over body: but political proselytism, that is to say, the narrow spirit of conquest, or to speak yet more justly, the spirit of rapine justified by that skilful sophistry called glory, is odious; for, far from drawing together the human race, this contracted ambition divides them : unity can only give birth to elevated and extended ideas; but the politics of national interference are always little; its liberality is hypocritical or tyrannical ; its benefits are ever deceptive : every nation should derive from within itself the means for the improvements it requires.
To resume: the problem proposed, not by men, but by events, by the concatenation of circumstances, to an emperor of Russia, is to favour among the nation the progress of knowledge in order to hasten the emancipation of the serfs; and further to aim at this object by the improving of manners, by the encouraging of humanity and of legal liberty; in short, by ameliorating hearts with the view of alleviating destinies. Such is the condition imperative upon any man who would now reign, even at Moscow: but the peculiarity of the Emperor's position is, that he has to shape his course towards this object, keeping clear on the one side of the mute though well-organised
TASK OF THE EMPEROK.155
tyranny of a revolutionary administration, and on the other of the arrogance and the conspiracies of an aristocracy so much the more unquiet and formidable as its power is vague and undefined.
It must be owned that no sovereign has yet acquitted himself in this terrible task with so much firmness, talent, and good fortune as have been displayed by the Emperor Nicholas. He is the first of the modern Russian princes who has perceived the necessity of being a Russian in order to confer good upon the Russians. Undoubtedly history will say : This man was a great sovereign.
I have no time left for sleeping: the horses are already in my carriage, and I shall soon be on the road to Nijni.
156 THE BANKS OF THE VOLGA.
CHAP. XXXIL*
THE BANKS OF THE VOLGA. — RUSSIAN COACHMEN IN MOUNTAIN
ROADS. KOSTROMA. —FERRY ON THE VOLGA. ACCIDENT IN A
FOREST.BEAUTY OF THE WOMEN. CIVILISATION INJURIOUS.
ROUSSEAU JUSTIFIED.ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD SAR-
MATIAN. ELEGANCE, INDUSTRY, AND HUMILITY OF THE PEA
SANTS. THEIR MUSIC. — NATIONAL MUSIC DANGEROUS TO
DESPOTISM.THE ROAD TO SIBERIA. — A PICTURE OF RUSSIA. —
EXILES ON THE ROAD.
Our road follows the eourse of the Volga. Yesterday I crossed that river at Yaroslaf, and I have re-crossed it to-day at Kunitcha. In many places its two banks differ in physical aspect. On one side stretches an immense plain level with the water, on the other, the bank forms an almost perpendicular Avail, sometimes a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet high. This rampart or natural embankment, which extends a considerable way backwards from the river before it again loses itself in gradual slopes upon the plain, is clothed with osiers and birch, and^is broken from distance to distance by the river's tributaries. These water-courses form deep furrows in the bank, which they have to pierce in order to reach the mighty stream. The bank is quite a mountain chain, and the furrows are real valleys, across which the road parallel to the Volga is carried.
* Written at Yourewetch Powolskoi, a small town between Yaroslaf and Nijni Novgorod.
RUSSIAN COACHMEN,157
The Russian coachmen, although so skilful on level ground, are, on mountainous roads, the most dangerous drivers in the world. That on which we are now travelling puts their prudence and my sang-froid to the full proof. The continual ascending and descending would, if the declivities were longer, be, under their mode of driving, extremely perilous. The coachman commences the descent at a foot's pace; when about a third of it is got over, which generally brings you to the steepest part, man and horses begin mutually to weary of their unaccustomed prudence ; the latter get into a gallop, the carriage rolls after with constantly increasing velocity until it reaches the middle of a bridge of planks, frail, disjointed, uneven, and movable; for they are placed, but not fixed, upon the beams which support them, and under the poles which serve as rails to the trembling structure. A bridge of this kind is found at the bottom of each ravine. If the horses, in their wild gallop, do not bring the carriage straight on the planks, it will be overturned. The life of the traveller depends entirely upon the address of the driver, and upon the legs of four spirited, but weak and tired animals. If a horse stumbles, or a leather breaks, all is lost,
At the third repetition of this hazardous game I desired that the wheel should be locked, but there was no drag on my Moscow carriage: I had been told that it was never necessary to lock the wheel in Russia. To supply the want, it was necessary to detach one of the horses, and to use its traces. I have ordered the same operation to be repeated, to the great astonishment of the drivers, each time that the length and steepness of the declivity has seemed
158
RUSSIAN COACHMEN
to threaten the safety of the carriage, the frailness of which I have already only too often experienced. The coachmen, astonished as they appear, do not make the least objection to my strange fancies, nor in any way oppose the orders that I give them through the feldjager; but I can read their thoughts in their faces. The presence of a government-servant procures me every where marks of deference: such a proof of favour on the part of the authorities renders me an object of respect among the people. I would not advise any stranger, so little experienced as I am, to risk himself without such a guide on Russian roads, especially those of the interior.
When the traveller has been so fortunate as to cross safely the bottom of the ravine, the next difficulty is to climb the opposite bank. The Russian horses know no other pace but the gallop: if the road is not heavy, the hill short, and the carriage light, they bring you to the summit in a moment; but if the ascent is long, or the road, as is frequently the case, sandy, they soon come to a stop; panting and exhausted, in the middle of their task, they turn stupid under the application of the whip, kick, and run back, to the imminent danger of throwing the carriage into the ditches; while at each dilemma of the kind I say to myself, in derision of the pretensions of the Russians, there are no distances in Russia!
The coachmen, however adroit they may be, want experience when they leave their native plains; they do not understand the proper manner of getting horses over mountains. At the first signs of hesitation every body alights; the servants push at the wheels; at every few steps the horses stop to breathe,
IN MOUNTAIN ROADS.159
when the men rub their nostrils with vinegar, and encourage them with voice and hand. In this manner, aided by strokes of the whip, generally applied with admirable judgment, Ave gain the summit of these formidable ridges, which in other countries would be climbed without difficulty. The road from Yaroslaf to Nijni is one of the most hilly in the interior of Russia; and yet I do not believe that this natural rampart or quay that crowns the banks of the Volga exceeds the height of a house of five or six stories in Paris.
