A lucky Encounter.--Church of the Catacombs.--A Visit to the
Saints.--A tender Parting.--Pilgrims.--Rough Treatment.--A Scene
of Starvation.--Russian Serfs.--Devotion of the Serfs.--Approach
to Moscow.
EARLY in the morning, while I was standing in the yard of the hotel,
chaffering with some Jews about the sale of our carriage, an officer in
a faded, threadbare uniform, with two or three ribands at his buttonhole
and stars sparkling on his breast, came up, and, taking me by the hand,
told me, in capital English, that he had just heard of the arrival of
two English gentlemen, and had hurried down to see them; that he was a
great admirer of the English, and happy to have an opportunity, in the
interior of his own country, to show its hospitalities to the natives of
the Island Queen. At the risk of losing the benefit of his attentions, I
was obliged to disclaim my supposed English character, and to publish,
in the heart of a grinding despotism, that I was a citizen of a free
republic. Nor did I suffer for my candour; for, by one of those strange
vagaries which sometimes happen, we cannot tell how or why, this officer
in the service of Russia had long looked to America and her republican
government as the perfection of an ideal system. He was in Chioff only
by accident. Wounded in the last campaign against the Turks, he had
taken up his abode at Ismail, where, upon his pension and a pittance of
his own, he was able to live respectably as a poor officer. With no
friends or connexions, and no society at Ismail, his head seemed to have
run principally upon two things, apparently having no connexion with
each other, but intimately connected in his mind, viz., the British
possessions in India and the United States of America; and the cord that
bound them together was the wide diffusion of the English language by
means of these powerful agents. He told me more than I ever knew of the
constitution and government of the East India Company, and their plan of
operations; and, in regard to our own country, his knowledge was
astonishing; he knew the names and character, and talked familiarly of
all our principal men, from the time of Washington to the present day;
had read all our standard works, and was far more familiar with those of
Franklin, Irving, &c., than I was; in short, he told me that he had read
every American book, pamphlet, or paper he could lay his hands on; and
so intimate was his knowledge of detail, that he mentioned
Chestnut-street by name as one of the principal streets in Philadelphia.
It may be supposed that I was not sorry to meet such a man in the heart
of Russia. He devoted himself to us, and seldom left us, except at
night, until we left the city.
After breakfast, accompanied by our new friend with as unpronounceable a
name as the best in Russia, we visited the catacombs of the Petcherskoi
monastery. I have before remarked that Chioff is the holy city of the
Russians, and the crowds of pilgrims we met at every turn in the streets
constantly reminded us that this was the great season of the pilgrimage.
I was but imperfectly acquainted with the Russian character, but in no
one particular had I been so ignorant as in regard to their religious
impressions. I had seen Italian, Greek, and Turkish devotees, but the
Russian surpassed them all; and, though deriving their religion from
strangers, they exceed the punctilious Greeks themselves in the
observance of its minutest forms. Censurable, indeed, would he be
considered who should pass, in city or in highway, the figure of the
cross, the image of the Virgin, or any of the numerous family of saints,
without taking off his hat and making on his breast the sacred sign of
the cross; and in a city like Chioff, where every turn presents some new
object claiming their worship, the eyes of our drosky boy were rapidly
turning from one side to the other, and his hand was almost constantly
in a quick mechanical motion.
The Church of the Catacombs, or the Cathedral of the Assumption,
attached to the monastery, stands a little out of the city, on the banks
of the Dnieper. It was founded in ten hundred and seventy-three, and has
seven golden domes with golden spires, and chains connecting them. The
dome of the belfry, which rises above the hill to the height of about
three hundred feet, and above the Dnieper to that of five hundred and
eighty-six, is considered by the Russians a chef d'oeuvre of
architecture. It is adorned with Doric and Ionic columns and Corinthian
pilasters; the whole interior bears the venerable garb of antiquity, and
is richly ornamented with gold, silver, and precious stones and
paintings; indeed, it is altogether very far superior to any Greek
church I had then seen.
In the immense catacombs under the monastery lie the unburied bodies of
the Russian saints, and year after year thousands and tens of thousands
come from the wilds of Siberia and the confines of Tartary to kneel at
their feet and pray. In one of the porches of the church we bought wax
tapers, and, with a long procession of pilgrims, bareheaded and with
lighted tapers in our hands, descended a long wooden staircase to the
mouth of the catacomb. On each side along the staircase was ranged a
line of kneeling devotees, of the same miserable description I had so
often seen about the churches in Italy and Greece. Entering the
excavated passages of the catacombs, the roof of which was black from
the smoke of candles, we saw on each side, in niches in the walls, and
in open coffins, enveloped in wrappers of cloth and silk, ornamented
with gold and silver, the bodies of the Russian saints. These saints are
persons who have led particularly pure and holy lives, and by reason
thereof have ascended into heaven, where they are supposed to exercise
an influence with the Father and Son; and their bodies are left unburied
that their brethren may come to them for intercession, and, seeing their
honours after death, study to imitate them in the purity of their lives.
The bodies are laid in open coffins, with the stiffened hands so placed
as to receive the kisses of pilgrims, and on their breasts are written
their names, and sometimes a history of their virtuous actions. But we
saw there other and worse things than these, monuments of wild and
desperate fanaticism; for besides the bodies of saints who had died at
God's appointed time, in one passage is a range of small windows, where
men had with their own hands built themselves in with stones against
the wall, leaving open only a small hole by which to receive their food;
and died with the impious thought that they were doing their Maker good
service. These little windows close their dwelling and their tomb; and
the devoted Russian, while he kneels before them, believes that their
unnatural death has purchased for them everlasting life, and place and
power among the spirits of the blessed.
We wandered a long time in this extraordinary burial-place, everywhere
strewed with the kneeling figures of praying pilgrims. At every turn we
saw hundreds from the farthest parts of the immense empire of Russia;
perhaps at that time more than three thousand were wandering in these
sepulchral chambers.
The last scene I shall never forget. More than a hundred were assembled
in a little chapel, around which were arranged the bodies of men who had
died in peculiar sanctity. All were kneeling on the rocky floor, an old
priest, with a long white beard streaming down his breast, was in the
midst of them, and all there, even to the little children, were
listening with rapt attention, as if he were preaching to them matters
of eternal moment. There was no hypocrisy or want of faith in that vast
sepulchre; surrounded by their sainted dead, they were searching their
way to everlasting life, and in all honesty believed that they saw the
way before them. We ascended once more to the regions of upper air, and
stopped a few moments in the courtyard of the monastery, where the
beggar pilgrims were eating the hard bread distributed to them by the
monks from the bounty of government. No man seemed more relieved than
the major. He was a liberal in religion as well as in politics, but he
crossed himself everywhere most devoutly, to avoid, as he said,
offending the prejudices of his countrymen, though once he rather
scandalized a group of pilgrims by cross-questioning a monk about a new
saint, who seemed to be receiving more than a usual share of veneration,
and who, he said, had been canonized since he was there last.
But there is a time for all things, and nothing is more absolutely fixed
by Nature's laws than a time for dinner. Almost at the first moment of
our acquaintance the major had told me of an engraving representing a
scene in _New-York_, which was to be found at a second or third rate
hotel, and I proposed to him, in compliment to the honest publican who
had the good taste to have such a picture in his house, to go there and
dine. We went, and in a large room, something like a barroom in our
hotels, saw on one of the walls, in a black wooden frame, a gaudy and
flaring engraving representing the pulling down of the statue of George
the Second in the Bowling Green. The Bowling Green was associated with
my earliest recollections. It had been my playground when a boy;
hundreds of times I had climbed over its fence for my ball, and I was
one of a band of boys who held on to it long after the corporation
invaded our rights. Captain Cook mentions the effect produced upon his
crew by finding at one of the savage islands he visited a silver spoon
marked "London;" my feelings were, in a small way, of the same nature.
The grouping of the picture was rude and grotesque, the ringleader being
a long negro stripped to his trousers, and straining with all his might
upon a rope, one end of which was fastened to the head of the statue,
and the other tied around his own waist, his white teeth and the whites
of his eyes being particularly conspicuous on a heavy ground of black.
It was a poor specimen of art, but it was a home scene; we drew up our
table opposite the picture, and here, in the very headquarters of
despotism, I found a liberal spirit in an officer wearing the uniform of
the autocrat, who pledged me in the toast, "Success to liberty
throughout the world."
I had another occupation, which savoured more of home, and served to
keep my faculties from rusting; and that was the sale of our carriage.
We had made a calculation, and found that it would be cheaper, to say
nothing of other advantages, to give it away, and take the diligence to
Moscow, than go on posting. We accordingly offered it for sale, and
every time we returned to the house found a group of Jews examining it.
The poor thing found no favour in their eyes; they told us that we had
been riding in it at peril of our lives; that we might be thankful it
had not broken down on the road; and, in short, that it was worth
nothing except for old iron, and for that it was worth forty-five
rubles, or about _nine dollars_. We could not stand this. It had cost us
one hundred and forty less than a week before, was cheap at that, and as
good now as when we bought it. On the eve of departure, therefore, we
offered it to our landlord for three days' board; but the old Turk (he
was a Jew turned Christian, and in his regenerated worse than his
natural state) refused our offer, thinking that we would go away and
leave it on his hands. But we resolved to burn it first; and while
hesitating about offering it to our friend the major, he relieved us
from all delicacy by telling us that he did not want it, and had no
horses to put to it; to save us from imposition, he would willingly give
us the full value, but he was not worth the money. He had, however, a
piece of fifty rubles, or about ten dollars, in his pocket, and, if we
would take that, he would keep the carriage as a souvenir. We gladly
accepted his offer, and had the satisfaction of finding that we had
grievously disappointed both the Jews and our landlord.
In the morning the proprietor of the diligence, learning that we had
sold our vehicle, raised the price of places fifty rubles apiece; the
major heard of it, and insisted upon our taking back the carriage, when
the proprietor took another tone, talked of the expense of sending his
huge vehicle with only two passengers, and we listened and assented. We
started to accompany him, and just at the door of the hotel saw two
runaway horses coming furiously down the street with a drosky, and an
officer entangled and dragging on the ground. We picked him up and
carried him into the hotel. He was a noble-looking man, who but a few
minutes before had attracted my attention by his proud and manly
bearing, now a miserable mangled object, his clothes torn, his plume
soiled with mud, and his face covered with dust and blood, and, when we
left, it was uncertain whether he would live or die.
The major accompanied us to the office of the diligence, and our parting
was rather tender; he rubbed his mustache on both my cheeks, wrote his
name in my memorandum-book, and I gave him my address; he said that our
visit had been an interlude relieving the dull monotony of his life;
that we were going to new scenes, and would soon forget him, but he
would not forget us. Nor shall I forget him, although it is not probable
that he and I will ever meet again.
We took our seats in the diligence for Moscow, and set off with an
uncommon degree of satisfaction at having got rid of posting and of
Henri, and, with them, of all our troubles. We had nothing to do, no
wrangling with postmasters, no cheating to undergo from Jews, and were
in that happy state which made the honest Hibernian indifferent to an
upset or a breakdown; that is to say, we were merely passengers. With
great pomp and circumstance we drove through the principal streets, to
advise the Knickerbockers of Chioff of the actual departure of the
long-talked-of diligence, the conducteur sounding his trumpet, and the
people stopping in the streets and running to the doors to see the
extraordinary spectacle.
We descended the long wooden road to the river, and crossed the Dnieper
on a bridge about half a mile long. On the opposite bank I turned for
the last time to the sacred city, and I never saw anything more unique
and strikingly beautiful than the high, commanding position of "this
city on a hill," crowned with its golden cupolas and domes, that
reflected the sun with dazzling brightness.
For a short distance the country was rather undulating, but soon settled
into the regular steppe. We rolled on all day without anything to annoy
us or even to interest us, except processions of pilgrims on their way
to Chioff. They travelled on foot in bands of one or two hundred, men,
women, and children, headed by a white-bearded monk, barefooted, and
leaning on a staff. During the night I was roused by a loud chant, and,
looking out, saw a group of more than a hundred pilgrims gathered round
a fire, with an old monk in the midst of them, breaking the stillness of
night with songs of devotion; and all the night long, as we rode swiftly
by, I saw by the bright moonlight groups of forty, fifty, or a hundred
lying by the roadside asleep under the trees. More than fifty thousand
pilgrims that year visited the catacombs of Kiev, coming from every part
of the immense empire of Russia, and many from Kamschatka and the most
distant region of Siberia, performing the whole journey on foot, seldom
sleeping under a roof, and living upon the precarious charity of the
miserable peasants on the road. I have since seen the gathering of
pilgrims at Jerusalem, and the whole body moving together from the gates
of the city to bathe in the Jordan, and I have seen the great caravan of
forty thousand true believers tracking their desolate way through the
deserts of Arabia to the tomb of the Prophet at Mecca; but I remember,
as if they were before me now, the groups of Russian pilgrims strewed
along the road and sleeping under the pale moonlight, the bare earth
their bed, the heavens their only covering.
In the morning we stopped at a little town, where the posthouse had in
front four Corinthian columns supporting a balcony. Inside, mats were
placed against the broken windows, the walls were rough logs, the floor
of mud, with pigs and children disputing its possession, and the master
and mistress stood in special need of the purifying influence of a
Russian bath. We brought the teaurn out on the balcony, and had a cow
brought up and milked in our presence. After breakfast we lighted our
pipes and strolled up the street. At the upper end, an old man in a
civil uniform hailed us from the opposite side, and crossed over to meet
us; supposing him to be some dignitary disposed to show us the
civilities of the town, we waited to receive him with all becoming
respect; but, as he approached, were rather startled by the loud tone
of his voice and the angry expression of his face, and more so when, as
soon as within reach, he gave my pipe-stick a severe rap with his cane,
which knocked it out of my mouth, broke the bowl, and scattered the
contents on the ground. I picked up the stick, and should, perhaps, have
laid it over his head but for his gray hairs; and my companion, seeing
him tread out the sparks of fire, recollected that there was a severe
penalty in Russia against smoking in the streets. The houses are all of
wood; whole villages and towns are often burned down at once, and
probably the old man had begun by a civil intimation to that effect;
but, indignant at my quietly smoking in his face, had used more summary
measures. He was in a perfect fury; and calling at the top of his voice
to a man up the street, the latter went off with such a suspicious
looking-for-a-police-officer movement, that we hurried back to the
diligence, which happened to be ready and waiting for us, and started
from the town on a full run.
That night, in a miserable posthouse in a miserable village, we found an
old billiard-table. It seemed strangely out of place, and I had a great
curiosity to know how it had found its way there; but it was twelve
o'clock, and all were asleep but the postillion. I can give no account
of the rest of the night's work. I had a large cushioned seat of the
diligence to myself, certainly the softest bed I had yet had in Russia;
and when I put my feet out of the window, it was so comfortable that I
felt myself in some danger of falling into luxurious habits.
At daylight we arrived in a large village, the inhabitants of which were
not yet stirring, and the streets were strewed with peasants, grim,
yellow-bearded fellows, in sheepskin dresses and caps, lying on their
backs asleep, each of them with a log of wood under his head for a
pillow. I descended from the diligence, and found that the whole village
consisted of a single street, with log-houses on each side, having their
gable ends in front; the doors were all open, and I looked in and saw
men and women with all their clothes on, pigs, sheep, and children
strewed about the floor.
[Illustration: Russian Village.]
In every house was the image of the Panagia, or all holy Virgin, or the
picture of some tutelary saint, the face only visible, the rest covered
with a tin frame, with a lamp or taper burning before it; and regularly
as the serf rose he prostrated himself and made his orisons at this
domestic shrine.
About noon we passed the chateau and grounds of a seigneur; belonging to
the chateau was a large church standing in a conspicuous situation, with
a green dome, surmounted by the Greek cross; and round it were the
miserable and filthy habitations of his slaves. Entering the village, we
saw a spectacle of wretchedness and misery seldom surpassed even on the
banks of the Nile. The whole population was gathered in the streets, in
a state of absolute starvation. The miserable serfs had not raised
enough to supply themselves with food, and men of all ages, half-grown
boys, and little children were prowling the streets or sitting in the
doorways, ravenous with hunger, and waiting for the agent to come down
from the chateau and distribute among them bread.
I had found in Russia many interesting subjects of comparison between
that country and my own, but it was with deep humiliation I felt that
the most odious feature in that despotic government found a parallel in
ours. At this day, with the exception of Russia, some of the West India
Islands, and the republic of the United States, every country in the
civilized world can respond to the proud boast of the English common
law, that the moment a slave sets foot on her soil he is free. I respect
the feelings of others and their vested rights, and would be the last to
suffer those feelings or those rights to be wantonly violated; but I do
not hesitate to say that, abroad, slavery stands as a dark blot upon our
national character. There it will not admit of any palliation; it stands
in glaring contrast with the spirit of our free institutions; it belies
our words and our hearts; and the American who would be most prompt to
repel any calumny upon his country withers under this reproach, and
writhes with mortification when the taunt is hurled at the otherwise
stainless flag of the free republic. I was forcibly struck with a
parallel between the white serfs of the north of Europe and African
bondsmen at home. The Russian boor, generally wanting the comforts which
are supplied to the negro on our best-ordered plantations, appeared to
me to be not less degraded in intellect, character, and personal
bearing. Indeed, the marks of physical and personal degradation were so
strong, that I was insensibly compelled to abandon certain theories not
uncommon among my countrymen at home, in regard to the intrinsic
superiority of the white race over all others. Perhaps, too, this
impression was aided by my having previously met with Africans of
intelligence and capacity, standing upon a footing of perfect equality
as soldiers and officers in the Greek army and the sultan's.
The serfs of Russia differ from slaves with us in the important
particular that they belong to the soil, and cannot be sold except with
the estate; they may change masters, but cannot be torn from their
connexions or their birthplace. One sixth of the whole peasantry of
Russia, amounting to six or seven millions, belong to the crown, and
inhabit the imperial demesne, and pay an annual tax. In particular
districts, many have been enfranchised, and become burghers and
merchants; and the liberal and enlightened policy of the present emperor
is diffusing a more general system of melioration among these subjects
of his vast empire. The rest of the serfs belong to the nobles, and are
the absolute property and subject to the absolute control of their
masters, as much as the cattle on their estates. Some of the seigneurs
possess from seventy to more than a hundred thousand; and their wealth
depends upon the skill and management with which the labour of these
serfs is employed. Sometimes the seigneur sends the most intelligent to
Petersburgh or Moscow to learn some handicraft, and then employs them on
his own estates, hires them out, or allows them to exercise their trade
on their own account on payment of an annual sum. And sometimes, too, he
gives the serf a passport, under which he is protected all over Russia,
settles in a city, and engages in trade, and very often accumulates
enough to ransom himself and his family. Indeed, there are many
instances of a serf's acquiring a large property, and even rising to
eminence. But he is always subject to the control of his master; and I
saw at Moscow an old mongik who had acquired a very large fortune, but
was still a slave. His master's price for his freedom had advanced with
his growing wealth, and the poor serf, unable to bring himself to part
with his hard earnings, was then rolling in wealth with a collar round
his neck; struggling with the inborn spirit of freedom, and hesitating
whether to die a beggar or a slave.
The Russian serf is obliged to work for his master but three days in the
week; the other three he may work for himself on a portion of land
assigned to him by law on his master's estate. He is never obliged to
work on Sunday, and every saint's day or fete day of the church is a
holyday. This might be supposed to give him an opportunity of elevating
his character and condition; but, wanting the spirit of a free agent,
and feeling himself the absolute property of another, he labours
grudgingly for his master, and for himself barely enough to supply the
rudest necessaries of life and pay his tax to the seigneur. A few rise
above their condition, but millions labour like beasts of burden,
content with bread to put in their mouths, and never even thinking of
freedom. A Russian nobleman told me that he believed, if the serfs were
all free, he could cultivate his estate to better advantage by hired
labour; and I have no doubt a dozen Connecticut men would cultivate more
ground than a hundred Russian serfs, allowing their usual non-working
days and holydays. They have no interest in the soil, and the desolate
and uncultivated wastes of Russia show the truth of the judicious
reflection of Catharine II., "that agriculture can never flourish in
that nation where the husbandman possesses no property."
It is from this great body of peasantry that Russia recruits her immense
standing army, or, in case of invasion, raises in a moment a vast body
of soldiers. Every person in Russia entitled to hold land is known to
the government, as well as the number of peasants on his estate; and,
upon receiving notice of an imperial order to that effect, the numbers
required by the levy are marched forthwith from every part of the empire
to the places of rendezvous appointed. It might be asked, What have
these men to fight for? They have no country, and are brought up on
immense levels, wanting the rocks, rivers, and mountains that inspire
local attachments. It is a singular fact, that, with the Russian serf,
there is always an unbounded love for him who stands at the head of the
system of oppression under which they groan, the emperor, whom they
regard as their protector against the oppression of their immediate
masters; but to whatever cause it may be ascribed, whether inability to
estimate the value of any change in their condition, or a feeling of
actual love for the soil on which they were born, during the invasion of
Napoleon the serfs of Russia presented a noble spectacle; and the spirit
of devotion which animated the corps of ten thousand in the north
extended to the utmost bounds of the empire. They received orders to
march from St. Petersburgh to meet the advance of the French army; the
emperor reviewed them, and is said to have shed tears at their
departure. Arrived at the place appointed, Witgenstein ordered them to
fall back to a certain point, but they answered "No; the last promise we
made the emperor our father was, that we would never fly before the
enemy, and we keep our word." Eight thousand of their number died on the
spot; and the spirit which animated them fired the serfs throughout the
whole empire. The scholar may sneer, but I defy him to point to a nobler
page in Grecian or Roman history.
I shall make amends for this long discussion by hurrying on to Moscow.
We rode hundreds of miles without meeting a hill; the country was bare
of trees, and almost everywhere presenting the same appearance. We saw
the first disk of the sun peeping out of the earth, watched it while
soaring on its daily round, and, without a bush to obstruct the view,
saw it sink below the horizon; and woke up at all times of night and saw
the stars,
"Rolling like living cars of light
For gods to journey by."
The principal and only large towns on our road were Orel and Toula, the
former containing a population of four or five thousand, and presenting
an imposing display of churches and monasteries gaudily painted and with
gilded domes; the houses were principally of wood, painted yellow. Toula
is the largest manufacturing town, and is called the Sheffield of
Russia, being particularly celebrated for its cutlery. Everywhere the
diligence created a great sensation; the knowing ones said it would
never do; but at Orel one spirited individual said if we would wait
three days for him he would go on with us. It can hardly seem credible,
in our steamboat and railroad community, that a public conveyance could
roll on for seven days and nights, through many villages and towns,
toward the capital of an immense empire, and not take in a single
way-passenger; but such was the fact; and on the morning of the seventh
day, alone, as we started from Chioff, we were approaching the burned
and rebuilt capital of the Czars, Moscow with gilded cupolas, the holy
Moscow, the sanctified city, the Jerusalem of Russia, beloved of God,
and dear to men.