and shook hands over and over again, and then
sat down to eat and talk and drink, all of
which they did with a relish. When the second
bell rang, they got up with the rest, and, in
earnest conversation, took their way to our
train, got in, and sat down side by side. I found
my new friend even more primitive than the
other. As the train started, the crossing was
resumed, and then I had to undergo another
fire of questions. Endeavouring to amuse these
patriarchs as well as I could, the time passed
until we were approaching a station two hours
from Bullagonie.

"How different," said one, "is this from the
old road to Moscow! It took seven days and
about a hundred horses. Now, we do it without
horses in twenty hours."

"Yes," said the other, "and see how fast it
goes with such a heavy load. I cannot understand
how the steam drags it along. This
gentleman says that in England the steam is
stronger, and they go sixty versts an hour; but
it is a romance."

"It is wonderful, but"—and a bright idea
seemed to come into the speaker's head—"the
most wonderful thing to me, is, that here I am
going to Petersburg and you to Moscow, and
yet here we are in one carriage. Railways are
wonderful things. I cannot understand it."

There was general laughter, and the simple
old man, who had spoken in good time, was
put out at the station, there to wait the next
day's train. Many tales of this kind are told
of the bewildered notions of the peasantry
concerning railways.

The country through which this railway runs
is a weary waste of bog and stunted wood. The
eye and the mind sicken at the eternal sameness
of the dreary prospect, as hour after hour passes
and there is no change for the better. A dozen
or two apparently of mud heaps, in reality of
wooden huts, in the centre of a barren plain,
stand for a village. A stranger might pass
many such without knowing them to be human
habitations. Beavers are better housed. If we
look narrowly, we may perceive that the ground
for some distance around these places has been
scratched over, and that the vegetation is of rye
and beet, struggling out of the hungry earth.
The want of fences, trees, parks, animal or
human life, makes it difficult to believe that
such growths represent cultivation. The
principal stations are tastefully surrounded with
gardens and trees, and have in their neighbourhood
excellent dwelling-houses for the
superintendents and workmen engaged in the engine
depôt; but the moment we pass these oases, the
desert begins again.

The Tvere station is the most important on the
line; for, here is the navigable commencement
of that long river, the Volga, from which comes
much wealth of grain, flax, hemp, timber, and
all kinds of raw produce, not forgetting the
sturgeon, and, to a Russian, its delicious
"eckra," or caviare. At Tvere, also, the
traveller by rail may see, as he passes, two or three
immense cotton-mills, suggestive of protective
duties, with dear calicoes and prints, rich machine
makers and agents, sallow cheeks of peasant
boys and girls, condemned to night work, and day
slavery. The Great National Railway Line has
never paid the government a single copeck. It
has, however, made large fortunes for several
American contractors, who, for a fixed sum per
verst, furnish engines and carriages, and keep the
line in repair. Their contract is now about to
terminate, but it has been of so extraordinary a
character as to make it one of the curiosities of
Russia. Nicholas himself always recommended
strangers to see the American railway contract,
as one of his greatest curiosities. It must be
said, however, that if the American contractors
were cute enough to make an amazing bargain,
they have kept the line in splendid order, and up
to this moment it is not too much to say that
there are not better carriages, finer engines, and
a better plant in the world, than are to be
found on the Petersburg and Moscow Railway.

AMONG THE HORSE-KEEPERS AT MOSCOW.

But my travel now extends more than five
hundred English miles beyond the railway, and
at Moscow I must give myself up to the tender
mercies of yeamshicks, tarantasses, hack-horses,
indescribable and unknown roads, filthy inns, and
abominable station-houses. In an evil hour I
had made a business engagement in the south of
Russia, which would require more than twelve
months' residence on the spot; and as the climate
and country were said to be fine, and a first-
class residence, with other good things, were
promised, I took my whole family with me,
determined to make a pleasure trip of it, if
possible. So, I had with me a wife, and half a
dozen young children, also a handy man, who
had just arrived from England seeking work,
and who went to assist in the practical part of
the business I had undertaken. This man
turned out an invaluable friend for a rough
journey, and an excellent comrade in all
outdoor sports. He had broad shoulders, and
the most powerful arms I ever saw. The only
difficulty I had with him was to keep him from
using his arms like sledge-hammers on
Russians of every degree for real or imaginary
outrages on our dignity as true-born Englishmen.
And as he did not understand one word of
Russ, he was constantly the prey of false
imaginations.

A journey of eight hundred versts in Russia
is an undertaking of some risk for able-bodied
men; but if females and children are added,
there is need of more than ordinary care in
deciding on the best method of taking it. So, in
an English lodging-house, on the second day of
my arrival in Moscow, I held after-dinner
consultation with four or five experienced Englishmen,
who had accomplished similar journeys.
Each was loud on behalf of the particular plan
he had himself adopted. One was clearly in
favour of the government diligence as far as it
went. But as this involved constant travelling
without stopping for five nights and days, at a
cost of twenty-five roubles each, on the chassée;