Transcriber's Note

TRAVELS

IN THE

STEPPES OF THE CASPIAN SEA,

THE CRIMEA, THE CAUCASUS, &c.

BY

XAVIER HOMMAIRE DE HELL,

CIVIL ENGINEER,
MEMBER OF THE SOCIETE GEOLOGIQUE OF FRANCE, AND KNIGHT OF THE ORDER
OF ST. VLADIMIR OF RUSSIA.

WITH ADDITIONS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND.
MDCCCXLVII.

C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

When I left Constantinople for Odessa my principal object was to investigate the geology of the Crimea and of New Russia, and to arrive by positive observations at the solution of the great question of the rupture of the Bosphorus. Having once entered on this pursuit, I was soon led beyond the limits of the plan I had marked out for myself, and found it incumbent on me to examine all the vast regions that extend between the Danube and the Caspian Sea to the foot of the northern slope of the Caucasus. I spent, therefore, nearly five years in Southern Russia, traversing the country in all directions, exploring the course of rivers and streams on foot or on horseback, and visiting all the Russian coasts of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof and the Caspian. Twice I was intrusted by the Russian government with important scientific and industrial missions; I enjoyed special protection and assistance during all my travels, and I am happy to be able to testify in this place my gratitude to Count Voronzof, and to all those who so amply seconded me in my laborious investigations.

Thus protected by the local authorities, I was enabled to collect the most authentic information respecting the state of men and things. Hence I was naturally led to superadd to my scientific pursuits considerations of all kinds connected with the history, statistics, and actual condition of the various races inhabiting Southern Russia. I was, moreover, strongly encouraged in my new task by the desire to make known in their true light all those southern regions of the empire which have played so important a part in the history of Russia since the days of Peter the Great.

My wife, who braved all hardships to accompany me in most of my journeys, has also been the partner of my literary labours in France. To her belongs all the descriptive part of this book of travels.

Our work is published under no man's patronage; we have kept ourselves independent of all extraneous influence; and in frankly pointing out what struck us as faulty in the social institutions of the Muscovite empire, we think we evince our gratitude for the hospitable treatment we received in Russia, better than some travellers of our day, whose pages are only filled with exaggerated and ridiculous flatteries.

XAVIER HOMMAIRE DE HELL.

DEFINITIONS.

Geographic miles are of 15 to a degree of the equator.

A Russian Verst (104-3/10 to a degree), is 1/7 of a geographical mile, 1/4 of a French league of 25 to a degree. It is equal to 3484.9 English feet, or nearly 2/3 of a statute mile. It is divided into 500 sazhenes, and each of these into 3 arshines.

A deciatine (superficial measure) is equivalent to 2 acres, 2 roods, 32 perches, English.

A pood is equal to 40 Russian or 36 English pounds.

100 tchetverts (corn measure) are equal to about 74-1/2 English quarters.

A vedro (liquid measure) contains 3-1/4 English gallons, or 12-1/4 Litres.

Since 1839 the paper ruble has been suppressed, and has given place to the silver ruble. But the former is always to be understood wherever the word ruble occurs in the following pages. The paper ruble is worth from 1 fr. 10c. to 1 fr. 18c. according to the course of exchange; the silver ruble is equal to 3-1/2 paper rubles.

A French hectare is equal to 2 acres, 1 rood, 33 perches, English.

CONTENTS.

THE STEPPES OF THE CASPIAN SEA, &c.

CHAPTER I.

DEPARTURE FROM CONSTANTINOPLE—ARRIVAL, IN ODESSA— QUARANTINE.

On the 15th of May, 1838, we bade adieu to Constantinople, and standing on the deck of the Odessa steamer, as it entered the Bosphorus, we could not withdraw our eyes from the magnificent panorama we were leaving behind us.

Constantinople then appeared to us in all its grandeur and beauty. Seated like Rome on its seven hills, exercising its sovereignty like Corinth over two seas, the vast city presented to our eyes a superb amphitheatre of palaces, mosques, white minarets and green plane-trees glistening in an Asiatic sunshine. What description could adequately depict this marvellous spectacle, or even give an idea of it? Would it not be wronging creation, as Lamartine has said, to compare Constantinople with any thing else in this world?

Meanwhile, we were advancing up the Bosphorus, and the two shores, fringed all along to the Black Sea with cypress groves, and half hidden beneath their sombre shade, invited a share of that attentive gaze we had hitherto bestowed only on the great city that was vanishing in our wake. The Bosphorus itself presented a very animated scene. A thousand white-sailed caïques glided lightly over the waves, coming and going incessantly from shore to shore. As we advanced, the Bosphorus widened more and more, and we soon entered that Black Sea, whose ominous name so well accords with the storms that perpetually convulse it. A multitude of vessels of all kinds and dimensions, were anchored at the entrance of the channel, waiting for a favourable wind to take them out of the straits, which alone present more dangers than the whole navigation of the Black Sea. The difficulties of this passage are further augmented in the beginning of spring and the end of autumn by dense fogs, which have caused an incalculable number of vessels to be wrecked on the steep rocks of these iron-bound coasts.

The passage from Constantinople to Odessa is effected in fifty hours in the Russian steamers, which ply twice a month from each of these ports. Those who are accustomed to the comfort, elegance, and scrupulous cleanliness of the Mediterranean and Atlantic steamers, must be horrified at finding themselves on board a Russian vessel. It is impossible to express the filth and disorder of that in which we were embarked. The deck, which was already heaped from end to end with goods and provisions, was crowded besides with a disgusting mob of pilgrims, mendicant monks, Jews, and Russian or Cossack women, all squatting and lying about at their ease without regard to the convenience of the other passengers. Most of them were returning from Jerusalem. The Russian people are possessed in the highest degree with the mania for pilgrimages. All these beggars set off barefooted, with their wallets on their backs, and their rosaries in their hands, to seek Heaven's pardon for their sins; appealing on their way to the charity of men, to enable them to continue that vagabond and miserable life which they prefer to the fulfilment of homely duties.

It was a sorry specimen of the people we were going to visit that we had thus before our eyes, and our repugnance to these Muscovites was all the stronger from our recollections of the Turks, whose noble presence and beauty had so lately engaged our admiration.

On the morning of the second day, we saw on our left a little island called by the sailors the Island of Serpents. The Russians have retained its Greek name of Fidonisi. It was anciently called Leucaia, or Makaron Nesos (Island of the Blest), was sacred to Achilles, and contained a temple, in which mariners used to deposit offerings. It is a calcareous rock, about thirty yards high and not more than 600 in its greatest diameter, and has long been uninhabited. Some ruins still visible upon it would probably be worth exploring, if we may judge from an inscription already discovered.

Soon afterwards we were made aware of our approach to Odessa, our place of destination, by the appearance of the Russian coast with its cliffs striated horizontally in red and white. Nothing can be more dreary than these low, deserted, and monotonous coasts, stretching away as far as the eye can reach, until they are lost in the hazy horizon. There is no vegetation, no variety in the scene, no trace of human habitation; but everywhere a calcareous and argillaceous wall thirty or forty yards high, with an arid sandy beach at its foot, continually swept bare by the waves. But as we approached nearer to Odessa, the shore assumed a more varied appearance. Huge masses of limestone and earth, separated ages ago from the line of the cliffs, form a range of hills all along the sea border, planted with trees and studded with charming country-houses.

A lighthouse, at some distance from the walls of Odessa, is the first landmark noted by mariners. An hour after it came in sight, we were in front of the town. Europe was once more before our eyes, and the aspect of the straight lines of street, the wide fronted houses, and the sober aspect of the buildings awoke many dear recollections in our minds. Every object appeared to us in old familiar hues and forms, which time and absence had for a while effaced from our memories. Even Constantinople, which so lately had filled our imaginations, was now thought of but as a brilliant mirage which had met our view by chance, and soon vanished with all its illusive splendours.

Odessa looks to great advantage from the quarantine harbour, where the steamer moored. The eye takes in at one view the boulevard, the Exchange, Count Voronzof's palace, the pratique harbour, and the Custom-house; and, in the background, some churches with green roofs and gilded domes, the theatre, Count de Witt's pretty Gothic house, and some large barracks, which from their Grecian architecture, one would be disposed to take for ancient monuments.

Behind the Custom-house, on some steep calcareous rocks, sixty or seventy feet high, stands the quarantine establishment, looking proudly down on all Odessa. A fortress and bastions crowning the height, protect the town. All the remarkable buildings are thus within view of the port, and give the town at first sight an appearance of grandeur that is very striking.

The day of our arrival was a Sunday; and when we entered the harbour, it was about four in the afternoon, the hour of the promenade, and all that portion of the town adjoining the port presented the most picturesque appearance imaginable. We had no difficulty in distinguishing the numerous promenaders that filled the alleys of the boulevard, and we heard the noise of the droshkys and four-horse equipages that rolled in every direction. The music, too, of a military band stationed in the middle of the promenade, distinctly reached our ears, and heightened the charms of the scene. It was, indeed, a European town we beheld, full of affluence, movement, and gaiety. But, alas! our curiosity and our longings, thus strongly excited, were not for a long while to be satisfied. The dreaded quarantine looked down on us, as if to notify that its rights were paramount, and assuredly it was not disposed to abrogate them in our favour. One of the officers belonging to it had already come down to receive the letters, journals, and passports, and to order us into a large wooden house, placed like a watchful sentinel on the verge of the sea. So we were forced to quit the brilliant spectacle on which we had been gazing, and go and pass through certain preliminary formalities in a smoky room, filled with sailors and passengers, waiting their turn with the usual apathy of Russians.

We had no sooner entered the quarantine, than we were separated from each other, and every one made as much haste to avoid us, as if we were unfortunate pariahs whose touch was uncleanness. All our baggage was put aside for four-and-twenty hours, and we were accommodated in the meantime with the loan of garments, so grotesque and ridiculous, that after we had got into them, we could not look at each other without bursting into laughter. We made haste to inspect our chambers, which we found miraculously furnished with the most indispensable things. But what rejoiced us above all, was a court-yard adorned with two beautiful acacias, the flowery branches of which threw their shade upon our windows. Our guardian, who had been unable to preserve the usual gravity of a Russian soldier at the sight of our ludicrous travestissement, surprised us greatly by a few words of French which he addressed to us. By dint of mangling our mother tongue, he managed to inform us that he had made the campaign of 1815, and that he was never so happy as when he met Frenchmen. On our part we had every reason to be satisfied with his attentive services.

The first hours we passed in quarantine, were extremely tedious and unpleasant, in consequence of the want of our baggage. Our books, our papers, and every thing we had most urgent need of, were carried off to undergo two whole days' fumigation. But afterwards the time passed away glibly enough, and I should never have supposed it possible to be so contented in prison. But for the iron bars and the treble locks which had to be opened every time we had occasion to leave our rooms, we might have fancied we were rusticating for our pleasure. A handsome garden, a capital cook, books, a view of the sea—what more could any one desire? We were allowed to walk about the whole establishment, on condition only that we kept at a respectful distance from all who came in our way, and that we were constantly accompanied by our guardian. On one of the angles of the rock there is a little platform, with seats and trees, looking down on the sea, the harbour, and part of the town. In this delightful lounging-place we often passed hours together, in contemplating the beautiful spectacle before us.

What a lively source of endless enjoyment does the imagination find in a broad extent of sea animated by numerous vessels! The bustle of the harbour, the boats plying with provisions and passengers; the various flags flying from the mast-heads; the brig preparing to sail, with canvass unfurled, and the crew singing out as they tramp round the capstan; a sail suddenly appearing on the horizon, like a bird on the wing, gleaming in the sun, and gradually enlarging on the sight; the zones of light and shade, that scud athwart the sea's surface, and give it a thousand varying aspects; the coast, with its headlands, its lighthouse, its sinuous and indented lines, its broad beach and belt of rocks; all these things form a panorama, that completely absorbs the faculties. You envy the good fortune of those who are outward bound, and whose course lies over yon smooth expanse of water, limited only by the sky, in search of other shores and other scenes. You bid them farewell with voice and gesture as familiar friends, and wish them fair winds and good speed, as though they could hear you.

We were then in the beautiful month of June; the placid sea was as limpid and bright as the sky; the acacia was coming into full bloom, and embalmed the air far over sea and shore with its delicious perfume. Odessa is full of these trees, and when they are covered with their odorous blossoms, the streets, the squares, and even the meanest quarters, put on a charming gala aspect; the whole town is metamorphosed into a smiling garden.

We feel bound to testify to the excellent arrangements of the quarantine establishment, and to the ready, obliging disposition of its officers. Though placed in such propinquity to Constantinople, the Odessa lazaret may serve as a model of its kind, and the excellence of the system observed in it is proved by the happy results obtained. Travellers are subjected to a quarantine of a fortnight only, and merchandise, after undergoing forty-eight hours' fumigation with preparations of chlorine, is immediately set free; yet since the existence of this establishment, there has not occurred in Odessa a single case of plague which could be ascribed to any defect in the sanatory regulations of the place. There is no denying the fact that in matters of quarantine, France remains in the extreme background. The lazaret of Marseilles, is at this day exactly what it was at the beginning of the last century. All our discoveries in chemistry and medicine have been of no avail against the inveterate force of old habits; and up to the present time, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of commercial men, it has been impossible to modify the sanatory regulations enforced in our Mediterranean ports. Marseilles is 600 leagues away from the countries ravaged by the plague, and yet vessels are subjected there, after five-and-twenty days' navigation, to a quarantine of forty-five days, and their cargoes are exposed in the open air for the same period. It has been frequently proposed to establish a new system, more in accordance with the advanced state of our knowledge; but it seems that the efforts of the government have always been defeated by the prejudices of the inhabitants of the south.

CHAPTER II.

STREETS OF ODESSA—JEWS—HOTELS—PARTIALITY OF THE RUSSIANS FOR ODESSA—HURRICANE, DUST, MUD, CLIMATE, &c.—PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

The day of our release from quarantine, was as full of bustle and annoyances as that of our arrival, the spolio alone excepted. How we regretted the freedom of the East! There the traveller's movements are shackled by no formalities, but he is free from the moment he quits his vessel, to roam about the town as he pleases, without being pestered with the custom-house and police officers, and the employés of all sorts that assail him in lands calling themselves civilised. But it is in Russia especially that he has most reason to pour out his wrathful imprecations on that army of birds of prey that pounce on him with an avidity truly intolerable. I can't tell how many formalities we had to go through from the hour appointed for our leaving the lazaret, until we finally got out of the clutches of the Custom-house, and could breathe freely. But our feelings of vexation, strong as they were, gave way to downright stupefaction, when we entered the town. Was this really that Odessa which had seemed so brilliant when we saw it from the lazaret, and which now presented itself to our eyes under so mean and wretched an aspect? Could we even grace with the name of town the place where we then were and the streets we beheld? It was a great open space without houses, filled with carts, and oxen rolling in the dust, in company with a mob of Russian and Polish peasants, all sleeping together in the sun, in a temperature of more than 90°.

Whirlwinds of dust exactly like waterspouts in all but the material composing them, darkened the air every moment, and swept the ground with incredible fury. Further on, we entered a street wider than our highways in France, and flanked with little houses, one story high, and separated from each other by uncultivated gardens. The population consisting of Jews, whose filth is become proverbial in Russia, completed our disgust, and we knew not which way to turn our eyes to escape the sight of such loathsome objects. However, as we approached the heart of the town the streets began to show shops and houses, and the appearance of the inhabitants grew more diversified. But notwithstanding the carriages and droshkys that passed us rapidly, notwithstanding the footways of cut stone, and the Grecian architecture of the corn stores, we reached the Hotel de la Nouvelle Russie without having been able to reconcile ourselves to the aspect of the town; and there again we encountered fresh disappointments. We had been told by many of our acquaintances in Constantinople that the hotels of Odessa were among the best in Europe; great, therefore, was our surprise at not finding any one of the commonest requisites for travellers in the one at which we stopped. No linen, no bells, no servants to wait on us; it was with difficulty we could get a carafe of water after waiting for it half an hour. Our single apartment looked due south, and all the furniture in it consisted of a bedstead, a chest of drawers, and a few chairs, without a scrap of curtain to mitigate the blazing sunshine that scorched our eyes. And for such accommodation as this we had to pay eight rubles a day. But our amazement reached the highest pitch, when, after giving orders to fit up the bedstead which made so piteous a figure in this agreeable lodging, we were informed by the hotel keeper that every article was charged for separately. "What!" I exclaimed, in great indignation, "do we not pay eight rubles a day?" "Certainly, madame, but accessories are never included in the charge for the room. But if madame don't like, there is no need to have a bed furnished completely. We have generals and countesses that are satisfied with a plain mattress." We had no desire to follow the example of their Excellencies, so we were obliged to submit to our host's terms. It is fair to add, however, that circumstances to a certain extent justified some exorbitance of charge, for the Emperor Nicholas and his family were hourly expected, and the hotels were of course thronged with military men and strangers.

Odessa now lays claim to a respectable rank among the towns of Europe. Its position on the Black Sea, the rapid increase of its population, its commercial wealth, and its brilliant society, all concur to place it next in Russia after the two capitals of the empire. Though but forty years have elapsed since its foundation, it has far outstripped those half-Sclavonic, half-Tartar cities, Kiev the holy, the great Novgorod, and Vladimir, all celebrated in the bloody annals of the tzars, and already old before Moscow and St. Petersburg were yet in existence.

Odessa is not at all like any of the other towns in the empire. In it you hear every language and see all kinds of usages except those of the country. Nevertheless, the Russians prefer it even to St. Petersburg, for they enjoy greater liberty in it, and are relieved from the rigorous etiquette that engrosses three-fourths of their time in the capital. Besides this, Odessa possesses one grand attraction for the Russian and Polish ladies in the freedom of its port, which enables them to indulge their taste for dress and other luxuries without the ruinous expense these entail on them in St. Petersburg. Odessa is their Paris, which they are all bent on visiting at least once in their lives, whatever be the distance they have to travel. The reputation of the town has even passed the Russian frontiers, and people have been so obliging as to bestow on it the flattering name of the Russian Florence; but for what reason I really cannot tell. Odessa possesses neither arts nor artists; even the dilettante class is scarcely known there; the predominant spirit of trade leaves little room for a love of the beautiful, and the commercial men care very little about art. It is true that M. Vital, a distinguished French painter, has endeavoured to establish a drawing-academy under the patronage of Count Voronzof, but the success of his efforts may be doubted.

The infatuated admiration of the Russians for Odessa is carried to the utmost extreme, and they cannot understand how a stranger can fail to share in it. How indeed can any one refuse to be enraptured with a town that possesses an Italian opera, fashionable shops, wide footways, an English club, a boulevard, a statue, two or three paved streets, &c.? Barbarian taste or envy could alone behold all this without admiration. After all, this enthusiasm of the Russians may be easily accounted for: accustomed as they are to their wildernesses of snow and mud, Odessa is for them a real Eldorado comprising all the seductions and pleasures of the world.

If you will believe the Russians, snow is a thing of rare occurrence there, and every winter they wonder in all sincerity at the reappearance of sledges in the streets. But this does not hinder the thermometer from remaining steadily for several months at 25° or 26° R. below zero, and the whole sea from becoming one polished sheet of ice; nor does it dispense with the necessity of having double windows, stoves, and pelisses, just as in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Great, therefore, is the surprise of the traveller, who, on the strength of its flattering sobriquet, expects to find an Italian sun in Odessa, and who meets at every step nothing but frost-bitten faces and sledges. Besides these wintry rigours, there are the hurricanes that continually desolate the whole region, during what is elsewhere called the fine season. And these vicissitudes of the atmosphere are aggravated by another evil still more distressing, the dust, namely, which makes the town almost uninhabitable during a part of the year. Dust is here a real calamity, a fiend-like persecutor, that allows you not a moment's rest. It spreads out in seas and billows that rise with the least breath of wind, and envelop you with increasing fury, until you are stifled and blinded, and incapable of a single movement. The gusts of wind are so violent and sudden as to baffle every precaution. It is only at sunset that one can venture out at last to breathe the sea air on the boulevard, or to walk in the Rue Richelieu, the wide footways of which are then thronged by all the fashion of the place.

Many natural causes combine to keep up this terrible plague. First, the argillaceous soil, the dryness of the air, the force of the wind, and the width of the streets; then the bad paving, the great extent of uncultivated ground still within the town, and the prodigious number of carriages. The local administration has tried all imaginable systems, with the hope of getting rid of the dust, and has even had stones brought from Italy to pave certain streets, but all its efforts have been ineffectual. At last, in a fit of despair, it fell upon the notable device of macadamising the well-paved Rue Italienne and Rue Richelieu. The only result of this operation was, of course, prodigiously to increase the evil. A wood paving, to be laid down by a Frenchman, is now talked of, and it appears that his first attempts have been quite successful.

In order to give some idea of the violence of the hurricanes to which the country is subject, I will mention a phenomenon of which I was myself a witness. After a very hot day in 1840, the air of Odessa gradually darkened about four in the afternoon, until it was impossible to see twenty paces before one. The oppressive feel of the atmosphere, the dead calm, and the portentous colour of the sky, filled every one with deep consternation, and seemed to betoken some fearful catastrophe. For an hour and a half the spectator could watch the progress of this novel eclipse, which as yet was without a precedent in those parts. The thermometer attained the enormous height of 104° F. The obscurity was then complete; presently the most furious tempest imagination can conceive, burst forth, and when the darkness cleared off, there was seen over the sea, what looked like a waterspout of prodigious depth and breadth, suspended at a height of several feet above the water, and moving slowly away until it dispersed at last at a distance of many miles from the shore. The eclipse and the waterspout were nothing else than dust, and that day Odessa was swept cleaner than it will probably ever be again.

During the winter the dust is changed into liquid mud, in which the pedestrian sinks up to mid-leg, and in which he might soon drown himself, if his humour so disposed him. A long pole to take soundings with, would not come amiss to one who had to steer his course between the slimy abysses with which some streets are filled. Formerly, that is to say some fifteen years ago, ladies used to repair to the ball-room in carts, drawn each by a numerous team of oxen. At present the principal streets are paved and lighted, and one may proceed to an evening party in a rather more elegant equipage; but the poor pedestrian, nevertheless, finds it a most difficult task to drag his feet out of the adhesive mud that meets him whichever way he turns; those, therefore, who have no carriages in Odessa, are obliged to live in absolute solitude. The distances are as great as in Paris, and the only vehicle for hire is what is called in Russia a droshky; that is to say, a sort of saddle mounted on four wheels, on which men sit astride, and ladies find it very difficult to seat themselves with decorum. The droshky affords you no protection from either mud, dust, or rain, and at most is only suitable to men of business and Russians, who never go out of doors without their cloaks, even in the height of summer.

Odessa contains no remarkable building. In many private houses and in most of the corn warehouses, a lavish use has been made of the Greek style of architecture, which accords neither with the climate, nor above all with the materials employed. All those columns, pediments, and regular façades, with which the eye is so soon satiated, are in plaster, and they begin to spoil even before the building is finished. The mouldings must be renewed every year, and notwithstanding this care, most of the houses and churches have an air of dilapidation, that makes them resemble ruins rather than palaces and temples. The cathedral itself has nothing to distinguish it but its bulk. One must not look for the rules of architecture, or for elegance of form, or pleasing details in the religious edifices. They are monotonous in character, and shabby in structure and fittings. Their interiors are glaring with pictures and gilding, but all in the spurious taste of the Lower Empire. The oddly-accoutred saints, the biblical scenes so grotesquely travestied, the profusion of tinsel, and the reds, greens, and blues, laid one upon the other, in the coarsest discordance, far too disagreeably shock the sight to inspire any serious and pious thoughts.

Odessa has also some synagogues, a Catholic church, and one or two Protestant places of worship, which from their humble appearance might rather be taken for private houses. It has but one promenade, the Boulevard, which overlooks the whole harbour, and is exposed, from its situation, to frequent landslips. The vicinity of this promenade is the most fashionable quarter. The theatre, the exchange, the mansions of Count Voronzof and the Princess Narishkin; a line of very elegant houses, and the throng of carriages, all bespeak the presence of the aristocracy. Workmen have been employed for the last two or three years in constructing a gigantic staircase, to lead by a very gentle descent from the Boulevard to the sea-beach. This expensive and useless toy, is likely to cost nearly forty-thousand pounds. It is intended to be ornamented with vases and statues; but some considerable fissures already give reason to fear the speedy destruction of this great staircase, which after all can never be of any use, except to the promenaders on the Boulevard.

CHAPTER III.

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY IN ODESSA—CHURCH MUSIC—SOCIETY OF THE PLACE, COUNT AND COUNTESS VORONZOF—ANECDOTE OF THE COUNTESS BRANISKA—THE THEATRE—THEATRICAL ROW.

The brilliant fêtes that took place on the arrival of the imperial family, happened most opportunely for us, and enabled us to see many celebrated personages. All the foreigners of distinction who had been present at the famous review of Vosnecensk, followed the emperor to Odessa, and prolonged their stay there after his departure. The whole town was in revolution. The houses of dubious colour were most carefully re-coated, and even old tumbling walls were plastered and coloured. Te Deum was chanted in the cathedral the day their majesties arrived; the emperor and his eldest son attended, and were met at the great doors by the whole Russian clergy dressed in their richest robes, and headed by the archbishop. The emperor was accompanied by a long-train of courtiers and officers, whose golden embroideries and glittering decorations vied in splendour with the magnificent costumes of the popes and choristers. The Te Deum appeared to me incomparably beautiful. Whoever would know the full power of harmony, should hear the religious music of the Russians. The notes are so full, so grave, of such thrilling sweetness, and such extraordinary volume, and all the voices, seeming as though they issued from the depths of the building, accord so admirably with each other, that no language can express the effect of that mighty music and the profound emotion it excites. I had often heard enthusiastic accounts of the Russian church-singing, but all fell far short of what I then heard. After the Te Deum the archbishop presented his episcopal ring to the tzar and the grand duke, who kissed it respectfully. The imperial party then left the cathedral, which was filled with clouds of incense. The vast throng, assembled in front of the building, dispersed in silence, without pressure or confusion; and the interference of the Cossacks, appointed to maintain order, was not for a moment requisite.

In the evening there was a grand illumination, the empress held a drawing-room, and there was an extraordinary representation at the theatre, at which the whole imperial family was present. It was noticed that during the whole evening, the emperor sat behind the empress and did not once advance to the front of the box. There was therefore not a single hurrah, but every one seemed to affect ignorance of his majesty's presence. Next day the merchants gave a grand ball to the imperial family. It was a very brilliant assemblage: the exchange-rooms were all full of Highnesses and Excellencies, and the poor merchants cut but a sorry figure amongst all the embroidered uniforms, the wearers of which elbowed and pushed them aside contemptuously. With an excessive devotion to etiquette, they had adopted knee-breeches, cocked-hats, and a soi-disant uniform, with swords at their sides; but this costume was far less becoming than the black dress which they would certainly have done better in retaining. A boudoir all lined with vines had been constructed for the empress, and the fine clusters of grapes hung from the branches as if to invite her royal hand to pluck them.

The imperial family remained but five or six days in Odessa, and then proceeded in a steamer to the Crimea. Their presence in the town produced on the whole a very favourable impression.

It remains for us to say a few words respecting the society to be met with in Odessa. It consists of so many heterogeneous elements, that it possesses no distinctive character of its own; French, Germans, Russians, English, Greeks, and Italians, all bring to it their respective opinions, habits, language, interests, and prejudices. The Countess Voronzof's drawing-rooms are the general rendezvous of that aristocratic, commercial, and travelling world, which is to be found in similar admixture only in some of the towns of Italy. The same confusion prevails among the women; the noble and proud Narishkin may be seen there side by side with a broker's wife: pure blood, mixed blood, all shades, all tones, all possible physiognomies are there assembled together.

Count Voronzof is a veritable grand seigneur, and spends more than £6000 a year in pomps and entertainments. His name, his immense fortune, and his influence at court give him the predominance over most of the emperor's favourites. Brought up in England, where his father was ambassador for more than forty years, he seems more an Englishman than a Russian, and has retained nothing of his nationality except his devoted loyalty to the emperor, and the exquisite politeness that distinguishes the Russian nobles. His talents, his affability, and great facility of character, secure him numerous admirers amongst the Odessians and foreigners. Nicholas could not have made a better choice than in selecting him for governor of New Russia. His sumptuous tastes and vast wealth give great éclat to the rank he fills, and put him on a par with the most magnificent lords of Europe. His wife is the daughter of the celebrated Countess Braniska, whose gigantic fortune was long an object of astonishment to the Russians themselves. She died but recently at the age of ninety-five, leaving her immense fortune to her only son, with the exception only of a fourteenth part, which was all that devolved, according to the laws of Russia, on her two daughters. Her avarice was as notorious as her wealth, and stories are told of her, that far out-do all that is related of the most famous misers. I will mention but one of them, the authenticity of which was warranted to me by an eye-witness.

Mr. Dantz, one of our friends, having had occasion to call on the countess, on matters of business, left his britchka in a court-yard of her house, in which there was some cattle. A large bundle of hay, intended for his horses, was hung behind the carriage, according to the usual custom in Russia. Being shown into a room that looked out into the court-yard, he became engaged in a brisk discussion with the countess, who would not yield to any of his arguments, and soon losing patience rose, as if to put an end to the interview, and walked to a window. But no sooner had she looked down into the court-yard than she again took up all the points of the discussion, one after the other, seeming half-disposed to yield, and keeping Mr. Dantz in suspense for more than a half an hour. Exceedingly puzzled by this sudden change in the lady's temper, which he knew not how to account for, he narrowly watched all her movements, and observed that from time to time she cast a rapid glance into the court-yard; whereupon he went with affected carelessness to the window, and what did he see? Two or three horribly lean cows busily devouring the hay behind his carriage. The countess had prolonged the interview in order to gain time for her cows to feed at her visitor's expense; and, accordingly, as soon as the last blade of hay was eaten up, she resumed all her stateliness, cut short the discussion with a word, and gave Mr. Dantz his congé.

Odessa is a town of pleasure and luxury, where the ladies, it is said, ruin their husbands by their profusion and extravagant love of dress. In addition to the balls, concerts, and soirées of all sorts, performances for the benefit of the poor are given every year in the great theatre, by the court, as the Countess Voronzof's establishment is called. All the élite of Odessa, take part in these amusements, which bring in considerable sums. The countess at first set the example, by herself performing a part; but an order from the emperor forbade her thus exhibiting in public, and since that time she confines herself to the business of managing behind the curtain. The house is always well filled, and each performance brings in four or five thousand rubles. The skill displayed by these noble actors is not to be surpassed by any professional company; but this is not surprising, for every one knows in how high a degree the Russians possess the talent for imitation; whatever they see they mimic with ease, and without preparation. It is needless to add that the performances are in French, and that the pieces are taken from our stock. M. Scribe is almost the sole contributor. Nowhere, perhaps, is our witty vaudevillist so much prized as in Russia.

Odessa possesses the only Italian theatre in Russia. The company is generally well composed, and gives, during the whole year, performances, which are but scantily attended, notwithstanding the passionate admiration which the Odessians affect for Italian music. It is only in the bathing season, when the Poles fill the town, that the house presents a somewhat more animated appearance. All the rest of the year the boxes are almost deserted, and the Jews alone frequent the pit. In 1840, Mademoiselle Georges entered into a six months' engagement with the manager of the Odessa theatre, and arrived with a numerous company, including some really superior actors. Yet, notwithstanding her European celebrity and her ample repertoire, she would scarcely have covered her expenses, but for the strenuous exertions of her quondam admirer, General N., who welcomed her as though fifteen years had not interrupted their liaison, and placed his mansion, his equipages, his purse, and his credit, at her disposal, with all the chivalric gallantry of a Russian magnifico.

But all his efforts were unable to reverse the very unfavourable sentence which public opinion had, from the first, pronounced upon his protégé. Notwithstanding the superior talent with which she still plays certain parts, she was appreciated but by a very small number of persons; and she left Odessa with sentiments of deep disdain for a public that so much preferred the paltriest vaudeville to all her bursts of passion as to make almost open war upon her. A thing till then almost unheard-of in Russia took place at the last performance of the French company: a regular cabal was formed, attended with an explosion of very stormy passions. The whole town was divided into two factions, the one for Mademoiselle Georges, the other for M. Montdidier, one of her best actors. Our tragedy queen, it is said, was exceedingly jealous of this preference, and lost no opportunity of mortifying her rival. Accordingly, she purposely selected for the last performance, two pieces in which he had no part. The public, greatly dissatisfied at not seeing the name of their favourite actor in the bills, repaired to the theatre in an ill-humour, of which they soon gave very intelligible symptoms. Things passed off, however, tolerably well until the end of the last piece; but then there was a call for Montdidier, which was taken up, and vehemently sustained by the whole pit, notwithstanding all the efforts of the police, General N's coterie, and the presence of the governor-general. This incident which had been altogether unforeseen by the managers, caused them extreme perplexity; no one knew where Montdidier was to be found. At last, seeing the row increase, Count Voronzof himself ordered the commissioner of police to go to Montdidier's hotel, and fetch him alive or dead. The commissioner found him fast asleep, and quite unconscious of all the agitation he was causing in the theatre. He hurried thither, and was proceeding to show himself on the stage, but was stopped by the whole company with Mademoiselle Georges at their head, under pretext that such a course would be an infraction of all the rules of the theatre. In short, there was, for a while, an indescribable tumult. The whole pit stood up and never ceased shouting until they saw Montdidier rush on the stage, with his dress in a state of disorder that showed what a hard battle he had sustained behind the scenes. The angry shouts were now succeeded by an explosion of applause; the boxes rang with prolonged bravos, and even Count Voronzof himself was seen clapping his hands and laughing with all his might. The whole audience seemed to have lost their wits. General N., quite disconcerted, slunk back into the rear of his box, and said to one of his friends as he pointed to the stage, "Look at those Frenchmen; they have only to show themselves to upset all established usages and principles. They bring with them disorder, rebellion, and the spirit of revolution; and the contagion soon spreads even among the most sensible people." In truth nothing of the kind had ever before been seen in Odessa; and all the jealousies of the primissime donne had never caused the twentieth part of the confusion that marked that memorable night.

CHAPTER IV.

COMMERCE OF THE BLACK SEA—PROHIBITIVE SYSTEM AND ITS PERNICIOUS RESULTS—DEPRESSED STATE OF AGRICULTURE—TRADE OF ODESSA—ITS BANK.

From the destruction of the Genoese colonies in the Crimea, in 1476, down to the treaty of Kainardji, a period of 300 years, the Black Sea remained closed against the nations of the West, and was the privileged domain of Turkey. Its whole coast belonged to the sultans of Constantinople, and the khans of the Crimea. The Turks, and the Greeks of the Archipelago, subjects of the Ottoman Porte, had the sole right of navigating those waters, and all the commerce of Europe with that portion of the East was exclusively in the hands of the latter people. The conquests of Peter the Great, and subsequently those of the celebrated Catherine II., changed this state of things. The Russians advanced towards the south, and soon made themselves masters of the Sea of Azof, the Crimea, and all the northern coasts of the Black Sea. Nevertheless, it was not until July 21, 1774, after six consecutive campaigns, and many victories achieved by the Russians, by sea and land, that the treaty of Kainardji was signed, which by throwing open the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, effected a real revolution in the commercial relations of Europe, and definitively secured to Russia that immense influence which it exercises to this day over the destinies of the East. The treaty of Kainardji ere long received a more ample extension. Austria, France, and successively all the other powers, partook in the advantages of the Black Sea navigation. Russia was, therefore, justly entitled to the gratitude of Europe, for the new channels she had opened to its commerce.

Once mistress of the Black Sea, and free to communicate with the Mediterranean, Catherine earnestly applied herself to the foundation of a port, which should be at once military and commercial. The mouth of the Dniepr, one of the largest rivers of Russia, at first attracted her attention. General Hannibal founded the town of Kherson upon it, in 1788, by her orders; and in 1783, a Frenchman, afterwards ennobled by Louis XVI., established the first foreign commercial house there, and contracted to supply the arsenals of Toulon with the hemp and timber conveyed down the Dniepr. Kherson, however, did not prosper as might have been expected. The empress's intentions were defeated by the exigencies of the system of customs prevailing in the empire, and it was impossible to obtain for the port of Kherson the franchises so necessary for a new town, and for the extension of its commerce.

The dismemberment of Poland gave a new turn to Catherine's commercial ideas. The port of Kherson was abandoned, or nearly so, in 1796, and the preference was given to Odessa, which, by its more western position, considerably facilitated the exportation of agricultural produce, wherein consisted the chief wealth of the palatinates of Podolia, Volhynia, and the other provinces newly incorporated with the Russian possessions. No change, however, was made in the system of customs, and it was not until 1803, in the reign of Alexander, that a reduction of one-fourth was made in the duties imposed by the general tariff on all exports and imports in the harbours of the Black Sea. In 1804, Odessa was made an entrepôt for sea-borne goods, the entrance of which was permitted into Russia. They might remain there in bond for eighteen months; a favour which was the more important at that period, because, as the import duties were considerable, the merchants would have been obliged to draw heavily on their capital, had they been obliged to defray them at once. An ukase of the 5th of March, in the same year, allowed transit, free of duty, to all foreign goods which were not prohibited in Odessa, or which arrived there from other towns of Russia; such goods if destined for Moldavia and Wallachia, were to pass through the custom-houses of Mohelef and Dubassar; for Austria, through those of Radzivilof; for Prussia, through those of Kezinsky; and foreign goods sent through these four establishments to Odessa, were allowed free transit there by sea. These liberal and very enlightened arrangements vastly augmented the prosperity of Odessa, and soon attracted the attention of all speculators to that port.

About the year 1817 an increased duty was laid on all foreign goods in the Black Sea; but at the same period Odessa was definitively declared to be a free port, without restriction. Things continued thus until 1822; and it was during this interval that all those great foreign houses were established in Odessa, some of which exist to this day. The commerce of Southern Russia had then reached its apogee. After the long wars of the French empire the agriculture of Europe was in a very depressed condition, and it was necessary to have recourse to Russia for the corn which other countries could not raise in sufficient quantity for their own subsistence. Odessa thus became, under the wise administration of the Duc de Richelieu, one of the most active commercial cities of eastern Europe; its population increased prodigiously; the habits induced by prosperity gave a new stimulus to its import trade, and every year hundreds of vessels entered its port to take in agricultural freights of all kinds.

Dazzled by this commercial prosperity, till then unexampled in Russia, and, doubtless believing it unalterably established, the government then chose to return to its prohibitive system, and, whether through ignorance or incapacity, the ministry deliberately ruined with their own hands the commercial wealth of Southern Russia. In 1822, at the moment when it was least expected, an ukase suppressed the freedom of the port of Odessa, and made it obligatory on the merchants to pay the duties on all goods then in the warehouses. This excited intense alarm, and as it was totally impossible to pay immediately such enormous duties as those imposed by the general tariff of the empire, the merchants remonstrated earnestly and threatened, all of them, to commit bankruptcy. The governor of the town, dismayed at the disasters which the enforcement of the law would occasion, took it on his own responsibility to delay; and commissioners were sent to St. Petersburg to acquaint the emperor with the state of commerce in Odessa. Alexander, whose intentions were always excellent, and who had no doubt been deceived by false reports, promptly annulled the ukase. The freedom of the port of Odessa was therefore re-established, but not to the same extent as before. Concessions were made to the board of customs, a fifth of the duties exacted in other Russian ports was imposed on goods entering Odessa, and the other four-fifths were to be paid on their departure for the interior. The limits of the free port were also considerably reduced, and two lines of custom-houses were formed, the one round the port, the other round the town. These lines still subsist.

The victories of the board of customs did not stop here, and new measures, suggested and supported no doubt by fraud, were put in force. We have spoken of the free transit traffic through the towns of Doubassar, Radzivilov, and Odessa. This traffic was increasing rapidly; all the merchants of western Asia were beginning to take the Odessa route to make their purchases in the great fairs of Germany. There was every probability that Odessa would be one of the principal points of arrival and exchange for all the produce of Europe and Asia. The Transcaucasian provinces enjoyed very extensive commercial freedom at this period by virtue of an ukase promulgated, October 20, 1821. Redoutkalé, at the mouth of the Phasis, on the shores of Mingrelia, was then the port to which all the goods from Leipsic were conveyed by sea; from thence they passed to Tiflis and Erivan, and were then distributed over all the adjacent countries, through Turkey, Armenia, and even as far as Persia. The Armenians had secured this traffic almost exclusively to themselves. They appeared for the first time in Odessa in 1823. The next year they advanced as far as Leipsic, where they bought European manufactures to the amount of more than 600,000 francs; in 1825 their purchases rose to 1,200,000 francs, and in 1826 to 2,800,000. All these goods were conveyed by land to Odessa, and there embarked on the Black Sea for Redoutkaleh. It may easily be conceived what a happy influence such a traffic would have exercised over the agriculture and cattle rearing of Southern Russia, and eventually on the prosperity of the population engaged in this carrying trade. But all these promising elements of prosperity were to be annihilated by the narrow views of the minister of finance. The commercial franchise of the Caucasian provinces, after having lasted for ten years, was suddenly suppressed on the first of January, 1832. The most rigorous prohibitive system was put in force; Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, more than 220 miles from the Black Sea, was made the centre of the customs administration, and all goods destined for that part of Asia had to pass through that town to be examined there and pay duty.

By these arbitrary and exclusive measures, the government thought to encourage native manufactures; and by prohibiting the goods of Germany, France, and England, it hoped to force the productions of Russia on the trans-Caucasian provinces. The transit trade was, of course, proscribed at the same period. By a first ukase, the merchants were forced to deposit at the frontier in Radzivilof, double the value of their goods, and the money was only to be returned to them at Odessa, upon verification of their bales. It is obviously not to be thought of that merchants, however wealthy, should carry with them, in addition to the capital to be expended on their purchases, double the value of their goods in transitu. This new measure, therefore, was sufficient of itself alone to put an entire stop to the transit trade. The Persians and Armenians forsook this route, and chose another, to the great detriment of Russia. At present the value of the transit is from 180,000 to 200,000 francs, the goods being chiefly yellow amber, sent from Prussia to Turkey. For a charge of fifteen francs per twenty kilogrammes, the Jews undertake to give security to the customs in title-deeds, which they hire at the rate of five or six per cent., and they despatch the goods directly to Odessa.

England, always so prompt to seize opportunities, took advantage of the blunders of Russia. She secured a position in Trebizond, and her merchants, recoiling from no sacrifice, formed there an immense entrepôt, from which they soon sent out the manufactures of their country into all the provinces of Asia. Business to the amount of more than 2,000,000l. sterling, is now carried on in Trebizond, and two sets of steamboats ply between it and Constantinople.

Thus Russia lost one of the most important commercial lines in the world, and by her extravagant increase of duties she completely extinguished the lawful import trade of the Caucasian provinces. But English and other foreign goods still find their way there by contraband, and the government officers are themselves the first to profit by this system; for they are still more desirous than the native inhabitants to procure manufactured goods, and, above all, at a moderate price. The prohibitive measures of Russia have, therefore, really recoiled on the government itself, and the treasury loses considerably by them, not only in the Caucasus, but also on the European frontiers. Owing to the freedom of its port, the town of Odessa, of course, suffers less from the disastrous effects of this prohibitive system, and finds some commercial resources in its own consumption, and in that of its environs. Nevertheless, as this consumption, (which notwithstanding the contraband trade is kept in full vigour by the Jews, and even by the highest classes,) is out of all proportion to the exportation, and as there is very little exchange traffic, foreign vessels are gradually deserting the Black Sea; and, besides this, their charges for freight are necessarily too high, in consequence of their being obliged in almost every instance to repair in ballast to the harbours of South Russia. Then we must take into account the remoteness of the Black Sea; the dread, not yet quite effaced, with which it is regarded; the impossibility of finding freights anywhere except in Odessa; the excessive severity of the winter, and the usual obstructions of the harbours by ice during three or four months every year. All these things combine to repel mariners; so that nothing, except extraordinary cheapness and great profits, could induce merchants to send their vessels for freight to the ports of Southern Russia.

Thus driven away by the prohibitive system of Russia, many nations are seeking to establish markets for their productions elsewhere. It is also to be remarked that agriculture has made very great progress in Europe since the re-establishment of peace; and consequently the exportation of corn from Russia has considerably diminished. Nevertheless, we are of opinion that Southern Russia would have lost little of its agricultural importance, notwithstanding its system of customs, if the government, instead of remaining stationary, had sincerely entered on a course of improvement.

All circumstances seem to combine in New Russia to make the productions of the soil as economical as possible, and to enable them to compete successfully with those of all other countries. The soil is virgin and very abundant; labour is cheap and the price of cattle extraordinarily low; whilst serfdom, by obliging thousands of men to employ at least half their time for the benefit of their lords, ought naturally to tend to diminish the price of bread stuffs. Unfortunately the means of communication have been totally neglected, and the government has taken no steps to facilitate transport; in consequence of this the price of grain, instead of falling is constantly increasing, and merchants are no longer willing to purchase except in seasons of scarcity. The wheat sent to Odessa from Khivia, Volhynia, Podolia, and Bessarabia, arrives in carts drawn by oxen. The journeys are tedious, the extreme rate of travelling being not more than fifteen miles a day; and they are costly, for the carriage of a tchetvert or seven bushels of corn varies from four to six rubles; moreover, the transport can only be effected between May and September in consequence of the deplorable state of the roads during the other seven months of the year. The result of all this is that wheat, though very cheap in the provinces we have mentioned, is quoted at very high prices comparatively at Odessa, so as not to leave foreign speculators a sufficient profit to compensate for the length of the voyage to the Black Sea, the outlay of capital, and the enormous expenses caused by the quarantines to which many goods are subject. Besides this, Odessa is the only port that offers any facilities for commerce; Kherson situated in the midst of a fertile and productive region, is only a harbour of export, and its commerce cannot possibly extend; for the ships destined to take in freight at that port must previously perform quarantine in Odessa. All the landowners are therefore forced to send their produce to Odessa, if they would have any chance of sale. But, as we have already observed, the means of communication are everywhere wanting. It must, indeed, be owned that the construction of stone-faced roads is attended with great difficulty, for throughout all the plains of Southern Russia the materials, are scarce and for the most part of bad quality, being limestone of a friable character. But might not the produce of a great part of Poland, and of all new Russia, be conveyed to Odessa by the Pruth, the Dniestr, and the Dniepr?

The only goods conveyed down the Dniestr consist at present of some rafts of timber and firewood from the mountains of Austrian Gallicia. The Russian government has repeatedly been desirous of improving the navigation of the river in compliance with the desire of the inhabitants of its banks. A survey was made in 1827, and again in 1840. Unfortunately all these investigations being made by men of no capacity led to nothing. An engineer was commissioned in 1829 to make a report on the works necessary for rendering the river practicable at Jampol, where it is obstructed by a small chain of granite. He estimated the expense at 185,000 francs, whereas it was secretly ascertained that 10,000 would be more than enough. The project was then abandoned. Thus with the best and most laudable intentions, the government is constantly crippled in its plans of amelioration whether by the incapacity or by the bad faith and cupidity of its functionaries. Last year the subject of the navigation of the Dniestr was again taken up, and it is even alleged that the Russian government has given orders for two steam-vessels destined to ply on that river.

The works on the Dniepr are scarcely in a more forward state than those of the Dniestr. It is known that below Iekaterinoslaf the course of the river is traversed by a granite chain, which extends between that town and Alexandrof, a distance of more than fifteen leagues. At the time of the conquest of the Crimea and the shores of the Black Sea, it was proposed to render navigable the thirteen rapids that form what has been improperly denominated the cataracts of the Dniepr. Works were begun at various times, but always abandoned. They were resumed under Nicholas with new ardour, but the government was soon discouraged by the enormous cost, and, above all, by the peculations of its servants. The whole amount of work done up to the present time is a wretched canal 300 yards long, more dangerous for barges to pass through than the rapids themselves. This canal was finished in 1838. The works had not yet been resumed when we left Russia in 1841. The rapids of the Dniepr are therefore still as impracticable as ever, and it is only during the spring floods, a period of a month or six weeks, that barges venture to pass them; and even then it rarely happens that they escape without accident. More than eighty men were lost in them in 1839, and a multitude of barges and rafts were knocked to pieces on the rocks. The goods that thus descend the Dniepr consist almost exclusively of timber and firewood, and Siberian iron. Corn never makes any part of the cargo, because in case of accident it would be lost beyond recovery. But what will really seem incredible is, that the German colonists settled below the rapids, are obliged to convey their produce to the Sea of Azov in order to find any market for it; hence the greater part of the government of Iekaterinoslaf, and those of Poltava and Tchernikof, watered by the Dniepr, are in a perpetual state of distress, though they have wheat in abundance; and the peasants sunk into the deepest wretchedness, are compelled every year to make journeys of 300 miles, and often more, to earn from six to seven francs a month in the service of the landowners on the borders of the Black Sea. The eastern part of the government of Iekaterinoslaf profits by the vicinity of the Sea of Azov, and tries to dispose of its corn in Taganrok, Marioupol, and Berdiansk, a port newly established by Count Voronzof.

This general survey of the means of transport possessed by Russia, is enough to show that the corn-trade of these regions owes its vast development in a great measure to fortuitous circumstances; and that the absence of easy communication, and the prohibitive system, both tend to bring it down lower and lower every year. Here follows a statement of the price of corn at Tulzin, one of the least remote points of Volhynia, and the cost of carriage to Odessa, during the years 1828-30, and 1839, 40, 41.

From this table we see that prices rose remarkably during the latter years. We must remark, however, that the years 1828-29-30, were unusually productive, and the prices prevailing in them are by no means an average. But it is altogether obvious that with such prices, and an absolute blank in importation, the commerce of Southern Russia must necessarily perish. In 1841, the merchants could only offer the masters of merchant vessels two-and-a-half francs per sack for freight to Marseilles, while the latter can hardly realise any profit even at the rate of four francs. For Trieste they offered only twenty, and even eighteen kreutzers, whereas not less than sixty will yield any remuneration. Ship owners will not henceforth be tempted to visit Odessa in quest of gain. The English alone have obtained tolerable freights.

To all these causes of ruin are to be added the enormous charges to which merchants are subject; those of the first class pay 300 rubles for their licence, always in advance; the postage charges for letters are exorbitant; there are persons whose yearly correspondence costs 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 rubles. An ordinary letter to London pays seven and even eight rubles. Again, the great merchants not choosing to sit idle, keep up the high prices by their purchases: they may no doubt gain occasionally by these speculations, but they generally lose. Witness the disasters and failures of the year 1841. What chance of prosperity can there be for a trade that at the moment of the departure of the goods, hardly ever promises any profit at the current prices in the place of destination, and which consequently lives only on the hope of an eventual rise? How will it be with it in a few years, when the canals and railroads projected in Germany, shall have been finished? At this day the wheat of Nuremberg and Bamberg, reaches England by way of Amsterdam.

But without going so far, Southern Russia now sees growing up against it in the Black Sea a competition, which is daily becoming more formidable. The principalities of the Danube, have made immense progress in ten years, in consequence of the franchises and privileges bestowed on them by the treaty of Adrianople. Galatz and Ibraïla, now furnish a considerable quantity of corn to the foreigner; and in spite of the disadvantages of having to ascend the Danube, masters of vessels now prefer repairing to those ports on account of their administrative facilities, and above all by reason of the commercial resources which importation offers there. In 1839, Marseilles bought more than 4000 hectolitres of wheat in the markets of Galatz and Ibraïla, whilst the port of Odessa hardly supplied it with twice that quantity. We will return by and by to the question of the Danube, when we come to speak of Bessarabia.

Another measure fatal to the corn-trade, was the decision of the government with respect to the confiscated lands of the Poles. After the revolution of 1831, more than 423,000 peasants were sequestrated to the crown. These peasants occupied extremely fertile regions lying very near Odessa: Ouman, the property of Alexander Potocki, made part of them. The government committed the management of these lands to public servants, selected chiefly from among the retired veteran officers, or those who had been incapacitated for service by their wounds. Under such management, pillage and the most utter neglect were the order of the day, and the consequence was, that the lands produced literally nothing to the crown, and served only to enrich their administrators. Weary of this disorder, the government determined in 1836 to detach nearly 93,000 peasants from these lands, and incorporate them with the military colonies. Nor did it stop there, but under pretext of removing all opportunity for extortion on the part of its servants, it issued an order in 1840, confining the new colonists to the cultivation of oats and barley, and forbidding them to sow wheat for exportation. These regulations, occasioned by the general corruption of the public servants, which the imperial will is powerless to check, produced melancholy results for the trade of Odessa, and that town was suddenly deprived of the agricultural produce it used to draw from the fertile soil of Ouman.

We must now enter into some considerations, bearing more immediately on Odessa itself. The credit that town enjoys abroad is extremely limited by the inordinate privileges of the imperial bank. In cases of bankruptcy, that establishment is entitled to disregard all competing claims, and to pay itself immediately by the sale of the real and personal property of its debtor, without reference to his other creditors; it is entitled to pay itself: 1st. the capital lent; 2nd. A surcharge of eight per cent., called re-exchange, arising out of the cost of brokerage and renewal of bills every three months; and, 3rd. Interest on the capital and surcharge, at the rate of 1-1/2 per cent, per month, until the whole debt is liquidated. The fatal effects of such a system may easily be conceived; the merchants of Odessa can seldom establish a credit with foreign houses.

As for the uses of the bank, they consist: 1st. In discounting town bills that have not more than four months to run; 2nd. In making advances on goods; 3rd. In serving as a bank of deposit for the mercantile houses; 4th. In giving drafts on the other banks of the empire, and paying their drafts on itself; 5th. In receiving deposits on interest.

The drafts were of great use in commerce, particularly for the payments between St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa: the charge upon them was a quarter per cent., whilst the conveyance of money through the post costs one per cent., besides postage. This convenient system was unfortunately put an end to in 1841. The charge on drafts now amounting to five per cent., operations of this kind have consequently become impossible. It was, probably, with a view to the revenues of the post-office, that this sage measure was adopted by the minister of finance.

Every one knows, that in order that a bank of discount should carry on business profitably for itself and for the commerce it is intended to assist, it must deal only in genuine commercial bills. Merchants recognise as genuine and discountable bills, only those drawn by other places for banking operations, and home bills drawn in consideration of goods sold for payment at a determinate future date. Now the Odessa bank not being a bank of issue, does not practise acceptance properly so called; Constantinople is almost the only town that draws on Odessa, and that but for small amounts, and as these acceptances are at twenty-one days' date, they are rarely discounted. Sales of goods for bills are also seldom practised, and from all we could learn, we believe they make but a very small part of the business of the Odessa bank. Goods are generally bought in that town on trust and without bills.

On what bases then have the operations of the Odessa bank hitherto rested? Rather, we are disposed to think, on fictitious than on real commerce. From its first establishment, the bank, strong in its privileges, thought to serve trade by encouraging discounts; and the facilities it afforded, induced many persons to avail themselves of this means of credit. Every one in Odessa knows how many disasters have been the consequence. Suppose a merchant wished to make a speculation, to buy for instance, a ship-load of wheat, amounting to 12,000l.; if he had only 80,000 or 100,000 rubles capital, he obtained the indorsement of one or more of his friends, and the bank immediately advanced him the whole sum necessary, at three months. The merchant was, therefore, forced to dispose of his goods as fast as possible, in order to meet his engagements with the bank: clogged and disturbed in his operations, and fearing lest he should involve his friends, he must often have incurred great losses, and after a few similar speculations, his ruin, and that of his friends were inevitable. Such has been the fate of many a merchant, in consequence of the unfortunate facility they found in obtaining money. The bank ought to have been aware, that instead of genuine commercial bills, it was discounting mere accommodation paper, and that there is an immense difference between discount for the realisation of business actually done, and discount for the realisation of business yet to be done. Unquestionably, the bank ought to have modified its system, after seeing the mischiefs it led to; but it has persisted in its original course, and were it to desist from it without a radical change of institutions, the operations of an establishment constructed on so vast a scale would become quite insignificant.

Hitherto, then, the bank of Odessa has completely failed to answer the purpose for which it was founded; it has done infinitely more harm than good to trade, and its enormous privileges have, moreover discredited Odessa abroad. The abolition of these privileges could repair the errors and mischiefs of the first establishment. The bank would thereby be compelled to discount only genuine commercial paper, and to do business on a much smaller scale; but its operations, though restricted, would be but the more advantageous for itself and for commerce; every one would then conduct his business with, reasonable regard to the extent of his means; failures would no longer be so ruinous to creditors; and this new bank, in correspondence with those of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by continuing to make transfers as in the beginning, and by accepting deposits at four per cent., would suffice for all the wants of the place. Unfortunately, judging from the last measure adopted with respect to transfers, there is no hope whatever that a new bank will be established, or that the existing one will undergo the requisite reforms. Yet if the Russian government, which persists in its prohibitive system, wishes to avoid the complete destruction of the commerce of Southern Russia, it must absolutely change its line of conduct, it must devote its strenuous attention to the means of internal communication, and render the commercial transactions of Odessa as easy and economical as possible. What is most deplorable in Russia is, that the truth never finds its way to the head of the state, and that a public functionary would think himself undone if he disclosed the real state of things; hence in the memoirs, reports, and tables laid before the emperor, the good only is acknowledged, and the evil is always disguised. Once committed to this course of dissimulation and lying, the public functionaries render all improvements impossible; and by always sacrificing the future to the present, do incalculable mischief to the country. The question is now entertained, of depriving Odessa of its last franchises, and putting its port on the same footing with the other commercial places of the empire. If Count Cancrine has not yet succeeded in doing this, the town has to thank the protection and the influence of Count Voronzof.

The following table shows the exports and imports at the different ports and custom-houses of Southern Russia, during the years 1838 and 1839, the value being set down in paper rubles.

The foreign goods that entered the interior of the empire in 1839, by way of Odessa, amounted in value to 9,130,148 paper rubles, which, curiously enough, was not even half the total importation of that port. From this we may judge of the consumption of Odessa, and at the same time of the extent of the contraband trade.

From these tables we see that there is no equilibrium in the trade of Odessa. Southern Russia absorbs every year more than 15,000,000 of foreign specie, and its exports are treble its imports. It is evident that such a trade rests on no solid basis; that its prosperity is due only to accidental circumstances, and that ships will gradually abandon the Black Sea, and seek some other destination, wherever agriculture flourishes, and is accompanied by a less exclusive system of customs. In the present state of things, the cultivation of corn in Egypt would be enough to ruin immediately all the ports of Southern Russia. With such contingencies before it, the government of Russia ought to ponder well before obstinately persevering in its present system. Mariners do not like the northern parts of the Black Sea, and once they shall have left them, they will return to them no more.

The year 1839 was most memorable in the commercial history of Odessa. The exports, consisting almost entirely of corn, amounted to 48,000,000 paper rubles. The harvests in the country had been very abundant, and as those of the rest of Europe were very unpromising, the demand was at first so encouraging that the merchants launched out into the boldest speculations. These were successful for a while, but disasters soon followed, and the houses which were supposed to have realised profits to the amount of millions, failed a year or eighteen months afterwards. Since that time trade has always been in a perilous state. In 1840, under the still subsisting influence of the movement of the preceding year, there was a diminution of 7,184,021 rubles; and in 1841 the first quarter alone presented a decrease of 6,891,332 rubles in comparison with the corresponding quarter in 1840.

On examining a general table of the exportation of Odessa, we see that during Napoleon's wars its commerce, completely stationary, did not exceed five or six millions of rubles. After the events of 1815, during the horrible dearth that afflicted all western Europe, the exports rose in 1817 to more than 38,000,000. In 1818 they fell without any transition to 20,000,000. During the war of 1828-29 they sank to 1,673,000. After the treaty of Adrianople, Southern Russia, being encumbered with an excess of produce, the exports again rose to 27,000,000. After this they varied from twenty to thirty, until 1839 when they reached the highest point they ever attained, namely, 48,000,000. We have already explained the causes of this factitious augmentation. From these data we see that the activity of the trade of Odessa has always arisen out of fortuitous circumstances, which are becoming more and more rare, and that it is by no means the result of the progressive development of agricultural resources: the country is, therefore, completely stationary.

It is also easy to convince ourselves, by simple comparison, that the commerce of Southern Russia is far from prosperous. In 1839, the most productive year, the custom-houses yield but 8,215,426 rubles; and ten seaports distributed over more than 400 leagues of coast, together with three land custom-houses, show on an average but from forty-five to fifty-five millions of exports, and hardly a third of that amount of imports; whilst Trebizond alone annually sends out more than 50,000,000 worth of English goods into the various adjoining countries.

CHAPTER V.

NAVIGATION, CHARGE FOR FREIGHT, &c. IN THE BLACK SEA.

Of all the seaboard of the East, the coasts of the Black Sea are those from which the expense of freight are the greatest. Different circumstances combine in producing this effect. 1. The amount of importation being inconsiderable, most of the vessels must arrive in ballast, or with a very scanty cargo. 2. The vessels are exposed to long delays in the Archipelago, and still more so in the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Fifty days may be taken as the average duration of the voyage from Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, or Trieste, to Odessa. It does not take longer to reach America from the same ports, by a voyage at once less difficult and more lucrative. 3. The Black Sea is situated at the extremity of the inland seas of Europe, and its coasts, which have little traffic, especially with each other, offer few resources to merchant vessels; so that if there is nothing profitable to be done at Odessa or Taganrok, a ship has no alternative but to take freight at ruinously low prices, or to return in ballast, and retrace some hundred miles of a route on which it has already incurred such delays. Certain merchants often take advantage of the distressing position of the masters, and for many years past, a part of the profits on some goods sent to the Mediterranean, has regularly consisted in the sacrifices to which the shipowner has been compelled. 4. The passage through the Straits of Constantinople subjects vessels freighted in the Russian ports for those of the Mediterranean, to a quarantine which, besides consuming from thirty-five to forty days, always entails considerable expense. It is generally reckoned that it takes a vessel fully six months to accomplish the voyage both ways between a Mediterranean port and Odessa, and to get pratique again, even supposing it to have tolerably favourable winds, and to obtain cargo almost immediately in the Black Sea, a thing which unhappily occurs very seldom. Now a Mediterranean brig of 275 tons, or 200,000 tchetverts' burden, has a crew that costs at least 800 rubles a month for wages and keep. If we add to this, for wear of rigging, insurance, and harbour-dues 400 rubles, we shall have more than 1200 rubles a month for ordinary expenses, without reckoning what storms and other casualties may occasion. Thus the cost of a six months' voyage will amount to 7200 rubles.

Before 1838, the average price of freight in paper rubles was as follows:

From this table it appears that the freights did not pay the ordinary expenses of the vessels, with the exception of those bound for England, Holland, and Genoa, under the Sardinian flag.

Odessa has hardly any intercourse with the portion of the Black Sea coast subject to the Sultan, but it often furnishes cargoes for the banks of the Danube, to vessels of not more than twelve feet draught. These vessels usually proceed to Galatz and Ibraïla. Those which have no return cargo, touch at Toultcha and Isacktcha, to take in firewood; others ship a cargo at Galatz and Ibraïla, for Constantinople and the Mediterranean. Good prices for freight are generally procured in the Danube, particularly of late years. The progress of agriculture in the principalities, and the facilities met with in their ports, attract foreign captains, and many of them have entirely forsaken Odessa for Galatz.

The government supplies, the war in the Caucasus, and private speculations likewise afford employment to a certain number of vessels between Odessa and the Russian provinces of the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. The prices of freight in these cases depend on the greater or less demand, but they are always kept very low by the competition of Kherson lodkas (large coasting vessels). These lodkas ply at a very cheap rate, but they are exposed to risks which ought to make them less sought after than better built and better commanded vessels. The passage from Odessa to Taganrok, is tedious and expensive, above all for vessels which are obliged to be accompanied with lighters, in order to pass the Straits of Kertch where the waters are low, and must then anchor in the Taganrok-roads, at a distance of ten from the shore. We may confidently estimate the voyage between Taganrok and Odessa both ways, as of two months' duration.

Thus navigation is hardly more prosperous than trade itself. If it Has hitherto maintained a part of its activity, this must be attributed to the great number of vessels belonging to the Mediterranean, to the influence of a past period, fertile in profit, and to commercial routine. Nevertheless, a revolution is gradually taking place, and already many vessels that formerly frequented the Russian ports, have found means to employ themselves advantageously on the Ocean. We find their names mentioned in foreign journals, in the shipping intelligence from America and India, and it is probable they are quite as successful there as others that have not yet chosen to visit the coasts of Southern Russia.

CHAPTER VI.

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA—MINERAL PRODUCTIONS—RUSSIAN WORKMEN.

In justification of its prohibitive system, the government alleges the protection and encouragement it owes to native industry. Now it is evident that absolute exclusion cannot favour industry. The high tariff, it is true, seems to secure a certain market for Russian manufactures; but it results from it that those manufactures, being kept clear of all competition, are worse than stationary; for the manufacturers, whose number is very limited, agree among themselves to turn out exactly the same sort of workmanship, and in the same proportion. Moscow is now the centre of all the manufactures of silk, cotton, and woollen stuffs, shawls, &c.; yet, in spite of all the privileges secured to those establishments by the tariff, a great number of them have failed of late years. Their goods have become so bad that they could no longer compete in sale with smuggled articles. In 1840, or 1841, the emperor made a journey to Moscow, on purpose to preside over the meeting of manufacturers; but unfortunately ukases and proclamations are inefficient to create a body of manufacturers; the imperial desires in nowise altered the face of things.

There are at this day, in Russia, two great branches of manufacturing industry, one of which, employing the raw materials furnished by the soil, such as iron, copper, and other metals, belongs properly to Russia, and has no need to fear foreign competition. It is true we cannot speak very highly of the Russian hardware and cutlery, but they find a sure sale, the inhabitants caring more for cheapness than quality. The most important manufactures of this sort are established at Toula, and in the government of Nijni Novgorod; the materials are furnished by Siberia.

The Ural is one of the most remarkable mountain chains on the globe, for the extent and variety of its mineral wealth. I say nothing of its gold, silver, and platina ores; they add too little to the real prosperity of the country to call for mention here. The iron ores of Siberia are generally of superior quality; but as the processes to which they are subjected, are somewhat injudicious, the iron produced from them is seldom as good as it might be. The working of the iron mines has been a good deal neglected of late years, landowners having turned their attention chiefly to the precious metals; hence the prices of wrought and cast iron have risen considerably in Southern Russia, which employs those of Siberia exclusively. The carriage is effected for this part of the empire by land; in one direction by the Volga, the Don, and the Sea of Azov, in another by the Dniepr. The journeys are long and expensive, and often they cannot be effected at all in consequence of irregularities either in the arrivals, or in the river floods. The present price of pig-iron is from eighteen to twenty francs for the 100 kilogrammes, and of bar-iron from forty-four to forty-five francs, in Kherson and Odessa. I do not know the prices at the places where the iron is produced, but whatever they may be, these figures show how much Russia has yet to do towards facilitating the means of internal communication. Of copper, lead, &c., notwithstanding the cost of carriage, Russia exports a considerable quantity to foreign countries.

Not content with these valuable sources of wealth, which alone would suffice for the support of a vast and truly national industry, Russia has thought it desirable to create for herself a manufacturing industry such as exists in other countries of Europe, and to arrive at this end she has devised a system of the most absolute prohibition. How far has she been successful? Of all European countries Russia is unquestionably placed in the most unfavourable circumstances for contending with foreign manufactures. Situated as she is at the extremity of Europe, she can only be reached by long, difficult, and expensive routes; and as her manufactures of stuffs, silks, &c., are all concentrated in Moscow, the expenses of carriage are enormous. Thus the cottons landed in Odessa are first carried to Moscow, and then return, after being wrought, to the governments of the Black Sea. The want of capable and intelligent workmen is also one of the most serious obstacles to the establishment of manufactures; the Russian peasant is essentially agricultural, and knows nothing of handicraft trades, except so far as they are of service to him in his daily labours; and then, by constitution and by the effects of that long slavery that has weighed and still weighs upon him, his ideas are naturally contracted and can never apply themselves to more than a single object. The sole talent he possesses in a really remarkable degree is that of imitation. The black enamelled work of the Caucasus is admirably imitated at Toula; and at Lughan, in the government of Iekaterinoslaf, they make very pretty things in Berlin iron, copied from Prussian models. This talent for imitation is no doubt valuable in the workshops where they are constantly making the same set of things, and in the same way; but it becomes completely inefficient in the manufactories for piece-goods, in which there must be incessant innovation and improvement: hence we find all the great manufactories, after being at first managed by foreign superintendents and workmen, fall gradually into decay from the moment they are transferred to native hands. The Russians are essentially destitute of imagination and the spirit of invention; and then the proneness of the workmen to laziness and drunkenness cannot but be fatal to industry. The workman is always seeking some pretext to escape from labour; he has his own calendar, in which the number of holidays is doubled; these he employs in getting drunk, and the days following them in sleeping off his liquor. The result is, that he passes half the year in doing nothing, that he strives to sell his day's work at the dearest possible rate, and that the working time being thus indefinite, it is impossible to fix punctually the time of production. This unhappy moral condition of the labouring classes is the same throughout all Russia, and may be regarded as one of the worst evils incidental to the native industry. To these obstacles, proceeding from the very nature of the people, are superadded physical difficulties no less imperious. In France, England, and Germany, when any new manufacture is established, it always rests on other branches already in existence, and about which it has no need to employ itself. In Russia, on the contrary, in order to succeed in any branch of manufactures, it is necessary at the same time to create all the accessories connected with it. Every one knows what a vast quantity of merino and other wools Southern Russia supplies, and it would seem at first sight that of all manufactures that of woollen cloths ought to offer the fairest chances of success in that country. But it is not so: I have visited two or three cloth factories on the banks of the Dniepr belonging to foreigners, and managed by them with an ability beyond all praise; yet it was with the utmost difficulty and through the personal labour of their proprietors that they were able to subsist. The government itself, some years ago, erected at Iekaterinoslaf one of the largest cloth manufactories I am acquainted with; the looms were set in motion by two steam-engines, and several hundred workmen were employed. The establishment, nevertheless, was closed after three years' existence, and I myself saw all the materials sold at a great depreciation.

The number of manufacturing establishments of all sorts in Russia amounted in 1839 to 6855, and that of the workmen employed to 412,931, not including those engaged in the mines and in the smelting-houses, forges, &c., belonging to them. We will enumerate as the most important branches of Russian industry:—

In this table the manufactories of woollen cloths, silks, and cottons, together figure but as 1300; and yet it is in a great measure to the supposed encouragement which the government desires to afford these branches of industry, that Russia owes her system of customs; for setting aside a few objects of luxury, Russia has no need to fear foreign competition with regard to any other articles. Certainly, if the silk and cotton manufactures could exercise a beneficial influence upon the prosperity of the country, if they were necessary to supply the wants of the whole population, in that case we could to a certain extent understand the sentence of exclusion pronounced on foreign goods; but the productions of the Moscow factories are destined only for the aristocracy and the trading classes, and the 40,000,000 of slaves that constitute the European population of Russia, consume but an insignificant portion of them, all their clothes being wrought by their own hands.

It is not surprising then that all the manufacturing establishments are concentrated in Moscow, that being the place where the aristocratic and trading part of the community exist in most considerable numbers, and where there is most certainty of finding customers. Everywhere else the chances of success would be few or none: witness Southern Russia where all manufacturing attempts have hitherto failed, notwithstanding the advantages it derives from its seaports. The three governments composing it reckon at this day but 2000 workmen, even including those who work in the rope walks and the tallow houses.

According to authentic documents the numbers of the nobility and tradespeople do not exceed 3,000,000. Without a complete alteration, therefore, in the manners and habits of the peasants, it is impossible to hope that the manufacture of piece-goods can ever attain a great development, and it would have been infinitely better to have left the supply of these articles to importation; the imperial treasury would thereby have been a gainer, and more active relations with the foreigner would have afforded valuable guarantees for the prosperity of the country. But Russia suffered herself to be seduced by the most brilliant branch of industry of our times; she, too, wished to have her cachemires and her silks; and not considering that agriculture is for her the most lucrative, the most positive of all branches of industry, she recoiled from no prohibitive measure in order to favour some indigenous manufactures. I say again, Russia is before all things a country for the production of raw materials. Agriculture, including therein the breeding of cattle, evidently forms the basis of the national prosperity, and it is only by facilitating its extension and its outlets that Russia can hope to secure the future welfare of its people.

If at this day the establishment of new villages in Southern Russia is becoming so difficult, it is not for want of land, but because the peasants have no means of ready transport for their produce, and because also the want of importation, naturally exercising a great influence upon the price of corn, signally restricts the demand from abroad. Is it not indeed deplorable to see the most fertile and productive governments of New Russia sunk in extreme penury by the want of roads, and by the culpable neglect of the administration which deprives them of the navigation of the rivers! Will the government at last open its eyes to the mischiefs of the course it is pursuing? We can scarcely hope so. All the commercial reports of the empire dress up things in so fair a light, and the public functionaries agree so well together in falsifying public opinion, that the emperor, beguiled by the brilliant picture incessantly laid before his eyes, cannot but persevere in the fatal course adopted by his predecessors.

CHAPTER VII.

DEPARTURE FROM ODESSA—TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA—NIKOLAÏEF, OLVIA, OTSHAKOF—KHERSON—THE DNIEPR—GENERAL POTIER—ANCIENT TUMULI—STEPPES OF THE BLACK SEA—A RUSSIAN VILLAGE—SNOW STORM—NARROW ESCAPE FROM SUFFOCATION—A RUSSIAN FAMILY—APPENDIX.

After some months' stay in Odessa, we left it in company with General Potier, a Frenchman by birth, to pass the winter at his country-house. Travelling would nowhere be more rapid than in Russia, if the posting-houses were a little better conducted and more punctual in supplying horses. The country is perfectly flat, and you may traverse several hundred leagues without meeting a single hill. Besides this, the Russian driver has no mercy on his horses; they must gallop continually, though they should drop dead under the whip. Another reason that contributes to the rapidity of posting, is, that there are never less than three or four horses yoked to the lightest vehicle. The general's carriage being rather heavy, we had six horses, that carried us along at the rate of fifteen versts (ten miles) an hour. We found the rooms in the posting-stations much more elegant than we had expected; but this was owing to the journey of the imperial family, for whom they had been completely metamorphosed. The walls and ceilings were fresh painted with the greatest care, and we found everywhere handsome mirrors, divans, and portraits of the emperor and empress. Thanks, therefore, to the transit of their majesties, our journey was effected in the most agreeable manner, though on ordinary occasions, one must make up his mind to encounter all sorts of privations and annoyances in a long excursion through Russia. The towns are so few, and the villages are so destitute of all requisites, that one is in sore danger of being starved to death by the way, unless he has had the precaution to lay in a stock of provisions at starting. The post-houses afford you literally nothing more than hot water for tea, and a bench to rest on. The Russian and Polish grandees never omit to carry with them on their journeys a bed with all its appurtenances, a whole range of cooking implements, and plenty of provisions. In this way they pass from town to town, without ever suspecting the unfortunate position in which the foreigner is placed who traverses their vast wildernesses. The latter, it may be said, is free to follow their example; but the thing is not so easy. Supposing even that he was possessed of all this travelling apparatus, still the expense of carriage would imperatively forbid his taking it with him, whereas the Russians, who generally travel with their own horses, may have a dozen without adding to their expenses. As for those who have recourse to the post, they care very little about economy, and provided they have a good dinner prepared by their own cooks, a soft bed and all other physical comforts, they never trouble themselves to calculate the cost. But as for the foreigner who travels in this country, the inconvenience I have just mentioned is nothing in comparison with the countless vexations he must endure, simply because he is a foreigner. Having no legal right to lay his cane over the shoulders of the clerks of the post, he must make up his mind to endure the most scandalous impositions and annoyances at their hands, and very often he will be obliged to pass forty-eight hours in a station, because he cannot submit to the conditions imposed on him. Neither threats nor entreaties can prevail on the clerk to make him furnish horses if it does not suit his humour. The epithet particularnii tcheloviek which is applied in Russia to all who do not wear epaulettes, and which signifies something less than a nobody, is a categorical reply to the traveller's utmost eloquence.

Before we reached Kherson, we stopped at Nicolaïef, a pretty town, which has been for some years the seat of the Admiralty formerly established in Kherson, and which is daily increasing at its rival's expense. Its vast dockyards attract a whole population of workmen, whose presence swells its wealth and importance. Its position on the Bug, its new houses and pretty walks planted with poplars, make it the most agreeable town in the government. When we passed through it, a splendid ship of the line of three decks had just been completed, and was waiting only for the ceremony of being christened to take its place in the Black Sea fleet.

Four or five leagues below Nicolaïef, on the right bank of the Bug, near its embouchure in the liman[1] of the Dniepr, are the ruins of Olvia or Olviopolis, a Milesian colony founded about 500 B.C. There have been found inscriptions and medals which put the origin of these remains beyond all doubt. Lower down on the liman of the Dniepr, not far from the sea, is the fortress of Otchakov, which formerly belonged to the Turks, and then formed a considerable town, known by the name of Ozou. It was twice taken by the Russian troops on the 13th of June, 1737, under the command of Marshal Munich, and on the 6th of December, 1788, under Potemkin. At present, not a trace of the Turkish sway remains in the village. All the Mussulman buildings have been pulled down to give place to a steppe, on which some Russian cabins and about fifty miserable shops have been set up. The environs of Otchakov also present traces of the abode of the ancient Greeks. In 1833 there were found here a fragment of a bas-relief in tolerable preservation, a male torso, and an offering with an inscription from certain Greek military chiefs to Achilles, ruler of the Pontus.

Otchakof was founded at the close of the fifteenth century, by Mengli Chereï, khan of the Crimea, on the ruins of Alektor, a little town belonging to a queen of the Sauromatians, and which was destroyed probably by the Getæ at the same time as Olvia, 100 B.C. Alektor must have possessed specimens of Greek workmanship, but they disappeared under the hands of the Turks, who employed them in building Otchakov.

Kherson, where we arrived in the evening, retains no relics of its ancient opulence, or of the importance it derived scarcely fifty years ago from its commerce, its port, and its admiralty; at present, it exhibits the melancholy spectacle of a town entirely ruined; its population does not exceed 6000 or 8000 souls. Odessa and Nicolaïef have dealt it mortal blows, and it now subsists only by its entrepôt for the various productions of the empire, which are conveyed to it by the Dniepr, and forwarded by lighters to Odessa. It has even lost its custom-house for imports, retaining only the privilege of exporting; and beside this, the vessels which take in cargo at Kherson, must first perform quarantine in Odessa. Fevers and the Jews are likewise formidable foes to its prosperity. Expelled from Nicolaïef and Sevastopol, the Israelites swarm like locusts in Kherson, and form almost its whole population. Nothing can be more hideous than the appearance of the Russian Jews. Dressed in a uniform garb, consisting of a long robe of black calico, fastened with a woollen girdle, canvass drawers, and a broad-brimmed black hat, they all present so degraded a type of humanity, that the eye turns from them with deep disgust. Their filthiness is indescribable; the entrance of a single Jew into an apartment is enough suddenly to vitiate the atmosphere.

We had already had occasion in Odessa to see into what an abject state this people is fallen in Russia; but it was not until we came to Kherson that we beheld them in all their vileness. What a contrast between their sallow faces, disgusting beards, and straggling locks, plastered flat on the skin, their brutified air, and crawling humility, and the easy, dignified bearing, the noble features, and the elegant costume of the Jews of Constantinople! It is impossible to bring oneself to believe there is any thing in common between them, that they belong to the same race, and have the same rules and usages, the same language and religion. But the cause which has produced such a difference between two branches of one people, is a question involving political and philosophical considerations of too high an order, to be discussed here; all we can say, is that, in seeing the Jews of Kherson, and comparing them with their brethren of the East, we had evidence before us of the depth to which governments and institutions can debase mankind.

The streets of Kherson are thronged with these miserable Israelites, who carry on every kind of trade, and recoil from no species of occupation, provided it be lucrative. Their penury is so great, that they will run from one end of the town to the other for a few kopeks, and in this respect they are of much use to the stranger, who would be greatly embarrassed if they were not at hand, ready to render him every possible service. The moment a traveller arrives at an inn, in New Russia, he is beset and persecuted without ceasing by these officious agents, who place at his disposal their goods, their persons, all they have and all they have not. It is to no purpose he threatens them and turns them out a hundred times; they care little for abuse; and do what you will, they sit themselves down on the ground opposite your door, and remain there with imperturbable phlegm, waiting their opportunity to walk in again, and renew their offer. Many a time have we seen Jews thus spend four or five hours consecutively, without evincing the least impatience, or seeming to regret the waste of time they might have employed more profitably, and go away at last satisfied with having gained a few kopeks.

It was in the government of Kherson that the plan of forming Jewish colonies was first tried. Several were established in the districts of Kherson and Bobrinetz, and in 1824 these contained nine villages, with a population of 8000 souls, settled on 55,333 hectares of land. All the new colonists are wholly exempt from taxation for ten years; but after the lapse of that time, they are placed on the same footing as the other crown peasants, except that they remain free from military service for fifty years.

The colonisation of these Jews was no easy matter; at first, it was necessary to keep the most rigorous watch over them, to prevent them from leaving their villages. The colonists are all dependent on the governor-general of New Russia, and each of their villages is under the control of a non-commissioned officer of the army. I have not the least idea of the object for which the government founded these colonies, which, as far as agriculture is concerned, can be of no use to the country. Was its motive one of a philanthropic kind? I do not think so. I should rather suspect that the prospective advantages in a military point of view may have been the inducement, an opinion, which seems justified by the fact, that the Russian government has found it necessary, for some years past, to enrol the Jews by force in the naval service. The unfortunate men are chiefly employed as workmen, and I have seen great numbers of them in the arsenals of Sevastopol and Nicolaïef.

The aspect of Kherson is as dismal as that of Nicolaïef is brilliant and lively. Nothing is to be seen but dilapidated houses and abandoned sites, which give it the appearance of a town devastated by war. But viewing it from a distance, as it rises in an amphitheatre on the banks of the Dniepr, with its numerous belfries, its barracks, and its gardens, one would be far from suspecting the sort of spectacle its interior presents. Above all, one cannot conceive why a town in such a position, with a river close at hand, navigable for ships of war, should have been thus abandoned; but such has been the imperial will, and Kherson, completely sacrificed to Odessa, now shows scarcely any signs of life, excepting its great wool washing establishments, which employ hundreds of workmen, and its retail trade, which the Jews monopolise. The only remains of its past greatness the town has preserved, are its title as capital of the government, and its tribunals. The governor resides in it, no doubt much against his will; but many great families have forsaken it on account of the fevers prevailing in it during a part of the year, with more fatal violence than in any other region. They are occasioned by the wide sheets of water left behind by the inundations of the Dniepr, and which, finding no issue when the river returns to its bed, stagnate among the reeds, until the rays of the sun are strong enough to make them evaporate. Fetid and pestilential exhalations then rise, and produce malignant and typhoid fevers that almost always prove mortal.

The population of Kherson, like that of all the other towns in Southern Russia, is a medley of Jews, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, Italians, &c.; a few French have been long settled there, and have acquired some wealth; some deal in wood, others are at the head of the wool-washing establishments I have already mentioned. Among the latter, there is a Parisian, who, by dint of washing and rewashing wool, and that too on another's account, has managed to amass nearly 12,000l. in less than eight years. The lavoirs of MM. Vassal and Potier are the most considerable in Kherson, giving daily employment to more than 600 men.

The Dniepr seen from Kherson, resembles a vast lake studded with islands; the views it presents are very beautiful, and partake very much of the character of maritime scenery. The estate we were going to lay on the other side of the river, and we had the pleasure of travelling about fifteen versts by water, through the labyrinth of islands, and a constant succession of the most enchanting views. We found horses waiting for us on the opposite bank, and in less than four hours we were at Clarofka, our journey's end.

M. Potier, the proprietor of Clarofka, is an ex-pupil of the Polytechnic School, who was sent to St. Petersburg by Napoleon, with three colleagues, to establish a school of civil engineering. In 1812, the government fearing lest they should join the French, sent them away to the confines of China, where they were detained more than two years. When our troops had evacuated Russia, and the presence of these young men was no longer to be feared, the Emperor Alexander recalled them, and gave them each a pension of 6000 rubles, to indemnify them for their exile. From that time forth, they all made rapid progress in fortune and in honours. M. Potier was for a long while director of the civil engineering institution. He is highly esteemed by the Emperor Nicholas, who wished to attach him completely to his court, by conferring on him a post of the highest importance, but M. Potier always refused, and at last succeeded in obtaining permission to retire. He is the son-in-law of M. Rouvier, who made himself popular in Russia and even in France, by being the first to introduce the breed of Merino sheep into Southern Russia. M. Potier followed his father-in-law's example, and has more than 20,000 sheep on his estate.

The estate of M. Vassal, another son-in-law and successor of M. Rouvier, is but a dozen versts from Clarofka. It is larger than many a German duchy; but instead of the fertile fields and thriving villages that adorn Germany, it presents to view only a vast desert with numerous tumuli, salt lakes, and a few sheep folds. These tumuli exact models of mole-hills, from ten to fifteen yards high, are the only hills in the country, and appear to be the burial-places of its old masters, the Scythians. Several of them have been opened, and nothing found in them but some bones, copper coins of the kings of Bosphorus, and coarse earthen utensils. Similar tombs in the Crimea have been found to contain objects of more value, both as regards material and workmanship. This difference is easily accounted for; the Milesian colonies that occupied part of the Crimea 200 years ago, spread a taste for opulence and the fine arts all through the peninsula; their tombs would, therefore, bear token of the degree of civilisation they had reached. They had a regular government, princes, and all the elements and accessories of a kingdom; whilst our poor Scythians, divided into nomade tribes like the Kirghises and Kalmucks of the present day, led a rude life in the midst of the herds of cattle that constituted their sole wealth.

Agriculture could never have yielded much in these steppes, where rain is extremely rare in summer, where there are neither brooks nor wells for irrigation, and where hot winds scorch up every thing during the greater part of the fine season. It is only on the banks of the rivers that vegetation makes its appearance and the eye rests on cultivated fields and green pastures. There are indeed here and there a few depressions, where the grass retains its verdure during a part of the year, and some stunted trees spread their meagre branches over a less unkindly soil than that of the steppe; but these are unusual circumstances, and one must often travel hundreds of versts to find a single shrub. Such being the general configuration of the country, it may easily be imagined how cheerless is the aspect of those vast plains with nothing to vary their surface except the tumuli, and with no other boundaries than the sea. No one who is unaccustomed to that monotonous nature can long endure its influence. Those dreary wastes seem to him a boundless prison in which he vainly exerts himself without a hope of escape. And yet that flat and barren soil from which the eye turns away so contemptuously, has become a source of wealth to its present proprietors by the great success of the first experiments in Merino sheep-breeding. It was M. Rouvier, who first conceived the happy idea of turning the unproductive steppes into pasture. The Emperor Alexander, always ready to encourage liberal ideas, not only advanced the projector a sum of a hundred thousand rubles, but gave him even a man-of-war to go and make his first purchases in Spain, and on his return, granted him an immense extent of land, where the flocks, increasing rapidly, brought in a considerable fortune to M. Rouvier in a few years. His sons-in-law, General Potier and M. Vassal inherited it, and formed those great establishments of which we have spoken. Thenceforth the stock of merinos increased with incredible rapidity in New Russia; but an enormous fall in the price of wool soon occurred, and many proprietors have now reason to regret their outlay in that branch of rural economy, and are endeavouring to get rid of their flocks. The rams which fetched 500 or 600 francs in 1834 and 1835, were not worth more than 250 or 300 in 1841. In 1842, a landowner of our acquaintance had made up his mind to part with his best thorough-bred rams for 140 and even 100 francs a head. The exportation of wool increased, nevertheless, during the last years of our stay in Russia; but this was only because the landowners, after holding out a long while, found themselves at last constrained to accept prices one-half lower than those current a few years before, and to dispose of the wools they had long kept in their warehouses. Here was another instance of the disastrous consequences of the Russian prohibitive system; it has been as fatal to the wool-trade as to that in corn.

Clarofka is a village consisting of fifteen or twenty houses, each containing two families of peasants. It is some distance from the farm, which alone contains more dwellings and inmates than the whole village.

The steward resides in a very long, low house, with small windows in the Russian fashion, and an earthen roof, and standing at the edge of a large pond, the fetid exhalations from which are very unwholesome during the hot season. A few weeping-willows wave their branches over the stagnant water, and increase still more the melancholy appearance of the spot. The pond is frequented by a multitude of water-fowl, such as teal, gulls, ducks, pelicans, and kourlis, that make their nests in the thick reeds on the margin. Beside the house, according to the Russian custom, stand the kitchens and other offices, the icehouse, poultry-yard, wash-house, cellar for fruit and vegetables, &c. A little further on are the stables and coach-houses, containing a great number of carriages, caleches, droshkies, and a dozen horses; other buildings, including the workmen's barracks, the forge, the gardener's and the miller's dwellings are scattered irregularly here and there. Two great wind-mills lift their huge wings above the road leading to the village. All this is not very handsome; but there is one thing indicative of princely sumptuousness, namely, an immense garden that spreads out behind the house, and almost makes one forget the steppes, so thick is the foliage of its beautiful alleys. One is at a loss to conceive by what miracle this park, with its large trees, its fine fruit, and its charming walks, can have thus sprung up out of the scorched and arid soil, that waits whole months for a few drops of water to clothe it in transient verdure. And indeed to create such an oasis in the heart of so barren a land, there needed not one miracle, but a series of miracles of perseverance, toil, and resolution, seconded by all the means at the disposal of a Russian lord. All kinds of fruit are here collected together; we counted more than fifty varieties of the pear in one alley. Grapes of all kinds, strawberries, beds of asparagus of incomparable flavour, every thing in short that the most capricious taste can desire, grows there in such abundance, that seeing all these things one really feels transported into the midst of regions the most favoured by nature.

No one but a Russian lord could have effected such metamorphoses. Master of a whole population of slaves, he has never to pay for labour; and whims which would be ruinous to others, cost him only the trouble of conceiving them. In the dry season, which often lasts for more than five months, chain pumps worked by horses supply water to every part of this extensive garden, and thus afford what the unkind skies deny it. The work to be done in the spring season generally requires the labour of more than 200 pair of hands daily, and during the rest of the year three-score peasants are constantly employed in pruning the trees, plucking up the weeds that rapidly spring up in the walks, training the vines, and attending to the flowers. In return for all this expenditure the general has the satisfaction of seeing his table covered with the finest fruits and most exquisite preserves; and for one who inhabits a desert these things unquestionably have their value. On the whole Clarofka is a real pays de cocagne for good cheer: the steppes abound with game of every kind, from grouse to the majestic bustard. A hunter is attached to the farm, and daily supplies the table with all the delicacies of this sort which the country affords. The sea also contributes abundance of excellent fish. It is evident, therefore, that in a gastronomic point of view it would be difficult to find a more advantageous residence; but this merit, important as it is, fails to make amends for the intolerable ennui one labours under in Clarofka. Thanks to the garden, one may forget the steppe during the fine season; and then there is the amusement of fishing, and of picking up shells on the sea-shore, so that one may contrive to kill time passably well. But what are you to do in winter, when the snow falls so thickly that you cannot see the houses, particularly when the metel turns the whole country topsy-turvy? No language can give an idea of these metels or hurricanes. They come down on the land with such whirling and driving gusts, such furious and continuous tempests, such whistlings and groanings of the wind, and a sky so murky and threatening, that no hurricane at sea can be more alarming. The snow is now piled up like a mountain, now hollowed into deep valleys, and now spread out into rushing and heaving billows; or else it is driven through the air like a long white veil expanding and folding on itself until the wind has scattered its last shreds before it. In order to pass from one house to another, people are obliged to dig paths through the snow often two yards deep. Whole flocks of sheep, surprised by the tempest not far from their folds, and even herds of horses, have been driven into the sea and drowned. When beset by such dangers their instinct usually prompts them to cluster together in a circle and form a compact mass, so as to present less surface to the metel. But the force of the wind gradually compelling them forwards, they approach the shore, the ground fails them, and finally they all disappear beneath the waves. These tempests are generally succeeded by a dead calm, and an intense cold that soon changes the surface of the Dniepr and the sea-shore into a vast mirror. This is the most agreeable part of the winter. The communications between neighbours are renewed; sporting expeditions on a great scale, excursions in sledges, and entertainments within doors follow each other almost without interruption. Despite the intensity of the cold, the Russians infinitely prefer it to a milder temperature, which would put a stop to their business as well as to their pleasures. The great fairs of the empire generally take place in winter; for then the frozen lakes and rivers serve the inhabitants as a safe and rapid means of communication. In this way they traverse immense distances without quitting their sledges, and even without perceiving whether they are on land or water. Wrapped up in their furs they encounter with impunity a temperature of 35° for several consecutive days, without any other auxiliaries than brandy and tea, which they consume in fearful quantities. During our winter residence in Clarofka, we had an opportunity of convincing ourselves that people suffer much less from cold in northern than in southern countries.

In Constantinople, where we had passed the preceding winter, the cold and the snow appeared to us insupportable in the light wooden houses, open to every wind, and furnished with no other resource against the inclemency of the weather than a manghal, which served at best only to roast the feet and hands, whilst it left the rest of the body to freeze. But in Russia even the mujik has constantly a temperature of nearly 77° in his cabin in the very height of winter, which he obtains in a very simple and economical manner. A large brickwork stove or oven is formed in the wall, consisting of a fireplace and a long series of quadrangular flues ending in the chimney and giving passage to the smoke. The fire is made either of kirbitch[2] or of reeds. When these materials are completely consumed, the pipe by which the flues communicate with the chimney is hermetically closed, and the hot air passes into the room by two openings made for that purpose. Exactly the same apparatus is used in the houses of the wealthy. The stoves are so contrived that one of them serves to heat two or three rooms. The halls, staircases, and servants' rooms, are all kept at the same temperature. But great caution is necessary to avoid the dangers to which this method of warming may give rise. I myself was saved only by a providential chance from falling a victim to them. I had been asleep for some hours one night, when I was suddenly awakened by my son, who was calling to me for drink. I got up instantly, and without waiting to light a candle I was proceeding to pour out a glass of water, but I had scarcely moved a few steps when the glass dropped from my hand and I fell, as if struck with lightning, and in a state of total insensibility. I had afterwards a confused recollection of cries that seemed to me to have come from a great distance; but for two minutes I remained completely inanimate, and only recovered consciousness after my husband had carried me into an icy room and laid me on the floor. My son suffered still more than myself, but it happened most strangely that my husband was not in the smallest degree affected, and this it was that saved us. The cause of this nocturnal alarm was the imprudence of a servant who had closed the stove before all the kirbitch was consumed; this was quite enough to make the atmosphere deadly. All the inmates of the house were more or less indisposed.

The hothouse temperature kept up in all the apartments cannot fail to act injuriously on the health. For more than ten months the outer air is never admitted into the house, and foreigners are affected in consequence with an uneasy sense of oppression and a sort of torpor that almost incapacitates them for thinking. As for the Russians, who are habituated to the thing from their childhood, they suffer little inconvenience from it; nevertheless many maladies probably owe their origin to this artificial warmth, which is equally enervating for body and mind. To this cause, no doubt, we must attribute the utter absence of blooming freshness from the cheeks of the Russian ladies. Incapable of enduring the slightest change of temperature, they have not the least idea of the pleasure derived from inhaling the fresh air, and braving the cold by means of brisk exercise. But for dancing, of which they are passionately fond, their lives would pass away in almost absolute immobility, for lolling in a carriage is not what I call putting oneself in motion. There is scarcely any country where women walk less than in Russia, and nowhere do they lead more artificial lives. We had a Russian family for two months at Clarofka, returning from the waters of the Caucasus, and waiting until the sledging season was fully set in, to get back to Moscow. This family, consisting of a husband and wife and the sister of the latter, was a great godsend for us during part of the winter. Madame Bougainsky is a very clever young woman, equally well acquainted with our literary works as with our Parisian frivolities. But dress and play are for her the two grand concerns of life, and all the rest are but accessories. I do not think she went out of doors three times during her two months' stay in Clarofka. The habit of living in the world of fashion and in a perpetual state of parade had taken such inveterate hold on her, that, without thinking of it, she used to dress three or four times a day, just as if she were among the salons of Moscow. I learned from her that the Russian ladies are as fond of play as of dancing, and that many ruin themselves thereby. On the whole, there is little poetry or romance in the existence of Russian women of fashion. The men, though treating them with exquisite politeness and gallantry, in reality think little about them, and find more pleasure in hunting, smoking, gaming, and drinking, than in lavishing on them those attentions to which they have many just claims. The Russian ladies have generally little beauty; their bloom, as I have said, is gone at twenty; but if they can boast neither perfect features nor dazzlingly fair complexions, there is, on the other hand, in all their manners remarkable elegance, and an indescribable fascination that sometimes makes them irresistible. With a pale face, a somewhat frail figure, careless attitudes, and a haughty cast of countenance, they succeed in making more impression in a drawing-room than many women of greater beauty.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Liman, a Tartar word signifying harbour, is the name given to the gulfs formed by the principal rivers of Southern Russia before their entrance into the sea.

[2] Kirbitch consists of dung kneaded into little bricks, and dried in summer. Along with straw and reeds, it forms the only firing used for domestic purposes. At Odessa, however, they procure firewood from Bessarabia, but it costs as much as ninety francs the cube fathom.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.

A propensity to sedentary habits is not peculiarly a female failing in Russia, as will appear from the following extract: "The Russian has as little taste for promenading on foot as any Oriental. Hence, with the exception of the two capitals, and the north-west provinces, in which German usages prevail, there are no public walks or gardens for recreation. True enjoyment, according to the notions of the genuine Muscovite, consists in sitting down to a well-furnished table, either in his own house or a neighbour's, and indulging after the repast in some game which requires the least possible exertion of body. Soon after my arrival in Kasan, I was glad to employ the early days of summer, which there begins at the end of May, in making pedestrian excursions in the neighbourhood, to the great and general surprise of my new friends, who could not conceive why I thus roamed like an idiot about the country, in which I had no business, as they very well knew. It was conjectured that I was ill, and had adopted this laborious discipline as a mode of cure; but even under this interpretation my proceedings seemed very strange to them, for their own invariable practice when they feel unwell, is to go to bed immediately. In one of my walks I fell in with an acquaintance, who asked me what took me to the village, to which he supposed I was going. On my replying, that I had nothing whatever to do there, and that as yet I had neither seen the village nor any of its inhabitants, he said then of course I was going to look at it. No, I told him, that was not my intention, for I knew very well I should see nothing there different from any of the other villages in the vicinity. 'Well, then, Daddy (batiushka),' said my puzzled and curious friend, 'do tell me, what is it you are afoot for?' 'I am afoot, simply for the sake of being afoot,' was my answer, 'for the pleasure of a little exercise in the open air.' My friend burst into a loud fit of laughter at this explanation of my rambling habits, which had so long been an enigma to himself and every body else. To walk for walking sake! He had never heard any thing like that in all his life, and it was not long before this most novel and extraordinary phrase ran the round of the whole town, so that even to the following year it remained a standing joke against me in every company I entered."—Von Littrow.

Suffocating vapours.—Accidents like that which befel Madame Hommaire, are unavoidably frequent under such a system of warming, and with servants so negligent as those in Russia; but happily they do not often end fatally. The worst result of them is generally a violent headache, all trace of which disappears the following day. Incredible as it may appear, the common people take pleasure in the sort of intoxication produced by the inhalation of diluted carbonic acid, and purposely procure themselves that strange enjoyment on leisure days. "They close the stoves before the usual time, and lie down on them; for in the peasants' houses the stoves are so constructed as to present a platform, on which the family sleep in winter. On entering a cabin on these occasions, you see the inmates lying close together on their bellies, chatting pleasantly with one another. Their faces are tumid and of a deep red hue, from the effects of the noxious gas. There is an unusual lustre in their protruding eyeballs, and in short, they have all the outward appearance of intoxication, though the intellectual functions are not affected by the gas. The headache they suffer may, indeed, be a drawback to their pleasure, but the increased warmth thus obtained, is so delightful to them, that they are content to purchase it even at that price. There is no mistaking their evident enjoyment and satisfaction, though one may not be tempted to partake in their joy."

Another mode of obtaining artificial heat is practised in what the Russian peasants call their smoke-rooms. These rooms have but a few very small windows, just large enough to pass the head through, and seldom glazed, except with talc, where that mineral is abundant and cheap. Where this is not the case they are stopped up, in winter only, with moss and rags. When the fire is lighted, the chimney is closed, and the smoke escapes through the stove-door into the room. Being lighter than the cold air, it ascends at first, and hangs overhead in a thick cloud. But as its mass increases, it gradually descends, until there is no standing upright in the room without danger of suffocation. As the smoke approaches the floor, so too do the inmates, first stooping, then kneeling, sitting, and at last lying prone. If the smoke threatens quite to reach the ground, they open the windows or air-holes, which are not quite level with a man's head, and the black vapour rushes out. The under part of the room is thus left free, the prostrate inmates gradually rise, and set about their occupations in the clear warm space below. The first time I entered one of these dark sooty dens, I was so disgusted with it, that I should not have hesitated in my choice between a prison and so horrible an abode. I was, therefore, not a little surprised when I saw the inmates lying on the floor, gossiping quite at their ease, and bandying about jokes that will hardly bear repeating, but which manifested a degree of mirthfulness in these people I had, until then, thought quite impossible."—Idem.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN EARTHQUAKE—LUDICROUS ANECDOTE—SLEDGING—SPORTING— DANGEROUS PASSAGE OF THE DNIEPR—THAW; SPRING-TIME—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE LITTLE RUSSIANS—EASTER HOLIDAYS—THE CLERGY.

That same winter at 10 P.M. on the 11th of January, we had a smart shock of earthquake, but which happily did no mischief in that part of the steppes. We were seated at the whist table, when we were suddenly startled by a loud rolling noise, that seemed rapidly approaching us, and the cards dropped from our hands. The sound was like that of a large heavily-laden waggon rattling over the pavement. Scarcely two seconds after our first surprise the whole house received a sudden shock, that set all the furniture in motion, before the idea of an earthquake had occurred to our minds. This first shock was followed by another of longer duration, but less alarming character; it was like the undulation of the waves when they are seeking to recover their equilibrium. The whole house was filled with dismay, except the party in the drawing-room; with us surprise prevailed over fear, and we remained motionless as statues, whilst every one else was running out of doors. The earthquake, of which mention has been made in several journals, gave occasion to a ludicrous story that was related to us some days after.

One of the general's peasants, an old fellow whose conscience was no doubt burthened with some weighty sin, imagined when he felt his house dancing like a boat on the waves, that the devil in person was come to bid him prepare to accompany him to the bottomless pit. Tearing out his hair by the roots, bawling, roaring, and crossing himself, he begins to confess his sins aloud, and gives himself up to the most violent terror and despair. His wife, who was no less alarmed, accused her husband of all sorts of wickedness; the husband retorted on the wife, and the whole night was passed in unspeakable confusion. The day dawned, but brought no comfort to the unfortunate sinner, whose spirits were all in a ferment, like new wine. Fully assured that the devil would soon come and lay his claws on him, he had no thought of going to his daily work. His wife was equally regardless of her household cares; what was the use of her preparing the porridge, when she and her husband were sure of breakfasting with Lucifer? So there they sat, waiting the fatal moment, with an anxiety that would have petrified them at last, but for an unexpected incident. All the other peasants, probably having less on their consciences, had been a-field since dawn. The head man of the village missed Petrovitch and his wife; he waited for them some hours, and at last bent his steps towards their cabin, calculating as he went how many stripes of the knout he should administer to them for their unpardonable neglect of duty. He steps in, but no one seems to notice his presence. Petrovitch sits huddled together in a corner, staring before him with glassy eyes; whilst his wife, on her knees before a picture of St. Nicholas, never for a moment interrupts her crossings and lamentations. "Hallo! what's all this?" cries the overseer, "have you lost your wits, and don't you know that you ought to have been at work hours ago?" "Oh Ivan Ivanovitch, it's all over; I shall never work again." "Not work again, wont you? we shall see. Come, start, booby!" And down comes the knout on the back of the peasant, who receives the blows with the most stoical composure. "O beat me if you like; it's all the same. What signify a few blows more or less, when a body is going to be roasted with the fiends?" "What on earth do you mean?" said the puzzled overseer; "what has happened to you to make you talk such nonsense?" "Nonsense here, or nonsense there, I have had a warning in the night." Ivan now recollected the earthquake, and suspecting he had found a clue to the mystery, burst into a hearty fit of laughter. "Oh, you may laugh; but you don't know that I am a great sinner, and that the devil came last night to claim my soul." After amusing himself sufficiently with the man's terrors, the overseer had the utmost difficulty in convincing him that all the other houses had been shaken like his own, and that the devil had nothing to do with the matter.

Sledge driving is one of the greatest amusements of the Russian winter. The horses, stimulated by the cold, sweep with you over the plain with the most mettlesome impetuosity. In the twinkling of an eye, you have left behind you the whole surface of a frozen lake, measuring several versts in length. It is a downright steeplechase: the keenness of the air, the rapid motion, the shouts of the driver urging the willing steeds, the vast plain that seems to enlarge as you advance, all produce an intense excitement, and pleasurably dispel the torpor caused by the indolent life of the steppes. We frequently crossed the Dniepr in this manner, to drive about the streets of Kherson, where all the fashion of the neighbourhood rendezvous from noon to two o'clock. It is an exercise which has as much charm for the Russians as for foreigners; the smallest landowner, or the lowest clerk in a public office, though he earns but a few rubles a year, must have his sledge and his two horses, if he starves for it half the year. At the usual hour you may reckon more than a hundred sledges of every form, most of them covered with rich rugs and furs, chasing each other through the streets, and each containing a gentleman and lady, and a driver furred from head to foot. This sort of amusement is an admirable aid to coquetry. Nothing can be more fascinating than those female figures wrapped up in pelisses, and with their faces dimly seen through their blonde veils; appearing for an instant, and then vanishing into the vaporous atmosphere, followed by many a tender glance.

I must say a few words as to the field sports of the steppes. Shooting parties use a very long low carriage called a dolgushka, and accommodating more than fifteen persons seated back to back. The feet rest on a board on each side about a foot from the ground. Behind the driver is a large box for holding provisions and all the accoutrements of the sportsmen; and the game is received in another box fixed at the end of the carriage. Nothing can be more convenient for country parties. The dolgushka is drawn by four horses yoked abreast; birds are much less afraid of it than of a man on foot, and come near enough to allow the sportsman to shoot without alighting. Parties often amounting to many hundreds, both nobles and peasants, assemble for the pursuit of wolves, foxes, and hares. The usual scene of these hunts is a desert island belonging to General Potier. They begin by a general beating of the steppes, whereupon the wild animals cross the ice to the little island, thinking to be safe there from the balls of their pursuers; but their retreat is soon invaded. The hunters form a circle round the island, and then begins a slaughter that for some time clears the country of those sheep devourers. Two or three battues of this kind take place every year, chiefly for the purpose of destroying the wolves that come in flocks and carry dismay into the sheep-folds.

Among the peculiarities presented by the plains of the Black Sea, I must not omit to mention the extensive conflagrations that regularly take place in winter, and remind one of the scenes witnessed by many travellers in the prairies of America. In Russia, it is the inhabitants themselves who set fire to the steppes, thinking that by thus clearing away the withered herbage from the surface, they favour the growth of the new grass. But the flames being often driven by the winds in all directions, and over immense surfaces, now and then occasion great disasters; and there have been instances in which sheep-folds and whole flocks have been consumed.

The thaw begins on the Dniepr, about the end of March. It is preceded by dull cracklings and muffled sounds, giving token that the river is awakening from its long icy sleep, and is about to burst its prison. All communication between the farms and Kherson is interrupted for more than six weeks; posts of Cossacks stationed along the banks, give notice of the danger of crossing; but as the temperature is continually changing at that season, the final break-up does not take place for a long while.

At the beginning of the thaw we persisted in going to Kherson, in opposition to all advice. When we came to the banks of the Dniepr and manifested our intention of crossing, all the boatmen stared at us in amazement, and not one of them would let us hire his sledge. We were therefore about to give up our project, when we saw two or three gentlemen coming towards us on foot across the Dniepr, followed by an empty sledge. They told us that the river was partially clear of ice opposite Kherson, and that it would be extremely dangerous to attempt crossing in a sledge. They had left Kherson at six in the morning, (it was then ten) and had been all that time engaged in effecting their passage. They united with the boatmen in dissuading us from undertaking such a journey, the danger of which was now the greater, inasmuch as the sun had acquired much power since the morning; but all was of no avail; their sledge which they placed at our disposal decided the business, and we embarked gaily, preceded by a boatman, whom our example had encouraged, and who was to sound the ice before us. A glowing sun streamed over the vast sheet of ice, raising from it a bluish vapour, which the driver and the guide watched with lively anxiety. Notwithstanding their looks of uneasiness we pushed on rapidly, and the boatman was oftener on the sledge than in advance of it. By and by, however, the sounds of cracking ice growing more and more frequent, rather cast a gloom over our imaginations, and made us begin to fear that we should meet with more serious obstacles further on. We saw the ice melting in some degree beneath the rays of the sun, and gradually parting from the shores of the islands we were coasting; and what still more augmented our uneasiness, was the elasticity of the ice, which bent very visibly under the motion of our sledge. Its gradual rise and fall seemed like the breathing of the river, becoming more and more distinct as the ice diminished in thickness. As our guide still continued to advance, we had no other course than to follow him, and so we came to an arm of the Dniepr, which is much dreaded on account of its current, the rapidity of which does not allow the ice to acquire much solidity even in the most intense frosts. We all proceeded to cross it on foot, each maneuvering as best he could on a surface as smooth as a mirror. At last, notwithstanding our zigzags, our tumbles, and the splitting of the ice, we found ourselves safe over the perilous passage, very much delighted at having escaped so well, and at feeling solid ground under our feet. We had then more than two versts to travel over an island, before we came to the branch of the river opposite Kherson. With the utmost confidence, then, we seated ourselves once more in the sledge, and bounded away at full speed over a soft surface of snow melting rapidly in the sun. But it is always when the mind is most at ease, that accidents seem to take a malicious pleasure in surprising us. A wide crevice, which the driver had not time to avoid, suddenly yawned athwart our course; the sledge was immediately upset, and we were all pitched out. My husband, who was seated on the top of the baggage, was quite stunned by the blow; the driver and the guide, who were thrown a considerable distance from the sledge, remained motionless likewise; and as for me, I found myself rolled up in my pelisse in the middle of a bush. When I cast a look on my companions in misfortune, they were beginning to stir and to feel themselves all over. They seemed in no hurry to get up, and they cut such piteous figures, that I could not help laughing most heartily. Notwithstanding our bruises we were soon on our legs, with the certainty that none of our bones were broken. The driver limped back to his seat, in great amazement at not receiving a severe castigation for his awkwardness. Had this mishap occurred to Russians, the poor fellow would not have escaped with less than a sound drubbing. We were more magnanimous, and imputed wholly to fortune an accident which, indeed, could not easily have been avoided.

Our journey continued without much to alarm us, until we were just about to commit ourselves to the wide arm of the Dniepr, that still lay between us and the town. Its surface presented an appearance that was really frightful. Enormous banks of ice were beginning to move, and had already left a great part of the river exposed. Besides this, the ice that still remained fixed, was so intersected with clefts, that we could not advance without serious danger. Our position was becoming more and more critical, and we were thinking of returning to the island we had just left, and waiting until a boat could take us across to Kherson; but as there would probably have been as much risk in returning as in proceeding, we continued our route but with the utmost caution. The first glow of exulting boldness was over, and we sorely regretted our temerity. The floor that separated us from the waters seemed so treacherous, that we every moment despaired of escape. This state of perplexity lasted more than an hour; but at last we reached the vessels that were ice-locked at some distance from the harbour. We were now in safety, and we finished our perilous expedition in a boat.

Two days afterwards a southerly wind had almost completely swept away the immense sheet of ice that for so many months had imprisoned the waters of the Dniepr. The thaw took place so rapidly, that the river was free before any one could have noted the progress of its deliverance. In eight days there was not a vestige of ice, and we returned to Clarofka, without experiencing any of the emotions we had felt on our first rash and picturesque expedition. But this mild weather, very unusual in the month of March, soon gave place to sharp frosts, which renewed the winter mantle of the Dniepr, and did not entirely cease until the beginning of April. At this season the steppes begin to be clothed with a magnificent vegetation, and in a few days they have the appearance of a boundless meadow, full of thyme, hyacinths, tulips, pinks, and an infinity of other wild flowers of great sweetness and beauty. Thousands of larks nestle in the grass, and carol everywhere over the traveller's head. The sea, too, partakes in the common gladness of the general season. Its shells are more beautiful and more numerous; its hues are more varied, and its murmurs gentler. Plants and animals seem all in haste to live and reproduce their kind, as if they foresaw the brief duration of these pleasant days. Elsewhere, summer is often but a continuation of spring; fresh blossoms come forth, and nature retains her vital power for a long period; but here a fortnight or three weeks are enough to change the vernal freshness of the landscape into a sun-burnt waste. In all these countries there are really but two seasons; you pass from intense cold to a Senegal heat; without the body having time to accustom itself to this sudden change of temperature. The sea-breezes alone make it possible to endure the heat which in July and August almost always amounts to 94° or 95°.

The thing to which the stranger finds it most difficult to accustom his eyes in Russia, is the horrible sheep-skins in which men, women, and children are muffled at all times of the year. These half-tanned skins, which are worn with the wool inwards, give them a savage appearance, which is increased in the men by the long beard and moustaches they invariably wear. Yet there are handsome faces to be seen among the Russian peasants, and in this respect Nature has been much more liberal to the men than to the women, who are generally very ugly. The dress of the latter consists in a shift with wide sleeves, fitting tight round the throat, and trimmed with coloured cotton, and a petticoat fastened below the bosom. Instead of a petticoat, girls commonly wear a piece of woollen stuff, which laps across in front, without forming a single plait, and is fastened by a long, narrow scarf, embroidered at the ends. Their legs are quite bare, and any rather sudden movement may open their singular garment more than is consistent with decorum. On holidays they add to their ordinary attire a large muslin cap, and an apron of the same material, adorned with a wide flounce. Their hair is tied up with ribands, into two tresses, that fall on their shoulders, or are twisted into a crown on the top of the head. When they marry, they cease to wear their hair uncovered; a handkerchief of a glaring colour is then their usual head-dress. We are now speaking only of the women of Little Russia; but those of Great Russia retain the national costume called serafine, which is very picturesque, and is still worn at court on special occasions.

The women of Little Russia, accustomed to field labour from their childhood, and usually marrying at the age of fifteen or sixteen, are old before they have reached their thirtieth year; indeed, one can hardly say when they cease to be young, since they never exhibit the bloom of youth. Whether a Russian woman's age be fifteen, twenty, or thirty, it is all one in the end. Immediately after childhood, her limbs are as masculine, her features as hard, her skin as tanned, and her voice as rough as at a more advanced age. So much has been written about the relaxed morals and the drunkenness of the Russian peasants, that we need not dwell on the subject. We shall only say that their deplorable passion for strong liquors, is continually on the increase, and that most of the young women are as much addicted to them as the old. It frequently happens that a peasant and his wife go on Sunday to a kabak, drench themselves with brandy, and on their way back fall dead drunk into some gully, where they pass the whole night without being aware of their change of domicile.

A fondness for dancing is another distinguishing characteristic of this people. You often see a party of both sexes assemble after work, and continue dancing all the evening. The Ruthenians are remarkable for their gaiety and extreme indifference to worldly cares. Leaving to their masters the whole trouble of providing for their lodging and maintenance, they never concern themselves about the future. Their tasks once ended, they think only of repose, and seldom entertain any idea of working for themselves. When you pass through their villages, you never see the peasants busy in repairing their hedges, cultivating their gardens, mending their implements, or doing any thing else that bespeaks any regard for domestic comforts. No—the Russian works only because he is forced to do so; when he returns from his labour, he stretches himself out to sleep on his stove, or goes and gets drunk at the next kabak. A curious custom I have noticed in Southern Russia, and which is common to all classes, is that of chewing the seeds of the melon or the sunflower, from morning till night. In order to indulge this taste, every one dries in the sun the seeds of all the melons he eats during the summer, and puts by his stock for the winter. I have seen many wives of pometchiks (landowners) pass their whole day in indulging this queer appetite.

In Russia, as in all imperfectly civilised countries, religious ceremonies still retain all their ancient influence. They afford the peasant a season of pleasure and emancipation, that makes him for a moment forget his thraldom, to revel in intoxication. Full of superstition, and indolent to an extreme degree, he longs impatiently for the interval of relaxation that allows him to indulge his favourite propensities. For him the whole sum and substance of every religious festival consists in cessation from toil, and in outward practices of devotion that bear a strong impress of gross idolatry. The Russian thinks he perfectly understands and fulfils his religion, if he makes innumerable signs of the cross and genuflections before the smoky picture that adorns his isbas, and scrupulously observes those two commandments of the Church, to fast and make lenten fare. His conscience is then quite at ease, even though it should be burdened with the most atrocious crimes. Theft, drunkenness, and even murder, excite in him much less horror than the mere idea of breaking fast or eating animal food on Friday.

Nothing can exceed the depravity of the Russian clergy; and their ignorance is on a par with their vicious propensities. Most of the monks and priests pass their lives in disgraceful intoxication, that renders them incapable of decently discharging their religious duties. The priestly office is regarded in Russia, not as a sacred calling, but as a means of escaping from slavery and attaining nobility. The monks, deacons, and priests, that swarm in the churches and monasteries, are almost all sons of peasants who have entered the Church, that they may no longer be liable to the knout, and above all to the misfortune of being made soldiers. But though thereby acquiring the right to plunder the serfs, and catechise them after their own fashion, they cannot efface the stain of their birth, and they continue to be regarded by the nobility with that sovereign disdain which the latter profess for all who are not sprung from their own caste. The great and the petty nobles are perfectly agreed in this respect, and it is not uncommon to see a pometshik raise his hand to strike a pope, whilst the latter humbly bows his head to receive the chastisement. This resignation, which would be exemplary if it were to be ascribed to evangelical humility, is here but the result of the base and crouching character of the slave, of which the Russian priest cannot divest himself, even in the midst of the highest functions of his spiritual life.

The appearance of the popes provokes equal disgust and astonishment. To see those men, whose neglected beards, besotted faces, and filthy dress, indicate a total want of all decent self-respect, it is impossible to persuade oneself that such persons can be apostles of the divine word. As usual in the Greek Church, they are all married and have large families. You may look in vain in their dwellings for any indication of their sacred character. A few coarsely-coloured pictures of saints, and a few books flung into a corner of the room, in which the whole family are huddled together, are the only marks of the profession exercised by the master of the house. As they receive nothing from the state, it is the unfortunate serfs who must support their establishments, and even supply them with the means of indulging their gluttony and drunkenness. It is particularly on the eve of a great Church festival, that the Russian priest is sure of an abundant harvest of poultry, eggs, and meal. Easter is the most remarkable of these festivals, and lasts a whole week. During the preceding seven weeks of Lent, the Russian must not eat either eggs, meat, fish, oil, butter, or cheese. His diet consists only of salted cucumbers, boiled vegetables, and different kinds of porridge. The fortitude with which he endures so long a penance, proves the mighty influence which religious ideas possess over such rude minds. During the last few days that precede the festival, he is not allowed to take any food before sunset, and then it may be fairly admitted that brandy is a real blessing for him.

It is impossible to imagine all the discussions that take place between the popes and the peasants on these occasions. As the Russian must then fulfil his religious duties, whether he will or not, he is at the mercy of the priest, who of course makes him pay as dearly as he can for absolution, and keeps a regular tariff, in which offences and punishments are set down with minute precision. Thus for a theft, so many dozens of eggs; for breach of a fast, so many chickens, &c. If the serf is refractory, the punishment is doubled, and nothing can save him from it. The thought of complaining to his lord of the pope's extortionate cupidity never enters his head; for assuredly, if he were to adopt such a course, he would think himself damned to all eternity.

As long as the holidays last, the lords keep open table, and every one is free to enter and take part in the banquet. Such was the practice of the knias (princes) and boyards of old, who lived as sovereigns in their feudal mansions, and extended their hospitality to all strangers, without distinction of country or lineage. Many travellers allege that this patriarchal custom still prevails in some families of Great Russia. But here, except on gala days, most of the pometshiks live in such a shabby style, as gives but a poor idea of their means or of their dispositions.

To return to our Easter holidays: the last week of Lent is employed in making an immense quantity of cakes, buns, and Easter bread, and in staining eggs with all sorts of colours. A painter was brought expressly from Kherson to our entertainer's mansion for this purpose, and he painted more than 1000 eggs, most of them adorned with cherubims, fat-cheeked angels, virgins, and all the saints in paradise. The whole farm was turned topsy-turvy, the work was interrupted, and the steward's authority suspended. Every one was eager to assist in the preparations for merry making; some put up the swings, others arranged the ball-room; some were intent on their devotions, others half-smothered themselves in the vapour baths, which are one of the most favourite indulgences of the Russian people: all in short were busy in one way or other. A man with a barrel organ had been engaged for a long while beforehand, and when he arrived every face beamed with joy. The Russians are passionately fond of music. Often in the long summer evenings, after their tasks are ended, they sit in a circle and sing with a precision and harmony that evince a great natural aptitude for music. Their tunes are very simple and full of melancholy; and as their plaintive strains are heard rising at evening from some lonely spot in the midst of the desert plain, they often produce emotions, such as more scientific compositions do not always awaken.

At last Easter day was come. In the morning we were greatly surprised to find our sitting-room filled with men who were waiting for us, and were meanwhile refreshing themselves with copious potations of brandy. The evening before we had been sent two bottles of that liquor, and a large basket of cakes and painted eggs, but without any intimation of the use they were to be put to; but we at once understood the meaning of this measure, when we saw all these peasants in their Sunday trim, and a domestic serving out drink to them, by way I suppose of beguiling the time until we made our appearance.

The moment my husband entered the room, all those red-bearded fellows surrounded him, and each with great gravity presented him with a painted egg, accompanying the gift with three stout kisses. In compliance with the custom of the country my husband had to give each of them an egg in return, and a glass of brandy, after first putting it to his own lips. But the ceremony did not end there: Kooda barinya? kooda barinya? (where is madame), nadlegit (it must be so), and so I was forced to come among them and receive my share of the eggs and embraces. During all Easter week the peasant has a right to embrace whomsoever he pleases, not even excepting the emperor and the empress. This is a relic of the old patriarchal manners which prevailed so long unaltered all over northern Europe. In Russia, particularly, where extremes meet, the peasant to this day addresses the czar with thou and thee, and calls him father in speaking to him.

When we had got rid of these queer visitors we repaired to the parlour, where the morning repast was served up with a profusion worthy of the times of Pantagruel. In the centre of the table stood a sucking pig flanked with small hams, German sausages, chitterlings, black puddings, and large dishes of game. A magnificent pie containing at least a dozen hares, towered like a fortress at one end of the table, and seemed quite capable of sustaining the most vehement onslaught of the assailants. The sondag and the sterlet, those choice fish of Southern Russia, garnished with aromatic herbs, betokened the vicinity of the sea. Imagine, in addition to all these things, all sorts of cordial waters, glass vases filled with preserves, and a multitude of sponge cake castles, with their platforms frosted and heaped with bonbons, and the reader will have an idea of the profuse good cheer displayed by the Russian lords on such occasions.

General Potier, surrounded by all his household retinue, and by some other guests, impatiently awaited the arrival of the pope, whose benediction was an indispensable preliminary to the banquet. He arrived at ten o'clock precisely, accompanied by a monk, and began to chant a hallelujah, walking two or three times round the table; then blessing each dish separately, he concluded by bravely attacking the sucking pig, to the best part of which he helped himself. This was the signal to begin; every one laid hold on what he liked without ceremony; the pie, the hams, and the fish, all vanished. For more than a quarter of an hour nothing was to be heard but a continual noise of knives and forks, jaws munching, and glasses hobnobbing. The pope set a bright example, and his rubicund face fully declared the pleasure he took in fulfilling such functions of his office.

The Russians in general are remarkable for gluttony, such as perhaps is without a parallel elsewhere. The rudeness of their climate and their strong digestive powers would account for this. They make five meals daily, and those so copious and substantial that one of them would alone be amply sufficient for an inhabitant of the south.

During the repast a choir of girls stood before the windows and sang several national airs in a very pleasing style; after which they received the usual gratuity of nuts with tokens of the liveliest glee. The Russians are strict observers of all ancestral customs, and Easter would be no Easter for them if it came without eggs or nuts.

On leaving the breakfast table we proceeded to the place where the sports were held; but there I saw nothing of that hearty merriment that elsewhere accompanies a popular holiday. The women, in their best attire, clung to the swings, I will not say gracefully, but very bodily, and in a manner to shame the men, who found less pleasure in looking at them than in gorging themselves with brandy in their smoky kabaks. Others danced to the sound of the organ with cavaliers, whose zigzag movements told of plenteous libations. Some old women nearly dead drunk went from one group to another singing obscene songs, and falling here and there in the middle of the road, without any one thinking of picking them up.

We noticed on this occasion an essential characteristic of the Russian people. In this scene of universal drunkenness there was no quarrelling; not a blow was struck. Nothing can rouse the Russians from their apathy; nothing can quicken the dull current of their blood; they are slaves even in drink.

Next day we went to dine with one of the general's neighbours, who gave us a most sumptuous reception. Before we sat down to table, we were shown into a small room with a side-board loaded with cold meat, caviar, salted cucumbers, and liqueurs, all intended to whet our appetites. This collation, which the Russians call sagouska, always precedes their meals; they are not content with their natural appetite, but have recourse to stimulants that they may the better perform their parts at table.

All the time of dinner we were entertained by a choir of forty young men who sang some fine harmonised pieces, and some Cossack airs that pleased us much. Our entertainer was one of the richest landowners in New Russia, and his manner of living partakes of many of the old national usages. His musicians are slaves taught by an Italian long attached to the establishment in the capacity of chapel master.

Such are the Easter festivities. As the reader will perceive, they consist on the whole in eating and drinking inordinately. The whole week is spent in this way, and during all that time the authority of the master is almost in abeyance; the coachman deserts the stables, the cook the kitchen, the housekeeper her store-room; all are drunk, all are merry-making, all are intent on enjoying a season of liberty so long anticipated with impatience.

The rejoicings in the town are of the same character. The katchellni, a sort of fair lasting three days, brings together all classes of society. The nobles and the government servants ride about in carriages, but the populace amuse themselves just as they do in the country, only they have the pleasure of getting drunk in better company.

CHAPTER IX.

EXCURSION ON THE BANKS OF THE DNIEPR—DOUTCHINA—ELECTION OF THE MARSHALS AND JUDGES OF THE NOBILITY AT KHERSON—HORSE-RACING—STRANGE STORY IN THE "JOURNAL DES DÉBATS"—A COUNTRY HOUSE AND ITS VISITERS—TRAITS OF RUSSIAN MANNERS—THE WIFE OF TWO HUSBANDS—SERVANTS—MURDER OF A COURIER—APPENDIX.

We left Clarofka in May, to explore the banks of the Dniepr, and the shores of the Sea of Azov. The object we had in view was purely scientific, but the journey became doubly interesting by affording us a closer insight into the habits of Russian society, and the manner in which noble families live on their estates. I had intended to visit Taganrok, but on this occasion I proceeded no further than Doutchina, the property of a Baroness de Bervick, who most hospitably insisted on my remaining with her whilst my husband was continuing his geological researches in the country of the Cossacks.

Doutchina is situated on the post-road from Kherson to Iekaterinoslav, in a broad ravine formed by a brook that falls into the Dniepr a little way from the village. From the high ground over which the road passes, the eye suddenly looks down on a beautiful landscape—a most welcome surprise for the traveller who has just passed over some hundred versts of uncultivated plains.

In Russia, travelling is not, as elsewhere, synonymous with seeing new sights. In vain your troïka bears you along with dizzy speed; in vain you pass hours, days, and nights in posting; still you have before your eyes the same steppe that seems to lengthen out before you as you advance, the same horizon, the same cold stern lines, the same snow or sunshine; and nothing either in the temperature or the aspect of the ground indicates that you have accomplished any change of place.

It is only in the vicinity of the great rivers that the country assumes a different aspect, and the wearied eye at last enjoys the pleasure of encountering more limited horizons, a more verdant vegetation, and a landscape more varied in its outlines. Among these rivers, the Dniepr claims one of the foremost places, from the length of its course, the volume of its waters, and the deep bed it has excavated for itself athwart the plains of Southern Russia. But nowhere does it present more charming views than from the height I have just mentioned and its vicinity. After having spread out to the breadth of nearly a league, it parts into a multitude of channels, that wind through forests of oaks, alders, poplars, and aspens, whose vigorous growth bespeaks the richness of a virgin soil. The groups of islands capriciously breaking the surface of the waters, have a melancholy beauty and a primitive character scarcely to be seen except in those vast wildernesses where man has left no traces of his presence. Nothing in our country at all resembles this kind of landscape. With us, the creature has everywhere refashioned the work of the Creator; the mark of his hand appears even on the most inaccessible mountains; whereas, in Russia, where the nobles are the sole proprietors, nature still remains, in many places, just as God created it. Thus these plavniks[3] of the Dniepr, seldom touched by the woodman's axe, have all the wild majesty of the forests of the new world. For some time after my arrival at Doutchina, I found an endless source of delight in contemplating those majestic scenes, lighted by a pale sky, and veiled in light mists, that gave them a tinge of sadness, sometimes more pleasing than the glare of noon.

Doutchina, situated, as I have said, on a ledge of a ravine that ends in the plavniks, is altogether unlike the other villages of Russia. Its pretty cottages, separated by gardens and groups of fruit-trees, its picturesque site and magnificent environs, strikingly remind one of the Danube, near Vienna. The whole country, as far as one can see from the highest point of the road, belongs to the Baroness of Bervick, and forms one of the most valuable estates in the neighbourhood. But her residence is strangely unsuited to her fortune, being a mere cabin, open to every wind, and fit, at most, for a sporting lodge. As we looked on this shabby abode, we were amazed that a wealthy lady, still young and handsome, should be content to inhabit it, and to endure a multitude of privations, which we should have thought intolerable to a person of her station. At the time we became this lady's guest, she had left France about eighteen months, to reside on this property, bequeathed to her by her late husband.

Some days after my husband's departure we set out for Kherson, where the elections of the marshals and judges of the nobility were soon to take place. All the great families of the government of Kherson were already assembled in the town, and gave it an appearance of animation to which it had long been a stranger. These elections, which take place only every three years, are occasions for balls and parties, to which the pometchiks and their wives look forward with eager anticipation. For more than a fortnight the town is thronged with officers of all ranks, and elegant equipages with four horses, that give the streets and promenades an unusually gay appearance. The Russians spare no expense on these occasions of display. Many a petty proprietor's wife, who lives all the year on kash[4] and dried fish, contrives at this period to out-do the ladies of the town in costly finery.

The amusements began with a horse-race, which made some noise in the world in consequence of an article in the Journal des Débats. Those who have any curiosity to know how one may mystify a newspaper, and amuse oneself at the expense of a credulous public, have but to read a certain number of the year 1838, which positively alleges, that forty ladies, headed by the young and beautiful Narishkin, appeared on the course as jockeys, rode their own horses, &c., and a thousand other things still more absurd and incredible. All I can say of this race, at which I was present, is, that it was like every other affair of the kind, and was not distinguished by any remarkable incident or romantic adventure. Eight horses started, one of which belonged to the Countess Voronzof and another to General Narishkin, and the riders were not lovely ladies, but rather clumsy grooms. The first prize, a large silver cup worth 1500 rubles, was won by the Countess Voronzof's Atalanta: the second was carried off by the general's horse. Such is the way in which these things always end, and the consequence may very likely be, that the races will cease altogether. The landowners know very well that their horses stand no chance against those belonging to great people, and as they are sure of being beaten they will at last grow tired of the mock contest. The Countess Voronzof ought to consider that these races are not merely an amusement, but that they were instituted for the purpose of encouraging the improvement of the breed of horses.

After the race there was a grand dinner at the general commandant's, which was attended by all the rank and fashion then assembled in Kherson. It was at this dinner I first remarked the custom observed by the Russians of placing the gentlemen on one side of the table and the ladies on the other, a custom both unsightly and injurious to conversation. It has almost fallen into disuse in Odessa, like all the other national practices; but in the provincial towns it would still be thought a deadly insult to a lady to help her after a gentleman, and no doubt it is in order to avoid such a breach of politeness that the ladies are all ranged together in one row.

The nobility of the district gave a grand ball that evening in one of the club-rooms, and there I noticed all the contrasts that form the ground-work of Russian manners. The mixture of refinement and barbarism, of gallantry and grossness, which this people exhibits on all occasions, shows how young it still is in civilisation. Here were officers in splendid uniforms and ladies blazing with diamonds, dancing and playing cards in a very ugly room with old patched and plastered walls, dimly lighted by a few shabby lamps, and they were as intent on their pleasures as if they were in a court drawing-room, and never seemed to think that there was any thing at all offensive to the sight in the accommodations around them. The refreshments, consisting of dried fruits and eau sucrée, were in as much demand as the best ices and sherbets could have been. The same inconsistency was displayed in the behaviour of the gentlemen towards the ladies. Though ready, like the Poles, to drink every man of them to his fancy's queen out of the heel of her shoe, they did not think it unbecoming to take their places alone in the quadrilles, neither troubling themselves to go in search of their partners nor escorting them back to their seats after the dance. Setting aside, however, this total want of tact, they perfectly imitate all the outward shows and forms of politeness.

A final ball, given by the governor at the conclusion of the election, was much more brilliant than those of the noblesse, and satisfied my critical eye in every respect. Every thing testified the taste and opulence of our entertainer. A splendid supper was served up at midnight, and a chorus of young lads sang some national airs, full of that grave and melancholy sweetness that constitutes the charm of Russian music. When the champagne was sent round the governor rose and made a speech in Russian, which was responded to by a general hurrah: the healths of the emperor, the empress, and the rest of the imperial family, were then drunk with shouts of joy; the married ladies were next toasted, then the unmarried, who were cheered with frantic acclamations. These duties being accomplished, the company returned to the ball-room, where dancing was kept up until morning. This entertainment was perfect in its kind; but, in accordance with the national habits, it was destined to end in an orgy. We learned the next day that the dawn had found the gentlemen eating, drinking, and fighting lustily. It was reckoned that 150 bottles of champagne were emptied on this occasion, and as the price of each bottle is eighteen francs, the reader may hence form some idea of Russian profusion.

Two days afterwards we left Kherson for the country seat of the marshal of the nobles, where a large party was already assembled. The manner in which hospitality is exercised in Russia is very convenient, and entails no great outlay in the matter of upholstery. Those who receive visiters give themselves very little concern as to whether their guests are well or ill lodged, provided they can offer them a good table; it never occurs to them that a good bed, and a room provided with some articles of furniture, are to some persons quite as acceptable as a good dinner. Whatever has no reference to the comfort of the stomach, lies beyond the range of Russian politeness, and the stranger must make up his account accordingly. As we were the last comers, we fared very queerly in point of lodging, being thrust four or five of us into one room, with no other furniture than two miserable bedsteads; and there we were left to shift for ourselves as we could. The house is very handsome in appearance; but for all its portico, its terrace, and its grand halls, it only contains two or three rooms for reception, and a few garrets, graced with the name of bed-rooms. Ostentation is inherent in the Russian character, but it abounds especially among the petty nobles, who lavish away their whole income in outward show. They must have equipages with four horses, billiard-rooms, grand drawing-rooms, pianos, &c. And if they can procure all these superfluities, they are quite content to live on mujik's fare, and to sleep in beds without any thing in the shape of sheets.

Articles of furniture, the most indispensable, are totally unknown in the dwellings of most of the second-rate nobles. Notwithstanding the vaunted progress of Russian civilisation, it is almost impossible to find a basin and ewer in a bed-room. Bedsteads are almost as great rarities, and almost invariably you have nothing but a divan on which you may pass the night. You may deem yourself singularly fortunate if the mistress of the mansion thinks of sending you a blanket and a pillow; but this is so unusual a piece of good luck that you must never reckon upon it. In their own persons the Russians set an example of truly Spartan habits, as I had many opportunities of perceiving during my stay in the marshal's house. No one, the marshal himself not excepted, had a private chamber; his eldest daughter, though a very elegant and charming young lady, lay on the floor, wrapped up in a cloak like an old veteran. His wife, with three or four young children, passed the night in a closet that served as boudoir by day, and he himself made his bed on one of the divans of the grand saloon. As for the visiters, some slept on the billiard-table; others, like ourselves, scrambled for a few paltry stump bedsteads, whilst the most philosophical wore away the night in drinking and gambling.

I say nothing as to the manner in which the domestic servants are lodged; a good guess as to this matter may be easily made from what I have just said of their masters. Besides, it is a settled point in Russia never to take any heed for servants; they eat, drink, and sleep, how and where they can, and their masters never think of asking a word about the matter. The family whose guests we were was very large, and furnished us with themes for many a remark on the national usages, and the notions respecting education that are in vogue in the empire. A Swiss governess is an indispensable piece of furniture in every house in which there are many children. She must teach them to read, write, and speak French, and play a few mazurkas on the piano. No more is required of her; for solid instruction is a thing almost unknown among the petty nobles. A girl of fifteen has completed her education if she can do the honours of the drawing-room, and warble a few French romances. Yet I have met with several exceptions to this rule, foremost among which I must note our host's pretty daughter Loubinka, who, thanks to a sound understanding and quick apprehension, has acquired such a stock of information as very few Russian ladies possess.

It is only among those families that constantly reside on their estates that we still find in full vigour all those prejudices, superstitions, and usages of old Russia, that are handed down as heir-looms from generation to generation, and keep strong hold on all the rustic nobility. No people are more superstitious than the Russians; the sight of two crossed forks, or of a salt-cellar upset, will make them turn pale and tremble with terror. There are unlucky days on which nothing could induce them to set out on a journey or begin any business. Monday especially is marked with a red cross in their calendar, and woe to the man who would dare to brave its malign influence.

Among the Russian customs most sedulously preserved is that of mutual salutations after meals. Nothing can be more amusing than to see all the persons round the table bowing right and left with a gravity that proves the importance they attach to a formality so singular in our eyes. The children set the example by respectfully kissing the hands of their parents. In all social meetings etiquette peremptorily requires that the young ladies, instead of sitting in the drawing-room, shall remain by themselves in an adjoining apartment, and not allow any young man to approach them. If there is dancing the gravest matron in the company goes and brings them almost by force into the ball-room. Once there they may indulge their youthful vivacity without restraint; but on no pretext are they to withdraw from beneath the eyes of their mothers or chaperons. It would be ruinous to a young lady's reputation to be caught in a tête-á-tête with a young man within two steps of the ball-room. But all this prudery extends no further than outward forms, and it would be a grand mistake to suppose that there is more morality in Russia than elsewhere. Genuine virtue, such as is based on sound principles and an enlightened education is not very common there. Young girls are jealously guarded, because the practice is in accordance with the general habits and feelings of the country, and little reliance is placed in their own sense of propriety. But once married, they acquire the right of conducting themselves as they please, and the husband would find it a hard matter to control their actions. Though divorces are almost impossible to obtain, it does not follow that all wives remain with their husbands; on the contrary, nothing is more common than amicable arrangements between married people to wink at each other's peccadilloes; such conventions excite no scandal, and do not exclude the wife from society. One of these divorces I will mention, which is perhaps without a parallel in the annals of the civilised world.

A very pretty and sprightly young Polish lady was married to a man of great wealth, but much older than herself, and a thorough Muscovite in coarseness of character and habits. After two or three years spent in wrangling and plaguing each other, the ill-assorted pair resolved to travel, in the hopes of escaping the intolerable sort of life they led at home. A residence in Italy, the chosen land of intrigues and illicit amours, soon settled the case. The young wife eloped with an Italian nobleman, whose passion ere long grew so intense that nothing would satisfy him short of a legal sanction of their union. Divorces, as every one knows, are easily obtained in the pope's dominions. Madame de K. had therefore no difficulty in causing her marriage to be annulled, especially with the help of her lord and master, who, for the first time since they had come together, agreed with her, heart and soul. Every thing was promptly arranged, and Monsieur carried his complaisance so far as to be present as an official witness at Madame's wedding, doubtless for the purpose of thoroughly making sure of its validity. Three or four children were the fruit of this new union; but the lady's happiness was of short duration. Her domestic peace was destroyed by the intrigues of her second husband's family; perhaps, too, the Italian's love had cooled; be this as it may, after some months of miserable struggles and humiliations, sentence of separation was finally pronounced against her, and she found herself suddenly without fortune or protector, burdened with a young family, and weighed down with fearful anticipations of the future. Her first step was to leave a country where such cruel calamities had befallen her, and to return to Podolia, the land of her birth. Hitherto her story is like hundreds of others, and I should not have thought of narrating it had it ended there; but what almost surpasses belief, and gives it a stamp of originality altogether out of the common line, is the conduct of her first husband when he heard of her return. That brutal, inconstant man, who had trampled on all social decencies in attending at the marriage of his wife with another, did all in his power to induce her to return to his house. By dint of unwearied efforts and entreaties he succeeded in overcoming her scruples, and bore her home in triumph along with her children by the Italian, on whom he settled part of his fortune. From that time forth the most perfect harmony subsists between the pair, and seems likely long to continue. I saw a letter written by the lady two or three months after her return beneath the conjugal roof; it breathed the liveliest gratitude and the fondest affection for him whom she called her beloved husband.

The Russians pique themselves greatly on having a large retinue of servants; the smallest proprietor never keeps fewer than five or six; yet this does not prevent their houses from being, without exception, disgustingly dirty. Except the state-rooms, which the servants make a show of cleaning, all the rest of the house is left in a state of filth beyond description. The condition of these domestic servants is much less pitiable than one would suppose; they are so numerous that they have hardly any thing to do, and spend half the day in sleeping. The canings they receive from time to time do not at all ruffle their good humour. It is true they fare horribly as to victuals, and have no other bed than the bare ground; but their robust constitutions enable them easily to endure the greatest privations, and if they have salted cucumbers, arbutus berries, and kash, they scarcely envy their masters their more nutritious viands.

After some ten days spent very agreeably in the house of the marshal of the nobles, we at last set out on our return for Doutchina, where my husband was soon to meet us again. On arriving at the third post-station, we were surprised to find the house filled with Cossacks and police-officers. Neither postmaster, horses, nor coachmen, were to be seen, and it was plain some extraordinary event had taken place. We were presently informed that a murder had been committed two days before, at a very short distance from the station, on the person of a courier, who had a sum of 40,000 rubles in his charge. The following are the details communicated to us on the subject. A courier arrived at the post-station in the evening, having with him a small valise containing a considerable amount of property. He drank a few glasses of brandy with the postmaster before he resumed his journey, and told him he was not going further than Kherson, and would return that way next day.

That same night some peasants found a deserted carriage on the highway, near Kherson, and were soon satisfied on examining it, that a crime had been committed in it. Several pieces of silver coin were scattered in the straw, as if some one had forgotten them there in his haste, and copious marks of blood were discernible on the ground and in the carriage. These facts were communicated to the police, inquiries were instituted, and the courier's body, with a deep gash in the head, was found in a ditch two or three versts from the station. The driver had disappeared, and the postmaster, an unfortunate Jew, who was perhaps innocent of all participation in the crime, was immediately taken to prison. Such was the state of the case when we arrived at the station and found it all in confusion, and filled with Cossacks.

This tragic event threw the whole country into agitation, but it was not until six weeks afterwards that the police at last succeeded in arresting the perpetrator of the deed, in consequence of quite new information, which gave a still stranger complexion to the whole story. By the murderer's own statement, it appeared that he belonged to a family of shopkeepers, and that he had given up his business only to execute a long cherished project. Some months before the murder he had gone into the Crimea, where he had taken pains to conceal his identity and baffle any attempt to track his steps, by letting his beard grow, adopting the habits and appearance of a mujik, and frequently changing his place of abode. When he thought his measures complete in this respect, he went and hired himself as postillion to the Jew, who kept the post-station before mentioned. He had been waiting more than a month for a favourable opportunity, when the unfortunate courier, who was his victim, arrived. He confessed he had hesitated for some moments before committing the murder, not from horror of the deed itself, but because he recognised in the courier an old companion of his boyhood. Twice, perceiving that the man was asleep, he had left his seat and got up behind the carriage with the intention of knocking him on the head; but twice his courage failed him; the third time, however, he drew the courier's own sabre and cleft his skull with it at a blow. Having secured the valise, he threw the corpse into a ditch, and continued his journey to within a short distance of Kherson, where he left the kibitka, changed his dress, cut off his beard, and then entered the city on foot. His family received him without the least suspicion, never doubting but that he came straight from the Crimea, and for more than six weeks he lived quite at his ease, making like every body else numberless conjectures respecting the event which was the constant theme of conversation. Meanwhile, several persons having been struck by the resemblance of his features to those of the postillion who had disappeared, they put the police on the alert, and he was arrested just as he was setting out for Bessarabia. He was condemned to a hundred strokes of the knout, and the postmaster was sent to Siberia. The children of the latter were enrolled as soldiers, and all he was worth became the booty of the police.

With such penal laws, Russia has little to fear from malefactors. Notwithstanding its vast extent and its thinly scattered population, the traveller is safer there than in any other country. But this state of things is to be ascribed rather to the political situation of the people, than to the strict administration of the police, and it is easy to conceive that in a country, in which there are none but slaves bound to the soil, highway robberies, generally speaking, are morally impossible, because they can scarcely ever yield any gain to their authors. There existed, nevertheless, in Bessarabia, from 1832 to 1836, a very formidable gang of robbers, of which the police found it extremely difficult to rid the country. The captain, of whom a thousand extraordinary tales are told, was a revolted slave, unconsciously playing the part of Fra Diavolo, in a corner of Russia. He waged war not against individuals, but against society. It is alleged, that he never killed any one, and that many a peasant found with him an asylum and protection. He was a daring fellow, beloved by his gang, and a merciless plunderer of landlords, and above all of Jews. It was not until the close of 1836 that he was taken, through the treachery of a girl he was attached to, who betrayed him to the officers of justice. He died under the knout; the death of their leader dispersed his gang, and they fell one by one into the hands of the police.

Some days after my husband's return, we took our leave of the baroness to return to Clarofka. Our main journey through the Kalmuck steppes and to the Caucasus, being fixed for the following spring, part of the winter was spent in making preparations for our departure. Count Voronzof most obligingly furnished us with letters for the governors and authorities of the countries we were to pass through.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The name applied collectively to the islands and channels formed by all the great rivers of Southern Russia.

[4] A favourite Russian dish, a sort of porridge of buckwheat or Indian corn.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX.

Petty Larceny.—"Highway robbery and burglary, with violence, are things wholly unknown in the greater part of Russia. The peasants laugh when they see foreigners travelling about with swords, pistols, and a whole arsenal of weapons. The Russian trader journeys from one end of the empire to the other, often with all he is worth in the world, and does not think it necessary even to carry a knife in his pocket; yet one never hears of their being robbed by force on the highways, at least in the parts of the country with which I was more intimately acquainted. Cases of the kind do indeed occur in the southern provinces, adjoining the Turkish dominions, and in Siberia, where so many malefactors are settled, and where there is often extreme distress. Some may be disposed to ascribe this unfrequency of highway robbery to the great remoteness of the villages from each other, and to the severity of the climate, which must deter rogues from remaining much in the open air, especially at night. But even in summer, and in the more populous regions, where the villages are tolerably close together, highway robbery is equally rare, and the absence of this crime seems to me attributable rather to the character of the people themselves, to whom the practice seems repugnant and unnatural. It were to be wished that they had the same instinctive aversion to robbery without violence, but this unfortunately is not the case. As I was a frequent sufferer from the nimbleness of their fingers, I had occasion enough to ponder on the causes of this striking propensity of theirs, and I came to the conclusion, paradoxical as it may perhaps seem, that it arises not so much from want of moral feeling as from want of intellectual cultivation. Most of the common folk who are given to this vice (for among educated persons it is as rare and is reputed as infamous as in any other country) see no harm at all in pilfering, and are, therefore, prone to practise it whenever they have an opportunity. I am fully persuaded that these people, who are often the most good-natured and even honest-hearted fellows, would desist from the practice if they were once taught to regard it in a different light, and were made conscious of its impropriety. This is a case as to which primary instruction, village schools, and church sermons, in the vernacular tongue, would deal most happily and beneficially for the morals of the nation. But village schools are rare, and sermons or religious instruction of any kind, are rarer still; books there are none, and if there were any the populace could not read them. What means then have they of becoming enlightened as to themselves and the things around them, and of correcting the views and notions handed down to them from generation to generation? Centuries ago they worked out for themselves their own system of ethics, if I may so speak, and they now make the best they can of it. Certain things, for instance, such as household furniture and the like, are regarded as sacred; the owners may leave them all night in the street, and be sure of finding them again in the morning, whereas there are a thousand other things which they cannot watch too carefully, though far less serviceable, and consequently less tempting. On the former there is a sort of interdict laid by tacit consent, whereas the latter are looked upon as common property. The same man who will not hesitate to pick another's pocket, or to filch something from his table, will never, even though quite safe from detection, open a closed door, or put his hand in at an open window to take any thing out of a room. He would call this 'stealing' (vorit,) and that has an ugly sound even in Russian ears, and is considered a great sin. But the first-mentioned little matters he looks on as allowed, or at least not forbidden, and he applies to them the endearing diminutive vorovat, a pretty, harmless word, not at all associated with the odious idea of thieving properly so called. To put this matter in a clearer light I will relate two little incidents that came under my own personal observation.

"I was once in the house of a common chapman on an affair of business, in which he behaved like an upright worthy man. We had finished the transaction between us, and were sipping our tea, when an old man with an open, honest-looking countenance, but very poorly clad, came in and offered the chapman a silver spoon for sale. After some chaffering the latter bought the spoon at a price much below its worth, and said, banteringly, as he paid over the money: 'Sukin tu sin, tu vorovat.' 'You pilfered it, you son of a b——.' (This last phrase, as I have elsewhere remarked, is practically equivalent to 'my good friend,' or the like.) The old man looked at him with a roguish twinkle of the eye, laid his hand on his breast, and said very gravely: 'Niet sudar, Bog podal,' 'No, sir, God bestowed it,' and then went quietly about his business. I often took pains to come at the special meaning of this 'Bog podal,' by a series of indirect questions, and every time I became more and more assured that by many persons the phrase was understood as signifying a sort of divine permission to steal.

"The second anecdote is perhaps still more characteristic. In the year 1816 I was on my way with a German friend to the country-seat of Count S. We thought we were the only persons in our little open carriage who understood the German language, in which we conversed, when, to our surprise, our long-bearded ishvorshtik (coachman) joined in the discourse with great fluency, though his German was somewhat broken. Observing our astonishment, he told us that he had been in Germany, and had served in a detached corps of the army, which had been organised in the form of a landwehr, or local militia: he had passed a summer in Saxony, and seen Leipsig, Dresden, Wittenberg, &c. All this he told us with an air of no small self-complacency. 'And how did you like Germany?' said I. 'Why, pretty well,' he answered, 'only for one thing that I could not abide at all.' He might have settled there advantageously, and his colonel would have given him his discharge, as the corps was to be disbanded; but this one thing he talked of was not to be got over, and so he had preferred to return home. 'And what was this thing that stuck so in your stomach?' 'Sir,' said he, turning to us with one eye half shut, and speaking almost in a whisper, 'Sudar, vorovat ne velat,' 'Sir, they won't allow a body to do a wee bit of pilfering.' We were not a little confounded by this unexpected reply, and my friend, who had not been long in Russia, was beginning to lecture him on the enormity of such principles, when the coachman, who had no mind to hear a long sermon, laughingly cut short the preacher's harangue, and gave him to understand that he was wandering wide of the mark. 'O, you don't understand me, sudar, I don't mean stealing; of course not; I know very well it is a bad thing; I only mean vorovat, which surely ought to be allowed everywhere; leastways it ought to be allowed to a poor soldier.'

"The world is ruled by opinion: we should therefore try to set this governing power right, where we can, and where that may not be one, we should at least make the best use we can of it in the state in which we find it. Russia affords one striking exemplification of this wise system of compromise with reference to the subject we have been discussing. It is a received opinion among the populace, as I have said, that a man may filch a little from a stranger without being guilty of downright dishonesty, but to rob one's own master, is a grievous and unpardonable sin. Hence, the surest way of protecting yourself against a house-thief, when you once know him, is to take him into your service. From that moment you are not only safe from any larceny on his part, but you have secured besides the best watch against all other thieves, since it is a point of honour with him to prevent all acts of peculation that might entail suspicion on himself; and he knows practically all the tricks and stratagems against which he must be on his guard. An officer of high rank in the Russian army, a German by birth, told me, that once when his battalion had to encamp for several weeks together along with a Cossack pult, he and his men had like to be stripped of all they had by a continual course of thieving. Every morning brought a disastrous list of clothes missing, horse trappings carried off, &c. &c. More sentinels were placed, strict vigilance was observed, but every precaution failed. Almost at his wit's end, the officer complained to the hetman of the pult, and was advised by him to withdraw all his own sentries, and to make one of the Cossacks mount guard in his own quarters, and in every division of those occupied by his men. The German could not help thinking the proposed measure very like committing the fold to the custody of the wolf, but as he knew nothing better he could do, he adopted it, and from that moment all the thieving was at an end. The Cossacks always laid themselves down at nightfall right before the doors of the quarters and stables, and the officer never again heard even of any attempt to annoy him or his men. Such is the force of opinion, and of the manner in which these people (and all of us, too, if we will but own it) are in the habit of seeing things."—Von Littrow.

Von Littrow remarks that we ought not to be too hasty in laying to the account of moral depravity the nimbleness of finger of the Russian peasant, but consider whether even among the most civilised people there are not some relics of the olden barbarism, some striking deviations from moral propriety, which OPINION is pleased to look on with indulgence. Books change owners in the German universities by a surreptitious process, for which a slang word has been adopted. This kind of vorovat is called "shooting" (schiessen) and some very learned professors we are told, plume themselves on the skill with which they contrive to "shoot" rare specimens of natural history, &c. There are men otherwise of great probity and worth, who we fear are not always scrupulously careful to return a borrowed umbrella.

Russian Servants.—"Where a German would think himself very well off with the attendance of one woman servant, a Russian tradesman, in like pecuniary circumstances, keeps at least four; but the German's one servant does quite as much as the Russian's four put together. In the houses of the wealthy, the number of menservants amounts to fifty, sixty, and even a hundred or more. There is an intendant and a maître-d'hôtel, a couple of dozen of pages and footmen, the master of the house's own men, the lady's own men, and again own men for the young gentlemen and for the young ladies; then come the butlers, caterers, hunters, doorkeepers, porters, couriers, coachmen, and stable-boys, grooms and outriders, cooks and under-cooks, confectioners, stove-lighters, and chamber-cleaners, &c. &c., not to mention the female servants of all sorts. But the worst of the thing is the continual increase of this numerous body; for it is a matter of course in Russia that every married man who enters service takes his wife with him; his children, too, belong to the house and remain in it; nay, his kith and kin, if not actually domesticated in the establishment, take up their abode in it for days and weeks together, without demur; besides which, the friends and acquaintances of the servants may drop in when they please, and partake of bed and board. 'When I married,' said a wealthy Russian to me, 'I made up my mind to have no more of these good-for-nothing people in my house than were unavoidably necessary for myself and my wife, and I therefore restricted myself to forty, but after the lapse of three or four years, I remarked, to my great astonishment, that this number was already almost doubled.' In any other country, some three or four of these fellows would be thought enough to wait at table even in the best appointed houses; but in Russia, where dinner parties often consist of forty or fifty persons, there must be a servant behind every chair, or the whole set out would be considered extremely shabby. It was formerly the custom generally, and it is so still in the country-houses of the great, to have a footman constantly stationed in each of the rooms of the numerous suite of apartments, and one or two lads outside, their business being to do the office now performed by bells. An order given by the lord of the mansion in the innermost apartment, was transmitted from room to room, and from door to door, until it reached the last of the train, who fetched the article called for, and so it was passed from hand to hand until it reached the gosudar (the lord).

"A Polish countess told me, that she once called on Count Orloff on business, and while they were conversing, the count desired the servant who stood by the door, to call for a glass of water. The man disappeared for a moment to speak to his next neighbour, and immediately returned to his post; half-an-hour elapsed, and no water came. The thirsty count had to repeat the order, and turning to the countess, he said, 'See what a poor man I am; I have more than a hundred and twenty servants in this house alone, and if I want a glass of water, I cannot have it.' The countess smiled at the poor man, and told him that if he was a good deal poorer, and had but one servant, he would be better attended on. The Countess Orloff, his daughter, who inherited his whole fortune, is said to have upwards of 800 servants of both sexes in her palace at Moscow, and to maintain a special hospital for them."—Von Littrow.

CHAPTER X.

DEPARTURE FOR THE CASPIAN—IEKATERINOSLAV—POTEMKIN'S RUINED PALACE—PASKEVITCH'S CAUCASIAN GUARD—SHAM FIGHT—INTOLERABLE HEAT—CATARACTS OF THE DNIEPR—GERMAN COLONIES—THE SETCHA OF THE ZAPOROGUES—A FRENCH STEWARD—NIGHT ADVENTURE—COLONIES OF THE MOLOSHNIA VODI—MR. CORNIES—THE DOUKOBOREN, A RELIGIOUS SECT.

About the middle of May, 1839, we left the shores of the Black Sea, accompanied by a Cossack and an excellent dragoman, who spoke all the dialects current in Southern Russia. After we had travelled more than 100 leagues upwards along the banks of the Dniepr, we reached Iekaterinoslav, a new town, which about fifty years ago consisted only of some wretched fishermen's cabins, scattered along the margin of the river.

Iekaterinoslav, founded in 1784 by the great Catherine, who laid the first stone in the presence of the Emperor Joseph II., is built on such a gigantic plan as makes it a perfect wilderness, in which the sparse houses and scanty population seem lost, as it were. Its wide and regular streets, marked out only by a few dwellings at long intervals, seem to have been planned for a million of souls; a whole government would have to be unpeopled to fill them, and give them that life and movement so necessary to a capital. But there seems no likelihood that time will fill up the void spaces of this desert, for the number of its inhabitants has not much increased within forty years; it is a stationary town, which will probably never realise the expectations formed by the empress when she gave it her name. It contains, however, some large buildings, numerous churches, bazaars, and charming gardens. But for the absurd mania of the Russians for planning their towns on an enormous scale, it would be a delightful abode, rich in its beautiful Dniepr and the fertile hills around it.

But Iekaterinoslav possesses one thing that distinguishes it from all the towns with which Russian civilisation is beginning to cover the south of the empire; and that is Potemkin's palace and garden. The palace is in ruins though it was built for Catherine II., barely sixty years ago. The indifference of the Russians for their historical monuments is so great, that they hasten to destroy them, merely to clear the ground of things that have ceased to be of use.

The government, despotic as it is, unfortunately has not the power to stay the instinctive vandalism of its people. We will give melancholy proofs of this by and by, when we come to speak of the ancient tombs of the Crimea, so rich in objects of art, and so precious for their antiquity, yet which, in spite of the pretended care of the police, are day by day disappearing before the barbarous cupidity of the peasants, and still more of the employés.

To judge from its remains, Potemkin's palace appears to have been one of truly royal magnificence; on each side are still standing wings which must have contained a great number of apartments. There is a profusion of colonnades, porticoes, capitals, and beautiful cornices in the Italian style of the period; but all is at the mercy of the first peasant who wants stones or wood to repair his cabin. The ground is all strewed over with shapeless fragments, blocks of stone, and broken shafts. Nothing can look more sad than such skeletons of monuments which no accumulated ages have hallowed, and which have not even a veil of ivy to hide their decrepitude, nor any thing to throw a cast of dignity over their blank disorder. The feeling they impart is like that produced by the effects of an earthquake: no lesson given by the past, nothing for the imagination to feed on: no chronicles, no poetry.

The haughty Catherine little suspected that one day the serfs would carry away piecemeal that magnificent edifice planned by the inventive genius of her favourite, at the most brilliant period of her life. It was there she rested from the fatigues of her fantastic journey, and prepared herself for the new wonders that awaited her in the Crimea.

The amorous sovereign of the largest empire in the world, left the ices of St. Petersburg, and performed a journey of 1800 versts, to visit the richest jewel added to her imperial crown, that enchanting Tauris which Potemkin laid at her feet.

At intervals all along the route from Iekaterinoslav to Kherson, stand little pyramids surrounded by a balustrade, to mark the spots where the empress halted, changed horses, &c. In many places are still to be seen palaces that suddenly sprang up on her way, as if at the touch of an enchanter's wand. The whole tract of country is stamped with reminiscences of her grandeur, though she but passed rapidly through these deserts, which were metamorphosed beneath her glance into smiling and populous plains.

Of all these ephemeral palaces, that of Iekaterinoslav was the most worthy to harbour the imperial beauty. It stands on a gentle slope descending to the Dniepr, and is still surrounded with a magnificent park, presenting an admirable variety of sites and views: forests, labyrinths, and granite rocks, clothed with rich vegetation, with paths so capricious, thickets so dense, and resting-places so mysterious, that every step reveals some token of the genius of a courtier, and the power of an empress.

Opposite the palace a little granite island lifts itself above the waters of the Dniepr like a Nereid. Its sole inhabitants are some white albatrosses and an old forest-keeper, whose cabin is hidden among trees. He leads a true hermit life. His gun and his fishing-tackle supply his food; the bushes and briars yield him firing, and thus he finds every thing requisite for his wants within the limits of his retreat. He has a nutshell of a boat, in which he can visit every nook of the island shore, which he shares with the fowls of the air. Except a few fishermen, no one ventures to thread that labyrinth of rocks and whirlpools that render the Dniepr so dangerous hereabouts.

Besides Potemkin's Park, the town has another of great beauty, which serves as a public promenade. It is crowded twice a week, when a military band performs. Its extent, its broad sheets of water, its shady alleys and fine expanse of lawn, make it one of the handsomest gardens I have seen in Russia.

We spent a week in Iekaterinoslav under the roof of an excellent French family long settled in the country. The cloth factory of Messrs. Neumann is the only industrial establishment in the town. Their machines, imported from France and England, and their thorough knowledge of their business, enable them to give the utmost perfection to their goods, notwithstanding which M. Neumann assured us that he should certainly be obliged to shut up his establishment before the lapse of two years. We have already set forth the causes that obstruct the progress of manufactures in Russia, and completely paralyse the industrial efforts of the ablest men.

During our stay in Iekaterinoslav, we had all the pleasure of an excursion into the mountains of Asia, without the trouble of changing our place. It is only in Russia one can encounter such lucky chances. Three hundred mountaineers of the Caucasus arrived in the town, and by the governor's desire entertained the inhabitants with a display of their warlike games and exercises. They were on their way to Warsaw, to serve as a guard of honour for Paskevitch, the hero of the day. This whim of a man spoiled by fortune and the emperor, is tolerably characteristic of the Russians: merely to satisfy it, some hundreds of mountaineers had to quit their families, and traverse vast distances to go and parade on the great square of a capital.

The sight of those half-barbarians arriving like a torrent, and taking possession of the town as of a conquered place, was well calculated to excite our curiosity. We forgot time and place as we gazed on this unwonted spectacle, and seemed carried back among the gigantic invasions of Tamerlane, and his exterminating hordes of Asia, with their wild cries and picturesque costumes, swooping down with long lances and fiery steeds on old Europe, just as they appeared some centuries before, when they subjected all the wide domains of Russia to their sway.

These mountaineers are small, agile, and muscular. There is no saying how they walk, for their life is passed on horseback. There is in the expression of their countenances, an inconceivable mixture of boldness, frankness, and fierce rapacity. Their bronzed complexion, dazzlingly white teeth, black eyes, every glance of which is a flash of lightning, and regular features, compose a physiognomy that terrifies more than great ugliness.

Their manœuvres surpass every thing an European can imagine. How cold, prim, and faded seem our civilised ways compared with those impassioned countenances, those picturesque costumes, those furious gallops, that grace and impetuosity of movement, that belong only to them. They discharge their carbines on horseback at full speed, and display inimitable address in the exercise of the djereed. Every rider decks his steed with a care he does not always bestow on his own adornment, covering it with carpets, strips of purple stuffs, cashmere shawls, and all the costly things with which the plunder of the caravans can supply him.

The manœuvres lasted more than two hours, and afforded us an exact image of Asiatic warfare. They concluded with a general mêlée, which really terrified not a few spectators, so much did the smoke, the shouts, the ardour of the combatants, the discharges of musketry, and the neighings of the horses complete the vivid illusion of the scene. It was at last impossible to distinguish any thing through the clouds of dust and smoke that whirled round the impetuous riders.

Paskevitch will perhaps be more embarrassed with them than he expects. From the moment these lions of the desert arrived, the town was in a state of revolution. The shopkeepers complained of their numerous thefts, and husbands and fathers were shocked at their cavalier manners towards the fair sex.

Though it was but the beginning of June, the heat had attained an intensity that made it literally a public calamity. The hospitals were crowded with patients, most of them labouring under cerebral fevers, a class of affections exceedingly dangerous in this country. The dust lay so thick in the street, that the foot sank in it as in snow, and for more than a fortnight the thermometer had remained invariably at 84° R. You have but to visit Russia to know what is the heat of the tropics. We nevertheless carried away not a few agreeable recollections of Iekaterinoslav, thanks to its charming position, and some distinguished salons of which it has reason to be proud.

On leaving Iekaterinoslav we proceeded to the famous cataracts of the Dniepr, on which attempts have been ineffectually made for more than a hundred years to render them navigable, and in the vicinity of which there are several German colonies.

My husband having in the preceding year discovered a rich iron mine in this locality, we had to stop some time to make fresh investigations. I have already spoken so much of the Dniepr, that I am almost afraid to return to the subject. In this part of its course, however, there is nothing like the maritime views of Kherson, the plavnicks of the Doutchina, or the cheerful bold aspect of the vicinity of Iekaterinoslav. Near the cataracts, the river has all the depth and calmness of a beautiful lake; not a ripple breaks its dark azure surface. Its bed is flanked by huge blocks of granite, that seem as though they had been piled up at random by the hands of giants. Every thing is grand and majestic in these scenes of primeval nature; nothing in them reminds us of the flight and the ravages of time. There are no trees shedding their leaves on the river's margin, no turf that withers, no soil worn away by the flood: the scene is an image of eternal changelessness.

The Dniepr has deeps here which no plummet has ever fathomed, and the inhabitants allege that it harbours real marine monsters in its abysses. All the fishermen have seen the silurus, a sort of fresh water shark, capable of swallowing a man or a horse at a mouthful, and they relate anecdotes on this head, that transport you to the Nile or the Ganges, the peculiar homes of the voracious crocodile and alligator. One of these stories is of very recent date, and there are many boatmen who pretend to speak of the fact from personal knowledge. They positively aver, that a young girl, who was washing linen on the margin of the water, was carried down to the bottom of the Dniepr, and that her body never again rose to the surface.

A German village is visible on the other side of the river, at some distance from the house of Mr. Masure, the proprietor of the mine. Its pretty red factories with their green window-shutters, the surrounding forest, and a neighbouring island with cliffs glistening in the sun, fill the mind with thoughts of tranquil happiness. On the distant horizon the eye discerns the rent and pointed rocks, and the fleecy spray of the cataracts. Here and there some rocks just rising above the water, one of which, surnamed the Brigand, is the terror of boatmen, are the haunts of countless water-fowl, whose riotous screams long pursue the traveller as he ferries across from bank to bank. All this scene is cheerful and pastoral, like one of Greuze's landscapes; but the bare hills that follow the undulations of the left bank show only dreariness and aridity.

The Germans settled below the cataracts of the Dniepr are the oldest colonists of Southern Russia: their colony was founded by Catherine II., in 1784, after the expulsion of the Zaporogue Cossacks, who were removed to the banks of the Kouban. It is composed solely of Prussian Mennonites, and comprises sixteen villages, numbering 4251 inhabitants, very industrious people, generally in the enjoyment of an ample competence. Corn and cattle form the staple of their wealth, but they are also manufacturers, and have two establishments for making cotton goods, and one for cloth. These Mennonites, however, have remained stationary since their arrival in Russia: full of prejudices, and intensely self-willed, they have set their faces against all innovation and all intellectual development. One of their villages stands on the island of Cortetz, in the Dniepr, once the seat of the celebrated Setcha of the Zaporogue Cossacks. The Setcha, as the reader is perhaps aware, was at first only a fortified spot, where the young men were trained to arms, and where the public deliberations and the elections of the chiefs were held. Afterwards it became the fixed abode of warriors who lived in celibacy; and all who aspired to a reputation for valour were bound to pass at least three years there. I went over the island of Cortetz, and saw everywhere numerous traces of fortifications and entrenched camps. It would not have been easy to select a position more suited to the purpose the Cossacks had in view. The island is a natural fortress, rising more than 150 feet above the water, and defended on all sides by masses of granite, that leave scarcely any thing for art to do to render it impregnable.

We made our first halt, after our departure from the cataracts, at the house of a village superintendent, in whom we discovered, with surprise, a young Frenchman, with the most Parisian accent I ever heard. He is married to a woman of the country, and has been two years prigatchik (superintendent) in one of General Markof's villages. He placed his whole cabin at our disposal, with an alacrity that proved how delighted he was to entertain people from his native land. We had excellent honey, cream, and water-melons, set before us in profusion; but in spite of all our urgent entreaties, we could not prevail on him to partake with us. This made a painful impression on us. Is the air of slavery so contagious that no one can breathe it without losing his personal dignity? This man, born in a land where social distinctions are almost effaced, voluntarily degraded himself in our eyes, by esteeming himself unworthy to sit by our side, just as though he were a born serf, and had been used from his childhood to servility.

He gave us a brief history of his life, a melancholy tissue of disappointments and wretchedness, the narration of which deeply affected us. His ardour and his Parisian wilfulness, his efforts and his hopes, all the exuberance of his twenty years, were cast into a withering atmosphere of disgusts and humiliations, which at last destroyed in him all feeling of nationality: he is become a slave through his intercourse alike with the masters and with the serfs; and what completely proves this, is the cold-blooded cruelty with which he chastises the peasants under him. The whole village is struck with consternation at the punishments he daily inflicts for the most trivial offences. While he was conversing with us, word was brought him that two women and three men had arrived at the place of punishment in pursuance to his orders. Notwithstanding our entreaties, and the repugnance we felt at being so near such a scene, he ordered that they should each receive fifty blows of the stick, and double the number if they made any resistance. The wretched man thus avenges himself on the mujiks, for what he has himself endured at the hands of the Russian aristocracy, and it is at best a hazardous revenge; even for his own sake he ought not to exasperate the peasants, who sometimes make fearful reprisals; frequent attempts have already been made to assassinate him, and although the criminals have paid dearly for their temerity, he may one day fall a victim to some more cunning or more fortunate aggressor. Only the week before our visit, as his wife told us, a more daring attempt than any preceding one, had been made by a peasant who from the first had declared himself his enemy.

After a long walk in the fields, the superintendent sat down under the shade of some trees in a ravine. Overcome with heat and fatigue, he at last fell asleep, after placing his two pistols by his side. An instinctive fear possessed him even in sleep, and kept him sensible of the least noise around him. The body slept, but not the mind. Suddenly his ear catches a suspicious sound; he opens his eyes, and sees a mujik stooping down softly in the act of picking up one of his pistols. There was so much ferocity in the man's looks, and such a stealthiness in his movements, that there could be no doubt of his intentions. The superintendent, with admirable presence of mind, raised himself on his elbow, and asked, with a yawn, what he was going to do with the pistol; to which the mujik, instantly putting on an air of affected stolidity peculiar to the Russian serf, answered, that he was curious to see how a pistol was made. So saying, he handed the weapon to his master, without appearing in the least disconcerted. The unfortunate man nearly died under the knout, and the superintendent's wife remarked, with a naïveté, thoroughly Russian, that he would have done much better to die outright.

We had further opportunities in this village for remarking how little compassion the Russian peasants have for each other. They look on at the beating of a comrade without evincing the least sympathy, or being moved by so degrading a sight to any reflection on their unhappy condition; it seems as though humanity has lost all claim on their hearts, so completely has servitude destroyed in them all capability of feeling, and all human dignity.

We left this station about six in the evening, having still some twenty versts to travel before arriving at the first village of the German colonies of the Moloshnia, where we intended to pass the night. Thanks to the bad horses and the stupid driver our countryman had given us, we had scarcely got over a quarter of the ground when we were in total darkness.

The coachman was all black and blue from the brutal treatment of his master, who had given him half a dozen blows in our presence. The fellow was every moment changing his road at random, without regard to the fresh corrections of the same sort, which Antoine showered thickly upon him by way of admonition. He made us lose a great deal of time on the way, besides wearing out the strength of his cattle to no purpose.

Nothing can be more wearisome and monotonous than travelling in the steppes; but it is, above all, by night that the uniformity of the country is truly discouraging, for then you are every moment in danger of turning your back on the point you want to reach: you have an immensity like that of the sea around you, and a compass would be of real service. Such, however, is the instinct of the peasants, that they find their way with ease, in the darkest night or the most violent snow-storm, through tracks crossing each other in every direction.

Our driver was an exception to the general rule, but sulkiness had more to do than inability with his apparent embarrassment. Our perplexity increased considerably when we found that the horses at last refused to move. The night was very gloomy; there was not a twinkling of light, nor any sound or sign of human habitations; every fresh question we put to our driver only elicited the laconic answer, "nesnai" (I don't know); and when a Russian has said he does not know, no power of tongue or stick can make him say he knows. Of this we had a proof that night. Our Cossack, tired of vainly questioning the unlucky driver, began to tickle his shoulders with a long whip he carried at his girdle; but it was all to no purpose; and but one course remained to us, if we would not pass the night in the open air. The Cossack unharnessed one of the horses, and set off to reconnoitre. After an absence of two hours, he came back and told us we were not very far from a German village, and that we might reach it in two hours; that is to say, provided our horses would move; but they were dead beat.

Here, again, the Cossack relieved us from our difficulty, by yoking to the carriage a poor little colt that had followed its mother, without suspecting that it was that night to begin its hard apprenticeship. Weak as was this reinforcement, it enabled us to advance, though very slowly; but at last the barking of dogs revived the mettle of our horses, and they broke into a trot for the first time.

A forest of handsome trees and distant lights gave indubitable assurance of a village. It was not like the ordinary villages, collections of mean-looking kates rising like mushrooms out of the arid ground, without a shrub to screen them; we were entering the German colonies, and the odours from the blossoming fruit-trees, and the sight of the pretty little red houses of which we caught glimpses through the trees, soon carried us in imagination far away from the Russian steppes.

With as keen delight as ever oasis caused the desert wanderer, we entered this pretty village, the name of which (Rosenthal, Rosedale) gives token of the poetic feeling of the Germans. Its extensive gardens obliged us to make a long détour. The people were all in bed when we arrived, and we had much difficulty in finding the house of the schultz (the headborough). At last we discovered it, and the hospitable reception we met with soon made us forget the events of this memorable night.

The region occupied by these colonies is unlike the steppes, though the form of the ground is the same. The villages are very close to each other, are all built on the same plan, and are for the most part sheltered in ravines. The houses have only a ground-floor, and are built with wood or with red and blue bricks, and have very projecting roofs. Their parti-coloured walls, their carved wooden chimneys, and pretty straw roofs, that seem as neatly finished as the finest Egyptian mats, produce a charming effect as seen through the green trees of the gardens that surround them. They are almost all exactly similar, even to the most minute details: a few only are distinguished from the rest by a little more colouring or carving, and a more elegant balustrade next the garden.

The fields are in excellent cultivation; the pastures are stocked with fine cattle; and sheep-folds and wells placed here and there enliven the landscape, and break the fatiguing monotony of the plain; the whole face of the country tells of the thriving labours of the colonists. But one must enter their houses to appreciate the habits of order and industry to which they owe not only an ample supply for the necessaries of life, but almost always a degree of comfort rarely to be found in the dwellings of the Russian nobles. One might even accuse the good housewives of a little sensuality, to see their eider-down beds and pillows heaped almost up to the ceiling. You may be certain of finding in every house a handsome porcelain stove, a glazed cupboard, containing crockery, and often plate, furniture carefully scrubbed and polished, curtains to the windows, and flowers in every direction.

We passed two days in Orlof with the wealthiest and most philanthropic proprietor in all the German villages. M. Cornies came into the country about forty years ago, and started without capital, having like the others only a patch of land and some farming implements. After the lapse of a few years every one already envied his fortune, but all acknowledged his kindly solicitude for those who had been less prosperous than himself. Endowed with an active and intelligent character, and strongly interested in the cause of human improvement, he afterwards became the leader in the work of civilising the Nogai Tartars, and he now continues with very great success the work so ably begun by one of our own countrymen, Count Maison. M. Cornies is a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy, and has contributed to its Transactions several papers of learned research, and remarkable for the comprehensive scope of their ideas; hence he enjoys a great reputation not only among his countrymen, but likewise throughout all Southern Russia. His flocks, his nurseries, and his wools, are objects of interest to all persons engaged in trade, and his plans for the improvement of agriculture and cattle rearing, are generally adopted as models.

Though M. Cornies is worth more than 40,000l., his way of life is in strict conformity with the rigorism and simplicity of the Mennonites, to which sect he belongs. The habits of these sectarians are of an extreme austerity that strips domestic life of all its ordinary charms. The wife and daughters of a Mennonite, whatever be his fortune, are the only female servants in his house, and Madame Cornies and her daughters waited humbly on us at table, as though they had no right to sit at it with the head of the family. Notwithstanding this apparent inequality of the sexes, there is a great deal of happiness in the married life of the Mennonites; nor should it be forgotten that in judging of all matters appertaining to foreigners, we should endeavour to behold things in the peculiar light in which education and custom invest them for native eyes.

The dress of the women is like their habits of life, plain and simple. It consists invariably of a gown of blue printed cotton, the bodice of which ends just below the bosom, an apron of the same material, and a white collar with a flat hem; the hair is combed back à la Chinoise, and on it sits a little black cap without trimming, tied under the chin. This head-dress, which has some resemblance to that of the Alsatian women, sets off a young and pretty face to advantage, but increases the ugliness of an ugly one. The dress of the men is the same as that of the German peasants, with the exception of some slight modifications.

One dish of meat and two of vegetables, compose the whole dinner of a Mennonite; each person at table has a large goblet of milk set before him instead of wine, the use of which is altogether prohibited in their sect.

There are no regular priests in these colonies; the oldest and most esteemed members of each community, are elected to fulfil the office of the ministry. These elders read the Bible every Sunday, preach, and give out the hymns, which are sung by the whole congregation.

The Mennonites are generally well educated; but their information has no more than their wealth the effect of impairing the patriarchal simplicity of their habits. We happened to see a young man, belonging to one of the wealthiest families, on his return from a long foreign tour; he had visited France, Switzerland, and Germany, and yet it was with a most cordial alacrity he returned to share in the agricultural labours of his father and his brothers.

All these German colonies are divided into two distinct groups: the one established on the right bank of the Moloshnia Vodi[5] is composed of people from Baden and Swabia, and comprises twenty-three villages, with 6649 inhabitants; the other seated on the left coast of the Black Sea, and along the little rivulet Joushendli, contains forty-three Mennonite villages. As the latter is unquestionably the most important and thriving colony in Southern Russia, we will direct our attention to it almost exclusively.

The Mennonites, so called after the name of the founder of their sect, profess nearly the same religious principles as the Anabaptists of France. They first arose in Holland, the language of which country they still speak, and settled towards the close of the last century in Northern Prussia, in the vicinity of Dantzig. Attempts having been made about that time, to force them into military service, contrary to their tenets, a first migration took place, and the colony of Cortetz, below the cataract of the Dniepr, was founded under the auspices of Catherine II. That of Moloshnia Vodi, was founded in 1804, by a fresh body of emigrants; it was greatly enlarged in 1820, and at the end of the year 1837, it covered 100,000 hectares of land, and contained forty-three villages, with 9561 inhabitants, including 984 families of proprietors.

The non-agricultural population is composed of handicraftsmen of all sorts, some of whom are very skilful. Alpstadt, the chief place of the colony, has a cloth manufactory, in which seven looms are at work. Wages are very high; for almost all the workmen as soon as they have saved any money, give up their trade and addict themselves to agriculture.

Each village is under the control of a headborough, called the schultz, and two assistants. They are elected every three years, but one of them remains in office a year after the two others, that he may afford their successors the necessary current information. An oberschultz (mayor), who likewise has two assistants, resides in the chief place of the colony. These magistrates decide without appeal, in all the little differences that may arise between the colonists. Important cases are carried before the central committee. As for criminal cases, of which there has yet been no example, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Russian tribunals. Laziness is punished by fine and forced labour for the benefit of the community.

The inspector, who represents the government, resides in the Swabian colony, on the right bank of the Moloshnia. Odessa is the seat of the administrative council, which consists of a president and three judges, all Russians, nominated by the emperor. The committee exercises a general control over all the colonies, and ratifies the elections of the schultzes and their assistants. Its last president was the infantry general Inzof, a man remarkable for his personal character and the deep interest he took in the establishments under his direction.

Every proprietor has sixty-five hectares of land, for which he pays an annual quit-rent to the crown of fifteen kopeks per hectare; besides which he pays four rubles a year towards defraying the general expenses of the colony, the salaries of the committee, the inspector, the schoolmasters, &c. Each village has a granary for reserve against seasons of dearth; it must always contain two tchetverts of wheat for every male head.

The cattle is all under the management of one chief herdsman, at whose call they leave their stalls in the morning, and return in the evening to the village.

Every five or six years one or more new villages are established. A newly-established family does not at once receive its sixty-five hectares of land; if the young couple do not choose to reside with their parents, they generally build themselves a little house beyond the precincts of the village. But when the young families are become so numerous that their united allotments shall form a space sufficient for the pasture of their flocks in common, and for the execution of the agricultural works enjoined by the regulations, then, and not till then, the new colonists obtain permission to establish themselves on the uncultivated lands. At present the Mennonite colony possesses nearly 30,000 hectares of land not yet brought under the plough. Thus these Germans, transplanted to the extremity of Southern Russia, have successfully realised some of the ideas of the celebrated economist, Fourrier.

It will readily be conceived that under such a system of administration, and, above all, with their simple habits, their sobriety and industry, these Mennonites must naturally have outstripped the other colonists in prosperity. Those from Swabia and Baden, though subjected to precisely the same regulations, will never attain to the same degree of wealth. They are generally fond of good cheer, and addicted to drink; but they have, perhaps, the merit of understanding life better than their Puritanical neighbours, and of making the most of the gifts Providence has bestowed on them.

The Mennonite colony possessed at the close of 1837:—

These last have since perished for the most part. The sale of wheat in 1838, amounted to 600,000 rubles. The provisions for public instruction are highly satisfactory. The colony numbers forty schools, attended by 2390 pupils of both sexes, who are taught the German language, arithmetic, history, and geography. Russian is also taught in two of the schools.

The Mennonites, as well as the other German colonists of Southern Russia, for a long while enjoyed a very special protection on the part of the government; and both the present sovereign and his predecessor have on several occasions given them signal proofs of their favour. But unhappily their committee was suppressed eighteen months ago, and this measure will be fatal to them. They had long looked forward with alarm to a change in their affairs, and sent many deputations to St. Petersburg, to solicit a continuance of the original system: their efforts were ineffectual; the work of centralization and unity has involved them in their turn, and they are now in immediate dependence on the newly-constituted ministry of the domains of the crown. No doubt the government had a full right to act in this manner; and after having allowed the colonists to enjoy their peculiar privileges for such a long series of years, it may now, without incurring any obloquy, subject them to the ordinary system of administration prevalent in the empire. But it is not the less certain, seeing the corruption and venality of the Russian functionaries, that this change of system will lead to the ruin of the colonists, and that, notwithstanding all the efforts and the good intentions of the government, when once the Germans are put under the same management as the crown serfs, they will be unable to save their property from the rapacity of their new controlers. The colonies have been but a few months under the direction of the ministry of the domains, and already several hundred families have abandoned their dwellings and their lands, and retired to Germany. I saw a great number of them arrive in 1842, in Moldavia, where they thought to form some settlements; but they did not succeed.

Besides the German colonies of which we have been speaking, there are others in the environs of Nicolaïef and Odessa, in Bessarabia and the Crimea, and about the coasts of the sea of Azov. Altogether these foreign colonies in New Russia, number upwards of 160 villages, containing more than 46,000 souls. In the midst of them are several villages inhabited by Russian dissenters, entertaining nearly the same religious views as the Mennonites and Anabaptists. These are the Douckoboren and Molokaner, who separated from the national church about 160 years ago, at which time they were resident in several of the central provinces; but the government being alarmed at the spread of their doctrines, transported them forcibly to New Russia, where it placed them under military supervision. Here they admirably availed themselves of the examples set them by the Germans, and soon attained a high degree of prosperity. In 1839, they amounted to a population of 6617 souls, occupying thirteen villages. Most of their houses were in the German style, and every thing about them was indicative of plenty. Two years after this first visit to them, I met on the road from Taganrok to Rostof, two large detachments of exiles escorted by two battalions of infantry. They were the unfortunate dissenters of the Moloshnia, who had been expelled from their villages, and were on their way to the military lines of the Caucasus. The most perfect decorum and the most touching resignation appeared in the whole body. The women alone showed signs of anger, whilst the men sang hymns in chorus. I asked several of them whither they were going; their answer was "God only knows."