is the regulation furniture as fixed by law, and
it all reeks alike of bad tobacco smoke. Nobody
ever seems to go to bed or to get up at the
post-houses. The boors who appear to live
there are found rolled up and drowsy in the
doorways and passages at noon-day; just as
they are found rolled up and drowsy in the
same places at midnight. Some of them look
like ferrets; some like wolf-dogs. The children
look like ferrets, the men and women like
wolf-dogs. Nearly all have diseased eyes. The
eyes are small and dull, surrounded by a
bright, inflamed rim of scarlet. Deformity,
scrofula, even leprosy, are common in the
villages. The people are fearfully lean; but they
do not seem to be hungry. They look apathetic,
inclined for sleep and warmth. They wrap
themselves up in coarse undressed skins, and
huddle near the stoves. Nothing but kicks
and rough usage will rouse them. When
stirred up they rise without a word, and slouch
off to the stables. There, if not followed and
rated roundly by the post-office clerk, they
try to go to sleep again; and will often hide
themselves, though sure of a beating and loud
words for so doing. While we are changing
horses in the dark hours, other peasants come
slinking towards us through the gloom, so that
we have quite a crowd round us before we start
—a silent, morose, lumpish crowd, with very
little that is human about them indeed.

So we ceaselessly travel for days through
an unlovely country of blasted steppe, without
a tree, a flower, or a blade of grass for miles
and hundreds of miles. The villages are mere
mud hovels partly under ground. Most of the
cottages have but one room; few are weather
tight. The bleak wind coming from the northern
snow-fields makes itself felt cruelly, and pierces
through all our wraps and pelisses; cutting
like a knife towards sunrise and just after
sunset, when the air seems chilliest. There are
no objects of interest on the road. No old
castles hallowed by historic memories, and
haunted by legendary guests. There are no
monuments of art. No ancient temples, no
famous battle grounds. All is barren and
desert. The scenery is everywhere without
beauty or interest. There is no life in it. No
game, no singing birds. The evening closes in
without a voice, silently, drearily. There is no
cover for the partridge, no food for the rabbit
and the hare, no water for wild-fowl.

One day towards noon we come in sight of a
town. It is formed of a long wide street with
whitewashed houses on each side, a whitewashed
church with a copper top, and some
windmills on a height. People in red cotton
dresses are moving lazily about. There are
some shops. They sell boots all the same size
and shape, knee boots, waistbands, and wooden
bowls and platters gilt, stained, and varnished
very prettily; also copper tea-urns, and some
sham Manchester goods made in Germany. In
the midst of the street rises a whitewashed palace,
something between a barrack, a hospital, and a
Gothic castle. That is the house of my friend.

A crowd of peasants are waiting for us; and
as the carriage stops there is a faint cheer, and
a salute of cannon is fired somewhere. Three
venerable-looking old men, in cloth bedgowns
fastened with sashes at the waist, approach,
fall on their knees, and kiss the boots of my
friend. He is a sober, respectable little man;
but he takes their homage quite coolly, and
says a few words to them in a good-natured
tone without motioning them to rise. He calls
them his "little fathers". They are the chiefs
and elders of the peasant community which a
few years ago belonged to him, and might have
been sold for money. Now all this slavery is over,
but many of the old traditions are still kept up.
Some of the men have got a tray covered over
with a napkin of muslin embroidered and
fringed with gold. They draw near, and,
uncovering their burden, present their lord with
bread and salt. Then he makes them a speech.
The spokesman of the community replies. They
all stand in a semicircle, bare headed, looking
at nothing. There is not the faintest trace of
expression on their faces. They are not a
comely nor even a healthy set of men, although
my friend's estate is one of the most prosperous
in Russia. He is a kind landlord; a worthy
and liberal man. His peasants grow rich. Still
he has not reigned above twenty years; and
the old characteristic type of the Russian
peasant will take longer than this to wear out.
When the talking is done they disperse silently.
Yet in that brief talk my friend has given away
about a thousand houses in freehold to his
tenantry; and he mentions this fact to me
very simply at breakfast about an hour
afterwards. I tell him I hardly think an
English landlord would have been so liberal,
and that if, as we hear whispered,
representative institutions are soon to be established
in Russia, he may find that he has lost so
many votes.

"We have not come to that yet," replied my
friend, "and what Russian landlords have most
to fear just now is a general emigration from
their estates. Our country is so thinly peopled
that work in towns is plentiful and well paid.
Our peasants have found this out, and have
little taste for agricultural labour, which is
toilsome and scantily remunerated. Thus many of
my neighbours' lands are quite deserted, and
yield no income at all. One friend of mine,
whose property, worked by serf labour, produced
annually about ten thousand pounds a year
English money, now does not yield him more
than five hundred pounds. The sale of the
confiscated estates in Poland at nominal prices has
also helped to depopulate our rural districts.
Most of these lands have been bought by
German colonists, who offer great inducements
to our farm labourers to join them. We cannot
compete with them successfully, because the
Polish soil is not only more fertile than ours,
but they have markets for their produce nearer.
There is but one inducement which can be
offered our peasantry to stay with their old
masters; it is to give them their houses. They