This book was written chiefly whilst tramping along the Caucasian and
Crimean shores of the Black Sea, and on a pilgrimage with Russian
peasants to Jerusalem. Most of it was written in the open air, sitting
on logs in the pine forests or on bridges over mountain streams, by
the side of my morning fire or on the sea sand after the morning dip.
It is not so much a book about Russia as about the tramp. It is the
life of the wanderer and seeker, the walking hermit, the rebel
against modern conditions and commercialism who has gone out into the
wilderness.
I have tramped alone over the battlefields of the Crimea, visited the
cemetery where lie so many British dead, wandered along the Black Sea
shores a thousand miles to New Athos monastery and Batum, have been
with seven thousand peasant pilgrims to Jerusalem, and lived their
life in the hospitable Greek monasteries and in the great Russian
hostelry at the Holy City, have bathed with them in Jordan where all
were dressed in their death-shrouds, and have slept with them a whole
night in the Sepulchre.
One cannot make such a journey without great experiences both
spiritual and material. On every hand new significances are revealed,
both of Russian life and of life itself.
It is with life itself that this volume is concerned. It is personal
and friendly, and on that account craves indulgence. Here are the
songs and sighs of the wanderer, many lyrical pages, and the very
minimum of scientific and topographical matter. It is all written
spontaneously and without study, and as such goes forth--all that a
seeker could put down of his visions, or could tell of what he sought.
There will follow, if it is given to the author both to write and to
publish, a full story of the places he visited along the Black Sea
shore, and of the life of the pilgrims on the way to the shrine of the
Sepulchre and at the shrine itself. It will be a continuation of the
work begun in _Undiscovered Russia_.
Several of these sketches appeared in the _St. James's Gazette_, two
in _Country Life_, and one in _Collier's_ of New York, being sent out
to these papers from the places where they were written. The author
thanks the Editors for permission to republish, and for their courtesy
in dealing with MSS.