+-------------------------------------------------+
|Transcriber’s note: |
| |
|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------+
[Illustration: Title page in Russian]
ROUNDABOUT TO MOSCOW
AN EPICUREAN JOURNEY
BY
JOHN BELL BOUTON
AUTHOR OF “ROUND THE BLOCK”
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1887
COPYRIGHT, 1887,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
TO
THE SYMPATHETIC COMRADE
IN THESE WANDERINGS,
MY WIFE.
PREFACE.
If any reader of this book happens to be carrying about a heavy pack
of fine old English prejudices, I beg that he or she will drop it
before entering upon the eleven chapters relating to Russia. The best
preparative for crossing the Russian frontier is to throw out of
the carriage-window every English volume with which the tourist has
beguiled the way in the vain hope of forming correct impressions of the
country ahead.
Englishmen can not be trusted to treat Russia fairly. John Bull hates
Ivanovitch. With him the Russian is always a Tartar or a Cossack.
Though these terms are not, in fact, opprobrious--since the Tartar of
to-day is the model business man of Russia, industrious, faithful,
highly respected, and the Cossack preserves none of his ancient traits
but an excessive fondness for horses, a martial spirit, and fervent
patriotism--they are slurring words in the English sense.
Americans have no cause of quarrel with Russians. There is no Turkey on
this continent which we feel bound to save from the jaws of the Russian
bear in order to devour her ourselves. We have no distant province
with 200,000,000 inhabitants of an alien race, retained by a tenure
so precarious that the approach of a rival within 500 miles of the
border throws us into a panic. We have no India for Russia to invade.
Americans are in a position to do what their English friends have never
done--see and report Russia as she is.
If a sense of gratitude for the touching sympathy shown by Russia to
the United States at a time when the offensive interference of England
in our affairs was strongly feared, shall prepossess the American
traveler in favor of that great country and people, there is little
danger that he will paint them in colors too bright for truth. For,
with his best efforts, he will find it impossible to dismiss all the
false anti-Russian ideas with which English literature has filled
him. So clinging and powerful is their effect, that he will at times
question the evidence of his own senses, and be tempted to discard his
personal experience as exceptional and misleading.
I saw no drunken priests reeling through the streets of St. Petersburg
and Moscow, and not a single case of intoxication, even among the
_mujiks_. Tea is the national beverage of Russia. Beggars drew but
lightly upon the little pocketful of kopecks which I had set apart for
them. I lost nothing by theft, and was not defrauded, to my knowledge,
under cover of overcharges at the shops or the hotels. Government
officers are considerate, polite, and do not seem to be in pursuit of
bribes. Russians of the lowest class are not more unclean in appearance
than the corresponding grade in England. The “rough” who infests London
and Liverpool is unknown in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
If external indications are any guide, I should call the Russians
the most religious people in Europe. They build more churches, adorn
them more sumptuously, attend service oftener and in greater numbers,
repeat more prayers, and perform more devotional rites every day, than
the men and women of any other land. There are shrines at almost
every street-corner, and every house has its Icon. The Russian type of
face is serious. Unfriendly critics note this as an infallible sign
of national despair, the overt manifestation of which is that revolt
against God and Man called Nihilism. But it is only the characteristic
gravity of semi-Orientals, for such are the Russians. They are not
down-trodden; and, out of their 100,000,000 free souls, there is a
proportion of Nihilists no larger, probably, than that of Socialists in
Germany, Communists in France, “Dynamiters” in London, or Anarchists in
Chicago. The Tsar enjoys the confidence and love of the vast majority
of his people. Russia may safely challenge the rest of Europe to
exhibit a parallel to the comparative progress, social and political,
which she has made in the past thirty years. When the Cossack waters
his horse in the Bosporus, and looks down into India from his outpost
in the Solyman Mountains, jealous powers will lament his irresistible
advance. But Americans can not share their regrets, believing that
civilization and liberty may be borne in his train as surely as in that
of any other aggressive member of the great European family.
The record of “An Epicurean Journey” is not a place for the discussion
of controverted matters. And my sole object in writing this preface is
to explain to the possibly surprised reader why I can not echo that
censure of Russian institutions and aims which is the burden of so many
English books and magazine and newspaper articles. But I have not gone
out of the way to praise Russia, or to do her more than simple justice.
That a far greater number of Americans annually may include her in
their European rounds, and count their stay in Russia as among the most
agreeable episodes of their lives, is the sincere wish of
J. B. B.
NEW YORK, _May, 1887_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
By _train de luxe_ from Paris to Nice--The Monte
Carlo games 1
CHAPTER II.
Oldpaint, Cockspur, and North Adams at the Casino 14
CHAPTER III.
A bad night in Genoa harbor 27
CHAPTER IV.
Rome--Good-Friday and Easter 39
CHAPTER V.
Cutting a King--Margherita, Queen of Hearts 50
CHAPTER VI.
Naples--Sorrento--Capri--Pæstum 57
CHAPTER VII.
Fresh diggings at Pompeii--Vesuvius “working”--The
tell-tale seismograph--Solfatara 68
CHAPTER VIII.
Italian beggars--A neglected grave--The blue-gum
tree and malaria--Perugia--Etruscan tombs 80
CHAPTER IX.
Florence--Bologna--Como 91
CHAPTER X.
Peasant-girls--Nightingales--Isola Bella--San
Carlo Borromeo in copper 104
CHAPTER XI.
The Simplon Pass in June--Vispach to Zermatt--The
Matterhorn--A fine view from the snows of
Gorner Grat 113
CHAPTER XII.
Early Alpine flowers--A wedding-feast--The Rhône
Valley and glacier--The Furca Pass 126
CHAPTER XIII.
Avalanches on the Jungfrau--The guides
of Grindelwald 136
CHAPTER XIV.
Excelsior and the maiden 145
CHAPTER XV.
An English admirer of the “American language” 158
CHAPTER XVI.
Prehistoric lake-dwellers--An island inn and
its memories 168
CHAPTER XVII.
Carlsbad--Prague--Dresden 177
CHAPTER XVIII.
Berlin--Its military atmosphere 188
CHAPTER XIX.
St. Petersburg in July 203
CHAPTER XX.
The first droschky-ride--Sunset at the
islands--Early morning views of the
Nevskoi Prospekt 215
CHAPTER XXI.
Grand-Duke Alexis--The American minister and
his chasseur--Russian press censorship--An
indignant Briton--Undiscoverable Nihilists 233
CHAPTER XXII.
The holy city of Russia 250
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Moscow Foundling Asylum 262
CHAPTER XXIV.
Russian epicurism in tea--The Joltai-Tchai, or
yellow-flower brand 275
CHAPTER XXV.
A hunt for malachite and lapis-lazuli in the
Gostinnoi Dvor 282
CHAPTER XXVI.
The peacock-feather mystery--Manayunk and the
old masters--His fruitless search for the
Kremlin--The Moscow rag-fair--Petrovsky
Palace--Dining in the grounds 296
CHAPTER XXVII.
A comedy of passports--Mythical police espionage 313
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Summer weather in Russia--St. Petersburg and
Moscow enough for sight-seers--M. Katkoff and
his “Gazette”--Tsar and people--Republican
possibilities of the Cossack 328
CHAPTER XXIX.
Russian Finland--Stockholm--The largest known
meteorite--The Djurgarden 342
CHAPTER XXX.
By rail to Christiania--Fare on the road--Norway’s
capital--The Viking-ship--An inland tour 353
CHAPTER XXXI.
A baby kudsk--Tyri-Fiord--Hönefos--Lake
Spirellen--Dinner at a Sanitarium 364
CHAPTER XXXII.
Omnipotent kroner--The family parlor at
Odnæs--Rands and Christiania Fiords 383
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Gothenburg whale--Three kings in a
bunch--Northern out-door life--A study
of windmills 394
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Diamond-cutting at Amsterdam 406
APPENDIX.
Constitutional government for Russia 419
ROUNDABOUT TO MOSCOW.
CHAPTER I.
BY TRAIN DE LUXE FROM PARIS TO NICE--THE MONTE CARLO GAMES.
Before leaving America, in the spring of 1886, I read in the London
“Times” a slashing attack on the celebrated _train de luxe_ which
runs twice a week from Paris to Nice. The writer--an Englishman--had
missed a connection which he should have made by that train. So he
relieved his mind--as traveling Britons are apt to do--by pitching into
the delinquent through the columns of a journal still supposed to be
powerful for warning and chastisement. I observed that in all his fury
he did not declare that the train lacked comforts or even the luxuries
claimed in its high-sounding name. Therefore we determined to try it,
as it offered a passage from Paris to Nice in nineteen hours; and we
did not regret the choice.
The whole distance is 675 miles. Two first-class fares paid to the
P. L. M. (“short” for Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway) amount
to $53.68. Add to this $41.45 as special charges for the _train de
luxe_--run by a separate company--and you have $95.13 as the joint
first outlay for the trip. If any railway-riding in the United States
is more than half as expensive as this, I have yet to discover it.
The sleeping-cars do not seem to be either Wagner or Pullman; they
more nearly resemble the Mann Boudoir. They are not quite as large as
those in America, and are more solidly built. The compartments are
designed for parties of two or four each, and have doors which make a
desired privacy for the inmates. These little rooms occupy the whole
width of the car, except a narrow passage for common use running
lengthwise. The beds are exceedingly comfortable, and are metamorphosed
into handsome sofas for the daytime. A restaurant-car accompanies the
train; and in this good fare may be had _à la carte_, at all hours,
and an elaborate _table d’hôte_ twice a day. The attendants are alert
and polite. Everybody on the _train de luxe_ seems to feel a personal
responsibility in keeping up its reputation and reconciling passengers
to their large disbursement of money. It was my good fortune--as an
American--to enlist at once the kindest sympathy of the Paris agent of
the sleeping-car company, as also of the conductor. By the courtesy
of those officials we were allowed to tenant a room for four, though
paying only for two persons. This gave us plenty of space, and perhaps
accounts in part for the general satisfaction I experienced.
Though the rate of speed averaged thirty-five miles an hour, there was
little vibratory motion and no jarring whenever the train stopped or
started again. If the P. L. M. does not use the Westinghouse air-brake
and Miller platform, it has equivalent contrivances of its own just as
good.
A better night’s rest could not be asked for than the one I enjoyed
till the _train de luxe_ pulled up in the Lyons station at 6.25 A. M.
on time. The Paris we had left at 9.25 Wednesday night, April 14th, was
anything but gay. A cold rain swept the deserted streets and deepened
the gloom everywhere observable on the faces of hotel-landlords,
shopkeepers, and cabmen. Trade had been stagnant there all winter, and
the spring season--with its promises of better times--was deplorably
backward. But I must not omit to mention that it was further along than
in America, or even England. The trees which line the Champs-Elysées
were in full leaf, and the Bois de Boulogne was thick with shade. But a
keen north wind came down upon Paris while we were there, and we were
glad to quit it.
Next morning as we entered Lyons I raised the curtain at the foot of my
little bed, and lo! a sight of enchantment. An unclouded sun lighted up
the great manufacturing city and its environs and glorified everything.
The general impression was that of an entrance to Italy. The roofs
of all the houses wear the peculiar earthen tiles which one sees in
Italian towns. The church-steeples begin to resemble _campaniles_.
Olive-trees are possible in the soft climate of this part of Southern
France. The natives, who swarm about the station at an early hour
and gaze wonderingly at the _train de luxe_, are swarthy of face and
profuse of gesture--more Italian than French in outward appearance. But
our greatest delight was in the increasing warmth of the outer air, for
the car had required heating on that cold night of a northern spring.
A dainty breakfast--served on the snowiest of linen--at a table from
which we could study the sunny landscape as we whirled along, completed
the prelude of a lovely day. Our next stop was at Marseilles, where
we changed locomotives. There the Mediterranean came into view, but
a cloud over the sun prevented that full revelation of its beauties
which we saw later on. What a glamour genius throws over common things!
The Château d’If is nothing but a square-built tower, standing on a
little island in the harbor of Marseilles. It is neither grand nor
picturesque. I should not have glanced at it a second time if Dumas
had not forever linked it in my mind with the imprisonment and daring
escape of his Count of Monte Cristo. There may be much to see and
admire in Marseilles, but I could only think of Edmond Dantes and his
wonderful adventures.
Nice, into the station of which we punctually rolled amid a crowd of
staring spectators, was then out of season. As a winter resort much
beloved by consumptives and tired-out people, it deserves its fame.
Orange and lemon trees, aloes, palms, oleanders, acacias, and many
other tropical plants, thrive there in the months that are coldest
elsewhere. Nice faces the Mediterranean toward the south, and is
sheltered from every rude wind by the towering Maritime Alps. The
fashionable season proper had already terminated with the opening
of Parliament--which is the invariable signal for the resumption of
social gayeties in London. The richest patrons of Nice, as of all this
coast, are Englishmen. And as they leave, the great hotels begin to
close in the very month when Nature is most actively renewing herself
and looking her best. Even Nice, with all her tropical proclivities,
is capable of being chilly upon occasion. Snow had visited the place
within a month, and we found a fire comfortable in our chamber. It
seemed strange to be toasting one’s feet at the hearth, and looking
out of window upon gardens golden with oranges and bristling with
gigantic palms, or thick-set with monstrous specimens of that vegetable
devil-fish known as the agave or century-plant. The arms or tentacles
of these are twelve or fifteen feet long and two or three feet thick at
the butt. Fill in this rough outline with lilacs, daisies, geraniums,
heliotropes, and tea-roses, and the reader may realize what was seen
from every hotel window and balcony on the _Riviera di ponente_.
We took the Corniche road by private carriage from Nice to Mentone,
about nineteen miles. It is a marvelous piece of engineering skill,
gaining a height of 1,500 feet by a bold succession of zigzags. As its
name implies, this road is a mere cornice. It is cut into the sides
of mountains, and in places overhangs frightful precipices. During
the first hour of our journey I frequently jumped out of the carriage
to pick the strange and exquisite wild flowers which grew along the
road-side. But we soon reached the altitude where these attractions
ceased, and we were called upon to admire the beetling rocks which
towered far above us. This rugged scenery was in the ascendant most of
the time. It makes the Corniche route grand in its savage loneliness,
but beautiful I can not call it. But beauty flashed upon us in the
distance whenever a turn of the road brought the Mediterranean into
view. Under a brilliant sun that sea looks like a limitless stretch
of changeable silk, full of graceful wrinkles. Near the shore its
predominant color is light blue. Toward the horizon, this deepens into
a darker shade. Purples and greens may also be descried in larger
masses and clearer tints than one observes in the broad Atlantic in any
of its moods.
We lunched at a little hamlet--Turbi--perched high up in the mountains.
The landlord of the Grand Hotel at Nice had advised me to try ham and
eggs, as the least objectionable dish to be obtained off-hand at the
Turbi inn. The landlady accepted the order in the most accommodating
spirit, and after a little delay brought in some slices of raw ham and
boiled eggs. I then described to her as well as I knew how the American
process of cooking ham and eggs. Her face lighted up with intelligence,
and she retired to try again. Fifteen minutes later she came back with
the eggs stirred up in a mess at the bottom of a skillet and the raw
ham reposing beneath them, where it had been slightly warmed in the new
operation. But the _vin du pays_ was honest and palatable. Bread and
cheese are always good to a hungry man. We stayed our appetites, if we
did not lunch exactly to our liking. From Turbi to Mentone the road is
mostly down-hill, and the scenery a repetition of what we had seen in
the first half of the Corniche. As for Mentone itself, it is Nice over
again, with a slight difference of location, but much smaller.
I have seen the notorious games at Monte Carlo (five or six miles from
Mentone), strictly as an outsider. There is no lovelier spot under
the whole heavens. Nature and the art paid for out of the enormous
gains of the greatest gambling-hell on earth have done everything to
make a paradise of Monte Carlo. The Casino is a palace in size and
splendor. The surrounding gardens are full of the choicest flowers
and musical with birds and waterfalls. Mountains exclude every biting
wind. Three hundred feet below the promontory lies the matchless
Mediterranean. All around are beautiful villas and large and elegant
hotels and restaurants worthy of Paris. The season at Monte Carlo lasts
the year round, and is always prosperous. Admission to the _salle de
jeu_ is not to be had for the asking. No one under twenty-one years of
age can enter. As no resident--but only the stranger--is allowed
access to the Casino, the local population is not hurt by the game. I
was obliged to present my visiting-card at the bureau and write my
name on the back of a ticket. Then, after surrendering my umbrella,
the great doors of the den were thrown open to me. I had read of so
many suicides committed at this place that I quite expected, when I
entered, to interrupt some ruined gambler in the act of blowing out his
silly brains. Instead of confronting such a tragedy, I found myself
in the presence of a large company of quiet people, sitting around
long tables, watching a revolving wheel in the center, and listening
to the click of the little ivory ball as it slackened and fell into a
numbered compartment of the wheel and determined the gain or loss of
the players. There are four of these roulette-tables, and two others
in an adjoining room, at which only _trente et quarante_ is played,
the latter a game of cards. No game lasts over a minute, so that the
suspense is not long and agonizing. The London illustrated papers
have lately represented the gamesters of both sexes as uniformly
hideous. Their countenances were made infernal with avarice. As for the
_croupiers_, who rake in or pay out the money, they were depicted as
fiends incarnate.
Speaking of suicides, I learned that, only two days before my visit,
a man who had lost all at one of the tables suddenly whipped out a
pistol and shot himself. He was quietly removed, and the _roulette_
and _trente et quarante_ went on without interruption. A lady, who had
been watching the play on one occasion, told me that she saw a person
seize from the table a little pile of money which had been won by
another. He appealed for redress to the superintendent of the Casino.
The latter did not stop to inquire into the justice of the claim, but
immediately paid over to the second player the sum which he said had
been thus publicly stolen from him. This little incident proves the
constant anxiety of the “administration” to avoid disagreeable scenes
and scandals. But the suicides can not be stopped, as men, acting
under the sudden impulse of despair, will kill themselves before the
“bank” can solace them with the donations it is always ready to make
for the relief of ruined gamesters. The French Government could, if it
would, in the capacity of protector and powerful neighbor, suppress
the monstrous evil of Monte Carlo. But Prince Charles manages to keep
in favor at Paris, not merely by his personal residence there, but by
a full-blown legation, which he maintains at the French capital for
diplomatic purposes, just like a first-class sovereign.
Describing people as I find them, I must say that the male players
seemed an average lot of human beings. The females were more mixed and
questionable. The _croupiers_ were evidently wearied and bored, but on
the whole good-looking and certainly amiable. Most of the players were
of frugal mind. The usual stake was a five-franc piece; napoleons were
scarce. One reckless man who put up ten of them at a time, turned pale
when he lost them all, and hauled out of the game. No one lost much at
any table under my observation, and in not a single case did a player
gain the possible maximum of thirty-five times the amount of his stake.
To a looker-on the spectacle was monotonous in the highest degree.
Perhaps it is livelier toward midnight than in the afternoon when I saw
it. But, whether slow or swift, it is none the less to be condemned as
demoralizing in its far-reaching influences, productive of thefts and
embezzlements, as well as the undoubted cause of many suicides. How any
person can turn his back on all these beauties of nature and art, and
give himself up to such a sordid and destructive vice, is a puzzle to
every well-regulated mind.
After seeing the games at Monte Carlo, I visited the palace of Prince
Charles at Monaco. Careless writers use the two names interchangeably.
Be it understood, then, that Monte Carlo is part of the diminutive
principality of Monaco. The less is included in the greater. The
prince’s palace is situated at the other end of his possessions,
about a mile from the Casino. He never occupies it. He lives in
luxurious retirement at Paris on the large revenues derived from a
lease of the gambling monopoly. But he is cut off from many of the
pleasures of this life, as he is stone-blind. His ample income enables
him to remit all taxes to his few thousand subjects, and to keep a
really beautiful palace on show for all comers. Not to be wanting in
any of the outward signs of sovereignty, he maintains an “army” of
fine fellows--sixty-five strong--and has a park of highly burnished
artillery pointing seaward. Hundreds of cannon-balls are piled up
symmetrically in his palace yard. At the great gates of the edifice, as
I approached it, stood two good-looking soldiers. One rested gracefully
on his shining musket, and the other played with a tame crow which
hopped about in the grass. Seeing me, he recovered his erect position
and dignity, and returned my courteous salute. I asked permission
to enter the palace. With a gesture he referred me to a gorgeous
personage, looking like three major-generals rolled into one, who
suddenly appeared in a doorway. I took him for the commander-in-chief;
but he was only the _concierge_. With a profound bow he requested my
visiting-card, which I gave him. Then, after registering my name, I was
turned over to another less splendid but still imposing official, who
showed me through the long galleries and suites of rooms. They are full
of costly pictures and statues, and magnificently upholstered. But they
have the cold, cheerless atmosphere and stuffy smell of all uninhabited
houses however grand. I was glad to escape from the wearisome round
into the open air.
The blind prince not only exempts his subjects from taxes, but he
provides for several good schools, and is a liberal supporter of the
Roman Catholic Church. A fine cathedral is now rising at Monaco.
Public morals are so deeply concerned in the suppression of the Monte
Carlo games that I do not yet feel like quitting them. I will take a
fresh start in Chapter II, and isolate for description a few types
of character among the many that may be seen at the Casino. We will
watch them at work (for it is no “play” to them save in name), amid
seductions difficult to be withstood by any will that does not rest on
principles.
I now beg leave to introduce the reader to Oldpaint, Cockspur, and
North Adams.