The two Khivans rode first; I followed, having put on my black

fur pelisse instead of the sheep-skin garment, so as to present

a more respectable appearance on entering the city. Nazar, who

was mounted on the horse that stumbled, brought up the rear. He

had desired the camel-driver to follow in the distance with the

messenger and the caravan; my servant being of opinion that the

number of our animals was not sufficient to deeply impress the

Khivans with my importance, and that on this occasion it was better

to ride in without any caravan than with the small one I possessed.

We now entered the city, which is of an oblong form, and surrounded

by two walls: the outer one is about fifty feet high: its basement

is constructed of baked bricks, the upper part being built of dried

clay. This forms the first line of defense, and completely encircles

the town, which is about a quarter of a mile within the wall. Four

high wooden gates, clamped with iron, barred the approach from

the north, south, east, and west, while the walls themselves were

in many places out of repair.

The town itself is surrounded by a second wall, not quite so high

as the one just described, and with a dry ditch, which is now half

filled with ruined _débris_. The slope which leads from the wall to

the trench has been used as a cemetery, and hundreds of sepulchres

and tombs were scattered along some undulating ground just without

the city. The space between the first and second walls is used

as a market-place, where cattle, horses, sheep, and camels are

sold, and where a number of carts were standing, filled with corn

and grass.

Here an ominous-looking cross-beam had been erected, towering high

above the heads of the people with its bare, gaunt poles. This was

the gallows on which all people convicted of theft are executed;

murderers being put to death in a different manner, having their

throats cut from ear to ear in the same way that sheep are killed.

This punishment is carried out by the side of a large hole in the

ground, not far from the principal street in the centre of the

town. But I must here remark that the many cruelties stated to

have been perpetrated by the present Khan previous to the capture

of his city did not take place. Indeed, they only existed in the

fertile Muscovite imagination, which was eager to find an excuse for

the appropriation of a neighbour's property. On the contrary, capital

punishment was only inflicted when the laws had been infringed; and

there is no instance of the Khan having arbitrarily put any one

to death.

The two walls above mentioned appear to have made up the defenses

of the city, which was also armed with sixteen guns. These, however,

proved practically useless against the Russians, as the garrison

only fired solid shot, not being provided with shell. The Khan

seemed to have made no use whatever of the many inclosed gardens

in the vicinity of the city during the Russian advance, as, if he

had, and firmly contested each yard of soil, I much doubt whether

the Tsar's troops could have ever entered the city.

It is difficult to estimate the population of an Oriental city

by simply riding round its walls; so many houses are uninhabited,

and others again are densely packed with inhabitants. However, I

should say, as a mere guess, that there are about 25,000 human

beings within the walls of Khiva. The streets are broad and clean,

while the houses belonging to the richer inhabitants are built of

highly polished bricks and coloured tiles, which lend a cheerful

aspect to the otherwise somewhat sombre colour of the surroundings.

There are nine schools: the largest, which contains 130 pupils,

was built by the father of the present Khan. These buildings are

all constructed with high, coloured domes, and are ornamented with

frescoes and arabesque work, the bright aspect of the cupolas first

attracting the stranger's attention on his nearing the city.

Presently we rode through a bazaar similar to the one at Oogentch,

thin rafters and straw uniting the tops of the houses in the street,

and forming a sort of roof to protect the stall-keepers and their

customers from the rays of a summer sun. We were followed by crowds

of people; and as some of the more inquisitive approached too closely,

the Khivans who accompanied me, raising their whips in the air,

freely belaboured the shoulders of the multitude, thus securing

a little space. After riding through a great number of streets,

and taking the most circuitous course--probably in order to duly

impress me with an idea of the importance of the town--we arrived

before my companion's house. Several servants ran forward and took

hold of the horses. The Khivan dismounted, and, bowing obsequiously,

led the way through a high door-way constructed of solid timber.

We next entered a square open court, with carved stone pillars

supporting a balcony which looked down upon a marble fountain, or

basin, the general appearance of the court being that of a _patio_

in some nobleman's house in Cordova or Seville. A door of a similar

construction to the one already described, though somewhat lower,

gave access to a long, narrow room, a raised daïs at each end being

covered with handsome rugs. There were no windows, glass being a

luxury which has only recently found its way to the capital; but

the apartment received its light from an aperture at the side,

which was slightly concealed by some trellis-work, and from a space

left uncovered in the ceiling, which was adorned with arabesque

figures. The two doors which led from the court were each of them

handsomely carved, and in the middle of the room was a hearth filled

with charcoal embers. My host, beckoning to me to take the post

of honour by the fire, retired a few paces and folded his arms

across his chest; then, assuming a deprecatory air, he asked my

permission to sit down.

Grapes, melons, and other fruit, fresh as on the day when first

picked, were brought in on a large tray and laid at my feet, while

the host himself, bringing in a Russian tea-pot and cup, poured

out some of the boiling liquid and placed it by my side; I all

this time being seated on a rug, with my legs crossed under me,

in anything but a comfortable position.

He then inquired if I had any commands for him, as the Khan had

given an order that everything I might require was instantly to

be supplied.

In the afternoon two officials arrived from the Khan's palace,

with an escort of six men on horseback and four on foot. The elder

of the two dignitaries said that His Majesty was waiting to receive

me, and my horse being brought round, I mounted, and accompanied

him towards the palace. The six men on horseback led the way, then

I came between the two officials, and Nazar brought up the rear

with some attendants on foot, who freely lashed the crowd with

their whips whenever any of the spectators approached our horses

too closely.

The news that the Khan was about to receive me had spread rapidly

through the town, and the streets were lined with curious individuals

all eager to see the Englishman. Perhaps in no part of the world is

India more talked of than in the Central Asian khanates; and the

stories of our wealth and power, which have reached Khiva through

Afghan and Bokharan sources, have grown like a snow-ball in its

onward course, until the riches described in the garden discovered

by Aladdin would pale if compared with the fabled treasures of

Hindoostan.

After riding through several narrow streets, where, in some instances,

the house-tops were thronged with people desirous of looking at

our procession, we emerged on a small, flat piece of ground which

was not built over, and which formed a sort of open square. Here

a deep hole was pointed out to me as the spot where criminals who

have been found guilty of murder had their throats cut from ear

to ear.

The Khan's palace is a large building, ornamented with pillars

and domes, which, covered with bright-coloured tiles, flash in

the sun, and attract the attention of the stranger approaching

Khiva. A guard of thirty or forty men armed with cimeters stood

at the palace gates. We next passed into a small court-yard. The

Khan's guards were all arrayed in long flowing silk robes of various

patterns, bright-coloured sashes being girt around their waists, and

tall fur hats surmounting their bronzed countenances. The court-yard

was surrounded by a low pile of buildings, which are the offices

of the palace, and was filled with attendants and menials of the

court, while good-looking boys of an effeminate appearance, with

long hair streaming down their shoulders, and dressed a little like

the women, lounged about, and seemed to have nothing in particular

to do.

A door at the farther end of the court gave access to a low passage,

and, after passing through some dirty corridors, where I had

occasionally to stoop in order to avoid knocking my head against the

ceiling, we came to a large, square-shaped room. Here the treasurer

was seated, with three moullahs, who were squatted by his side, while

several attendants crouched in humble attitudes at the opposite

end of the apartment. The treasurer and his companions were busily

engaged in counting some rolls of ruble-notes and a heap of silver

coin, which has been received from the Khan's subjects, and were

now to be sent to Petro-Alexandrovsk as part of the tribute to

the Tsar.

The great man now made a sign to some of his attendants, when a

large wooden box, bearing signs of having been manufactured in

Russia, was pushed a little from the wall and offered to me as a

seat. Nazar was accommodated among the dependents at the other end

of the room. After the usual salaams had been made, the functionary

continued his task, leaving me in ignorance as to what was to be

the next part of the programme; Nazar squatting himself as far as

possible from one of the attendants, who was armed with a cimeter,

and whom he suspected of being the executioner.

After I had been kept waiting for about a quarter of an hour, a

messenger entered the room and informed the treasurer that the

Khan was disengaged, and ready to receive me. We now entered a

long corridor, which led to an inner court-yard. Here we found

the reception-hall, a large tent, or _kibitka_, of a dome-like

shape. The treasurer, lifting up a fold of thick cloth, motioned

to me to enter, and on doing so I found myself face to face with

the celebrated Khan, who was reclining against some pillows or

cushions, and seated on a handsome Persian rug, warming his feet by

a circular hearth filled with burning charcoal. He raised his hand

to his forehead as I stood before him, a salute which I returned

by touching my cap. He then made a sign for me to sit down by his

side.

Before I relate our conversation, it may not be uninteresting if

I describe the sovereign. He is taller than the average of his

subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is strongly built:

his face is of a broad, massive type, he has a low, square forehead,

large dark eyes, a short straight nose with dilated nostrils, and

a coal-black beard and mustache; while an enormous mouth, with

irregular but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his

beard, and not at all in character with the otherwise determined

appearance of his face, must complete the picture.

He did not look more than eight-and-twenty, and has a pleasant,

genial smile, and a merry twinkle in his eye, very unusual among

Orientals; in fact, to me an expression in Spanish would better

describe his face than any English one I can think of. It is very

_simpatica_, and I must say I was greatly surprised, after all

that has been written in Russian newspapers about the cruelties

and other iniquities perpetrated by this Khivan potentate, to find

the original such a cheery sort of fellow.

His countenance was of a very different type from his treasurer's.

The hang-dog expression of the latter made me bilious to look at

him, and it was said that he carried to great lengths these peculiar

vices and depraved habits to which Orientals are so often addicted.

The Khan was dressed in a similar sort of costume to that generally

worn by his subjects, but it was made of much richer materials,

and a jewelled sword was lying by his seat. His head was covered

by a tall black Astrakhan hat, of a sugar-loaf shape; and on my

seeing that all the officials who were in the room at the same

time as myself kept on their fur hats, I did the same.

The sovereign, turning to an attendant, gave an order in a low

tone, when tea was instantly brought, and handed to me in a small

porcelain tea-cup. A conversation with the Khan was now commenced,

and carried on through Nazar and a Kirghiz interpreter who spoke

Russian, and occasionally by means of a moullah, who was acquainted

with Arabic, and had spent some time in Egypt.

_THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY_

_WILLIAM DURBAN_

The general characteristics of the Trans-Siberian Railroad may

be described in a few words. It is by far the longest railway on

earth. It is very much more solidly constructed, for the most part,

than is generally supposed. The road bed is perfectly firm, and

the track is well ballasted. Though in certain of the sections

far to the east great engineering difficulties had to be contended

with, the gradients on the greater part of the route are remarkably

easy.

Uniformity of gauge is the keynote of Russian railway engineers.

Accordingly in possessing a five-foot guage, the Great Siberian

is uniform with all the railroads throughout the Russian Empire.

Thus, the ample breadth of the cars harmonizes with the luxury

which astonishes the traveller who visits Russia for the first time,

no matter in what region of the Empire he happens to be touring.

The great height of the carriages, proportionate with the width,

adds to the imposing aspect of the trains. It is necessary to bear

these considerations in mind, for the idea prevails throughout the

world outside Russia that this colossal road was carried through,

not only with great haste, but also on a flimsy and superficial

system. The bridges are necessarily very numerous, for Siberia

is a land of mighty rivers with countless tributaries. All the

permanent bridges are of iron. Those which were temporarily made

of timber are being in every case reconstructed, and the Great

Siberian includes some of the most magnificent bridges in the world.

The bridge over the Irtish is unrivalled. Being nearly four miles

long, it is on that account phenomenal; but its stupendous piers,

designed specially to resist the fearful pressure of the ice, would

alone convince any sceptic of the determination of the Russian

administration to spare none of the resources of the Empire in order

to make this railway absolutely efficient, alike for mercantile

and military purposes. The Trans-Siberian Railway is intended to

create a new Siberia. It is already fulfilling that aim, as I shall

show. The most potent of the civilizing factors of the Twentieth

Century is in this enterprise presented to the world, and in a very

few years people will realize with astonishment what this railway

means.

The Trans-Siberian nominally begins in Europe. It is inaugurated

by the magnificent iron bridge which spans the Volga at Samara

in East Russia. The Volga is here a giant river, and this noble

bridge joins the European railway system with the new Asiatic line.

But practically the Asian line commences in the heart of the Ural

Mountains, if that long and broad chain of low and pretty hills

ought to be dignified with the name of mountains. Here lies the

little town of Cheliabinsk, which in 1894 was the terminus of the

European system.

It is an interesting fact that Americans and Englishmen were the

real authors of this splendid and romantic scheme for spanning the

Asiatic continent with a railway from west to east. In 1857, an

American named Collins came forward with a scheme for the formation

of an Amur Railway Company, to lay a line from Irkutsk to Chita.

Although his plan was not officially adopted, it was carefully

kept in mind, and it actually forms the main and central part of

the present line. An English engineer offered to lay a tramroad

across Siberia, after Muravieff had carried Russia to the Pacific

by his brilliant annexation of the mouths of the Amur. In 1858,

three Englishmen offered to construct a railway from Moscow through

Nijni-Novgorod to Tartar Bay. Though all proposals by foreigners

have been courteously shelved, they have in reality formed the

bases of native enterprise. It is to the credit of Russia that

she has determined to depend on the energy and ability of her own

sons to carry out this colossal undertaking.

One of the chronic troubles of the Russian Government arises from

the uneven distribution of the population. It happens that those

are the most thickly inhabited districts which are the least able

to support a dense population. For instance, an immense number of

villages are scattered through the vast forest regions of Central

and Western Russia, where birch trees grow by millions, while the

great wheat-growing plains of the west centre and south-west are

but sparsely inhabited. Then again, the infatuation of the military

oligarchy has been evidenced in the plan by which all the railways

except this new Siberian line have been designed for purely military

purposes. The Emperor Nicholas insisted on all the lines being

developed without the slightest regard to the wants of the towns

and the conveniences of commerce. Even the natural facilities for

engineering operations were not allowed by that autocrat to be

for a moment taken into consideration. His engineers were once

consulting him as to the expediency of taking the line from St.

Petersburg to Moscow by a slight detour, to avoid some very troublesome

obstacles. The Tsar took up a ruler, and with his pencil drew a

straight line from the old metropolis. Handing back the chart,

he peremptorily said: "There, gentlemen, that is to be the route

for the line!" And certainly there is not a straighter reach of

600 miles on any railroad in the world, as every tourist knows who

has journeyed between the two chief cities of the Russian Empire.

For instance, not very far beyond the Urals there is one magnificent

stretch of perfectly straight road for 116 versts, or nearly eighty

miles.

The traveller who expects that on the great Siberian route he will

speedily find himself plunged into semi-savagery, or that he will

on leaving Europe begin to realize the solitude of a vast forlorn

wilderness, will be agreeably disappointed. This great line is

intended to carry forward in its progress all the comforts of modern

civilization. Every station is picturesque and even artistic. No

two stations are alike in style, and all are neat, substantial,

comfortable, and comparable to the best rural stations anywhere in

Europe or America. In one respect Russian provision for travellers

is always far in advance of that in other countries. Those familiar

with the country will know at once that I refer to the railway

restaurants. The Great Siberian follows the rule of excellence

and abundance. There, at every station, just as on the European

side of the Urals, the traveller sees on entering the handsome

dining-room the immense buffet loaded with freshly cooked Russian

dishes, always hot and steaming, and of a variety not attempted in

any other land excepting at great hotels. You select what fancy

and appetite dictate, without any supervision. To dine at a railway

restaurant anywhere in the Russian Empire is one of the luxuries

of travel. Your dinner costs only a rouble--about two shillings,

and what a dinner you secure for the money! Soup, beef, sturgeon,

trout, poultry, game, bear's flesh, and vegetables in profusion

are supplied _ad libitum_, the visitor simply helping himself just

as he pleases. I mention these little details to prove that the

longest railway in the world is to push civilization with it as

it goes forward.

Readers who will glance at any map of the new line will notice

that the track runs across the upper waters of the great rivers,

just about where they begin to be navigable. All through the summer,

at any rate, America and England will, by the Arctic passage and

by these mighty rivers, communicate with the heart of Asia, the

railway in the far interior completing the circle of commerce.

Other results will follow. Siberia at present contains a population

of four million--less by more than a million than London reckons

within its borders. Millions of the Russian peasantry in Europe are

in a condition of chronic semi-starvation. Ere long thousands of

these will weekly stream to the new Canaan in the East. Within the

borders of Siberia, the whole of the United States of America could

be enclosed, with a great spare ring around for the accommodation

of a collection of little kingdoms. In the wake of the new line

towns are springing up like mushrooms. Many of these will become

great cities. There are several reasons for this development. The

first is that the railway runs through South Siberia, where the

climate is delightfully mild compared with the rigorous conditions

of the atmosphere further north. The next reason is that all the

chief gold-fields are in this southern latitude.

One characteristic worthy of note is the absolute security aimed

at by the administration of the line. Train and track are protected

by an immense army of guards. The road is divided into sections

of a verst each, a verst being about two-thirds of a mile. Every

section is marked by a neat cottage, the home of the guard and

his family. Night and day the guard or one of his household must

patrol the section. A train is never out of sight of the guards,

several of whom are employed wherever there are heavy curves. There

are nearly 4,000 of these guards on the stretch between the Urals

and Tomsk. All sense of solitude is thus removed from the mind of

the traveller. The old post road through Siberia is one of the

most dangerous routes in the world, being infested by murderous

"brodyags," or runaway convicts; but the Siberian line is as safe

as Cheapside or Oxford Street. With the fact of perfect safety

is soon blended in the mind of the observer that of plenty. All

along this wonderful route grass is seen growing in rank luxuriance

that can hardly be equalled in any other part of the globe, Siberia

being emphatically a grass-growing country. It is the original home

of the whole graniferous stock. Wheat is indigenous to Siberia.

Here is the largest grazing region in existence. Through this the

train rolls on hour after hour, as in European Russia it goes on and

on through interminable birch forests. Countless herds of animals in

superb condition are everywhere seen roaming over these magnificent

flowering Steppes, over which the Muscovite Eagle proudly floats.

Parts of the great railway, however, traverse regions other than

these. To make the reader understand the general characteristics

of Siberia and the importance of the railway in the light of these

characteristics, a few words must be said about the three great

zones which mainly make up the country. The first is the _tundra_,

the vast region which stretches through the northern sub-arctic

latitudes. This desolate belt is not less than 5,000 miles in extent.

In breadth it varies from 200 to 500 miles. In winter the _tundra_

is, of course, one vast frozen sheet. In the brief summer it is

swampy, steaming, and swarming with mosquitoes. Treeless and sterile,

the _tundra_ is the home of strange uncouth tribes, but it is a

valuable training ground for hardy hunters. To the minds of most

people the _tundra_ is Siberia. This mischievous fallacy is difficult

to dispel. In a few years the Siberian railway will have completely

dissipated it. Much more valuable is the far wider zone called

the _taiga_, the most wonderful belt of forest on the surface of

the earth. I can testify to the profound impression of mingled

mystery and delight produced on the mind by riding a thousand miles

through Russian forests as they still exist in European Russia,

where myriads of square miles in the north and centre of the land

are covered by birch, spruce, larch, pine, and oak plantations.

Where do these forests begin and where do they have an end? That

is the traveller's thought. He finds that they thicken and broaden,

and deepen as they sweep in their majestic gloom across the Urals,

and make up for thousands of miles the grand Siberian arboreal belt.

In this _taiga_ the Tsar possesses wealth beyond all computation;

and the railway will put it actually at his disposal. The third

zone, the most valuable of all, is that which mainly constitutes

Southern Siberia. It is the region of the Steppes, that endless

natural garden which again makes Siberia an incomparable land.

Sheeted with flowers, variegated by woodlands, it holds in its lap

ranges of mountains, all running with fairly uniform trend from

north to south, while in its heart lies the romantic and mysterious

Baikal, the deepest of lakes. Through the spurs of the _taiga_,

running irregularly through the lovely Steppes, passes the new

railroad, which thus taps the chief resources of the land. It will

open up the forests, the arable country land, the cattle-breeding

districts, and, above all, the mineral deposits. Here is a fine

coming opportunity for the capitalists of the world.

The Siberian railway starts at Cheliabinsk, just across the Ural

Mountains, which it reaches through Samara on the Volga from the

European side, coming over the boundary hills through Ufa, Miass

and Zlatoust. Shortly after leaving the latter town, which is the

centre of the Uralian iron industry, the train passes that pathetic

"Monument of Tears," which marks the boundary between Europe and

Asia. The triangular post of white marble, which thousands of weeping

exiles every year embrace as they pay their sad farewell to Europe,

is simply inscribed on one of its three sides, "Asia," on another,

"Europe." Passing down the eastern slopes of the Urals the train

soon reaches Cheliabinsk, running beside the Isset, a tributary

of the Irtish, one of the main branches of the grand Obi river.

On leaving Cheliabinsk, the traveller begins to realize that he

is in Siberia. In the near future this section of the line will

be traversed by many an explorer and many a hunter, who will in

summer come to seek fresh fields on the course of the Obi, to track

out towards the north the haunts of the seal, the walrus, and the

white bear. The line crosses the Tobol at Kurgan, the Ishim at

Patropavlosk, and the Irtish at Omsk, where the majestic new bridge

spans a stream of two hundred yards. The three fine rivers are

confluents of the Obi. Kurgan lies embosomed in the finest and

richest, as well as the largest pasturage in the world. The magnitude

of this undertaking may be imagined from the fact that the Yenisei

river is only reached after a ride of 2,000 miles from Cheliabinsk,

and then the traveller has not traversed half the distance across

the continent which this railroad spans.

We arrive at the main stream of the Obi when the train rolls into

the station at Kolivan. Thus Tomsk, one of the chief cities of

Siberia, is missed, for it lies further north on the Obi. In the

same way does the line ignore Tobolsk, the Siberian capital, as it

touches the Irtish far south of the city. These important places

will be served by branch lines. Indeed, the branch to Tomsk is

already finished. It is eighty miles long, and runs down the Tom

valley northward to the city, which is the largest and most important

in all Siberia. Tomsk will become the "hub" of Asia. It lies near

the centre of the new railway system. It has a telephone system, is

lighted by electricity, and possesses a flourishing university with

thirty professors and 300 students. Tomsk, Tobolsk, and Yeniseisk

would be difficult to reach by the main line as they are surrounded

by vast swamps, and therefore the line is thus laid considerably

south of these great towns. They are accessible with ease by side

lines down their respective rivers.

The Siberian line is designed to run through the arable lands of

the fertile zone. The adjacent land will be worth countless millions

of roubles to a Government which has not had to pay a single copeck

for it. On for many hundreds of versts rolls the train through the

pasture lands of the splendid Kirghiz race. The Kirghiz are by

far the finest of the Tartars. They are a purely pastoral people,

frugal, cleanly, and hospitable, living mainly on meats, and milk

and cheese, the products of their herds. Both for pasture and for

the culture of cereals, the vast territory between the Obi and

the Yenisei will be unrivalled in the whole world. Kurgan is the

capital. It will become an Asiatic Chicago.

On the Shim river, a fairly important though minor tributary of

the Obi, is Patropavlosk, with a population already of 20,000.

It is growing rapidly, and fine buildings are springing up, in

attestation of the immense influence of the new line. This city was

once the frontier fortress erected by Russia against the Kirghiz.

It was of commercial importance before the railroad was thought

of, as the emporium of the brisk trade with Samarkand and Central

Asia; great camel caravans constantly reaching it. All the old towns

which are traversed by the Great Siberian are being transformed as

if by magic. From Patropavlosk to Omsk is a distance equal to that

between London and Edinburgh, about 400 miles. New and promising

villages are frequently espied in the midst of the level, fertile

flowery plains, varied by great patches of cultivated land. All

along the track the land is being taken up on each side, and crops

are being raised. We are in the midst of the great future granary

of the whole Russian Empire, and not of that Empire alone.

Reaching the Yenisei river, the grandest stream in Siberia, the

train crosses a bridge 1,000 yards in length. But some time before

this a stoppage is made at the town of Obb, which is a striking

sample of the magical results of the railway. The whole country was

till recently a scene of wild desolation. The thriving community,

busy with a prosperous trade, is typical of the coming transformation

of Siberia.

A short distance beyond Irkutsk the line reaches one of the most

remarkable places in the world--Lake Baikal. This grand lake is as

long as England. It is nearly a mile deep, and covers an area of

13,430 square miles. Its surface is 1,500 feet above the level of

the sea. On every side it is hemmed in by lofty mountains, covered

with thick forest. Only a few tiny villages relieve its dreary

solitude. The early Russian settlers, impressed by the mystic silence

and gloomy grandeur of Baikal, named it the "Holy Sea." It abounds

in fish of many species, and every season thousands of pounds' worth

of salmon are caught and dried. At the north end great numbers of

seals have their habitat, the Buriat hunters sometimes taking as

many as 1,000 in a single season. Baikal is the only fresh-water

sea in the world in which this animal is found.

The Transbaikalian section takes the line from Lake Baikal to the

great Amur River. The line gradually ascends to the crest of the

Yablonoi Mountains, reaching a height of 3,412 feet above the sea

level. This is the greatest altitude of the Siberian Railway. In

this province of Transbaikalia lies the interesting city of Chita,

the far-off home of the most famous and estimable Socialist exiles

sent from Russia. From this point to the Amur, where Manchuria is

reached, the line is carried down the Pacific slope, through one

of the wildest and most romantic tracks ever penetrated by railway

engineers. It is not generally remembered that the Great Siberian

Railway was begun at the Pacific end, and that the present Tsar

Nicholas II., when Tsarevitch, inaugurated the colossal enterprise

by laying the first stone of the eastern terminus at Vladivostock,

on May 12, 1891.

_HIGH LIFE IN RUSSIA_

_THE COUNTESS OF GALLOWAY_

The Russian aristocracy and plutocracy have few powers or privileges

beyond that of serving their sovereign, and their position depends

entirely on the will of the emperor. Official rank is the only

distinction, and all ranks or "tchin," as it is called, is regulated

according to the army grades. By this "tchin" alone is the right of

being received at Court acquired. Society is, therefore, subservient

to the Court, and occupies itself more with those whose position can

best procure them what they desire than with any other ideas. The

Court itself is very magnificent, and its entertainments display

unbounded splendour, taste, and art. In the midst of winter the whole

palace is decorated for the balls with trees of camellias, dracænas

and palms. The suppers seem almost to be served by magic. Two thousand

people sup at the same moment: they all sit down together, and all

finish together in an incredibly short space of time. The palace

is lit by the electric light, the tables are placed under large

palm-trees, and the effect is that of a grove of palms by moonlight.

At these Court balls, besides the Royal Family of Grand Dukes and

Duchesses, with gorgeous jewels, may be seen many of the great

generals and governors of the provinces who come to St. Petersburg

to do homage to their sovereign; a splendid-looking Circassian

Prince, whose costume of fur and velvet is covered with chains of

jewels and gold; the commander of the Cossack Guard, Tchérévine,

who watches over the Emperor's safety, dressed in what resembles

a well-fitting scarlet dressing-gown, with a huge scimitar in his

belt sparkling with precious stones; Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff,

the Governor of the Caucasus, also in Cossack attire, with the

beard which is the privilege of the Cossack birth. M. de Giers,

whose civilian blue coat with gold buttons is remarkable among

the numberless brilliant uniforms, talks to the Ambassadors with

the wearied anxious expression habitual to his countenance. The

Empress dances, but not the Emperor; he does not sit down to supper

either, but walks about, after the Russian fashion of hospitality,

to see that all his guests are served.

[Illustration: THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG]

If, to the outsider, society seems to lack the serious side, science,

learning, and politics, it gains energy from its contact with men who

are continually engaged in distant provinces, carrying Russian rule and

civilization to the conquered Eastern tribes. Notwithstanding the great

ease and luxury, the fact that so much of the male portion is composed

of officers, who wear no other clothes than their uniforms, gives

something of a business-like air, and produces a sense of discipline

at the entertainments. Individually, the Russians have much sympathy

with English ways and habits, and the political antagonism between

the two nations does not appear to affect their social intercourse.

They are exceedingly courteous, hospitable, and friendly, throwing

themselves with much zest into the occupation or amusement of the

moment. In these days of rapid communication social life is much

the same in every great capital. St. Petersburg is a very gay society,

and the great troubles underlying the fabric do not come to the

surface in the daily life. There are of course representatives

of all the different lines of thought and policy, and because they

cannot govern themselves, it must not be supposed that they have

not predilections in favour of this or that line of action.

The season in St. Petersburg begins on the Russian New Year's Day,

which is thirteen days late, for they adhere to what the Western

nations now call the Old Style. It lasts till Lent, which the Eastern

Church fixes also by a different calculation from the Western, and

during that time there are Court balls twice a week and dancing at

private houses nearly every other night, Sundays included. Private

balls begin, as in London, very late and end very late. The dancing

is most vigorous and animated. The specially Russian dance is the

Mazurka, of Polish origin, and very pretty and graceful. Like the

Scotch reel, it is a series of different figures with numerous

and varied steps. The music, too, is special and spirited. The

supper, which is always eaten sitting down, is a great feature

of the evening, and there is invariably a cotillon afterwards.

The pleasantest and most sociable entertainments are the little

suppers every evening, where there is no dancing, and where the

menu is most _recherché_ and the conversation brilliant. The houses

are well adapted for entertainments, and those we saw comfortable

and luxurious as far as the owners are concerned. The bedrooms

were prettily furnished, and the dressing-rooms attached fitted

up with a tiled bath, hot and cold water, and numberless mirrors.

The wives of the great Court and State officials, as well as many

other ladies, have one afternoon in the week on which they sit at

home and receive visitors. There is always tea and Russian bonbons,

which are most excellent. What strikes an English-woman is the

number of men, officers of the army, and others, who attend these

"jours," as they are called in French. Many of noted activity,

such as General Kaulbars, may be seen quietly sipping their tea

and talking of the last ball to the young lady of the house. A fête

given by Madame Polovtsoff, wife of the Secrétaire de l'Empire,

was wonderfully conducted and organized. It took place at a villa

on the Islands, as that part of St. Petersburg which lies between

the two principal branches of the Neva is called. It is to villas

here that the officials can retire after the season when obliged

to remain near the capital. The rooms and large conservatories

were lit by electricity. At the further end of the conservatory,

buried in palm-trees were the gipsies chanting and wailing their

savage national songs and choruses, while the guests wandered about

amongst groves of camellias, and green lawns studded with

lilies-of-the-valley and hyacinths; rose-bushes in full flower at

the corners. When the gipsies were exhausted, dancing began, and

later there was an excellent supper in another still more spacious

conservatory. The entertainment ended with a cotillon, and for

the stranger its originality was only marred by the fact that it

had been thawing, and the company could not arrive or depart in

"_troikas_,"--sleighs with three horses which seem to fly along the

glistening moonlit snow. A favourite amusement, even in winter, is

racing these "_troikas_," or sleighs, with fast trotters. The races

are to be seen from stands, as in England, and are only impeded by

falling snow. The pretty little horses are harnessed, for trotting

races, singly, to a low sleigh (in summer to a drosky) driven by

one man, wearing the colours of the owner. Two of these start at

once in opposite directions on a circular or oblong course marked

out on a flat expanse of snow and ice, which may be either land

or water, as is found most convenient. It is a picturesque sight,

and reminds one of the pictures of ancient chariot races on old

vases and carved monuments.

The character of a nation can scarcely fail to be affected by the

size of the country it inhabits, and a certain indifference to time

and distance is produced by this circumstance. There is also a

peculiar apathy as regards small annoyances and casualties. Whatever

accident befalls the Russian of the lower orders, his habitual

remark is "_Nitchivo_" ("It is nothing"). Nevertheless, Northern

blood and a Northern climate have mixed a marvellous amount of

energy and enterprise with this Oriental characteristic. Take for

example the Caspian railway, undertaken by General Annenkoff. This

general completes fifteen hundred miles of railway in the incredibly

short space of time of a year and a half, and almost before the

public is aware of its having been commenced, he is back again in

St. Petersburg dancing at a Court ball in a quadrille opposite the

Empress. The railway made by him runs at present from the Caspian

Sea to the Amou-Daria River, and will be continued to Bokhara,

Samarkand, and Tashkend, in a northerly direction, while on the

south it is to enter Persia. Should European complications, by

removing the risk of foreign interposition, make it possible for

a Russian army to reach the Caspian by way of the Black Sea and

the Caucasus, this railway gives it the desired approach to India.

By attacking us in India, which they possibly do not desire to

conquer, the Panslavists and Russian enthusiasts believe they would

establish their empire at Constantinople, and unite the whole Sclav

race under the dominion of the Tsar.

The one preponderating impression produced by a short visit to

Russia is an almost bewildering sense of its vastness, with an

equally bewildering feeling of astonishment at the centralization

of all government in the hands of the Emperor. This impression is

perhaps increased by the nature of the town of St. Petersburg. Long,

broad streets, lit at night by the electric light, huge buildings,

public and private, large and almost deserted places or squares, all

tend to produce the reflection that the Russian nation is emerging

from the long ages of Cimmerian darkness into which the repeated

invasions of Asiatic hordes had plunged it, and that it is full

of the energy and aspirations belonging to a people conscious of

a great future in the history of mankind.

_RURAL LIFE IN RUSSIA_

_LADY VERNEY_

The amount of territory given up to the serfs by the Emancipation

Act of 1861 was about one-half of the arable land of the whole

empire, so that the experiment of cutting up the large properties

of a country, and the formation instead of a landed peasantry,

has now been tried on a sufficiently large scale for a quarter of

a century to enable the world to judge of its success or failure.

There is no doubt of the philanthropic intentions of Alexander

the First, but he seems to have also aimed (like Richelieu) at

diminishing the power of the nobles, which formed some bulwark

between the absolute sway of the Crown and the enormous dead level

of peasants.

The serfs belonged soul and body to the landowner: even when they

were allowed to take service or exercise a trade in distant towns,

they were obliged to pay a due, "_obrok_," to their owner, and to

return home if required; while the instances of oppression were

sometimes frightful, husbands and wives were separated, girls were

sold away from their parents, young men were not allowed to marry.

On the other hand, when the proprietor was kind, and rich enough

not to make money of his serfs, the patriarchal form of life was

not unhappy. "See now," said an old peasant, "what have I gained

by the emancipation? I have nobody to go to to build my house,

or to help in the ploughing time; the Seigneur, he knew what I

wanted, and he did it for me without any bother. Now if I want

a wife, I have got to go and court her myself; he used to choose

for me, and he knew what was best. It is a great deal of trouble,

and no good at all!" Under the old arrangements three generations

were often found living in one house, and the grandfather, who was

called "the Big One," bore a very despotic sway. The plan allowed

several of the males of the family to seek work at a distance,

leaving some at home to perform the "_corvêe_" (forced labour)

three days a week; but the families quarrelled among themselves,

and the effect of the emancipation has been to split them up into

different households. A considerable portion of the serfs were

not really serfs at all. They were coachmen, grooms, gardeners,

gamekeepers, etc., while their wives and daughters were nurses,

ladies'-maids, and domestic servants. Their number was out of all

proportion to their work, which was always carelessly done, but

there was often great attachment to the family they served. The

serfs proper lived in villages, had houses and plots of land of

their own, and were nominally never sold except with the estate.

The land, however, was under the dominion of the "_Mir_"; they could

neither use it nor cultivate it except according to the communal

obligations.

The outward aspect of a Russian village is not attractive, and

there is little choice in the surrounding country between a wide

grey plain with a distance of scrubby pine forest, or the scrubby

pine forest with distant grey plains. The peasants' houses are

scattered up and down without any order or arrangement, and with

no roads between, built of trunks of trees, unsquared, and mortised

into each other at the corners, the interstices filled with moss

and mud, a mode of building warmer than it sounds. In the interior

there is always an enormous brick stove, five or six feet high,

on which and on the floor the whole family sleep in their rags.

The heat and the stench are frightful. No one undresses, washing

is unknown, and sheepskin pelisses with the wool inside are not

conducive to cleanliness. Wood, however, is becoming very scarce,

the forests are used up in fuel for railway engines, for wooden

constructions of all kind, and are set fire to wastefully--in many

places the peasants are forced to burn dung, weeds, or anything

they can pick up--fifty years, it is said, will exhaust the peasant

forests, and fresh trees are never planted.

The women are more diligent than the men, and the hardest work is

often turned over to them, as is generally the case in countries

where peasant properties prevail. "They are only the females of

the male," and have few womanly qualities. They toil at the same

tasks in the field as the men, ride astride like them, often without

saddles, and the mortality is excessive among the neglected children,

who are carried out into the fields, where the babies lie the whole

day with a bough over them and covered with flies, while the poor

mother is at work. Eight out of ten children are said to die before

ten years old in rural Russia.

In the little church (generally built of wood) there are no seats,

the worshippers prostrate themselves and knock their heads two or

three times on the ground, and must stand or kneel through the

whole service. The roof consists of a number of bulbous-shaped

cupolas; four, round the central dome, in the form of a cross is

the completed ideal, with a separate minaret for the Virgin. These

are covered with tiles of the brightest blue, green, and red, and gilt

metal. The priest is a picturesque figure, with his long unclipped

hair, tall felt hat largest at the top, and a flowing robe. He must

be married when appointed to a cure, but is not allowed a second

venture if his wife dies. Until lately they formed an hereditary

caste, and it was unlawful for the son of a pope to be other than

a pope. They are taken from the lowest class, and are generally

quite as uneducated, and are looked down upon by their flocks.

"One loves the Pope, and one the Popess" is an uncomplimentary

proverb given by Gogol. "To have priests' eyes," meaning to be

covetous or extortionate, is another. The drunkenness in all classes

strikes Russian statesmen with dismay, and the priests and the

popes, are among the worst delinquents. They are fast losing the

authority they once had over the serfs, when they formed part of

the great political system, of which the Tsar was the religious and

political head. A Russian official report says that "the churches

are now mostly attended by women and children, while the men are

spending their last kopeck, or getting deeper into debt, at the

village dram shop."

Church festivals, marriages, christenings, burials and fairs, leave

only two hundred days in the year for the Russian labourer. The

climate is so severe as to prevent out-of-door work for months,

and the enforced idleness increases the natural disposition to

do nothing. "We are a lethargic people," says Gogol, "and require

a stimulus from without, either that of an officer, a master, a

driver, the rod, or _vodki_ (a white spirit distilled from corn);

and this," he adds in another place, "whether the man be peasant,

soldier, clerk, sailor, priest, merchant, seigneur or prince."

At the time of the Crimean War it was always believed that the

Russian soldier could only be driven up to an attack, such as that

of Inkermann, under the influence of intoxication. The Russian

peasant is indeed a barbarian at a very low stage of civilization.

In the Crimean hospitals every nationality was to be found among

the patients, and the Russian soldier was considered far the lowest

of all. Stolid, stupid, hard, he never showed any gratitude for

any amount of care and attention, or seemed, indeed, to understand

them; and there was no doubt that during the war he continually put

the wounded to death in order to possess himself of their clothes.

The Greek Church is a very dead form of faith, and the worship of

saints of every degree of power "amounts to a fetishism almost as

bad as any to be found in Africa." I am myself the happy possessor

of a little rude wooden bas-relief, framed and glazed, of two saints

whose names I have ungratefully forgotten, to whom if you pray

as you go out to commit a crime, however heinous, you take your

pardon with you--a refinement upon the whipping of the saints in

Calabria and Spanish hagiolatry. The icons, the sacred images,

are hung in the chief corner, called "The Beautiful," of a Russian

_izba_. A lamp is always lit before them, and some food spread

"for the ghosts to come and eat." The well-to-do peasant is still

"strict about his fasts and festivals, and never neglects to prepare

for Lent. During the whole year his forethought never wearies;

the children pick up a number of fungi, which the English kick

away as toadstools, these are dried in the sun or the oven, and

packed in casks with a mixture of hot water and dry meal in which

they ferment. The staple diet of the peasant consists of buckwheat,

rye meal, sauerkraut, and coarse cured fish" (little, however,

but black bread, often mouldy and sauerkraut, nearly putrid, is

found in the generality of Russian peasant homes). No milk, butter,

cheese, or eggs are allowed in Lent, all of which are permitted to

the Roman Catholic, and the oil the peasant uses for his cooking

is linseed instead of olive oil, which last he religiously sets

aside for the lamps burning before the holy images. "To neglect

fasting would cause a man to be shunned as a traitor, not only

to his religion, but to his class and country."

[Illustration: RUSSIAN FARM SCENE.]

In a bettermost household, the samovar, the tea-urn, is always

going. If a couple of men have a bargain to strike, the charcoal

is lighted inside the urn, which has a pipe carried into the stone

chimney, and the noise of the heated air is like a roaring furnace.

They will go on drinking boiling hot weak tea, in glasses, for

hours, with a liberal allowance of _vodki_. The samovar, however,

is a completely new institution, and the old peasants will tell

you, "Ah, Holy Russia has never been the same since we drank so

much tea."

The only bit of art or pastime to be found among the peasants seems

to consist in the "circling dances" with songs, at harvest, Christmas,

and all other important festivals, as described by Mr. Ralston.

And even here "the settled gloom, the monotonous sadness," are

most remarkable. Wife-beating, husbands' infidelities, horrible

stories of witches and vampires, are the general subjects of the

songs. The lament of the young bride who is treated almost like

a slave by her father and mother-in-law, has a chorus: "Thumping,

scolding, never lets his daughter sleep"; "Up, you slattern! up,

you sloven, sluggish slut!" A wife entreats: "Oh, my husband, only

for good cause beat thou thy wife, not for little things. Far away

is my father dear, and farther still my mother." The husband who is

tired of his wife sings: "Thanks, thanks to the blue pitcher (_i.

e._, poison), it has rid me of my cares; not that cares afflicted

me, my real affliction was my wife," ending, "Love will I make to

the girls across the stream." Next comes a wife who poisons her

husband: "I dried the evil root, and pounded it small;" but in

this case the husband was hated because he had killed her brother.

The most unpleasant of all, however, are the invocations to _vodki_.

A circle of girls imitate drunken women, and sing as they dance:

"_Vodki_ delicious I drank, I drank; not in a cup or a glass, but a

bucketful I drank.... I cling to the posts of the door. Oh, doorpost,

hold me up, the drunken woman, the tipsy rogue."

The account of the Baba Zaga, a hideous old witch, is enough to

drive children into convulsions. She has a nose and teeth made

of strong sharp iron. As she lies in her hut she stretches from

one corner to the other, and her nose goes through the roof. The

fence is made of the bones of the people she has eaten, and tipped

with their skulls. The uprights of the gate are human legs. She

has a broom to sweep away the traces of her passage over the snow

in her seven-leagued boots. She steals children to eat them.

Remains of paganism are to be found in some of the sayings. A curse

still existing says, "May Perun (_i. e._, the lightning) strike

thee." The god Perun, the Thunderer, resembles Thor, and like him

carries a hammer. He has been transformed into Elijah, the prophet

Ilya, the rumbling of whose chariot as he rolls through heaven,

especially on the week in summer when his festival falls, may be

heard in thunder. There is a dismal custom by which the children are

made to eat the mouldy bread, "because the Rusalkas (the fairies)

do not choose bread to be wasted." Inhuman stories about burying

a child alive in the foundation of a new town to propitiate the

earth spirit; that a drowning man must not be saved, lest the water

spirit be offended; that if groans or cries are heard in the forest,

a traveller must go straight on without paying any attention, "for

it is only the wood demon, the lyeshey," seem only to be invented

as excuses for selfish inaction. Wolves bear a great part in the

stories. A peasant driving in a sledge with three children is pursued

by a pack of wolves: he throws out a child, which they stop to

devour; then the howls come near him again, and he throws out a

second; again they return, when the last is sacrificed; and one

is grieved to hear that he saves his own wretched cowardly life

at last.

The Emancipation was doubtless a great work. Twenty million serfs

belonging to private owners, and 30,000,000 more, the serfs of

the Crown were set free. They had always, however, considered the

communal land as in one sense their own. "We are yours but the

land is ours," was the phrase. The Act was received with mistrust

and suspicion, and the owners were supposed to have tampered with

the good intentions of the Tsar. Land had been allotted to each

peasant family sufficient, as supposed, for its support, besides

paying a fixed yearly sum to Government. Much of it, however, is

so bad that it cannot be made to afford a living and pay the tax,

in fact a poll tax, not dependent on the size of the strip, but on

the number of the souls. The population in Russia has always had a

great tendency to migrate, and serfdom in past ages is said to have

been instituted to enable the lord of the soil to be responsible for

the taxes. "It would have been impossible to collect these from

peasants free to roam from Archangel to the Caucasus, from St.

Petersburg to Siberia." It was therefore necessary to enforce the

payments from the village community, the Mir, which is a much less

merciful landlord than the nobles of former days, and constantly

sells up the defaulting peasant.

The rule of the Mir is strangely democratic in so despotic an empire.

The Government never interferes with the communes if they pay their

taxes, and the ignorant peasants of the rural courts may pass sentences

of imprisonment for seven days, inflict twenty strokes with a rod,

impose fines, and cause a man who is pronounced "vicious or pernicious"

to be banished to Siberia. The authority of the Mir, of the Starosta,

the Whiteheads, the chief elders, seems never to be resisted, and

there are a number of proverbs declaring "what the Mir decides

must come to pass"; "The neck and shoulders of the Mir are broad";

"The tear of the Mir is cold but sharp." Each peasant is bound

hand and foot by minute regulations; he must plough, sow and reap

only when his neighbours do, and the interference with his liberty

of action is most vexatious and very injurious.

The agriculture enforced is of the most barbarous kind. Jensen,

Professor of Political Economy at Moscow, says: "The three-field

system--corn, green crops and fallow--which was abandoned in Europe

two centuries ago, has most disastrous consequences here. The lots

are changed every year, and no man has any interest in improving

property which will not be his in so short a time. Hardly any manure

is used, and in many places the corn is threshed out by driving

horses and wagons over it. The exhaustion of the soil by this most

barbarous culture has reached a fearful pitch."

The size of the allotments varies extremely in the different climates

and soils, and the country is so enormous that the provinces were

divided into zones to carry out the details of the Emancipation

Act--the zone without black soil; the zone with black soil; and,

third, the great steppe zone. In the first two the allotments range

from two and two-thirds to twenty acres, in the steppes from eight

and three-quarters to thirty-four and one-third. "Whether, however,"

says Jensen, "the peasants cultivate their land as proprietors at

1_s_. 9_d_. or hire it at 18_s_. 6_d_. the result is the same--the

soil is scourged and exhausted, and semi-starvation has become the

general feature of peasant life."

Usury is the great nightmare of rural Russia, at present, an evil

which seems to dog the peasant proprietor in all countries alike.

The "Gombeen Man" is fast getting possession of the little Irish

owners. A man who hires land cannot borrow on it; the little owner

is tempted always to mortgage it at a pinch. In Russia he borrows to

the outside of its value to pay the taxes and get in his crop. "The

bondage labourers," _i. e._, men bound to work on their creditor's

land as interest for money lent, receive no wages and are in fact a

sort of slaves. They repay their extortioners by working as badly

as they can--a "level worst," far inferior to that of the serfs of

old, they harvest three and a half or four stacks of corn where

the other peasants get five. The Koulaks and Mir-eaters, and other

usurers, often of peasant origin, exhaust the peasant in every

way; they then foreclose the mortgages, unite the small pieces

of land once more, and reconstitute large estates. A Koulak is

not to be trifled with; he finds a thousand occasions for revenge;

the peasant cannot cheat the Jew as he does the landlord, and is

being starved out--the mortality is enormous.

The peasant class comprises five-sixths of the whole population--a

stolid, ignorant, utterly unprogressive mass of human beings. They

have received in gift nearly half the empire for their own use,

and cling to the soil as their only chance of existence. They

consequently dread all change, fearing that it should endanger

this valuable possession. A dense solid stratum of unreasoning

conservatism thus constitutes the whole basis of Russian society

backed by the most corrupt set of officials to be found in the

whole world. The middle and upper classes are often full of ardent

wishes for the advancement of society and projects for the reform

of the State. These are generally of the wildest and most terrible

description, but their objects are anything but unreasonable. They

desire to share in political power and the government of their

country, as is the privilege of every other nation in Europe, and

they hope to do something for the seething mass of ignorance and

misery around them. The Nihilists have an ideal at least of good,

and the open air of practical politics would probably get rid of

the unhealthy absurdities and wickedness of their creeds. But the

Russian peasant cares neither for liberty nor politics, neither

for education, nor cleanliness, nor civilization of any kind. His

only interest is to squeeze just enough out of his plot of ground

to live upon and get drunk as many days in the year as possible.[1]

With such a base to the pyramid as is constituted by the peasant

proprietors of Russia, aided by the enormous army, recruited almost

to any extent from among their ranks, whose chief religion is a

superstitious reverence for the "great father," the Tsar is safe

in refusing all concessions, all improvements; and the hopeless

nature of Russian reform hitherto, mainly hangs upon the conviction

of the Government that nothing external can possibly act upon this

inert mass. "Great is stupidity, and shall prevail." But surely

not forever!

[Footnote 1: "When God created the world He made different nations

and gave them all sorts of good things--land, corn and fruit. Then

He asked them if they were satisfied, and they all said 'Yes' except

the Russian, who had got as much as the rest, but simpered 'Please

Lord, some _vodki_.'"--_Russian Popular Tale_.]

_FOOD AND DRINK_

_H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS_

The essential point in the service of the Russian dinner is--as

is now generally known throughout Europe--that the dishes should

be handed round instead of being placed on the table, which is

covered throughout the meal with flowers, fruit, and the whole

of the dessert. One advantage of this plan is, that it makes the

dinner-table look well; another, that it renders the service more

rapid, and saves much trouble to the host. The dishes are brought

in one by one; or two at a time, and of the same kind, if a large

number are dining. The ordinary wines are on the table, and nothing

has to be changed except the plates. At the end of dinner, as the

cloth is not removed, the dessert is ready served; and this has

always been one of the great glories of a Russian banquet.

"I was particularly struck," says Archdeacon Coxe, "with the quantity

and quality of the fruit which made its appearance in the dessert.

Pines, peaches, apricots, grapes, pears, and cherries, none of

which can in this country be obtained without the assistance of

hot-houses,[1] were served," he tells us, "in the greatest profusion.

There was a delicious species of small melon, which had been sent

by land-carriage from Astrakhan to Moscow--a distance of a thousand

miles. These melons," he adds, "sometimes cost five pounds apiece,

and at other times may be purchased in the markets of Moscow for

less than half-a-crown apiece." One "instance of elegance" which

distinguished the dessert, and which appears to have made an impression

on the Archdeacon, is then mentioned. "At the upper and lower ends

of the table were placed two china vases, containing cherry-trees

in full leaf, and fruit hanging on the boughs which was gathered by

the company." This cherry-tree is also a favourite, and certainly

a very agreeable ornament, in the present day. At the conclusion

of the dessert coffee is served as in France and England. Men and

women leave the table together, and after dinner no wine is taken.

Later in the evening tea is brought in, with biscuits, cakes, and

preserved fruits.

[Footnote 1: That is to say, not in the winter. In the summer,

pears and cherries abound in Moscow, and every kind of fruit ripens

in the south.]

The reception-rooms in Russian houses are all _en suite_; and instead

of doors you pass from room to room through arches hung with curtains.

The number of the apartments in most of the houses I remember varied

from three to six or seven; but in the clubs and in large mansions

there are more. Grace before or after dinner is never said under

any circumstances; but all the guests make the sign of the cross

before sitting down to table, usually looking at the same time

towards the eastern corner of the room, where the holy image hangs.

This ceremony is never omitted in families, though in the early

part of the century, when the Gallomania was at its height, it is

said to have been much neglected. In club dinners, when men are

dining alone, it will be easily believed that the same importance

is not attached to it; but the custom may be described as almost

universal among the rich, and quite universal among the poor. Indeed,

a peasant or workman would not on any account eat without first

making the sign of the cross. In Russia, with its "patriarchal"

society (as the Russians are fond of saying), it is usual to thank

the lady of the house, either by word or gesture, after dining at

her table; and those who are sufficiently intimate kiss her hand.

[Illustration: THE TSAR'S DINING-ROOM, MOSCOW.]

We now come to the composition of the Russian dinners; and here I

must repeat with Archdeacon Coxe, that although the Russians have

adopted many of the delicacies of French cookery, they "neither

affect to despise their native dishes nor squeamishly reject the

solid joints which characterize our own repasts." I was astonished,

at one Russian dinner, which I was assured was thoroughly national

in style, to meet with the homely roast leg of mutton and baked

potatoes of my native land. Like the English, the Russians take

potatoes with nearly every dish--either plain boiled, fried, or

with parsley and butter over them. Plum-pudding, too, and boiled

rice-pudding with currants in it, and with melted butter, are known

in Russia--at all events in Moscow and St. Petersburg; and goose is

not considered complete without apple-sauce. As in France, every

dinner begins with soup; but this custom has not been borrowed

from the French. It seems to date from time immemorial, for all

the Russian peasants, a thoroughly stationary class, take their

soup daily. The Russians are very successful with some kinds of

pickles, such as salted cucumbers and mushrooms; and they excel

in salads, composed not only of lettuce, endive, and beetroot, but

also of cherries, grapes, and other fruits, preserved in vinegar.

The fruit is always placed at the top, and has a very picturesque

effect in the midst of the green leaves. Altogether it may be said

that the Russian _cuisine_ is founded on a system of eclecticism,

with a large number of national dishes for its base. Of course,

in some Russian houses, as in some English ones, the cooking is

nearly all in the French style; but even then there are always a

few dishes on the table that might easily be recognized as belonging

to the country. We need scarcely remark, that only very rich persons

dine every day in the sumptuous style described by Archdeacon Coxe,

though the rule as to service may be said to be general--one dish

at a time, and nothing on the table but flowers and the dessert.

In the winter, when it is difficult and expensive to get dessert,

those who are rich send for it where it _can_ be obtained--perhaps

to their own hot-houses; and those who are not rich, as in other

countries, go without. At the _traktirs_, or _restaurants_, the

usual dinner supplied for three-quarters of a rouble consists of

soup, with a pie of mince-meat, or minced vegetables, an _entrée_,

roast meat, and some kind of sweet. That, too, may be considered

the kind of dinner which persons of moderate means have every day

at home. Rich proprietors, who keep a head-cook, a roaster, a

pastry-cook, and two or three assistant-cooks, would perhaps despise

so moderate a repast; but from a little manual of cookery which

a friend has been kind enough to send me from Russia, it would

appear that the generality of persons do not have more than four

dishes at each meal.

The most ancient and popular drinks in Russia are hydromel or mead

(called by the same name in Russia), beer, and _kvass_. Mead, the fine

old Scandinavian drink, is mentioned as far back as the Tenth Century;

and in a chronicle of Novgorod of the year 989, it is stated that "A

great festival took place, at which a hundred and twenty thousand

pounds of honey were consumed." Hydromel is flavoured with various

kinds of spices and fermented with hops. Gerebtzoff states that

beer is mentioned (under the name of _oloul_--the present word being

_pivo_) in the _Book of Ranks_, written in the Eleventh and Twelfth

Centuries. But no drink is so ancient as _kvass_, which, according

to the chronicle of Nestor, was in use among the Sclavonians in

the first century of our era. Among the laws of Yaroslaff there

is an old edict determining the quantity of malt to be furnished

for making _kvass_ to workmen engaged in building a town.

The Russians learnt to drink wine from the Greeks, during their

frequent intercourse with the Eastern Empire, long before the Mongol

invasion. During the Tartar domination there was less communication

with Constantinople and the consumption of wine decreased, but

it became greater again during the period of the Tsars. In the

beginning of the Seventeenth Century wine was supplied to ambassadors,

but the Russians for the most part still preferred their native

drinks. The cultivation of the vine was introduced at Astrakhan

in 1613, and a German traveller named Strauss, who visited the

city in 1675, found that it had been attended with great success;

so much so, that, without counting what was sold in the way of

general trade, the province supplied to the Tsar alone every year

two hundred tuns of wine, and fifty tuns of grape brandy. The wines

of Greece were at the same time replaced by those of Hungary, which

were in great demand when Peter came and introduced the vintage

of France. This by many persons will be considered not the least

of his reforms.

The Russians acquired the art of distilling from grain in the Fourteenth

Century from the Genoese established in the Crimea, and seem to

have lost no time in profiting by their knowledge. They soon began

to invent infusions of fruit and berries, which under the name of

"_nalivka_" have long been known to travellers, and which I for

my part found excellent. "_Raki_," about the consumption of which

by the Russian soldiers so much was written during the Crimean

war, is a Turkish spirit, and is unknown in Russia. The Russian

grain-spirit is called "_vodka_." The best qualities are more like

the best whiskey than anything else, only weaker; but it is of various

degrees of excellence as of price. The new common _vodka_, like other

new spirits, is fiery; but when purified, and kept for some time, it

is excellent and particularly mild. Travellers to Moscow who are

curious on the subject of _vodka_ may visit a gigantic distillery

in the neighbourhood, to which it is easy to gain admission, and

where they can obtain information and samples in abundance. _Vodka_

is sometimes made in imitation of brandy, and there are also sweet

and bitter _vodkas_; and, indeed, _vodka_ of all flavours. But

the British spirit which the ordinary _vodka_ chiefly resembles

is whiskey. There is one curious custom connected with drinking in

Russia which, as far as I am aware, has never been noticed. The

Russians drink first and eat afterwards, and never drink without

eating. If wine and biscuits are placed on the table, everyone takes

a glass of wine first, and then a biscuit; and at the _zakouska_

before dinner, those who take the customary glass of _vodka_ take an

atom of caviare or cheese after it, but not before. It may also be

remarked that, as a general rule, the Russians, like the Orientals,

drink only at the beginning of a repast.

A hospitable Englishman entertaining a Russian, on seeing him eat

after drinking, would press him to drink again, and having drunk

a second time, the Russian would eat once more on his own account;

which would involve another invitation to drink on the part of the

Englishman. As a hospitable Russian, on the other hand, entertaining

an Englishman, would endeavour to prevail upon him to eat after

drinking, and as it is the Englishman's habit to drink after eating,

it is easy to see that too much attention on either side might

lead to very unfortunate results.

A great deal is said about the enormous quantity of champagne consumed

in Russia. Champagne, however, costs five roubles (from sixteen to

seventeen shillings) a bottle--the duty alone amounting to one rouble

a bottle--and is only drunk habitually by persons of considerable

means. Nor does the champagne bottle go round so frequently at

Russian as at English dinners. It is usually given, as in France,

with the pastry and dessert, and no other wine is taken after it.

The rich merchants are said to drink champagne very freely at their

evening entertainments; but the only merchant at whose house I

dined had, unfortunately, adopted Western manners, and gave nothing

during the evening but tea. However, at festivals and celebrations

of all kinds--whether of congratulation, of welcome, or of

farewell--champagne is indispensable. What Alphonse Karr says of

women and their toilette--that they regard every event in life

as an occasion for a new dress--may certainly be paraphrased and

applied to the Russians in connection with champagne. Besides the

champagne which is given as a matter of course at dinner-parties

and balls, there must be champagne at birthdays, champagne at

christenings, champagne at, or in honour of, betrothals, champagne

in abundance at weddings, champagne at the arrival of a friend, and

champagne at his departure. For those who cannot afford veritable

champagne, Russian viniculture supplies an excellent imitation in

the shape of "_Donskoi_" and "_Crimskoi_,"--the wines of the Don

and of the Crimea. As "_Donskoi_" costs only a fifth of the price

of real champagne, it will be understood that it is not seldom

substituted for the genuine article, both by fraudulent wine merchants

and economic hosts. However, it is a true wine, and far superior to

the fabrications of Hamburg, which, under the name of champagne,

find their way all over the north of Europe. It has often been

said that the Russians drink champagne merely because it is dear.

But the fact is, they have a liking for all effervescing drinks,

and naturally, therefore, for champagne, the best of all. Among

the effervescing drinks peculiar to Russia, we may mention apple

_kvass, kislya shchee_, and _voditsa. Kislya shchee_ is made out of

two sorts of malt, three sorts of flour, and dried apples; in apple

_kvass_ there are more apples and less malt and flour. _Voditsa_

(a diminutive of _voda_, water), is made of syrup, water, and a

little spirit. All these summer-drinks are bottled and kept in

the ice-house.

_CARNIVAL-TIME AND EASTER_

_A. NICOL SIMPSON_

Lent is heralded by carnival, called by Russians "Maslanitza"--the

"_Butter Wochen_" of the Germans. _Maslanitza_ is held during the

eighth week preceding Easter, the fast proper is observed during the

intervening seven weeks. During Maslanitza every article of diet,

flesh excepted, is allowed to be partaken of, but over-indulgence

in other articles, including drinks, is not forbidden.

Carnival commences on Sunday at noon and continues till the close

of the succeeding Sunday. The salutation during the week is

"_Maslanitza_," or "_Sherokie Maslanitza_," "_Sherokie_" meaning,

literally "broad," indicating a full amount of pleasure, and the

facial expression accompanying this salutation shows plainly that

unrestrained enjoyment is the aim and object for the week. Upon

the discharge of the time gun at noon, there emerge from all parts

of the city tiny sleighs driven by peasants, chiefly Finns, who for

the time are allowed to ply for hire by the payment of a nominal

tax imposed by the police or city corporation. Most of these Finns

are unable to speak Russian intelligibly, although living at no

great distance from the capital. It is said that from 5,000 to 10,000

of these jehus come annually to St. Petersburg for _Maslanitza_,

and they add materially to the gaiety of the city as they drive

along the streets. These Finns are mostly patronized by the

working-classes, for the simple reason that their charges are lower

than the ordinary _isvozchick_, or cabby.

During the festivities the great centre of attraction for the working

population is the "Marco Polo," or "Champ de Mars," an immense

plain on the banks of the Neva. Here a huge fair is held, with

the usual assortment of stalls, loaded with sweetmeats and similar

dainties. Actors from the city theatres are upon the ground, with

smaller booths where the stage-struck hero acts the leading part.

There are dwarfs, fat women, giants, and the renowned ubiquitous

Punch and Judy, merry-go-rounds, card-sharpers, cheap-jacks, and

a medley crowd of men and women all catering for the roubles of

the crowd. What are termed the "ice-hills" are perhaps the most

attractive feature of the gathering.

In the city feasting and visiting are the order of the day. There

is no limit to the consumption of "_bleenies_," a kind of pancake

made of buckwheat flour, and eaten with butter sauce or fresh caviare,

according to the circumstances of the families. Morn, noon, and

night _bleenies_ are cooked and eaten by the dozen, moistened,

of course, with the indispensable _vodka_ or native gin, which is

distilled from rye.

When midnight of the second Sunday arrives, all gaieties are supposed

to vanish, and a subdued and demure aspect must be assumed, and

the form of congratulation between friends and acquaintances

is--"_Pozdravlin vam post_," or "I congratulate you on the fast."

The church bells toll mournfully at brief intervals from 4 or 5

A. M., when early mass is celebrated until about 8 P. M., when

evening service closes.

Before the Passion--like the Jews, who at Passover search diligently

for and cast out the old leaven--the Russian housewife likewise

searches out every corner, most remorselessly sweeps from its

hiding-place every particle of dust. Everything is done to make the

house and its contents fit to meet a risen Saviour. The streets,

always very clean, receive special attention, even the lamp-posts

are carefully washed down and the kerbs sanded. Everything that

will clean has brush and soap-and-water applied to it. The reason

of this is the belief that our Saviour invisibly walks about the

earth for forty days after Easter, that is, until Ascension Day.

On the Thursday of Passion Week "_Strashnaya Nedelli_," _i. e._,

"_Terrible Week_," is enacted in a very realistic fashion one of

the last acts of our Saviour--"the washing of the Disciples' feet."

After the close of the second diet of worship at St. Isaac's Cathedral

this ceremony is performed.

The most important day of the week is that of "_Strashnaya Piatnitsa_,"

or Good Friday, when the burial of our Lord is enacted before the

people in a truly solemn and impressive manner. In every church

there is a sarcophagus in imitation of our Saviour's tomb, and

many of these sarcophagi are of elaborate workmanship with gorgeous

gilt and otherwise ornamented. The lid is adorned with a painting

representing our Saviour in death. At dawn this lid is carried

into the chapel, and by 3 P. M. the sarcophagus is in its place

on the daïs ready to receive the body of our Lord. Shortly before

the service is concluded, all the worshippers have their tapers

lighted, the flame being procured from a candelabrum in front of

the sacred icon. This is done by those nearest to the candelabrum

lighting their tapers, while those behind them get the sacred flame

from them, and in this way all get their tapers lit. Many endeavour

to carry their burning tapers home, so that they may have the holy

flame in their dwellings.

[Illustration: ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL, ST. PETERSBURG.]

Leaving the chapel the crowd musters in the street. Then there

emerges a church dignitary bearing a large brightly-burnished crucifix,

followed by others bearing bannerettes and other symbols, the names

and uses of which are to us a mystery. Last of all come forth four

priests, clad in their gorgeous canonical vestments, bearing the

lid of the sarcophagus which is supported on brass rods. Under

the lid walks an aged priest clad in his clerical vestments,

representing the dead Christ being carried to his tomb. Slowly,

sadly, and reverently he is borne to the tomb, the worshippers

crossing themselves most devoutly. A sudden rush is made for the

church to witness the interment, the big bell meanwhile tolling

mournfully as the procession moves on. The sad procession enters

the church, and, going up to where the sarcophagus is placed with

all the external appearances of love, mourning, and lamentation,

the lid is placed on the sarcophagus and the last obsequies of

the crucified "Christ" are over.

Preparations are now industriously made for the due celebration of

the Resurrection morn. Shopping, shopping, shopping goes on without

intermission. Those who can, prepare to adorn their bodies with one

or more articles of new clothing, but all make preparations for a

sumptuous feast. It is interesting to watch the shops, especially in

the public markets, to see the avidity with which every article of

food is bought up. The butchers come in, perhaps, for the largest

share of custom, as flesh, especially smoked ham, is in universal

demand. Ham among all classes of the community is indispensable for

the breaking of the fast and the due celebration of the feast. Dyed

eggs are in universal request. The exchange of eggs, accompanied with

kissing on the lips and cheeks in the form of the cross, accompanies

all gifts or exchange. The _koolitch_ and _paska_ have also to be

bought. The _koolitch_ is a sweet kind of wheaten bread, circular

in form, in which there are raisins. It is ornamented with candied

sugar and usually has the Easter salutation on it: "_Christos

vozkress_"--"Christ is risen"--the whole surmounted with a large

gaudy red-paper rose. The _paska_ is made of cords, pyramidal in

shape, and contains a few raisins, and, like the former, has also

a paper rose inserted on the top. These are the _sine qua non_ for

the due observance of Easter, but what relation they may have, if

any, to the Jewish Feast of the Passover, it is difficult to see,

although in many other respects there is a striking resemblance

to the service of the Temple in Jerusalem in the ritual of the

Russo-Greek Church. The _koolitch_ and _paska_ and dyed eggs are

brought to, but not into, the church on the Saturday evening. Some

have burning tapers inserted into them, while a pure white table

napkin is spread on the ground, or on benches specially provided

for the purpose, awaiting the priests' blessing. The hours for

this purpose are six, eight, and ten o'clock. The priests sprinkle

the _koolitch, paska_, and dyed eggs at these hours, those to whom

they belong slipping a silver or copper coin into his hand as a

reward for his services. These articles are then carried home,

and along with the other necessities for the feast are laid out

on a table, there to lie untouched till the resurrection of the

"Saviour" is an accomplished fact. Meanwhile the lessons are being

read over the tomb of "Christ," and the devotees, still in large

numbers, kiss His face and feet. About 11 P. M. the sarcophagus is

wheeled to its usual place in the church, where it remains until

the following Easter.

All the churches by this time are densely packed with worshippers,

silently waiting with eager expectancy the time when their "Saviour"

will break the bonds of death and rise from the tomb in which he

has now lain for three days.

As if by magic, everyone has lighted his or her taper, and looks

anxiously towards the altar-screen, where preparations are being

made by the priests to go to Joseph of Arimathea's garden, as the

disciples and women did of old to visit the tomb where Christ was

buried. This they do by forming a procession with the crucifix,

bannerettes, etc., each carrying a lighted candle in his hand.

There is a rush among the worshippers to join the procession. They

walk thrice round the church, searching diligently by the aid of

their candles for "Christ," and not finding Him, they go to bring

the disciples word that He is risen from the dead.

When the procession enters the threshold of the church, the royal

gates are thrown back, suddenly displaying a marvellously beautiful

stained glass window, and all eyes behold an enchanting representation

of the Saviour in the act of rising from the cold grave.

The priests with the choristers, as they enter the church, proclaim

in joyful tones, "_Christos vozkress_" ("Christ is risen"), the

response being "_Voestenno vozkress_" ("Truly He is risen"). It

is really a jubilant song of praise they sing--the finely trained

voices of the choir and priests, joined with those of the worshippers,

making it most impressive. Every face in the vast crowd bears the

joyous expression of gladness, for to these men and women a really

dead Christ has risen, and is now invisibly in their midst. Relatives

and friends kiss each other and shake hands, and the salutation,

"_Christos vozkress_," with the refrain, "_Voestenno vozkress_,"

is heard on every side. The officiating priest begins the usual

early morning service (celebrated on ordinary Sundays at 5 A. M.),

which continues until nearly three o'clock, when the churches are

closed for the day.

Immediately after midnight a salute of one hundred and one guns is

given from the fortress to greet the sacred morn. The whole city

is stirred as the loud peal of cannon reverberates, proclaiming

to the faithful that Christ is indeed risen from the dead. Some

few worshippers remain in church until the early service is over,

but the majority retire to their homes to tender the greetings

of the day.

Then families and friends assemble at the domestic board that groans

under a load of the good things of this life, according to their

circumstances, and to make reparation to their stomachs for the

privation they have endured during the seven weeks of Lent. And

full compensation their stomachs get, as the feast is a literal

gorge of meat and drink. Ham is on the table of prince and peasant

alike, and it is first partaken of. The table of the rich is spread

with all gastronomical luxuries, _vodka_ and wines, cold roast

beef, eggs, etc. These dainties remain on the table for several

days; indeed a free table is kept, and all who call to congratulate

are expected to partake of the hospitality. Not to do so is regarded

in the light of an insult.

On Easter Sunday only gentlemen pay visits of congratulation; ladies

remain at home for that day to receive and entertain visitors.

Presents are dispensed to domestic and other servants. A good drink

is as indispensable to the feast among the peasant class as a good

feed, and they neither deny themselves the one nor the other, their

potations lasting for several days.

To the Western mind the continual kissing and giving of eggs on

the streets appear strangely out of keeping with the solemnity

of the hour. To see a couple of bearded men hugging and kissing

each other and each other's wives on the public streets, with the

salutation, "_Christos vozkress_," is indeed peculiar. But use

and wont justify this, and it would be a breach of courtesy to

withhold the lips and cheeks, and would be regarded as indicating

indifference to the great feast of the Church. Present-giving,

although on somewhat similar lines to our Christmas greetings,

is a much heavier tax on a Russian household than Christmas gifts

are with us. In the ordinary house in St. Petersburg, the master,

on gaining his breakfast-room, is saluted by his domestic servant

with "_Prazdnik_ (holiday), _Christos vozkress_," which involves a

new dress for the female, or a money equivalent. Then the _dvorniks_,

or house-porters, resplendent in clean white aprons, make their

appearance, giving the usual salutation, and one or two roubles

must be given. They have scarcely vanished when a couple of

chimney-sweepers put in an appearance, necessitating another appeal

to the purse; postmen follow, and in their rear come the juvenile

representatives of your butcher, greengrocer, etc., all bent upon

testing your liberality. You go to church and the doorkeeper gravely

says, "_Christos vozkress_," while he of the cloak-room echoes

the sentiment to the impoverishment of one's exchequer. But this

seeming mendicancy is not confined to these classes, for even the

reverend fathers and brethren walk in the same footsteps unblushingly.

Either on foot or by carriage they call upon the well-to-do of

their church, give the usual salutation, "_Christos vozkress_,"

and the kiss, partake of the general hospitality, and get their

gratuity or "_Na Chai_," as it is called, and retire. They are

scarcely gone when the "_Staroste_," or elders, put in an appearance,

followed by the "_Pyefche_," or choristers, all of whom share in

the bounty and hospitality of those on whom they call. The priests,

of course, come in for the largest share, and, generally speaking,

they know the value of the adage, "First come first served."

At mid-day of Easter Sunday a salute is fired from the fortress,

and carnival begins again. It is a repetition of the same amusements

as in carnival before Lent, and continues until the following Sunday

evening.

_RUSSIAN TEA AND TEA-HOUSES_

_H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS_

A true Russian _restaurant_, or _traktir_ (probably from the French

_traiteur_), is not to be found in St. Petersburg, whose _cafés_

and _restaurants_ are either German or French, or imitated from

German or French models. One of the large Moscow _traktirs_ is not

only very much larger, but at least twelve times larger than an

ordinary French _café_. The best of them is the Troitzkoi _traktir_,

where the merchants meet to complete the bargains they have commenced

on the Exchange--that is to say--in the street beneath, where all

business is carried on, summer and winter, in the open air. St.

Petersburg is more fortunate, and has a regular bourse, with a

chapel attached to it. The merchants always enter this chapel before

commencing their regular afternoon's work ('Change is held at four

o'clock in St. Petersburg), and remain for several minutes at their

devotions, occasionally offering a candle to the Virgin or some

saint. Now and then it must happen that a speculator for the rise

and a speculator for the fall enter the chapel and commence their

orisons at the same time. Probably they pray that they may not

be tempted to cheat one another.

There is no special chapel for the Moscow merchants, nor is there

one attached to the Troitzkoi _traktir_, which I am inclined to

look upon after all as the real Moscow Exchange. But in each of

the rooms, of which the entrances as usual are arched, and which

together form an apparently interminable suite, the indispensable

holy picture is to be seen; and no Russian goes in or out without

making the sign of the cross. No Russian, to whatever class he

may belong, remains for a moment with his hat on in any inhabited

place; whether out of compliment to those who inhabit it, or from

respect to the holy pictures, or from mixed reasons. The waiters,

of whom there are said to be a hundred and fifty at the Troitzkoi

_traktir_, are all dressed in white, and it is facetiously asserted

that they are forbidden to sit down during the day for fear of

disturbing the harmony and destroying the purity of their spotless

linen. The service is excellent. The waiters watch and divine the

wishes of the guests, instead of the guests having to watch, seek,

and sometimes scream for the waiters, as is too often the case in

England. Here the attendants do everything for the visitor; cut

up his _pirog_ (meat, or fish patty), so that he may eat it with

his fork; pour out his tea, fill his _chibouk_, and even bring it

to him ready lighted. The reader perceives that there is a certain

Oriental style about the Russian _traktirs_. The great article

of consumption in them is tea. Every one orders tea, either by

itself, or to follow the dinner; and the majority of those who

come into the place take nothing else. You can have a tumbler of

tea, or a pot of tea; but in ordering it you do not ask for tea at

all, but for so many portions of sugar. The origin of this curious

custom it is scarcely worth while to consider; but it apparently

dates from the last European war, when, during the general blockade,

the price of sugar in Russia rose to about four shillings a pound.

All sorts of stories have been told about the quantity of tea consumed

by Russian merchants, nor do I look upon any of them as exaggerated.

From twelve to twenty cups are thought nothing of. I have seen

two merchants enter a _traktir_, order so many portions of sugar,

and drink cup after cup of tea, until the tea-urn before them is

empty; yet the ordinary tea-urn of the _traktir_ holds at least

a gallon, or a gallon and a half.

"Tea," says M. Gerebtzoff, "has become, for every one, an habitual

article of consumption, and replaces, advantageously for morality,

brandy and beer; for on all occasions when a bargain has to be

concluded, or when a companion has to be entertained, or on receiving

or taking leave of a friend, tea is given instead of wine or brandy."

Indeed, I not only observed that in the Moscow _traktirs_ nearly

every one drank tea, but that it was a favourite beverage with

all classes on all occasions. The middle and upper classes take

tea twice or three times a day,--always in the morning, and often

twice in the evening. The _isvostchik_, who formerly had a reputation

for drunkenness, which travellers of the present day continue to

ascribe to him, appears to prefer tea to every other drink. Such,

at least, was my experience; and his mode of asking for a _pour

boire_ seems to confirm it. Some years since travellers used to

tell us of the _isvostchik_ asking at the end of his drive for

_vodka_ money ("_na votkou_"); at present the invariable request

is for tea-money ("_na tchai_"). Even in roadside inns, where I

have seen from twelve to twenty coachmen and postilions sitting down

together, nothing but tea was being drunk. A well-known tourist has

told us that every Russian peasant possesses a tea-urn, or _samovar_;

but this is not the case. The majority of the peasants are too

poor to afford such a luxury as tea, except on rare occasions,

but a tea-urn is one of the first objects that a peasant who has

saved a little money buys; and it is true, that in some prosperous

villages there is a samovar in every hut; and in all the post-houses

and inns each visitor is supplied with a separate one.

[Illustration: ST. ANNE RESTAURANT, WIBORG.]

The samovar, which, literally, means "self-boiler," is made of brass

lined with tin, with a tube in the centre. In fact, it resembles

the English urn, except that in the centre-tube red-hot cinders

are placed instead of the iron heater. Of course, the charcoal,

or _braise_, has to be ignited in a back kitchen or court-yard;

for in a room the carbonic acid proceeding from it would prove

injurious. It has no advantage then, whatever, over the English

urn, except that it can be heated with facility in the open air,

with nothing but some charcoal, a few sticks of thin dry wood,

and a lucifer; hence its value at picnics, where it is considered

indispensable. In the woods of Sakolniki, in the gardens of Marina

Roschia, and in the grounds adjoining the Petrovski Palace, all close

to Moscow, large supplies of samovars are kept at the tea-houses, and

each visitor, or party of visitors, is supplied with one. Indeed,

the quantity of tea consumed at these suburban retreats in the

spring and summer is prodigious. In Russia there is no interval

between winter and spring. As soon as the frost breaks up the grass

sprouts, the trees blossom, and all nature is alive. In that country

of extremes there is sometimes as much difference between April and

May as there is in England between January and June. The summer is

celebrated by various promenades to the country, which take place

at Easter, on the first of May, Ascension Day, Trinity Sunday,

and other occasions. The great majority of these promenades are of

a festive nature, but some, like that which is made on the 19th of

May to the monastery and cemetery of the Don, have a penitential, or,

at least, a mournful character. The samovar, however, is present even

in the churchyard. I never joined in one of the funeral pilgrimages

to the Donskoi convent; but in other cemeteries outside Moscow and

St. Petersburg (intramural burial not being tolerated), I noticed

that the custodians kept in their lodges a supply of samovars for the

benefit of visitors. And, after all, what can be more appropriate

than an urn in a cemetery?

Between St. Petersburg and Kovno or Tauroggen, there are upwards of

fifty "stations," at each of which tea can be procured. Travellers

whose route does not lie along the government post-roads, take

samovars with them in their carnages; and small samovars that can

be packed into the narrowest compass are made for the use of officers

starting on a campaign, and other persons likely to find themselves

in places where it may be difficult to procure hot water. Small

tea-caddies are also manufactured with a similar object. Each caddy

contains one or more glasses; for men among themselves usually drink

their tea, not out of tea-cups, but out of tumblers. Not many years

since it was the fashion to give cups to women and tumblers to

men in the evening; but the tumbler is gradually being banished,

at least from the drawing-room.

The Russians never take milk in their tea; they take either cream,

or a slice of lemon or preserved fruit, or simply sugar without

the addition of anything else. They hold that milk spoils tea,

and they are right. Tea with lemon or preserves (forming a kind

of tea-punch, well worthy the attention of tea-totallers), is only

taken in the evening. Sometimes the men add rum.

_HOW RUSSIA AMUSES ITSELF_

_FRED WHISHAW_

If I were asked to state what a Russian schoolboy does with his

spare time after working hours are over, I should be much puzzled

what to say.

Unfortunately young Russia has not the faintest glimmering of knowledge

of the practice or even of the existence of such things as football,

cricket, fives, rackets, golf, athletic sports, hockey, or any other

of the numerous pastimes which play so important a part in the

life of every schoolboy in this merry land of England. Therefore

there is no question, for him, of staying behind at the school

premises after working hours, in order to take part in any game.

He goes home; that much is certain; most of his time is loafed

away--that, too, is beyond question. He may skate a little, perhaps,

in the winter, if he happens to live near a skating ground, but

he will not go far for it; and in the summer, which is holiday

time for him, from June to September, he walks up and down the

village street clothed in white calico garments, or plays cup and

ball in the garden; fishes a little, perhaps, in the river or pond

if there happen to be one, and lazies his time away without exertion.

Of late years "lorteneece," as lawn-tennis is called in the Tsar's

country has been slightly attempted; but it is not really liked:

too many balls are lost and the rules of the game have never yet

been thoroughly grasped. A quartette of men will occasionally rig

up their net, which they raise to about the height of a foot and

a half, and play a species of battledore and shuttlecock over it

until the balls disappear; but it is scarcely tennis. As a matter

of fact, a Russian generally rushes at the ball and misses it; on

the rare occasions when he strikes the object, he does so with

so much energy that the ball unless stopped by the adversary's

eye, or his partner's, disappears forever into "the blue."

Croquet is a mild favourite, too; but it is played very languidly

and unscientifically.

Most gardens in Russian country houses contain a swing, a rotting

horizontal bar for the gymnastically (and suicidally) inclined, and

a giant stride. Occasionally there is a flower-bed in the centre,

in which our dear old British friend the rhubarb, monopolizes the

space, and makes a good show as an ornamental plant; for he is

not known in that benighted country as a comestible, though, of

course, children are acquainted with and hate him in his medicinal

capacity. Besides the swings and the rhubarb, there are sand or gravel

paths; and built out over the dusty road is an open summer-house,

wherein the Muscovitish householder and his ladies love to sit

and sip their tea for the greater part of each day--this being

their acme of happiness. The dust may lie half-an-inch thick over

the surface of their tea and bread and butter, but this does not

detract from the delights of the fascinating occupation.

I should point out that in all I have said above, I refer not so

much to the highest or to the lowest classes of Russian society,

as to that middle stratum to which belong the families of the

_Chinovnik_, of the infantry officer, or the well-to-do merchant.

The aristocracy amuse themselves very much in the same way as our

own. They shoot, they loaf and play cards in their clubs, they

butcher pigeons out of traps, they have their race-meetings, they

dance much and well; some have yachts of their own. Many of them

keep English grooms, and their English--when they speak it--for

this reason smacks somewhat of the stable, though they are not

usually aware that this is the case. If a Russian autocrat has

succeeded in making himself look like an Englishman, and behaves

like one, he is happy.

Of winter sports--in which, however, but a small minority of the

Russian youth care to take part--there are skating, ice-yatching,

snow-shoeing, and ice-hilling. The skating ought, naturally, to be

very good in Russia. As a matter of fact the ice is generally dead

and lacking in that elasticity and spring which is characteristic

of our English ice. It is too thick for elasticity, though the

surface is beautifully kept and scientifically treated with a view

to skating wherever a space is flooded or an acre or two of the

Neva's broad bosom is reclaimed to make a skating-ground. Some

of the Russian amateurs skate marvellously, as also do many of

the English and other foreign residents. Ice-yachting is confined

almost entirely to these latter, the natives not having as yet

awakened to the merits of this fine pastime. Ice-hilling, however,

at fair-time--that is, during the carnival week, preceding the

"long fast" or Lent--is much practised by the people. This is a

kind of cross between the switchback and tobogganing, and is an

exceedingly popular amusement among the English residents of St.

Petersburg.

Snow-shoeing, again, is a fine and healthful recreation; it is

the "ski"-running of Norway, and is beloved and much practised by

all Englishmen who are fortunate enough to be introduced to its

fascinations. It is too difficult and requires too much exertion,

however, for young Russia, and that indolent individual, in consequence,

rarely dons the snow-shoe.

The Russians are a theatre-loving people, and the acting must be

very good to please their critical taste. Many of their theatres

are "imperial," that is, the state "pays the piper" if the receipts

of the theatre so protected do not balance the expenditure. In

paying for good artists, whether operatic or dramatic, the Russians

are most lavish, and the Imperial Italian Opera must have been a

source of considerable expense to the authorities in the days of

its state endowment.

Nearly every Russian is a natural musician, and cannot only sing in

tune, but can take a part "by ear." The man with the _balaleika_,

or _garmonka_, is always sure of an admiring audience, whether in

town or village; and there is not a tiny hamlet in the empire but

resolves itself, on holidays, into a pair of choral societies--one

for male and one for female voices--which either parade up and down

the village street, singing, without, of course, either conductor

or accompaniment, or sit in rows upon the benches outside the huts,

occupied in a similar manner.

Occasionally, but very rarely, you may see a party of Russian children,

or young men and women, playing, in the open air, at one of two

games. The first is a variant of "prisoner's base"; the other is a

species of ninepins, or skittles, played with a group of uprights

at which short, thick clubs are thrown. The Russian youth--those

who are energetic enough to practise the game--sometimes attain

considerable proficiency with these grim little weapons, and make

wonderful shots at a distance of some thirty yards or so.

As for the middle-class Russian sportsman, he forms a class by

himself, and is a very original person indeed, unless taught the

delights of the chase by an Englishman. In his eyes the be-all and

end-all of a true sportsman is to purchase the orthodox equipment

of a green-trimmed coat, Tyrolese hat, and long boots, and to pay

his subscription to a shooting club. He rarely discharges a gun;

the rascally thing kicks, he finds; and the birds _will_ fly before

he can point his weapon at them as they crouch in the heather at

his feet; of course he is not such a fool as to fire after they

are up and away. As a rule, however, he goes no farther afield

than the card-table of the club-house. Why should he? He has bought

all the clothes; and what more does a man need to be a sportsman?

I cannot honestly affirm that I ever saw one of these good fellows

actually fire off a gun; for whenever I have been informed that

such an event is about to take place, I have always done my best

to put two or three good miles, or a village or two, between myself

and the Muscovitish "sportsman."

_THE KIRGHIZ AND THEIR HORSES_

_FRED BURNABY_

The aspect of the country now underwent an entire change. We had

left all traces of civilization behind us, and were regularly upon

the Steppes. Not the Steppes as they are described to us in the

summer months, when hundreds of nomad tribes, like their forefathers

of old, migrate from place to place, with their families, flocks,

and herds, and relieve the dreary aspect of this vast flat expanse

with their picturesque _kibitkas_, or tents, while hundreds of

horses, grazing on the rich grass, are a source of considerable

wealth to the Kirghiz proprietors.

A large dining-table covered with naught but its white cloth is not

a cheery sight. To describe the country for the next one hundred

miles from Orsk, I need only extend the table-cover. For here,

there, and everywhere was a dazzling, glaring sheet of white, as

seen under the influence of a mid-day sun; then gradually softening

down as the god of light sunk into the west, it faded into a vast,

melancholy-looking, colourless ocean. This was shrouded in some

places from the view by filmy clouds of mist and vapour, which

rose in the evening air and shaded the wilderness around--a picture

of desolation which wearied, by its utter loneliness, and at the

same time appalled by its immensity; a circle of which the centre

was everywhere, and the circumference nowhere. Such were the Steppes

as I drove through them at night-fall or in the early morn; and

where, fatigued by want of sleep, my eye searched eagerly, but

in vain, for a station.

On arriving at the halting-place, which was about twenty-seven

versts from Orsk, Nazar came to me, and said, "I am very sleepy; I

have not slept for three nights, and shall fall off if we continue

the journey."

When I began to think of it, the poor fellow had a good deal of

reason on his side. I could occasionally obtain a few moments'

broken slumber, which was out of the question for him. I felt rather

ashamed that in my selfishness I had over-driven a willing horse,

and the fellow had shown first-class pluck when we had to pass

the night out on the roadside; so, saying that he ought to have

told me before that he wanted rest, I sent him to lie down, when,

stretching his limbs alongside the stove, in an instant he was

fast asleep.

The inspector was a good-tempered, fat old fellow, with red cheeks

and an asthmatic cough. He had been a veterinary surgeon in a Cossack

regiment, and consequently his services were much in request with

the people at Orsk. He informed me that land could be bought on

these flats for a rouble and a half a _desyatin_ (2,700 acres);

that a cow cost £3 2s. 6d.; a fat sheep, two years old, 12s. 6d.;

and mutton or beef, a penny per pound. A capital horse could be

purchased for three sovereigns, a camel for £7 10s., while flour

cost 1s. 4d. the pood of forty pounds. These were the prices at Orsk,

but at times he said that provisions could be bought at a much lower

rate, particularly if purchased from the Tartars themselves. The

latter had suffered a great deal of late years from the cattle-pest,

and vaccinating the animals had been tried as an experiment, but,

according to my informant, with but slight success.