sheet-iron; the seat is very small and uncomfortable; and as there is no cover or back it is often a difficult matter to stay seated when driving over rough stones or turning a sharp cor

ner.

Over the horse's neck is an arch or hoop sticking up two feet or more, and hung with bells.

The overcoat of a fashionable Circassian contains on the breast a row of cartridge-pockets, and at his side he carries a sword or hanger. These gentlemen wear their trousers stuffed in very high-topped boots, and present quite a fierce and forbidding air. as they saunter through the streets, occasionally toying with the gun or sword at their side. I saw several of them in Odessa. As I gazed upon them from a respectful distance, they brought up thoughts of the festive cowboy in the Far West. The Far West and the Far East agree in this respect if in no other-both can show some wild and weird specimens of humanity. I will not assert that Russian ladies. partake in this peculiarity, but certainly, if some things which occur in Odessa may be taken as a criterion, they too have a little of the Western chic about them. It is not at all unusual to see the nicest-dressed ladies spring on and off a street car while it is in motion. The sight of a lady smoking excites in Russia no more remark than does a man's drinking a glass of beer in Germany.

Russia is like a vast prison. The prisoner in a dungeon can walk within certain limits as freely as the freest. It is only when he would go farther that he encounters the walls, and is stopped. So, in Russia, as long as you remain within a narrow limit, you may possibly forget that you are in a prison. It is not easy to forget it when you would stir. Walls—that is, officers-meet you at every turn.

On arriving at a hotel the first thing demanded is your passport, which you must carry to the police and have registered and stamped, you, by-the-way, having to pay for the registration and stamp. When you leave a city the police must again be notified; and from beginning to end it seems as if every new-comer is suspected of being a Nihilist or Dynamiter. It

is dangerous to converse on social or political topics; each one suspects the other of spying. It is so easy to be denounced, so easy to be waltzed off to Siberia, that the truth of the proverb, "Silence is golden," is appreciated in no other part of the earth as it is in Russia.

Some thirty years ago, when the first big railroad was projected in Russia, two cities disputed as to which should have the road. The matter was referred to the Czar.

"I'm," said his Majesty, "not at all a difficult matter to decide." And laying a ruler between the two termini, "Build your road here," he said.

As a result of this simple method of adjusting matters, railroads in Russia run pretty much in straight lines. The stations are anywhere from two to ten miles from the towns. As if to make up for the inconvenience he thus occasioned, the Czar sent to America for Ross Winans, an American engineer, and engaged him to introduce the American system of railroading.

Russia, alone of all the European States (excepting a portion of little Switzerland), has long, open coaches instead of the miserable little boxes called compartments. On the trains they have not only one conductor, they have half a dozen. The head-conductor on the train out of Odessa was the most gorgeous and imposing individual I ever saw. His boots, glistening with polish, came above his knees; his belt was very broad, and was as shiny as his boots; his coal-black beard came down to his waist. A fur cap surmounted his head; his uniform gleamed with decorations and medals. Whenever this mighty Mogul deigned to take up tickets, two sub-conductors preceded him, announced his approach, and shook by the shoulders such of the passengers as were asleep, to prepare them for the great man's arrival.

At stations there is a great deal of ceremony connected with starting the train. The first conductor nearest the engine blows a whistle; the second conductor, a little farther down the line, blows his whistle; and so it continues to the Grand Mogul, who, looking majestically around, blows his whistle, whereupon

the blowing starts back on the line to number one again. Number one gives another blast, the engine answers, and at length the train moves out.

Russian peasants are inordinately fond of tea. The train never stopped but that a score or more wild, shaggy-looking fellows rushed out with their tin pots for hot water, which they brought back into the car and converted into tea. Before beginning a meal the Russian peasant takes off his hat and crosses himself; he does the same whenever a church is passed. I was often surprised to see every man in the car take off his hat and begin a series of salaams and prostrations. On surveying the surrounding country the reason became apparent; the gilded dome of some church was, visible.

It is not in every country that one can see one's fellow-passengers get down on their knees and bump the floor with their heads.

An incident which occurred the morning of my arrival in Olessa was encouraging. A man whom I stopped on the street said,

66

Italian-sky?" meaning if I were Italian.

"No," said I, "American-sky."

The man seemed to understand perfectly, and elated with success, I tried him further. I said,

What-sky is the name-sky of this-sky?"

Alas! The plan failed to work to that extent. Americansky and Italian-sky were about the only words of Russian that I mastered. In the Black Sea ports Italian is of some slight help, and in Western frontier towns German is occasionally understood. Generally speaking, however, the only language. of any use in Russia is Russian.

The Russian peasant and workman is a marvel of superstition-such greediness, such filth, such degradation and cringingness! I have seen more than one churl, clad in a suit of cowhide, enter an eating-house, deposit scythe, bags, and other baggage on the floor, and then fall to eating with ravenous haste. They fill their mouths to overflowing with great chunks of

greasy meat and black bread, and before disposing of one mouthful they take in another.

As wretched a sight as is the Russian laborer himself, his home is more wretched still. I was approaching one day in South Russia, on the Black Sea, what seemed a lot of haystacks, but which proved to be a " Bauerdorf "-peasant village. Each hut was covered quite deep with hay. Into this hay the cattle eat, so that by spring or summer the hut is uncovered. The village seemed as if it had been set down in that spot temporarily, and then forgotten. All around was a vast, treeless plain, across which the wind swept, biting and cutting like a knife. The miserable straw-covered huts, each about eight by twelve feet by six feet high, are arranged in one long, straggling street, and that street made of the sticky, black soil which characterizes that whole part of the country.

The creatures who inhabit these villages dress in skins; their hair and beard grow long, and are seldom or never cut. They look wild and shaggy. Very rarely is one able to read. Their lives are spent in the hardest toil, with no other thought than to fill their stomachs with gross food, to keep off the freezing cold of winter, and to obey the priests in this world that they may be sure of a free passport into the next.

Ask a Russian bricklayer or carpenter what wages he receives, and he will reply, a ruble and a half, or, if skilled, two rubles, a day—that is, from seventy cents to a dollar. So far this appears quite as good as wages in other European countries, but there is another side to the story. The Russian bricklayer may earn two rubles a day, but his terrible climate only allows him an average of about one hundred working-days a year. Two hundred days it is too cold to work (snow lies on the streets of St. Petersburg one hundred and seventy-one days out of the year), and fifty or sixty days are consumed in celebrating religious holidays. The small sum received for the remnant of time left in which it is possible to work must suffice to support him the whole year. Generally, employers make contracts by the year. One hundred and forty to one

hundred and sixty rubles will represent the yearly wages of the average bricklayer or carpenter. In Italy, where one can pluck grapes from the vines and live in the open air, it is possible to conceive a man supporting a family on eighty dollars a year; how, though, is it possible in a land where the winter's snow endures eight months out of every twelve? where the great struggle of life is to keep warm? I put this question to a Russian in Moscow. Said he,

"The Russian workman is like the bear in one respect-he is a hibernating animal. Most workmen own or rent a small piece of land on the plains, within a few days' journey of the city wherein they work. The workman only comes to the city in summer; with cold weather's approach he returns to his mud or straw-covered hut, and remains buried there until summer comes again. He wears a suit of skins; this suit he lives in, sleeps in, eats in, in short, he very rarely removes it in the course of a whole winter, or from August to May, or even June. His food in winter does not cost ten kopecks-five cents —a day. His clothing is a small item, as one suit lasts ten or twelve years. Almost the only fuel he has is the peat dug from the swampy plains surrounding his hovel."

In Russia there is not that division of labor which the practice of other nations has found desirable. For instance, there is no hod-carrier. A bricklayer brings his own brick and

mortar.

A "dessatim" of land-about six acres- -in the vicinity of Moscow is worth fifty rubles (twenty-five dollars). Better land costs in the neighborhood of two hundred rubles per dessatim. The land around Moscow is poor. It is too sandy, and the plains surrounding the ancient capital are almost totally uninhabited.