There is one danger when journeying in Russia which could hardly be foreseen —the danger the traveller runs of breaking: his head against the cover of his caleehe. He who intends visiting the country need not smile, for the peril is actual and imminent. The logs of which the bridges and often the roads themselves are made, render the carriages liable to shocks so violent, that the traveller when not warned would be thrown out if his equipage were open, and would break his neck if the head were up. It is therefore advisable, in Russia, to procure a carriage the top of which is as lofty as possible. A bottle of Seltzer-water, substantial as those bottles are, has, although well packed in hay, been broken under my seat, by the violence of the jolts.
Yesterday I slept in a post-house, where there was a want of every common convenience. My carriage is so uncomfortable, and the roads are so rough, that I cannot journey more than twenty-four hours together without suffering from violent headache, and, therefore, as I prefer a bad lodging to brain-fever, I stop wherever we may happen to be. The greatest rarity in these out-of-the-way lodgings, and indeed
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POST-HOUSES.
in all Russia, is clean linen. I carry my bed with me, but I cannot burden myself with much store of bed- clothes; and the table-cloths which they give me at the post-houses have always been in iise. Yesterday, at eleven o'clock in the evening, the master of the post-house sent to a village more than a league distant to search for clean sheets on my account. I should have protested against this excess of zeal in my feldjager, but I did not know of it until the next morning. From the window of my kennel, by the obscured light that is called night in Russia, I could admire at leisure the eternal Roman peristyle, which, with its wooden, whitewashed pediment and its plaster pillars, adorns, on the stable side, the Russian post-houses. This clumsy architecture creates a nightmare that follows me from one end of the empire to the other. The classic column has become the sign of a public building in Russia ·. false magnificence here displays itself by the side of the most complete penury; but ' comfort,' and elegance well understood and every where the same, is not to be seen, either in the palaces of the wealthy, where the saloons are superb, but where the bed-chamber is only a screen, or yet in the huts of the peasants. There may, perhaps, be two or three exceptions to this rule in the whole empire. Even Spain appears to me less in want than Russia of objects of convenience and necessity.
Another precaution indispensable to a traveller in this country is a Russian lock. All the Slavonian peasants are thieves, in the houses if not on the highway. When, therefore, you have got your luggage into the room of an inn, full of different classes of
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people, it is necesssaiy, before going out to walk, either to make your servants mount guard at the door, or to lock it. One of your people will be already engaged in keeping watch over the carriage; and there are no keys, nor even locks, to the doors of apartments in Russian inns. The only expedient, therefore, is to be provided with staples, rings, and padlock. With these you may speedily place your property in safety. The country swarms with the most adroit and audacious of robbers. Their depredations are so frequent, that justice does not dare to be rigorous. Every thing is here done by fits and starts, or with exceptions,—a capricious system, which too well accords with the ill-regulated minds of the people, who are as indifferent to equity in action as to truth in speech.
I yesterday visited the convent of Kostroma, and saw the apartments of Alexis Romanow and his mother, a retreat which Alexis left to ascend the throne, and to found the actual reigning dynasty. The convent was like all the others. A young monk, who was not fasting, and who smelt of wine at a considerable distance, showed me the house. I prefer old monks with white beards, and popes with bald heads, to these young, well-fed recluses. The Treasury, also, resembled those I had seen elsewhere. Would the reader know in a few words, what is Russia ? Russia is a country where the same persons and the same things are every where to be seen. This is so true, that on arriving at any place, we think always that we recognise persons whom we had left elsewhere.
At Kunitcha, the ferry-boat in which we re-crossed the Volga had sides so low, that the smallest thing
162FERRY ON THE VOLGA.
would have caused it to upset. Nothing has ever appeared to me more dull and gloomy than this little town, which I visited during a cold rain, accompanied with wind, that kept the inhabitants prisoners in their houses. Had the wind increased, Ave should have run much risk of being drowned in the river. I recollected that at Petersburg no one stirs a step to save those that fall into the Neva; and I thought, that should the same fate happen to me here, not an attempt would be made to save me by any one on these banks—populous though they appear a desert, so gloomy and silent are the soil, the heavens, and the inhabitants. The life of man has little importance in the eyes of the Russians; and, judging by their melancholy air, I should say they are indifferent to their own lives as well as to those of others.
Existence is so fettered and restrained, that every one seems to me secretly to cherish the desire of changing his abode, without possessing the power. The great have no passports, the poor no money, and all remain as they are, patient through despair, that is, as indifferent about death as about life. Resignation, which is every where else a virtue, is in Russia a vice, because it perpetuates the compulsory immobility of things.
The question here, is not one of political liberty, but of personal independence, of freedom of movement, and even of the expression of natural sentiment. The slaves dare only quarrel in a low voice ; anger is one of the privileges of power. The greater the appearance of calm under this system, the more do I pity the people: tranquillity or the knout!—this is for them the condition of existence. The knout of
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the great is Siberia; and Siberia itself is only an exaggeration of Russia.
I am writing in the middle of a forest, many leagues from any habitation. We are stopped in a deep bed of sand by an accident that has happened to my carriage ; and while my valet is, with the aid of a peasant whom Heaven has sent us, repairing the damage, I, who am humbled by the want of resources which I find within myself for such an occurrence, and who feel that I should only be in the way of the workmen if I attempted to assist them, take up my pen to prove the inutility of mental culture, when man, deprived of all the accessories of civilisation, is obliged to struggle, without any other resource but his own strength, against a wild nature, still- armed with all the primitive power that it received from God.
As I have before said, handsome female peasants are scarce in Russia; but, when they are handsome, their beauty is perfect. The oval shape of their eyes imparts a peculiar expression ; the eye-lid is finely and delicately chiselled, but the blue of the pupil is often clouded, which reminds one of the ancient Sarmatians, as described by Tacitus : this hue gives to their veiled 2;lanees a gentleness and an inno-cenee, the charm of which is irresistible. They possess all the vague and shadowy delicacy of the women of the north, united with all the voluptuousness of the Oriental females. The expression of kindness in these ravishing creatures inspires a singular feeling — a mixture of respect and confidence. He must visit the interior of Russia who would know the real gifts of the primitive man, and all that the refine-
