 I'll say, with memory's joy elate, 
 « 'Tis Baidar Gate ! 'tis Baidar Gate ! " 
 
 "FT was another cloudless morning when we left 
 Alupka for Sevastopol. 
 
 The mountains now retreated from the sea, and 
 we traversed for some distance a country half val- 
 ley, half upland, fruitful and pleasant, but less cul- 
 tivated than that nearer Yalta. The little hamlets 
 of the Tartars were scattered here and there, and 
 we passed many of the men with loads of hay, — 
 their small cattle moving lazily, and their cart- 
 wheels, clumsily made of wood, and without tires, 
 creaking like the water-wheels of Egy])t. They 
 like the noise, however, and say oidy a thief is 
 afraid to make it. 
 
 Then we began to ascend, and were soon above 
 valley and upland, with the bare cliffs on our right, 
 and the sea, far below, at our left. Tiie road 
 wound along the mountains, turning with sharp 
 ano-les and offerino- at every turn a more command- 
 ing view. The air was pure and sweet, and as the 
 sun mounted higher, the dews rose in cloudv va- 
 nors and drifted over the cliffs, while eagles sailed
 
 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 257 
 
 above them in the upper sky, likening them to the 
 misty precipices and eyi'ies of Glencoe. 
 
 Steadily climbing, we ascended till at a height of 
 seven hundred feet we reached the summit of the 
 Pass and the Gate of Baidar. This is an orna- 
 mental arch of masonry built as a barrier across the 
 road, so that travellers coming from Sevastopol can 
 have no sight of the sea until it bursts upon them 
 as they emerge from the portals. 
 
 For some time we had forborne to look back; 
 but now, with great peaks rising about us, we dis- 
 mounted to enjoy the scene. Lo ! at our feet the 
 lovely landscape ; and, beyond, the sea — radiant, 
 o-lorious, losing itself in the distant blue ! So cloud- 
 less was the sky, so transparent the air, that it 
 seemed as if, with steady gaze, we might discern 
 the shinine; summits of the Caucasian chain, and 
 catch, in the southwest, the gleam of the minarets 
 of Stamboul ! Silent as we stood, looking afar, an 
 I'agle wheeled, in low flight, just above us ; and the 
 ilronino: sono-s of Tartars with their teams came ui) 
 From the valley on the wind. Then we passed 
 under the Gate, and the superb picture became a 
 
 vision of memory. 
 17
 
 258 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 
 
 Our road now descended into the Vale of Baidar, 
 one of the most charming portions of the Crimea, 
 though with but few inhabitants and little culture. 
 Through it runs the Tchernaia, falling into the sea 
 at Sevastopol. On either side were forests of oak, 
 beech, walnut, alder, and poplar, with wild fruit 
 trees, and many elegant shrubs, among them the 
 juniper and the laurel ; while graceful vines — 
 oftenest the clematis — clung- to their trunks and 
 drooped from their boughs. Hares and other game 
 abound in this valley, and earlier in the year it is 
 vocal with the songs of nightingales. 
 
 It was too late for flowers. Wherever the turf 
 was not shaded it w^as brown with the sun ; but in 
 the spring the region is a garden filled with tulips 
 and scarlet poppies, with thyme and crocuses and 
 wild hyacinths, and many a gay bloom unknown to 
 colder fields. 
 
 The forest passed, we came out upon the open 
 vale, and saw before us a dilapidated Tartar vil- 
 lage, with the post-station, a low, wooden house, in 
 its midst. Alighting at the door, whose latch lifted 
 with a sti'ing, we were ushered through a bare 
 apartment — evidently the common guest-room — 
 into one larger and more comfortable, and which
 
 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY 259 
 
 seemed to be the parlor of the establishment. The 
 uneven floor was spread with a coarse carpet — 
 green paper curtains shaded the windows — and in 
 the extreme corner were several pictures of saints 
 in metallic frames, and beneath them a little table 
 covered with books of devotion. From the side 
 windows the long, narrow kitchen was visible, 
 opening upon an interior court ; its cooking utensils 
 hanging upon nails and its store of crockery dis- 
 played in a doorless cupboard. A Tartar woman, 
 with a yellow handkerchief over her head, was busy 
 with the pots and pans ; and beyond were the sta- 
 bles, and men caring for the horses. 
 
 Adjoining the " parlor " was a bed-room — the 
 bed round and high with feathers and covered with 
 an elaborate patch-work quilt. Here two comely 
 young girls, daughters of the station-keeper, were 
 bus}' folding and ironing clothes which looked white 
 and clear as those of the most fastidious New Eng- 
 land housekeeper. They wore short skirts and 
 loose sacques of calico ; and while the brown hair of 
 one was closely braided, the other had her lighter 
 locks prisoned in curl-papers ; but, disappearing for 
 a moment, she returned with flowing ringlets and 
 a string of bright beads about her fair neck. 
 
 We could speak but few words of Russ, and
 
 260 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 
 
 they not a word of anything else ; yet we grew 
 quite social and they entertained us by their 
 tact and liveliness. They submitted their nicely- 
 starched frills to our inspection, and drew from the 
 clothes-basket under-garments with edgings and let- 
 ters of their own embroidery. On the table was 
 an old, highly-colored fashion plate, and the elder 
 handed it to me with an air which said, " We, too, 
 know something of the great world." Then, at 
 our request, she took a guitar from its case, at the 
 foot of the bed, and they both sang and played sev- 
 eral songs in a simple, pleasing style. 
 
 Presently the mother appeared - — a woman ex- 
 actly like her daughters, only stouter and graver 
 
 — and announced that our lunch was ready. Set 
 upon the small table we found a quaint urn filled 
 with delicious coffee whicli had been roasted since 
 our arrival, and rich cream with rusks. A few 
 minutes later tlie carriage was brought to the door, 
 and amid pleasant-sounding Russian farewells we 
 bid the family good-morning. 
 
 " Who knows ? " we said, as we drove away. 
 " Those frills and edgings may be part of the young 
 girls' wedding trousseau. However it be, may they 
 win what is doubtless the height of their ambition 
 
 — kindly husbands and stations of their own."
 
 SEVASTOPOL.
 
 SEVASTOPOL. 
 
 Over the Dead is a Syrian sky, 
 
 And a li<Tht wind blows from the Vale of Baidar ; 
 But what care they as they mutely lie — 
 
 Column and captain, steed and rider ? 
 
 Tulips and poppies can never bloom 
 
 Dear to their slumber as English daisies ; 
 
 Nor the nightingale's warble in boweiy gloom 
 Atone for the skylark's rapturous mazes. 
 
 Ghostly cities and nameless graves — 
 This is the sum of the battle's story ! 
 
 And the wind of Baidar the brown grass waves, 
 And sighs above them, " Alas for Glory ! " 
 
 npHE plain crossed, we came to a range of hills 
 -*- — the subsidino- swells of the Yaila cliain — 
 and toilins slowly ui) the ascent, reached a high 
 level, the battle-o;round of the Crimean war. On 
 our left was Balaklava, its bay just visible through 
 a ravine ; on our right the Heights of Inkerman ;
 
 2G4 SEVASTOPOL. 
 
 Cathcart's Hill covered with graves, and many a 
 spot famous in the story of the time. Few habita- 
 tions were in sight, and the wliole upland, rich but 
 neglected, and encircled by tawny mountains tree- 
 less and o-lowing in the sun, was strikino-lv like 
 that battle-plain of Palestine — Esdraelon. 
 
 The dav was declining, tind without lingering 
 among its mournful scenes, between bare hills we 
 hastened down the sloping road that led to the 
 town. Many Tartars passed us, stretched at full 
 length upon their empty carts, while the ])lodding 
 cattle picked their unguided way along the broad, 
 dusty track. Then came a distant glimpse of the 
 sea, and soon we weiv in the suburbs of the noted 
 stronghold of the Crimea. 
 
 Demons of Destruction ! What a hideous spec- 
 tre, a frightful ruin, met our gaze for that which 
 had been Sevastopol — the August City ! Long 
 lines of buildings, once lofty structures of stoiK-, 
 now mere shells, roofless, windowless, with shat- 
 tered columns, or but single walls and foundations, 
 and all scarred and blackened and battered, with 
 heaps of rubbish at their base ; the unrivaled 
 harbor deserted, and life and activity only where 
 new dwellings had been reared upon the wi-eck of

 
 SEVASTOPOL. 265 
 
 the old — a siaht to make one forever shocked and 
 disgusted at the thought of war ! The very sunlight 
 seemed to pale before the desolation ; and it was 
 with a sio-h of relief that we escaped from the mel- 
 ancholy streets into the hotel. 
 
 A quiet day's rest, with stories of the bombard- 
 ment from our German landlord (one of the few 
 citizens who did not leave the place during the 
 war), and we drove out again to see the burial 
 fields and the scenes of the conflict. We had be- 
 come a little accustomed to the devastation, and 
 could now see isolated buildings and parts of 
 streets redeemed from the general ruin. Work- 
 men were busy upon a cathedral shrining some 
 eminent officers killed in the siege ; and, over the 
 bay, the Russian Monumental Church lifted its 
 cross in memory of the brave. 
 
 Sevastopol has a commanding site, and its revi- 
 val is only a question of time. House by house 
 and square by square the resurrection will go on ; 
 and, doubtless, some future day, prouder than ever 
 it will bear the name of the August City and the 
 Stronghold of the Euxine. 
 
 Now we came to the high, rolling plain above
 
 266 SEVASTOPOL. 
 
 the town, sloping on one side to tlie valley towards 
 Balaklava, and rising, on the other, to the Heights 
 of Inkerman — naked and cleft and brown as the 
 mountains of Moab. The soil is good, but almost 
 the whole extent is a bare, weed-grown waste, with 
 only here and there a dwelling. 
 
 On a ridge overlooking the sea is the French 
 Cemetery. It is a square, with uniform, appro- 
 priate, handsome tombs along its sides, and a mon- 
 umental one in the centre, having marble slabs 
 upon which are inscribed the names of the officers 
 of the various reo-iments there interred. There 
 are walks about, and the unoccupied spaces are 
 filled with plants and flowers. A. wall of substan- 
 tial masonry incloses it, and both this and the 
 avenue through which you approach are shaded by 
 locust-trees. At the entrance is a small, neat 
 house occupied by the keeper, who receives eight 
 hundred dollars a year for caring for the grounds. 
 
 But what shall be said of the Burial Places of 
 the English ? 
 
 After the pomp and circumstance of their com- 
 ing hither ; after the charge of the Light Brigade, 
 and countless deeds of sio;nal valor ; after heroic 
 patience under suffering, and at last, for so many,
 
 SEVASTOPOL. 267 
 
 death in this alien land, it is amazing that the 
 dead should be left to lie, apparently friendless and 
 forgotten. There are perhaps twenty small inclos- 
 ures scattered about ; the principal one surrounded 
 by a low, ordinary wall, with a single poor monu- 
 ment and a few head-stones, but most of its graves 
 without slab or number. 
 
 There was neither shrub nor tree to relieve the 
 poverty of the place. The wild flowers had with- 
 ered long before in the fierce heat, and tiny white 
 snails clung to the dead grass and gave it an ap- 
 pearance of utter neglect and barrenness. Outside 
 these pitiful grounds, the slopes and hollows are 
 dotted with graves which have nothing to distin- 
 guish them from the common soil ; where the stray 
 cattle may crop the turf, and the roving Gypsy 
 pitch his tent, unmolested. And, for all, the only 
 requiem is the wind moaning over the hill, or per- 
 chance the plaintive song of the nightingale ; and 
 the only " Decoration Day," when spring with 
 gentle fingers strews the sod with scarlet poppies 
 (how much dearer were the pink-tipped daisies of 
 the fields at home !) and the train of brilliant, 
 evanescent blooms with which she keeps here the 
 carnival of the year !
 
 2G8 SEVASTOPOL. 
 
 At the Cemetery — for witli this name they dig- 
 nify the largest of the inclosures — I sought in vain 
 among the burnt grass for a flower. Just as we 
 turned to leave, I found, under the shade of a pro- 
 jecting stone in the wall, a little blossom of almost 
 as deep a color as the purple-black lilies of Pales- 
 tine — a bloom which might w^ell have sprung from 
 the dust of heroes unremembered. 
 
 It lies before me as I write, the leaves darkly 
 dyed, as when it grew beneath the Crimean sky, 
 and with its hue come back the wide, desolate 
 plain ; the tawny mountains ; the wind rustling the 
 grass over the unknown graves. God grant the 
 mothers and wives and children of those who rest 
 there, truly loved and lamented, may never know 
 how sad and untended is the place of their repose ! 
 If England will do nothing worthy of her soldiers, 
 dead, let her rear a pillar among the fast-sinking 
 mounds, and write on its front. Oblivion I
 
 ODESSA.
 
 F 
 
 ODESSA. 
 
 Dreaming and looking seaward, 
 
 No longer the warders wait, 
 Guard of the Crescent banner, 
 
 Gleaming on tower and gate — 
 The banner unfurled by the Prophet, 
 
 The banner in league with Fate. 
 
 Nor boom the guns of the Fortress, 
 
 When sunset airs blow free, 
 While the warriors kneel, as the echoes 
 
 Die over steppe and sea — 
 Kneel and pray that the Moslem, 
 
 Lord of the world may be. 
 
 Gone are the Turk, and the Crescent, 
 
 And the Fortress of Khodja Bey; 
 And lo! in their place, Odessa, 
 
 And the Russ with a grander sway — 
 The Russ and the Royal Eagle, 
 
 That makes of Fate his prey 1 
 
 ROM the deck of the Odessa steamer we 
 watched the ruined streets and dismantled
 
 272 ODESSA. 
 
 forts of Sevastopol sink beneath the waves, wliile 
 we sped westward over an unruffled sea. At even- 
 ing tlie boat lay for an liour off Eupatoria, whose 
 white buildings had a pleasing appearance, as seen 
 from the water. Then her prow was turned from 
 the shore, and we stood west a^ain. 
 
 It was noon of the next day when we came to 
 Odessa, the great commercial city of Southern 
 Russia, and, before the rise of Chicago, the largest 
 m-ain-market in the world. Built on a high lime- 
 stone bluff, with long piers reaching out to protect 
 the harbor, and a gigantic staircase of stone, sup- 
 ported on arches, and extending from the height to 
 the shore, it looks finely as you approach it fron\ 
 the sea, through the many ships and boats loading 
 and discharging their cargoes. 
 
 Originally a Turkish fortress, it was taken by 
 the Russians during the reign of the Empress Cath- 
 erine, and a town at once begun as a port for the 
 grain regions of the South, From the first it seems 
 to have been energetic and ambitious. It peti- 
 tioned the Emperor Paul for a grant of armorial 
 bearings; for a free port; and for immunities like 
 those accorded to Revel and Riga ; and, as a sug- 
 gestion of what its trade was to become, it sent him
 
 ODESSA. 273 
 
 the rare present of three thousand fine oranges. 
 He received the fruit, but rejected the petition, ex- 
 cept as it related to the coat of arms. His succes- 
 sors, however, have granted all; and with their 
 favor and the judicious help and counsel of able 
 men — conspicuous among them the Princes Wo- 
 ronzofF, and the Duke de Richlieu, a French exile, 
 who, for many years, made it his home — it has at- 
 tained its present size and importance. Its growth 
 would have been more rapid but for the slow, inad- 
 equate communication with the surrounding coun- 
 try. The railway now finished to Kieff, and others 
 which are sure to follow, \vill fill its granaries and 
 freight its ships with the wealth of the vast inte- 
 rior. 
 
 The steppe, in its immediate' vicinity, is totally 
 unfit for vegetation. The soil cracks and becomes 
 like stone in the sun, and It Is only close to the 
 coast, and by the most assiduous care, that vine- 
 yards and gardens are made productive. Fierce 
 storms from the east and southeast sweep over it. 
 In winter it Is cold and misty and muddy ; in sum- 
 mer hot and choked with dust. At the latter sea- 
 son, when there is neither shade nor coolness to 
 be found In the city, all the wealthy people leave 
 
 IS
 
 274 ODESSA. 
 
 for their sea-side villas, or the watering-places of 
 the Crimea. The handsomest street fronts the sea, 
 with the Exchange at one end, the Woronzoff man- 
 sion at the other, and the largest hotel, the H3tel 
 de Londres, in the middle. There we took up our 
 temporary abode. 
 
 Ever since its foundation Odessa has been a ren- 
 dezvous for all races and professions. Not in the 
 bazaars of Constantinople will one hear a greater 
 variety of languages than among the hundred and 
 fifty thousand people here assembled. For com- 
 mercial purposes, as in the cities of the Levant, 
 Italian is chiefly employed. The buildings are of 
 stone, and the streets are in process of paving by 
 an English company. Fresh water is brought from 
 without, into the city, and filtered sea-water is used 
 for many purposes. Fuel, also, is obtained from a 
 distance, the barren steppe producing neither wood 
 nor coal. 
 
 It was still midsummer weather. Daring the 
 heat of the day the city reposed, but the mornings 
 and evenino-s were full of life and business. I did 
 not wonder when I saw the fine shops with elab- 
 orate painted signs, and as much French as Russ 
 in the inscriptions, tliat the lady from the interior
 
 ODESSA. 275 
 
 came here for " the modes." Most of the elegan- 
 cies of Paris could be purchased in them, but at 
 enhanced prices. In the Greek and Armenian ba- 
 zaai's the East was as well represented. Here were 
 the gold and silver work of Tiflis — the belts, the 
 brooches, and the earrings ; the embroidered jack- 
 ets of Circassia ; the silks and tissues of Broussa 
 and Adrianople ; the slippers of Teheran, and even 
 the shawls of Bokliara ; and whatever of rarity the 
 Sultan's capital could send to its northern neighbor. 
 
 Each class of inhabitants — nobles, merchants, 
 Jews — has its own quarter and place of meeting. 
 The only common g-round seemed to be the caf^s, 
 which were filled Avith a varied crowd, smoking, 
 talking, and sipping wines and coffee. Fruit shops 
 abounded, with great heaps of melons at the doors, 
 and, in some, pears which exactly resembled small, 
 variegated squashes. 
 
 One day, towards evening, Ave rode through and 
 about the city, and noticed with interest that many 
 customs and fashions, such as the mode of harness- 
 ins; horses, and the dress of coachmen, which had 
 seemed so novel to us when we first stepped upon 
 Russian soil at Abo, Finland, were just the same 
 here in the extreme South. The dust rose in
 
 276 ODESSA. 
 
 clouds at every turn of the wheels, and the acacias 
 which with great pains have been planted along 
 the wide, regular streets, were often as brown with 
 it as the pavement. Nothing escaped its defilement 
 but the church-towers, lifted above its ashen clouds. 
 And how fine ai'e some of these towers ! Critics 
 may say what they will of Russian Church archi- 
 tecture — call it " debased Byzantine," " Tartar- 
 esque," or any other reproachful name which suits 
 their whim — to my eye it is always pleasing and 
 often very beautiful. Have the orders and styles 
 of past ages " exhausted the capabilities of form ? 
 Are changes and combinations necessarily mon- 
 strosities ? " Debased," indeed ! I wish every 
 city in America had a church as imposing as one 
 we saw, scarcely finished, on the outskirts of the 
 town, its lofty tower upholding a graceful, swelling 
 dome that seemed poised as lightly and naturally 
 as a golden lily on its stem ! And, more than 
 domes and towers, I wish that from our churches 
 as from those of Russia, pews were excluded, and 
 the space within were free to the lowest as to the 
 highest, to the beggar as to the millionaire — all 
 equal in the presence of God. Then the sermon 
 would be less, but the worship of the united con-
 
 ODESSA. ' 277 
 
 gregation more, and the poor, who have greatest 
 need of beauty and cheer, would not be banished 
 from our finest churches as, in effect, they are 
 now. 
 
 Next to the churches, the most prominent build- 
 ings were the great stone granaries, and the slaugh- 
 ter-houses, where countless cattle — the gray herds 
 of the steppe — are converted into tallow. On the 
 outskirts were numerous small, rude dwellings, the 
 abodes of the peasants who have flocked here to 
 better their fortunes ; and in an open space was a 
 Gypsy encampment. The men were doubtless ply- 
 ing their various trades and arts within the city ; 
 but the women and children huno; about the tents, 
 clothed in dirt and rags, yet some of them notice- 
 ably handsome, with lithe, slender forms, and an 
 untamable look in their black eyes, fascinating, yet 
 fearful to behold. 
 
 Just where the town met the steppe, we came 
 upon a long line of carts from the far country, filled 
 with wheat for the market. It was a characteristic 
 and iiiterestino; sight, for formerlv all the o-rain was 
 brought to town in this way. The carts were sim- 
 ilar to those of the Tartars, wholly of wood, with- 
 out tire or nail. Each held perhaps twenty-five
 
 278 ODESSA. 
 
 bushels of wheat, and ^^•as drawn by two oxen, 
 gray, small, slow-moving cattle, attached to it by a 
 harness of ropes. The axles would get on fire 
 with the constant friction, were it not for frequent 
 use of the vile grease carried in a little pot hanging 
 beneath. 
 
 But how shall I describe the men walking by the 
 teams ? Never before had I so vivid an idea of a 
 serf. Their faces were as dull as those of the bul- 
 locks they drove, and they moved in the same leth- 
 argic way. They seemed to be rather fair of hair 
 and complexion, but were so begrimed with dust it 
 was difficult to tell. Some were bareheaded, and 
 all wore blouse and ti'ousers of coarsest sacking, 
 fastened about the middle with a rope or a strap of 
 leather. Gloomily stupid, they looked as if they 
 had never had an emotion in their lives. They 
 had come, perhaps from the borders of Poland, 
 perhaps from Kieff, for then the railway thither 
 was unfinished. We looked after them as they 
 plodded on, and commiserated their lot. Born of 
 ancestors equally degraded, they had had nothing 
 to waken thought or hope or ambition. The grain 
 they carried was not their own, but belonged to 
 some landed proprietor who would pay them a
 
 ODESSA. 279 
 
 mere pittance for tlie journey. They had travelled 
 ten or twelve miles a day and then halted ; and 
 while tlieir cattle ate the grass by the road-side, 
 they had made a meal of buckwheat porridge or rye 
 bread, — for wheat they seldom taste, — and then 
 slept under their carts. It was one of this class to 
 whom Prince DemidoflF refers in his account of 
 travel throuo;h this region — a man ill, and without 
 aid, in whose hut he sought refuge from a storm. 
 " Ah ! " said the uncomplaining sufferer, when his 
 visitor expressed pity for his condition, "peasants 
 were not sent into this world for their own pleas- 
 
 ure." 
 
 Thank God ! the day of pleasure for peasants is 
 comino-! The Czar has made them free men, and 
 with the knowledge of their manhood their dor- 
 mant faculties will awake. The elder men of this 
 generation will not greatly change ; but their chil- 
 dren will have education and gain wealth and 
 power. They will send their own wheat to Odessa, 
 and eat of the best of the land at home, and talcs 
 of the days of servitude will seem as far oflp as if 
 they had been in another world ! 
 
 Twilight was deepening as we returned to the 
 hotel. It was the " Name's day '" of the Czar —
 
 280 SEVASTOPOL. 
 
 the festival day of Saint Alexander Nevski, whose 
 ■name he bears, — and the principal streets and build- 
 ings were brilliantly illuminated. The Exchano-e 
 presented a beautiful appearance, with a motto in 
 Russ blazing upon its front, and, beneath, the Em- 
 oeror's cipher surmounted by a crown, and encircled 
 with flame. The harvest moon shone over the sea ; 
 [he streets were filled with merry people ; and, re- 
 membering the uplifting of the nation, we could 
 have exclaimed as heartily as any Russian of them 
 all, " Honor and long life to the Czar ! "
 
 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF
 
 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 
 
 Hush I heard you that horseman ? how madly he rides ! 
 God pity the woman his coming that bides 1 
 Wild oaths wafted up on the wind as he passed, 
 And a shade o'er the moonlight that moment was cast. 
 
 Wliat stirs there? No bugle the barracks have blown; 
 No drum beats to quarters; yet, watching alone, 
 While the howl of the dogs fills the midnight with fear, 
 Some foe stealing by in the darkness, I hear. 
 
 Has the Turk crossed the border? the Tartar come back 
 With the vengeance of murder and fire in his track ? 
 There 's a foot by the window ; a flame on the floor ; — 
 And lo I 'twas the wind and the moonbeam — no more. 
 
 "17^ ARE WELL to the sea. Our course was now 
 across the country to the Austrian frontier. 
 It was a fine morning in mid-September when 
 we left Odessa by railway for Tirsopol, ninety 
 miles distant, the farthest point to the west 
 touched by the then unfinished road to KiefF.
 
 284 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 
 
 As soon as we had passed the town we entered 
 upon the bare rolling plain burnt with the heat so 
 as to be almost a desert in appearance, but which 
 improved as we advanced till the soil looked dark 
 and rich like that of our prairies. Occasional vil- 
 lages of small houses with a large church in their 
 midst; immense quantities of hay stacked on the 
 plains, and of straw, showing where grain had been 
 threshed ; groups of wind-mills on the higher 
 swells of land, and the dwellings of the railway 
 workmen near the track, half under ground so that 
 at a distance they seemed to be all roof ; these 
 were the most striking features of the country be- 
 tween Odessa and Tirsopol, where we arrived at a 
 little past one ; — Tirsopol on the Dneister, which has 
 a citadel to command the course of the river, and is 
 one of the chief towns of Bessarabia. 
 
 In Odessa we had secui'ed an order for post- 
 horses, and a comfortable carriage which came up 
 with us on the train, and while the courier went to 
 the post-house to make the necessary arrangements, 
 we waited, at the railway station, and lunched, 
 after the fashion of the country, on bread and tea. 
 The great room was crowded with those who had 
 just arrived and those who were to take the train
 
 OVER THE STEPPE TO KI CHINE FF. 285 
 
 a few hoiii's later ; for time liad not yet become 
 valuable liere, and the railway was an object of 
 curious interest to all. Companies of cartmen, 
 such as we had seen near Odessa, and who had 
 brought their grain to the station instead of takinr; 
 the long journey to the port, peered in at the doors 
 or walked about, examining the track and the cars. 
 Polish Jews, with black robes and curlincr ear- 
 locks, stood talking apart. A peasant father and 
 mother sat in one corner, shy and observant, sur- 
 rounded by their luggage in queer bags and bun- 
 dles, and were very much disturbed because their 
 children — three sturdy little boys with cropped 
 hair and droll jackets covered with buttons — 
 dared to run about and make a noise. Opposite 
 them were an old and a young lady, evidently 
 people of " quality," dressed in the Paris fashions 
 of perhaps twenty years ago, and served by an ob- 
 sequious maid whose attire was at least a quarter 
 of a century behind their own. Tartar workmen 
 were continually going through, leaving wn'de-open 
 doors which the boys amused themselves, in spite 
 of their mother, by shutting with a slam ; and in 
 the middle of the room, undisturbed by the commo- 
 tion, sat an Armenian with a shining black port-
 
 286 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 
 
 manteau by his side, and paper and pencil in his 
 hand, doubtless summing up the gains of his last 
 tradincr adventure. Near the door stood an open 
 cask of fresh water with a long-handled wooden 
 dipper floating on the top, and almost all who went 
 in or out stopped to drink of it — the small boys 
 taking such frequent and copious draughts that at 
 leno-th their father, overcoming his timidity, rose 
 and dragging them away, ranged them in a forlorn 
 row against the wall. 
 
 These things entertained us until the carriage 
 was brought to the door, with four horses har- 
 nessed abreast and furnished with bells, and a Tar- 
 tar driver. We set oflP at a furious gallop ; and 
 what with the speed and the clouds of dust that 
 enveloped us, we hardly had a glimpse of the town 
 before it was left behind and we were on the great 
 post-road, the thorouglifare across the steppe from 
 the Black Sea to Poland. 
 
 From eight to ten miles an hour is the ordinary 
 rate of travel here. Then the station is reached 
 and both horses and driver are changed. The 
 number of miles, or versts, from one station to the 
 next is marked on posts set up by the way- side and 
 painted with the Imperial colors; and often, so
 
 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 287 
 
 level is the steppe, several of these posts are in 
 view at once. There are no roads worthy of the 
 name except these Government highways, and over 
 them all the traffic and travel of the country must 
 pass. At intervals we met carts filled with grain 
 o-oing to the town or returning after discharging 
 their loads, the drivers counterparts of those we 
 had previously seen. Great herds of cattle, anrl 
 of sheep, both black and white, fed about ; wind- 
 mills wei-e common ; and, as we went on, fields of 
 Indian corn, pleasant to American eyes, varied the 
 monotony of the broad level. 
 
 Its monotony — and yet the steppe is not with- 
 out picturesque and striking features. Here, when 
 the sun rises and disturbs the brooding mists, the 
 forests and cities of the mirage shine along the hor- 
 izon ; and his setting is often with such marshaling 
 of clouds and splendor of colors as the hills never 
 know. Here, too, are those strange monuments 
 of forgotten ages, the funereal Mounds — the 
 Khouro-ans of the Tartars — reared and consc- 
 crated by a race long passed away ; up whose 
 sides the shepherds climb to see their flocks, and, 
 wrapped in their rude capotes, sleep, or drowsily 
 watch the dark lines upon the silent plnin. Wo
 
 288 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 
 
 saw them at intervals, all the way from Odessa to 
 the frontier — low, rounded banks dark against the 
 sky — mysterious relics which neither tlie violence 
 nor the storms of centuries have been able to de- 
 stroy. 
 
 The sun set in crimson glory, and the full moon 
 rose, yellow, in the east. The evening was so 
 pleasant that we concluded to prolong our journey 
 to KichinefF, the capital of Bessarabia. A cool 
 wind came with the dew, and we went rapidly on 
 over an undulating country which at length be- 
 came almost hilly, so that for the last stage we had 
 six horses and a postillion. The custom here is to 
 drive very fast up hill and very slow down. At 
 every little declivity a post was seen bearing a 
 board with a brake painted upon it, black on a 
 white ground. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock when we reached 
 KichineflF and whirled through the wide streets to 
 what the driver assux*ed us was its best hotel. O, 
 Frequenters of the " Clarendon" and the " Conti- 
 nental ! " what would you have said to the inn of 
 the Bessarabian capital? — a broad, low, white- 
 washed house at the back of a paved yard, with 
 the interior roughlv finished — a few battered arti-
 
 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 289 
 
 cles of furniture that looked as if for generations 
 they might have been heir-looms in the owner's 
 family — the long, empty room into which we were 
 ushered lighted by a tallow candle set on a narrow 
 mantel near the ceiling — and the inmates, from 
 the host to the stable-boy, running about ; opening 
 and shutting doors ; issuing orders in various un- 
 known tongues ; and at length bringing in the tea- 
 urn and placing it, with meat and bread, upon the 
 table before us. 
 
 Our bed-rooms — Just beyond, upon the first 
 floor, with small windows but a few feet from the 
 ground — were barer and plainer than the large 
 apartment. The town was full of dogs, barking 
 and howling like their kind at Constantinople, 
 Now and then a horseman clattered down the 
 street. Some servants' brawl or a riotous arrival 
 kept up a tumult in the yard ; and the whole was 
 so like an adventure in a story-book that it was 
 long before I fell asleep. Then it was to wake and 
 see if the clums}'- stool was just where I had placed 
 it, against the door ; and to question if the light on 
 the wall was really nothing but the moon shining 
 through the dim panes of the uncurtained window. 
 
 We rose early, hoping to leave before the sun 
 
 19
 
 290 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 
 
 was high, but in this we had reckoned without our 
 host. The people appeared kind and willing to do 
 everything in their power, but they had neither 
 method nor sense of time. What a waking up 
 there will be in that hotel, and in all KichineflF, 
 when the railway train thunders through and trav- 
 eller and native must be at the station to meet it ! 
 Before six o'clock the cloth was laid in the large 
 room for our breakfast. It was after eight when 
 we sat down to the table. And all this time the 
 waiter had been hurrying back and forth, bringing 
 now a plate, now a knife and fork, now a cup of 
 salt, and at each entrance he assured us that break- 
 fast would be in " directly." One of our party 
 asked for water-cresses ; whereupon landlord and 
 waiter held a serious consultation which resulted in 
 dispatching a boy to the market. Just as we were 
 leaving the table he burst in with a flushed, trium- 
 phant face, holding high a small bunch of the fresh 
 leaves — proof of what determination can do even 
 in KichinefF. 
 
 At nine o'clock we drove out of the hotel yard, 
 eager to view the capital and its ninety thousand 
 inhabitants.
 
 KICHTNEFF TO BELZT.
 
 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 
 
 Here the white cattle graze that feed 
 
 The Austrian Kaiser's towns, 
 Close-watched by dogs alert to leap 
 
 If but the herder frowns ; 
 And here the shepherd tends his fl^ck 
 
 While the long days go by — 
 Now couched beside them in the plain, 
 
 Now on the khourgans high. 
 The plover calls across the steppe; 
 
 The stork, with snowy breast, 
 Flies northward to the kindly roof 
 
 That holds her summer nest ; 
 But nothing stirs his drowsy blood 
 
 Unless a lamb should stray — 
 Then woe to wolf or Gypsy thief 
 
 That lurks beside the way. 
 
 TTTH AT did we see ? A vast town spread over 
 
 ^ uneven, almost hilly ground ; its wide streets 
 
 lined with shabby, thatched-roofed huts, and large, 
 
 handsome buildings here and there — the cathedral.
 
 294 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 
 
 the residence of the Russo- Greek Bishop, barracks 
 and other modern structures pertaining to the Rus- 
 sian rule — with walls brilliantly white, and domes 
 and roofs painted green ; bazaars open to the street 
 and full of all the common things required by such 
 a population — boots, blouses, gay handkerchiefs, 
 ropes, twine, coarse woolens and linens, and rude 
 implements for the house and the field ; in the 
 market, grapes, melons, apricots, pears, apples, and 
 Avomen sitting on the ground by a few vegetables, 
 as in the East; aged crones, crouching in the doors, 
 spinning from a distaff; groups of dirty-looking 
 children, clad, like some of the women, in a single 
 garment of hempen cloth ; soldiers in shining uni- 
 forms ; Tartai's wearing lambskin caps, coming and 
 going with ox-teams loaded with hay and grain, 
 and always lying at full length upon the empty 
 carts; lean, savage dogs running about; such was 
 KichinefF — an Arab town dropped in Russia. 
 
 On the outskirts of the place women were stand- 
 ing up to their knees in a pool of water, washing 
 flax, while others were spreading it in the sun. 
 Flax is one of the chief products of the country, 
 and most of fhe clothing of the inhabitants, at least 
 of the peasantry, is of home manufacture. There
 

 
 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 295 
 
 were vineyards on the slopes and some of the hills 
 were wooded. 
 
 The uneven country about the small tributary 
 of the Dneister on which KichinefF is built, soon 
 subsided into the steppe which is here very fertile 
 and, in its season, the birth-place of beautiful flow- 
 ers, coming and going like those of our prairies ; 
 and the haunt of cranes, plovers, and other free- 
 winged tribes that love rich and boundless fields. 
 No stones or rocks were seen ; no fences divided 
 the domains. Solitary dwellings were rare, even 
 near the highway. The post-stations were in vil- 
 lages or had a few habitations gathered about them. 
 They were low houses, the interiors poorly finished 
 with wood, but the ceilings almost always painted 
 in colors with some simple pattern, while the roofs 
 were the universal thatch of coarse reeds or straw. 
 In all the towns were wind-mills, and wells with 
 long sweeps and buckets. 
 
 Many of the inhabitants of this part of Bessara- 
 bia are Tartars. So far from the sea, they did not 
 emigrate when the country was ceded to Russia, as 
 did multitudes on its borders ; but away from any 
 centre of their Faith, and with the Greek church 
 dominant, they are likely to grow yearly more lax
 
 296 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 
 
 in the observance of tlieir creed. The remainder 
 are Russians, Jews, and representatives of all the 
 neighbor races. 
 
 The principal industry is the rearing of sheep 
 and cattle ; indeed, Bessarabia is a grazing ground 
 to which herds are often sent from afar. It sup- 
 plies Austria with numerous cattle and cavalry 
 horses, and sends great droves to the Odessa mar- 
 ket. Some of 'the proprietors have a hundred 
 thousand sheep. These are of a hardy breed, the 
 fine merinos having been found unprofitable on 
 account of the long housing they require in winter. 
 Nothing is used to enrich the land, but it is cus- 
 tomary to let it lie fallow every third year. The 
 common fuel is dung mixed with chopped straw, 
 and dried in the sun. 
 
 Beyond Kichineff the country continued more 
 undulating; than that to the southeast. Occasion- 
 ally we passed forest-clothed ridges with bright 
 points of autumnal color gleaming in the green. 
 Stretches of Indian corn alternated with levels cov- 
 ered with stacks of hay. Great companies of cat- 
 tle fed in the open spaces and unoccupied fields, 
 and sometimes passed us on the road, driven • by
 
 KICHINEFF TO BELZl. 297 
 
 mounted herders, and raising such a storm of dust 
 that we could hardly see them, or even breathe till 
 they had gone by. 
 
 At Orgeief, a town on the brink of a smooth ex- 
 panse like a New England meadow, we stopped for 
 dinner. Entering the inn by a flight of steep stairs, 
 we sat down in its one large room to wait for the' 
 promised cutlets and tea. Everywhere along the 
 route we found poor, ill-matched crockery in use, 
 but here its variety was remarkable, and we had 
 nothing to do but to watch the waiter at his work. 
 On a small, square table there were pink plates and 
 blue plates ; a black and white sugar-bowl ; a 
 purple milk-pitcher; and cups and saucers of eveiy 
 color possible to coarse earthenware. It was plain 
 that contrast was what the waiter desired. He 
 never put brown cups and saucers together, but 
 always mated them with red or green, and when 
 he had set them out in a half-circle, foldino; his 
 arms he stood at a little distance and contemplated 
 the rainbow effect with entire satisfaction. I was 
 sorry not to be able to speak to him. I wanted to 
 ask on what occult principle of taste he proceeded, 
 and where the landlord got such an astonishing col- 
 lection. But alas ! we had not a word in common,
 
 298 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 
 
 and the history of that dinner-set I shall never 
 
 know. 
 
 All the afternoon a rolling country; a wide, 
 dusty road ; and corn and hay and cattle. At five 
 o'clock we came to the station at the little hamlet 
 of Baretchsky and found that the stables were 
 empty, and we must wait for horses to come in and 
 feed before we could go on. On either side of the 
 post-house were several small, thatched dwellings, 
 half sunk in the ground, and before it the plain 
 sloped to a narrow river. A man clad in the uni- 
 versal blouse and trousers of tow-cloth lazily led 
 away the horses, and as lazily returned with a pot 
 of offensive grease which he applied to the car- 
 riage-wheels with his fingers, wiping them, as he 
 passed back into the stable yard, on a horse's tail! 
 Little children were playing about with only a tow 
 shirt on, while the boys above seven or eight years 
 old were habited exactly like the men. The dust 
 lay on the ground like a bed of fine ashes, and the 
 children were striking it with a stick and making it 
 fly high in the air ; and playing with tame turkeys, 
 and pigeons with feathered legs — both so brown 
 with dust that it was impossible to tell the color of 
 their plumage.
 
 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 299 
 
 A peddler came trudging up the road with his 
 pack on his back, and his arrival made quite an ex- 
 citement among the women. They appeared at 
 the cellar-hke doors of the houses, and, with wha 
 seemed hke words of welcome, invited him to 
 enter. He was apparently an Armenian, and a 
 shrewd, good-humored fellow to whom bargaining 
 was second nature. Nodding graciously, and say- 
 ing something equivalent, I ftmcy, to " all in good 
 time, ladies," he vanished under the first doorway. 
 
 As we walked about, the mistress of the adjoin- 
 in o- house which was thatched and low, but, unlike 
 the rest, entirely above ground, smiled and beck- 
 oned us to come in. She had a fair complexion 
 with sunny blue eyes, and her dress was a dark 
 woolen petticoat, with a short linen wrapper and 
 silver earrings. Entering, we found a large room 
 with a dem'ee of comfort which we had not ex- 
 pected. In one corner was a broad, covered bench, 
 on which quilts were piled, and which served for a 
 bed. There were wooden stools and a table ; a 
 coarse rug was spread on the floor, and at the far- 
 ther end was a fireplace over which kettles and a 
 few dishes were set with some regard to order. 
 
 But the attraction of the place, and that which
 
 300 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 
 
 the proud young mother had called us to see, -was 
 a tiny baby asleep in his liulka, — a cradle like a 
 light wooden tray, suspended by lists from the 
 ceiling. As if he had been a prince she lifted the 
 blanket that we might see his face, and rocked his 
 hanging nest gently to and fro when he moved 
 with a faint cry. It was the Bessarabian poem of 
 " Philip, my king ! " 
 
 In came the peddler, followed by three or four 
 women eager to trade. With an air as bland and 
 patronizing as that of his Scotch brother delineated 
 by Wilkie, he helped himself to a stool, and pro- 
 ceeded leisurely to unfold his treasures, — bright 
 handkerchiefs ; necklaces of glass and coral beads ; 
 earrings ; rolls of chintz and ribbon ; and a dozen 
 other things charming to feminine beholders. Chris- 
 tian or Mohammedan. The blue-eyed woman 
 fixed, at once, upon a string of beads for her baby, 
 and began to bargain for it, holding it on her fin 
 gers ; while the rest picked up each article as he 
 laid it down, and admired and questioned and dis- 
 cussed until there was such a noise and excitement 
 in the low room that, with a trifling gift to the 
 mother for baby's necklace, we slipped away. 
 
 The sun was setting in gorgeous clouds, and the
 
 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 301 
 
 whole plain shone with a momentary splendor 
 This was the hour for watering the herds. Bellow- 
 ing and filling the air with dust ; driven by men on 
 horseback carrying heavy whips, and by fierce 
 dogs that with bark and bite at once seized upon a 
 stray ox and forced him back into the drove, across 
 the fields they went to the river ; a moving mass 
 of gray ; crowding past each other in their haste ; 
 plunging to the bank with wild eyes and flaring 
 nostrils, and drinking as if they would drain the 
 stream to its source. 
 
 Meanwhile the expected horses had returned ; 
 and at eight o'clock, with no supper but some meat 
 and bread we had brought in a basket from Or- 
 geief, we resumed our journey. 
 
 Again a cool, dewy evening, and the harvest 
 moon undimmed by a cloud. We went on without 
 incident and reached the next station a little before 
 ten o'clock, meaning to spend the night ; but there 
 was no inn, and the post-house had only hard 
 benches and black bread to offer us, so we resolved 
 to prolong our ride to Belzl, the largest town that 
 remained between us and the frontier. At eleven 
 o'clock we were off with a fresh team, and a driver 
 wrapped in sheep-skins against the night air. At
 
 302 KICHINEFF TO BELZl. 
 
 that hour the country was still, and seemed almost 
 unm habited. There were neither herds nor trav- 
 ellers to obstruct the road, and it was not lono- after 
 midnight when we reached Belzi and alighted at 
 the door of its Armenian inn. Disrobing at night 
 does not seem to be the fashion in Bessarabia. We 
 found the people asleep, but in their usual dress, 
 and ready, as soon as they were waked, to serve 
 us. There was a hospitality in their greeting very 
 grateful to tired, chilled, belated comers. In a lit- 
 tle while they gave us tea, and made up clean beds 
 for us on their straw-cushioned sofas, where, oblivi- 
 ous of dogs and all other disturbances, we slept 
 soundly till late the next morning.
 
 THE FRONTIER.
 
 THE FRONTIER. 
 
 O the glorious purple line 
 
 Of the mountains lifted along the west 1 
 Bright, in the sun, their summits shine ; 
 
 Dark, in the shade, their valleys rest. 
 Cossack and Tartar may hold the plains. 
 
 And the rivers that creep to a tideless sea; 
 Mine be the heights where the eagle reigns, 
 
 And cataracts thunder, and winds blow free! 
 
 Not for the steppe, with its desert sheen, 
 
 From Austria's border to China's wall, 
 Would I give the upland pasture's green — 
 
 The beeoh-tree's shadow — the brooklet's fall. 
 Vanish, O weary, mournful Level ! 
 
 Welcome, O Wind my brow that fans! 
 In the splendor of earth again I revel, 
 
 Greeting the purple Carpathians I 
 
 ^TTE let Belzi take its own time. It was ten 
 " o'clock when we left the inn, our lunch- 
 basket filled with meat and bread against the exi- 
 
 20
 
 306 THE FRONTIER. 
 
 gencies of the daj. Belzi lies in a low plain sur- 
 rounded by hills, and is like KichinefF in appearance, 
 only smaller and poorer. 
 
 Still a rolling country with corn, and hay, and 
 cattle. At one place we counted nearly a hundred 
 cows feeding together by the road-side. All day 
 the monumental mounds were seen lying along the 
 horizon, to the south. Most of the people we met 
 appeared to be of Tartar race, and the women, 
 though always with uncovered faces, seemed shy 
 and timid. At one place, where we waited for 
 horses, we saw several at work with flax which lay, 
 as about most of the houses, in bundles upon the 
 roof, and on the grass, near at hand. Standing at 
 a little distance, we watched them with interest ; 
 but as soon as they saw they were observed, they 
 fled into the house, and immediately two men came 
 out, attended by a huge dog, and confronted us 
 with angry looks and warning gestures, so that we 
 were slad when the carriage came to take us from 
 their disagreeable neighborhood. 
 
 Now and then we passed stubble fields where 
 wheat had grown. The corn raised here is little 
 exported, but, ground into coarse meal and cooked 
 as porridge, it is a staple article of food for the 
 inhabitants.
 
 PKASANT OF THE POLISH BORDER.
 
 THE FRONTIER. 307 
 
 As we journeyed north the air became percepti- 
 bly cooler. The country was more broken, and in 
 the hollows of the hills were little lakes that gave 
 variety to the landscape. In the afternoon, at a 
 lonely post-station, we waited again for horses, and, 
 to pass the time, walked back to the stable-yard. 
 It was surrounded by a high fence, a kind of stock- 
 ade. Surly dogs followed the grooms about, and 
 the entire establishment had a dreary, prison-like 
 appearance. The apartments of the keeper are 
 always in the rear of the house, looking upon the 
 yard. The doors were open, and as we went by 
 we saw the two forlorn rooms where eight or ten 
 people had their abode. In one a small fire of 
 brushwood burned in the chimney with a pot hang- 
 ing over it in which porridge was cooking ; while a 
 baby, rolled in a bit of brown flannel, — a bright- 
 eyed little thing crowing at the flame, — lay on a 
 cushion near by. A pile of bedding and clothing 
 in one corner, two or three rough benches, a few 
 wooden dishes and a tea urn made up the furniture. 
 
 Seeking; for something more agreeable than this 
 barren place, we went a little way up the road to 
 where a field of Indian corn rustled in the wind, 
 and I could not resist the temptation to pluck an
 
 308 THE FRONTIER. 
 
 ear and taste tlie sweet, yellow kernels so suggest- 
 ive of home. Truly, beauty is everywhere, even 
 under the shadow of a Bessarabian post-house. 
 Growing on the edge of the corn-field were clusters 
 of golden immortelles, and delicate purple flowers 
 which I had never seen elsewhere. 
 
 There was no large village with an inn where 
 we could comfortably spend the night, so again we 
 rode until a late hour, and then halted at a station 
 whose hard, leather-covered benches made sitting 
 up or walking about preferable to lying down. We 
 were off with the dawn, having first, outside the 
 door, washed our faces after the Oriental manner, 
 with water poured from a dipper into the hands. 
 
 The morning was cool and clear like those of 
 New England in late September, and we soon 
 accomplished the fifteen miles to the next station. 
 There an old woman, wrapped in a sheep-skin coat, 
 admitted us and furnished us with an urn for mak- 
 ing tea and a small bowl in which to drink it, and 
 with much merriment we breakfasted upon what 
 remained of the lunch we had brought from Belzi. 
 Just as we drove away from the house we saw, 
 by the side of the road, a wagoner who was making 
 a pudding of corn meal in an iron pot, over a fire
 
 THE FRONTIER. 309 
 
 kindled on the ground. His cart was close at 
 hand and beyond it his oxen were feeding. Hav- 
 ing made his pudding very stiff, he poured it out 
 into a cloth spread on the grass and tied it up 
 for carrying. Then with his wooden spoon he 
 scraped the pot, eating the morsels, and was still 
 intent upon it when a turn in the road hid him 
 from our view. 
 
 Through this region, most of the houses were 
 thatched, and great herds of sheep and cattle were 
 common ; but it was soon evident that we were 
 coming into a more populous country, and among a 
 different people. We passed numerous carts filled 
 with grain and vegetables and melons, sometimes 
 driven by men, sometimes by women. Companies 
 of three or four were walking, carrying fowls under 
 their arms, or having a bag of striped cloth over 
 their shoulders, containing something to sell. The 
 dress of the women was a long-sleeved garment of 
 coarse white linen, reaching just below the knees. 
 It was quite open at the neck, and about the hems 
 and bands there was an ornamental stitch of colored 
 worsteds. Instead of a petticoat, a striped woolen 
 blanket, perhaps two yards in length and half as 
 much in breadth, was folded round the figure,
 
 310 THE FRONTIER. 
 
 beginning under the right arm and ending under 
 the left — a single thickness at the back, and 
 double in front. A sash or belt of ornamented 
 leather confined it at the waist, and the outer 
 lower corner, with careless grace, was caught up 
 to the belt ao;ain. On the head was a hisrh cov- 
 ering of white linen, somewhat resembling that 
 worn bj the women of Bethlehem, and earrings 
 and a necklace of beads or coins completed the 
 attire. With their bare, brown, well-shaped legs 
 and feet; their white teeth, bright eyes, free 
 motions, and neat, effective dress, they made very 
 pleasing, picturesque groups. The men, clad in 
 homespun linen, and perhaps with a sheep-skin 
 jacket over the blouse, were as tidy as the women. 
 These were the Moldavians of the border. 
 
 The country became more broken and wooded ; 
 the peasant travellers more numerous ; and lo ! we 
 wei'e at Novoselitza and the Frontier ! 
 
 The unusual stir among the inhabitants was soon 
 explained. It was fair and market-day in the town, 
 and several thousand people were assembled on the 
 green. Making our way through their midst, we 
 alicrhted at tlie hotel. It was an ill-constructed, 
 unfurniijhed building, but after the small, comfortless
 
 THE FRONTIER. 311 
 
 post-houses with their wretched fare, its high sunny 
 rooms were palatial, and we thought its rusks and 
 coffee delicious, although they did bring us the 
 boiled milk in an iron kettle and set it on the floor 
 beside the table. 
 
 While our passports were being copied we walked 
 out to see the fair. The majority of the people 
 were the same in dress and appearance as those we 
 had passed on the way. Piled up on the ground, 
 or exposed in booths and on benches, were vegeta- 
 bles, melons, butter and curds, pottery, wooden 
 dishes, rock salt, linen and woolen cloths of home 
 weaving, colored yarns, beads, belts, sashes, and 
 whatever else was produced or required by this 
 primitive people. All seemed good-humored over 
 their traffic, and it was evident that many a flirta- 
 tion was going on among the young men and mai- 
 dens whose eyes and costumes had perhaps come 
 down to them from the ancient Dacians. 
 
 The last arrangements were completed ; our 
 passports were returned to us ; the courier an- 
 nounced that all was in readiness for our depart- 
 ure. Half glad and half sorry, we took the car- 
 riage once more, and, crossing the barriers between 
 the guard-houses of the two nations, entered Galicia 
 and Austria.
 
 312 THE FRONTIER. 
 
 A charming ride across the Bukovina — the 
 "Beech country " — with the Carpathians in sight 
 to the southwest (how enchanting was their wavy 
 line after the long level of the steppes !) ; the pas- 
 sage of the Pruth ; the ascent of the hill to pictu- 
 resque Czernowitz, whose Latin crosses glittered in 
 the sun ; and at the door of the " Hotel Adler " 
 we stepped from the vehicle which had conveyed 
 us so far, and dismissing the driver, bid a last fare- 
 well to Russia.
 
 THE CZAR
 
 THE CZAR. 
 
 Now who is he with lofty mien 
 
 That down the street doth ride? — 
 
 Nor bugle's note, nor banner's sheen, 
 To tell of power or pride. 
 
 His brow no kingly crown displays ; 
 
 His breast no jeweled star ; 
 Yet Russ and Tartar reverent gaze — 
 
 The Czar I God save the Czar I 
 
 TT was at Yalta that, for the first time in his own 
 dominions, we saw the Czar — a man whose 
 stately beauty would make him anywhere a mark 
 for admiration, and whose noble career as Emperor 
 entitles him to the world's regard. In his appear- 
 ance there is nothing of the fierce assumption of 
 superiority which belongs to his uncle, the sove- 
 reign of Prussia, nor yet of the unbending hauteur 
 by which all the portraits of the Emperor Nicholas 
 are characterized; but rather dignity allied to a
 
 • 316 THE CZAR. 
 
 tender earnestness which becomes him as the Father 
 of his People. 
 
 Think of his position ! A monarch with almost 
 irresponsible power over seventy millions of men ; 
 whose words echo as law from the Frozen Cape to 
 Mount Ararat, and from the Carpathians to the Sea 
 of Japan ; and on whose individual will, more than 
 on that of any other man, hang the destinies of 
 the race. 
 
 With the clear thought and steady purpose of his 
 German blood, and the faith which inheres in the 
 Slavonic, he applied himself to his tasks. Doubt- 
 less during the dark days of the Crimean war the 
 pain and peril of Russia had sunk into his heart, 
 and when he came to rule over the waiting millions 
 it was with sympathy for their trials, with apprecia- 
 tion of their needs and difficulties, and with the 
 resolve, God helping him, to lighten their burdens. 
 He knew the time was ripe for the victories of 
 peace, and that the age demands kingUness of kings. 
 The Empress, of the Ducal House of Hesse-Darm- 
 stadt, with an exalted standard for the court and 
 the nation, was his unfailing support and adviser. 
 He gathered about him the ablest men of the land, 
 and consulted with them as to the great measure he
 
 THE CZAR. 317 
 
 proposed — the Freedom of the Serfs. A thousand 
 obstacles intervened through the bitter opposition 
 of a part of the aristocracy, but quietly and firmly 
 ne met and overcame them. Five years after his 
 accession he proclaimed the Act of Emancipation — 
 glorious deed which converted thirty millions of 
 chattels into men ! And each one of them received 
 it as joyfully and as personally as if he had taken 
 him by the hand and said, " To you, Ivan," or " To 
 you, Fedor, I give the right to be your own lord 
 and master ; to marry, to possess land, to trade, 
 and to come and go as may suit your interest and 
 desire." Thus he has intensified, a hundredfold, 
 the instinctive worship of the Russian for his Czar ; 
 he has given to each peasant the devotion of a 
 Komisaroflf; and made the new hope and courage 
 and manhood he has inspired the surest foundation 
 for his throne in peace, and its mightiest bulwark 
 in war. 
 
 To this event succeeded others only less impor- 
 tant. Desirable changes were initiated in ecclesias- 
 tical matters. Foundations were laid for a system 
 of universal education. Open courts with trials by 
 jury were instituted. Provincial assemblies were 
 established. The bribery and corruption of the
 
 318 THE CZAR. 
 
 civil service were checked, and the petty espionage 
 which had often mai'ked it was discountenanced. 
 
 Everything has been done to foster and facilitate 
 the trade of the Empire. Nearly ten thousand 
 miles of railway have been finished or are now 
 building, carrying life and progress into remote 
 districts ; bringing the mines and the grain regions 
 near to the great marts ; and binding together the 
 different governments with the strong bond of com- 
 mon interests. 
 
 Travelling through an unexplored country, the 
 pioneer must clear his way as he proceeds. He 
 cannot always choose at once the most desirable 
 path, because he must fell the trees in order to see 
 what lies beyond ; he must ford the streams to tell 
 where it is safest to cross ; he must climb the hills 
 to learn which summit slopes gentlest to the farther 
 plain. So tlie Czar, with such untried foi'ces to 
 measure and control, such impediments to remove, 
 and such diverse and jarring interests to consult, 
 must often have walked in uncertainty, and found 
 deviations and apparent retrogressions inevitable. 
 But " Forward ! " is blazoned on his banner, and 
 those who understand him best know tliat difficul- 
 ties only incite him to fresh endeavors.
 
 THE CZAR. 319 
 
 "Best of husbands and fathers," is a remark one 
 often hears made of the Czar in Russia. He has 
 five sons living — Alexander, the heir; Vladimir, 
 Alexis, Sergie, and Paul ; and one daughter, Marie, 
 noAV seventeen years of age. Alexis, soon to be 
 our welcome, honored guest, bears the name of the 
 father of Peter the Great, the second sovereign of 
 the Romanoff line. His position is that of lieuten- 
 ant in the navy, and the highest place to which 
 he can probably ever attain will be that of General 
 Admiral, now held by his uncle, the Grand Duke 
 Constantine. 
 
 One of the most impressive services of the Rus- 
 sian Church is that where the priest, followed by 
 his deacons and readers, all in gorgeous robes, 
 issues from the royal doors, and, advancing to the 
 centre of the church, intones a solemn prayer for 
 the safety and well-being of the Emperor, while the 
 choir take up the last words and chant them to a 
 noble strain. Let every soul throughout his do- 
 minions echo that prayer — the Muscovite of vary- 
 ing Faith ; the Tartar in his mosque ; the Georgian 
 under the shadow of Kasbek ; the Kirghiz and Kal- 
 muck in their felt-covered tents ; the Ostiak and the 
 Samoiede by northern seas ; nay, the Pole beneath
 
 320 THE CZAR. 
 
 the glitter of the Latin cross — for, so far as human 
 power can avail, the safety of the Emperor means 
 security and justice and progress for all. 
 
 Humanity is one. We also, of the Republic 
 over the sea, honor the name and pray for the 
 preservation of the Czar Alexander. 
 
 Hail to the Czar Alexander I 
 
 Hail to the Priace of the Free 1 
 Not to the proud would he pander; 
 Truer and nobler and grander 
 
 Than Macedon's hero is he, 
 Alexander I 
 
 Listen 1 how melodies rural 
 
 Freight every wind with his praise I 
 
 Give him the golden crown mural 1 — 
 
 First from the seas to the Oural 
 Liberty's flag to upraise, 
 Alexander I 
 
 Greatest is not the Czar Peter; 
 
 (Sound it, O Bells, from each steeple!) 
 No, for his fame will be fleeter; 
 No, for the homage is sweeter 
 
 Paid to the Czar of the People, 
 Alexander I
 
 THE CZAR. 321 
 
 Ah ! when the Muscovite story 
 
 Ages to ages shall tell, 
 Still will the patriarchs hoary 
 Cry, " 'twas the Czar of our glory, 
 
 He who loved Russians so well, 
 Alexander ! " 
 
 God be his shield and defender ! 
 
 Keep him from sorrow afar ! 
 Then, when his life he shall render, 
 Fold in eternity's splendor 
 
 Russia's redeemer, the Czar 
 Alexander ! 
 
 21
 
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