IC-NI fib MD1 OF JEROME B. LANPFIELD IN JOYFUL RUSSIA BY JOHN A. LOGAN, JR. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOURS AND BLACK AND WHITE SECOND EDITION NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. *fa /'{0 f 8 TO MY WIPE, WHO SHEPHERDED OUE LITTLE FLOCK WHILE I TRAVELLED, I DEDICATE, WITH GREAT LOVE AND AFFECTION, THIS FIRST FRUIT OF MY PEN. PEEFACE. THIS book is neither a social tract, a political or eco- nomic study, nor a guide-book. It is the record of a thor- oughly delightful trip to a country which to me, at least, had all the charm of the unknown. I have tried to chronicle as graphically as lay within my untried powers the impressions I received, the gorgeous pageants I saw; and if my views of Eussian conditions seem rose-coloured to some of my readers, let them remember that I saw the country in holiday attire; but let them also remember that a country of unmitigated gloom, such as others have pictured Eussia to be, has never existed on the face of the globe, and never can exist. My experiences were gathered among all classes of people and over a large stretch of territory from the Holy City to Helsingfors and beyond. Wherever I went, I found the same splendid national qualities, the same unity of character, ay, and the same content with the powers that be, which make Eussia not merely a vast geographical term, but a great and mighty nation. If I succeed in giving my readers but a part of the pleasure I experienced, I shall feel satisfied, and consider that, in some measure at least, the debt is paid which I owe to my captivating Eussian hosts. JOHN A. LOGAN, JR. WASHINGTON, D. C., February 15, 1897. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PA.QB I. AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TsAR .... 1 II. AN HOUR IN WARSAW 10 III. GUESTS OF THE TSAR 26 IV. THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD .... 35 V. AS SEEN EN ROUTE 51 VI. LOVELY, LAUGHING Moscow 64 VII. HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW .... 70 VIII. ROUND ABOUT THE cow PATHS 81 IX. RAIN AND ETIQUETTE 90 X. THEN THE TSAR CAME 97 XI. PROCLAIMING THE CORONATION 106 XII. THE CROWNING OF A TSAR 113 XIII. THE CROWNING OF A TSAR 130 XIV. AN IMPERIAL FEAST 138 XV. THE COSSACKS AND Li HUNG CHANG . . . 149 XVI. THE TSARITSA 159 XVII. BREAD AND SALT AND DANCING 167 XVIII. THE PEOPLE'S FETE 174 XIX. HOW WE WASHED IN RUSSIA 184 XX. THE GALA PERFORMANCE AND THE RUSSIAN STAGE . 193 XXI. THE CITY OF THE FIRST MODERN TSAR . . . 200 XXII. RUSSIAN HORSES 208 XXIII. RUSSIAN RACES 217 XXIV. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 231 XXV. VILLAGE LIFE 241 XXVI. SLAVIC LITERATURE 249 XXVII. SLAVIC ART 262 XXVIII. A GLANCE AT FINNISH RUSSIA , 268 Til PRESERVATION COPY ADDED ORIGINAL TO BE RETAINED 1261995 Chapter 1 . AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TSAK. " STRAVSTVUITE! " said the conductor. "Go to the devil! ?> said I. "Pojaluista chas! " said the conductor with entreat- ing insistence. "You go to the devil!" said I, half awake but wholly in earnest. Then I sat up, spurred into sudden and entire wakefulness, as the sleepiest man will often be, by a potent consciousness which " neither poppy nor mandra- gora" can ever quite drown a consciousness that some- thing novel, interesting and long-waited for, has at last hap- pened that one of life's milestones has been reached. We were tired. We had gone " the pace " in Paris and Berlin, and had had to catch both sleep and rest as best we could en voyage; for the Dutch gentleman and the Chinese merchant prince who shared our compartment had jabbered together in execrable French with an in- cessancy that then, there, and forever destroyed my belief in the phlegm and reticence of their respective nations. gj-V 1 ;: ^ JN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Yet after one brief moment of somnolent impatience we woke promptly and good-naturedly, nor needed to rub our eyes, remembering that we must be on the threshold of Tsarland. It was one o'clock 1 A. M. It was cold as the shores of Lake Michigan in March, and the wind and rain beat against our window-panes with all the vigour but none of the good-fellowship of a negro camp-meeting. We straightened our overcoats and stretched our legs, and rose to follow the guide, without so much protest as a frown, for we had travelled far to see Nicholas II crown him- self with the crown of Peter the Great, the crown of all the Russias, and we were quite willing to stand about in a cruelly cold custom-house at that hour of the morning, while the suavest and slowest of officials examined each separate button of our two wardrobes since that exami- nation was part and parcel of the " open sesame " at which, and at which alone, the portals of Russia would cautiously but courteously swing wide. The conductor was a " common or garden " Russian railway official; but the Kodak of my mind took a fine snap-shot of him, and the picture developed vividly on the plate of my memory, for he was the first Russian official I encountered in the exercise of his office. He wore a most gentlemanly looking frock coat of good black cloth, a pair of trousers tucked into high boots of black Russian leather, and a decidedly smart affair in the way of caps: a turban of black astrachan topped with a straight flat crown of black cloth, brightened up in front with the wheel and two silver wings of Mercury, which guards and conductors all over the Continent wear. His coat was buttoned diagonally from the top of his left shoulder to his waist. He wore a belt of patent leather fastened by a sturdy silver buckle. On his left breast hung a silver chain with a whistle attached, which was tucked into the space between two of the upper buttons of his coat. Two pecul- iar united leather tubes hung from his belt. From one tube a little knob of green wood projected. A similar knob, identical in all but colour it was red stuck out of the twin tube. These knobs were on the handles of two AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TSAE. 3 flags one emerald, one ruby that were tightly furled and thrust into the leather cases. One meant " Stop," the other " Start." This was the conductor of one car. Had he been a master conductor, the conductor of the entire train, the crown of his hat would have been magenta- coloured, his clothes would have been proud with magenta pipings, and his neck swathed in a magenta collar. In Eussia the railways are under the direct control and man- agement of the Government, and every railway official is a Government official, a Government servant. Every train is under the charge of a master conductor, and each car has a conductor of its own a man who combines the duties of an English guard with those of the blithe and nimble darky porters of the United States. " Stravstvuite! " the conductor had said, which meant " Good morning." " Go to the devil! " I had said, which meant " I am sleepy and I decline to get up." " Pojaluista chas! " the conductor had urged, which meant " If you please, it is one o'clock." " You go to the devil! " I had said, which meant, " Speak to me again if you dare! " Knowing no Eng- lish, and perceiving that I knew no " Bus," he betook him- self to French, and asked for our passports. We produced them. He pocketed them. He then beckoned to two or three subordinates, who possessed themselves of our hand baggage. We hastened after them. I agreed to follow our passports, and G. agreed to follow our collars and brushes. But travelling man proposes and Eussian official disposes. I was warned back with the utmost courtesy, but with no uncertainty of gesture. So we went into the custom-house together G. and the satchels, the rug straps and I. The porters laid our small traps on a table in front of a patriarchal-looking Eussian. He had a splendid gleaming white beard quite two feet long, and kindly, shrewd brown eyes. He spoke to us in fluent French, and looked through our parcels with entire courteousness and entire thoroughness. We were not asked whether we were or were not carrying anything dutiable. That im- 4- IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. pressed us, and impressed us pleasantly, in contrast to the rather insulting habit of our own custom-house officers, who first make you declare upon oath that your boxes con- tain nothing dutiable, and then proceed to search for secreted proof that you have lied. After a sojourn abroad, this always starts me back into my own country in a bit of ill-humour. When I am asked to pledge my word of honour as to the contents of my luggage, knowing per- fectly well that my word, my very oath, will not be ac- cepted as final, I always long to say, "You had better find out for yourself/' The old Eussian was surprisingly slow. He looked Oriental, and, as I overheard a pert English schoolboy, who had evidently lived in the East, say, "he moved Oriental." But that was of little or no consequence to us. We had two hours to get through before we might go on toward Warsaw, and we were literally so hard up for some- thing to do that it was a trifle better than nothing to watch the slim brown hands taking a thorough inventory of our smaller goods and chattels. The old official seemed to have an eye in every finger tip and two in each thumb. Nothing escaped him. But he crushed nothing, and he ad- dressed us now and then with a word or two of almost deprecatingly polite French, which made us quite feel that he was going through an empty though obligatory form, though both he and we knew perfectly well that it was quite the contrary. At last he closed each parcel, buckled each strap, and returned our keys with a bow and a word of thanks for our goodness in having complied with a rule which we were absolutely powerless to evade. He had altogether the manner of being under an obligation to us, and there was something so contagious about his courtesy that, on my word, I felt rather a boor for having given him so much trouble, and had half a mind to apolo- gize as elaborately as my command of French would per- mit. We were moving toward another room, where the boxes and large luggage had to be examined, when the con- ductor who had disappeared with our passports accosted AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TSAR. 5 us. It was not necessary, he informed me, to open my boxes, or to have them opened, as mine was a " diplomatic " passport. He added that he had been ordered to reserve a compartment for me and for monsieur my friend in the Warsaw train, and that in an hour, when that train was ready to start, he would see that our luggage was properly placed, and have the honour to guide us to our compart- ment. I had no bombs with me, but I was more than glad that one of my three trunks escaped examination. My mother, who preceded us by a week or more to Moscow, had been betrayed and disappointed by her Paris milliner, and the contents of my hugest trunk consisted of a fine con- glomeration of uniforms and chiffons, of waistcoats and satin trains. The Russians though a smileless race, in the masses, at least have a large and Epicurean sense of humour. I was palpably travelling without a lady, and I should have felt sheepishly like a man dressmaker had all that feminine finery been dragged into the semi-light of that gusty, ill-lighted station, beneath the eyes of grinning moujiks, supercilious officials, and delighted fellow-passen- gers. I had a dull wait for G. It was one of the longest hours I can recall, but it was not long enough, and it was too cold and too dark and too early even to attempt to ex- plore the old Polish city which Alexander I gave to the beautiful Marie Grudzinska, and which she, dying, be- queathed to the kings of Poland, to be theirs and their heirs' forever. Much less was there time or light or op- portunity to see the one really unique thing that the Alex- androvno of to-day can boast an almost unsurpassed and wonderfully interesting deer park. They were through with G. at last; one more proof that everything has an ending even a Russian custom- house examination. We had still twenty minutes to spend, and we spent them in the station restaurant. We had a large supply of bread, butter, and tea, and were charged some- thing that at the time seemed to us ridiculously small. We might have made a substantial meal of many courses 6 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. had we elected to do so, for the buffet was largely supplied with eatables and drinkables. But our appetites were not fairly awake yet, and G. seemed a bit dispirited. I learned why afterward. He had bought a very English suit of clothes before leaving London checker boards were not in it with the material of these garments, and a rainbow in the full flush of perfection was a thing of gray shreds and neutral-coloured patches if thrown into juxtaposition with these Bond Street trousers. G. is acquisitive. He likes to get into touch, en rapport as he expresses it, with any nation he visits; and he delights to spend hours and hundreds in Kegent Street and the Eue de Kivoli. He was peculiarly proud of this remarkable chef-d'ceuvre of his London tailor, and felt distinctly rasped at what fol- lowed when the examining officer drew them forth and spread them widely on the examining table. The officer had said something in Eussian to a brother official, who had replied in the same incomprehensible tongue. They had been quite grave, and twisted the well-waxed tips of their mustaches almost sadly. "But I'll be hanged if I don't believe the beggars would have laughed if they had not thought that it would have been impolite," G. grumbled when he told me of it. A pretty Frenchwoman who sat in the next dentist's chair I mean who stood near watching her laces and gossamers and velvets and embroideries and exquisite lingerie being tumbled out of their chamois-lined, violet-scented boxes had lifted up her pencilled eyebrows delicately, pursed up her vivid red lips daintily, and exclaimed, " Mon bon dieu! " The tea they served us was boiling hot. We had to let it cool somewhat, but the Eussians drink it so even little mites who can scarcely lift the tall glasses in which it is served. It used to distress me when I thought of the tender inner coats of their throats, but they gulped it down with such evident relish and such unmistakable lack of discomfort, that I soon learned to mind my own business, my own tea-glass, and the scalding of my own throat. The Eussian tea is very light of colour, very fragrant, and very grateful to the palate. They bring it to you with AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TSAR. 7 slices of lemon floating in it, and also bring you a small dish of lump, or rather stick, sugar, to use or not, as your taste may be. The Russians have two methods of using the sugar when they take it with their tea. The great majority tuck a goodly sized lump under their tongues, and leave its melting to the natural juices of the mouth and the trickling of the tea. They who are elegant hold their tea-glass in one hand and their sugar-stick in the other. They take a nibble and then a swallow. But, how- ever they take their tea, they all take it. And like the Siamese, the Russians not only drink tea out of doors, but commonly stop in the streets or public squares to brew and drink their favourite refresher. In Siam it is the noble who is followed by his servants carrying a stove and all the impedimenta of tea-making. At a sign from him they pause and prepare his dearly loved and non-intoxicating tipple, while he gravely waits, gravely drinks, and then gravely walks on until his next thirst halts him, when he again stops his cavalcade. And this is repeated as often as he feels inclined for a tiny cupful of the yellow fluid. This is so much a custom that on the streets of Bangkok no one but the lately arrived " globe-trotter " turns to look at it, and tea drinkers and tea makers are almost as many as moving pedestrians. But in Russia it is the plebeian and not the patrician who is the nomadic open-air tea drinker. A pilgrim of such the streets are always full lifts from his back the bulging, gourd-shaped bundle which is all his luggage, and as likely as not all his earthly pos- sessions, opens it, takes out his cheap samovar, and makes him or herself a brimming glassful of sizzling tea. A peasant family abroad for a holiday will pause anywhere and spend an hour or more over their tea. The mother makes it while the father and children watch with the utmost interest. When it is made, all sit down on some- thing, on anything or, if needs be, as nearly on nothing as is possible in this world of an omnipotent and vacuum- abhorring Nature. Then they all drink and chatter and gaze at the well-dressed passers-by. Often they regale 2 8 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. themselves on tea and tea only. Sometimes they munch kalatschs as they drink. Kalatsch is the delicious national bread of which I for one feared that I never should get enough, until I discovered, as I soon did, that " eat much and eat often " is the first law of all Russian life, save that of the most impecunious. I never heard how kalatschs were made, but, to my thinking, they are the bread of breads. They are twisted, Oriental-looking things about twice the size of your fist, not altogether unlike a pret- zel in appearance. We were few, we tea drinkers, in the Alexandrovno buffet. Almost all who broke their fast there were Rus- sians, and all save the palpably poor Russians drank cham- pagne. And the palpably poor were conspicuous by their absence. The Russian poor travel on foot, and it was too early in the morning for the station to be infested by mendicant hangers-about, if any such there be in Russia. If it is true that every one in Russia drinks tea and drinks it often, it is even truer that every one in Russia who can afford it drinks champagne and drinks it all the time. In a hotel or a family mansion of any luxury the pop- pings of the riotous cork outnumber the tickings of the clock. The men who waited upon us were dressed in the picturesque costume peculiar to all Russian waiters (there are no barmaids in Russia), but the effect was rather chilly in the cold, half-dark station. Each wore a long white smock, white trousers, slippers, and a red sash into which was tucked a Russian-leather pocketbook full of change. From 1 to 3 A. M. is not a choice time for sight- seeing, nor a favourable hour for gaining new impressions; but three things did impress me indelibly during our two hours' wait at that Russo-Polish station. It would have been a very sleepy and a very unobservant traveller that had failed to be impressed, first, with the something Oriental about the place and the people; secondly, with the quantity and the quality of the soldiers on duty; and, thirdly and most, by their dignified and self-contained manner. The more I saw of Russia, the more emphasis was given to my first impression an impression that in Nikolsky gate of the Kremlin AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TSAR. 9 many essentials Russia was more Oriental than European. I am, of course, greatly interested in all soldiers and in all things that pertain to soldiers. One corps of the Russian army is detailed for railway station service. Those at Alexandrovno there were an incredible number of them were a splendid-looking lot of men. They averaged well over six feet. They wore coarse, thick, heavy, blanket-like overcoats, well cut, and well put on. Their black astrachan caps had scarlet crowns and smart white pompons. They wore the regulation sabre which is common to all the Russian service, from the private sol- dier to the Grand Duke. It is very heavy. The scabbard is a cheap, cumbersome-looking affair of leather and brass. They wear their sabres edge upward, which is done, I imagine, by no other soldiery, certainly by none of Europe. It was cold, it was dark, it was dank, it was shivery, but for all that every one seemed saturated with good humour; and this was what I saw and felt through each hour of every day of the months we spent in Russia. I do not pretend to say that Siberia has no existence save in the imagination of the lexicographers. I do not deny that there are knouts in Russia, and that they are sometimes used. But I never saw one, never heard one whizzing through the wintry air. The Russia I saw was a rejoicing and pros- perous Russia. The icicles were wreathed with roses, the air was fragrant with loyalty and softly musical with blessings. I must write of Russia as I saw it; and as I saw it, it was mostly admirable. I contradict no one whose pen has preceded mine; but I can but feel that many of those pens have exaggerated, and that some of them have set forth much in malice. The people that I saw were con- tented and brimful of rejoicing at the sacred coronation of their well-loved Tsar. There is doubtless much to re- gret and to mourn over in Russia, as there is and will be everywhere else until the millennium comes; but the Rus- sia that I saw was a joyful Russia. CHAPTEE II. AN HOUK IN WAESAW. I HAVE been told that trains are sometimes missed in Eussia. On my word, I don't see how it's done. The official on the platform and the official on the engine whistle away at each other with an emphasis and at a length that ought to make it clear to the thickest-headed traveller within miles that it behooves him to board his train. I never heard quite so much fuss made over an every-day occurrence as was made over the starting out of Alexandrovno of that Warsaw-bound train. True to his promise, the conductor of our carriage the conductor who had roused us two hours earlier came for us when our waiting was over and showed us to the very comfortable compartment in which we were to travel on, where we found all our small luggage trimly stowed and not a porter in sight to tip. A few moments after we were seated we had almost had time enough to grow impatient the chief conductor, the conductor of the train, strolled leisurely across the platform, pulled out his whistle and gave a gentle, deprecating blow upon it. There was an almost insolent pause, and then a lazy, indifferent an- swer was sounded from the locomotive. " Off at last! " said G. But we were not off, nor were we to be off for some time. After a most respectable pause the whistle on the platform cried out in an almost imperative tone, " Are you ready? " At that the whistle in the engine answered, " Yes, I'm ready." Then there was a long, sullen silence. The officials stood about unconcernedly. Several pas- 10 AN HOUR IN WARSAW. H sengers crawled on board. Three or four minutes passed. Then the whistle on the platform cried out, " Are you sure you're ready? " " Yes, you fool! " screamed back the other whistle, " I told you so." " Then why don't you go? " " I am going to go." " Then go! " But nothing went. After another pause the con- ductor's whistle grew truly eloquent. The engine whistle answered back for all it was worth, and the station re- sounded and reverberated with what sounded for all the world like insane, metallic profanity. For now the con- ductor was both blowing his whistle and pulling the rope of a bell that hung outside the station door. The station bell threatened. The station whistle entreated. The en- gine whistle defied. And their noisy altercation treated us to an exhibition of sound that might safely have chal- lenged the Chicago Fire Department in full flare to equal it. After an incredible time the engine gave a snort of mingled rage and despair. The conductor dropped the platform-bell rope, tucked his whistle into his breast, walked very deliberately to his compartment at the rear of the train, got in, touched his cap to some brother officials on the platform, and closed the door. The engine gave a groan, then a shriek, and we were off off at a pace that would have disgraced an active snail. It was our last look for months at darkness and night as we understood the words. It never was decently dark in Moscow; a couple of hours of deep gloaming was the depth of every night we saw there, and in St. Petersburg there was not even that much of an attempt on the part of night to array herself in sable robes. Our train moved on with annoying slowness, but easily. The road beds are admirable in Eussia, at least so far as our experience went, and we travelled consider- ably before we left the Empire. The credit for this, I understand, is due to American enterprise and skill in 12 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. the person of Mr. Winans, the pioneer of railroad con- struction in Kussia. Our train was cold, but otherwise most comfortable. Like all Eussian trains, its carriages were very wide, and we had our compartment to ourselves; not the best way to study new Russian types, but for all that a consum- mation devoutly to be wished for when one is tired and travelling by night. Our conductor quickly made up two very clean and cosy beds upon the seats, and we tucked ourselves in between the sheets and rugs without detain- ing each other with any elaborate or prolonged good- nights. It was almost seven in the morning when we were awakened and made to understand that we were at Warsaw, for we had only travelled at an average rate of about twenty miles an hour. That is no slower than most Eussian trains go. The Russians consider it safe, and time is absolutely no object to them. Eailway accidents are almost unheard of there. After a dash into the toilet-room and a hasty brush and sponge, we hurried out on to the platform. No one paid the slightest attention to us. Our conductor brought us our bags (our boxes were booked through to Moscow), touched his cap, said a few words of presum- able farewell, which sounded civil but were quite incom- prehensible, and disappeared. It was a cold, inhospitable station, and we spent a heart-breaking twenty minutes there trying to find some man, woman, or child who spoke or understood English, French, or German. G. even tried them with a little Latin. All in vain. We were tired, travel-stained, hungry, and in a hurry. At last G., who in a dilemma never fails to propound some brilliant but splendidly defective scheme, suggested our committing some breach of the law in the hope of attracting attention in some quarter, and being escorted to the police station, from which we could probably communicate with the American consul. We seriously began to feel rather in a fix, when at last I spied a sign, " Wagons-Lits," and we executed a double quick toward the little office upon which it was painted. The man in charge spoke fluent AN HOUR IN WARSAW. 13 French and was a brick into the bargain. "We intended to push on to Moscow as soon as we comfortably could; but I knew the name of a hotel at which I wished to breakfast and hoped to find others of our party. Our " Wagons-Lits " friend found us a drosky (I dare say it was no less comfortable than the others of its kind), helped us into it, stowed our traps as best he could about our persons and that of our extraordinary Jehu, whom, by the way, he paid for us then and there, that we might be neither in doubt nor overcharged at the end of our drive, and, after telling the man where to take us and assuring us that we would find French spoken at our hotel, wished us a courteous Ion- voyage, and crowned all by almost declining the coin which we felt he had royally earned. It is mere justice to record that while we were in Tsarland we never failed to receive courteous treatment, nor, when we were able to make ourselves under- stood, did we ever find any one less than eager to help us in every possible way. While memory holds her throne I shall not forget that, my first, drosky ride. A drosky is a vehicle by acci- dent. First and foremost it is an instrument of torture. As the latter, it is a superb success. As the former, it is a sad failure. There are two kinds of droskies: one that moves as slowly as it is possible to do without absolutely standing still; and one that moves with a celerity not to be imagined by any mere mortal who has never felt it. It is a thing to be experienced and to be remembered, not to be seen much less to be described. As a rule, the slow droskies ply where roads are level, smooth, wide, and of little traffic; and the rapid droskies where thorough- fares are broken, lumpy, rutty, and dense with carts, car- riages, and pedestrians. After grave deliberation I am quite at a loss to determine which of the twain is the more terrible, the more distressing to mind and body. The drosky of Eussia in no way resembles the drosky of Ger- many. It has wheels (usually of unequal sizes) and two perches, one for the driver or " isvoschik," and one for the fare. The back perch is usually both sideless and back- 14 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. less, and is always cushioned with lumps of some hard but shifty substance, covered with incredibly dirty cloth. It is an absolute feat to stick on, and a positive misfortune to be driven to this mode of locomotion. And yet the streets of every Eussian city I ever saw were thick with droskies. I never could make out why the Eussian people, who are both sensible and comfort-loving, supported such an abominable institution. The Eussian peasant is thick- skinned and thick-headed, and is magnificently imper- vious to sensations of comfort or discomfort; but the Eus- sian peasant has no spare coins for cab fares, and the Eus- sians of the upper, and even of the middle and merchant, classes are sensitive and impressionable to a degree. I give it up! Our Warsaw isvoschik was a picture! I doubt if he had been washed since his baptism. He belonged to a class that is said never to wash, and, on my word, he looked it. He wore a long dressing-gown, which G. said he must have borrowed from his mother, to wear while she patched his own clothes. But the guess was less shrewd than it sounded. Such garments are worn by all isvoschiks and are called kaftans. It was the cleanest part of our charioteer and of his raiment; but it was filthy. For all that it was bright of colour and made a prime background for the many patches of faded stuff which were roughly darned on to it. He wore a low hat of the " stove-pipe " order, something of a cross between the one commonly depicted on the head of Uncle Sam and the one described by Mr. Dickens as the head gear of old Tony Weller, very fuzzy, and so greasy that one could not be quite sure whether the foundation was fur or cloth. It was far too big even for his huge, unkempt head, and fell down al- most to his eyebrows. Beneath it a tangled mat of tow- coloured hair, looking as if it had been banged across his forehead with a dull penknife, hung down on all sides. From under this peered two dull, heavy blue eyes, an in- significant nose, and the dirtiest face I ever saw. The horse no, on second thought I won't try to describe the horse. It was the hungriest-looking animal I ever saw, and AN HOUR IN WARSAW. 15 I almost never saw a drosky nag that I did not long to feed personally. One beautiful detail of the isvoschik's tout ensemble I must by no means fail to chronicle. His perch is uncush- ioned until he sits upon it. A plump pillow is stitched to the back of his coat at a convenient height. When he is standing it gives him a peculiarly weird appearance when viewed from the back; and it adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the ensemble when he is in the active exercise of his professional duties, for he is not a self- pamperer, and as often as not contrives to so twist his kaftan and wriggle himself that instead of using his cush- ion as a seat-softener, he wears it as a dress-improver or a shoulder-pad. He never knows how to drive, but he is a genial soul and treats you like a brother, and he de- serves great credit for not breaking your neck. Ours was a rapid drosky. I was never considered a slow boy, and I do not believe that I am a peculiarly timid man; and I am, and all my life have been, accustomed to horses, and to horses that knew how to get over the ground. But I certainly thought that it was all up with the corona- tion of His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, so far as my illus- trious self was concerned, and that I had come all the way to Warsaw to have my neck broken. G. did not quite like it either, though I have seen him do some fine riding at steeple-chases. " Logan," he jerked as he popped up and down, but not serenely, on the drosky seat, " can't y-you t-tell h-h-him th-th-that w-we d-do-an't w-want t-to g-go t-t-to a fire, b-b-but t-t-to th-the ho-ho-hotel? " Hearing G.'s voice, the isvoschik turned half round as to body, swinging one leg over the back edge of his back- less seat and resting one mud-incrusted boot confidingly , upon my new sole-leather travelling case. He turned round full as to head and let his countenance beam directly upon us, and addressed us in soft guttural Eus. We won- dered whether he was drunk or mad, but he was neither. They are a brotherly lot, are the Muscovite isvoschiks, and treat you with a guileless familiarity and a childlike inno- cent patronage which are calculated to disarm all but the 16 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. superlatively stern, and which even such a "fare" finds it difficult to stem. It is the commonest sight to see the isvoschik with his back, or at least his side, to the horses, chatting cordially with his wide-eyed, wide-mouthed Eng- lish or American patron, who can by no miracle under- stand one word of his uttering. He does not throw down the lines, to be sure, but he ceases to bear upon them with any method. But as the horse is accustomed to go as it pleases at all times and never pays any heed to his driving, this is of no consequence. An isvoschik does not handle the reins. He wrists them; that is, he twists the right line many times about his right wrist, and the left line many times about his left wrist. The lines are yards I had almost written miles long, and of worsted; when he wishes to urge on his nag he thrashes him with the long lengths of thong that trail down from his wrists. If this proves insufficient, he uses a cruel little whip which he keeps fastened to his right wrist, or which he snatches from between his legs. As a matter of fact he seldom beats his horse, but he often threatens in gesture, and the horse, being always without blinkers, sees what appears to be about to happen and accelerates its pace. On we went, bumping into ruts, dashing round corners, crashing into carts and crashing out again. The isvoschik smiled blandly and continued his monologue. G. stam- mered, and bobbed, and groaned, and I didn't know whether to laugh or to swear. The horse must have under- stood the " Wagons-Lits " man when he directed the isvo- schik, for it brought its last dash round a corner to a sud- den halt that sent our bags and bundles sprawling on the sidewalk, threw G. on his knees, and almost dislocated my neck. We had arrived at our hotel. Our friends were not there, so after we had made our- selves fresh with soap and water, and had breakfasted, we bribed a porter who spoke French to get us a slow drosky, and to tell the isvoschik to take us to the St. Peters- burg station. This vehicle was not fast. Ordinarily one would have been galled by its slowness. But the drive through the old Polish capital was crowded with interest, AN HOUR IN WARSAW. 17 and we were quite content literally to creep through the quaint streets. It had been fully light when we drove to the hotel, but we had absolutely moved too rapidly to see anything, or to perceive anything except a rushing kalei- doscope of barbaric colour. Now, as we plied our slow way onward through the clear, cool morning light and the not yet crowded streets, we were able to take a long, deliberate view of Warsaw. Its chief characteristic was dirt. It was so enormously en evidence that, until our eyes grew accus- tomed to it, it drew and held our attention to the exclusion of everything else. Next I was impressed by the dumb, dirty, uninteresting faces of the peasant people. They were a hopeless, unattractive-looking lot. It is no part of the purpose of this volume to enter into a discussion of politics Russian or international, or of Russian methods of government. I am writing pri- marily to please myself, moved to do so by an irresistible and almost juvenile impulse to make for myself, and even more for my mother who was with me, and for my wife who was detained in Paris, a permanent record of a su- perbly enjoyable holiday. Secondly, I am writing in the hope of pleasing, or at least interesting, others; emboldened to hope so because I felt and feel that an American who had never witnessed any function at all analogous to the coronation festivities of Nicholas II, seeing them with fresher eyes, might retain a more vivid and detailed im- pression of them than could a much more gifted European, accustomed more or less to such sights from his birth. Even my republican but much-travelled mother was often re- minded of some state banquet at Vienna or court ball at Madrid. But I was reminded of nothing. I had no standard of experience with which to compare anything. I saw everything for the first time. I went to Russia with at least a few prejudices against the modus operandi of the powers that in Russia be; I came away without one. And though to repeat myself I emphatically do not in- tend to fill any page of this volume with things political or diplomatic, I think it only honest to say that when I first saw the lower orders of Russians (I use the word 18 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. widely, and mean Poles and half a dozen others as well as pure Eussians) they impressed me as a class at present quite incapable of self-government, quite unfit to have any voice in law-making or law-enforcing, and entirely unqualified to be governed by any but the most drastic methods. Every day spent in Russia deepened that im- pression, and I left Russia wholly convinced of its sound- ness. Everything I saw of the Russian officials of any rank and I saw a great deal convinced me that they were as a class both as kind and as considerate to the subservient classes as was at all consistent with not only the general good, but even the good of those governed masses. I believe that Russia has been widely misunderstood, the Russian Government deeply slandered, and that we have wasted a foolish lot of sympathy upon an undeserving criminal class a class either spiritually coarse or spiritual- ly fanatic and insanely seditious a class no more numer- ous or vicious in Russia, according to population and exist- ing conditions, than that of any other civilized nation. It is a curious fact, well worth the attention of students of social conditions, that during the last fifty years as many rulers of republics have met death by assassination at the hands of so-called social reformers as rulers of monarchies and autocracies. I believe that Russian reforms are as rapid as they can be without doing more harm than good; and I believe that the powerful classes show as much leniency to the lower and criminal classes as those classes either deserve or appreciate. We passed many shops, but saw no signs, at least none printed or written. And this we found so throughout the Empire. A lettered sign is never used except by such shops as are exclusively patronized by the rich. So few of the peasant class, so few of the lower middle class, can read, that an alphabetical advertisement would be quite thrown away upon them. So each shopkeeper (with the exception I have indicated) decorates the front of his shop with a pictorial representation of the wares purchasable within, and he never spares the paint, nor intentionally spoils his story, in the telling. He would no more be guilty of under- AN HOUR IN WARSAW., 19 picturing his goods than Barnum the Great would have wronged his fattest fat lady by underrating her size on the canvas portrait hung outside the fair one's tent. As we crawled by the Warsaw shops, absolutely stopping more than once, we were greatly diverted by the discrepancy between the pictorial advertisements and the wares actu- ally displayed in them. For example, a display that was calculated to turn Tiffany greener than any emerald was painted outside a shop whose stock-in-trade consisted of a tray of brass and silver rings, another of glass brooches, two rusty clocks, and half a dozen battered copper samovars. An assortment of cakes and confitures that would have put Buzzard to the blush adorned the face of a shop whose sole commodities were a score of black loaves, three white ditto, and a keg of mouldy biscuit. Some- thing in the way of sweetmeats, which Fuller in his most inspired moments could never hope to rival in quantity, quality, or arrangement, was the frontispiece of a small volume whose sole text consisted of half a comb floating in a tray of honey by way of preface, half a dozen jars of red and purple lollipops for the subject-matter, and a broken dish of fly-specked marsh-mallows as an appendix. An ox in the goriest death agony imaginable proclaimed a butcher. A relative of Jonah's foe and a string of pisca- torial beauties that could only have been caught off the shores of Ceylon or Hawaii, so brilliant and rainbowy were they of hue, announced a fishmonger. Corsets, on and off, more or less, were among the most prudish signs pictured on the sartorial marts. And the collection of articles depicted on many shops of household furniture and etcet- eras would have been unpardonably indecent if they had not been splendidly funny. But G. and I were unanimous in giving the palm to the pictorial display of the drink- ing places. I remember one, for instance. A truly bibu- lous-looking fellow was seated upon a throne of vodka casks. He was kept from sprawling off by two beautiful, gorgeously attired maidens, while a third held to his lips a brimming bowl of champagne. Around him danced and shouted and sang three boon companions, and on the 20 IN JOYFUL EUSSIA. floor slept four more, all very drunk, but all very, very happy. " Do you notice a peculiar smell? " I inquired; " some- thing queer, but not nasty; something you associate with rather smart things?" " By Jove, yes! said G. " It's Russian leather! " And Eussian leather it was, and we never ceased to smell it while we continued within the realm of the Tsar and inhaled the air of Russia. The national leather is so universally worn in the shape of boots, it is used for things so multitudinous, that in all parts of the Empire which are inhabited the entire atmosphere is positively and most perceptibly impregnated with its unique odour. Our isvoschik's great boots were of Russian leather, and so were those of the policemen we saw at every corner. By the police I mean the police of the streets, who are an entirely separate body from the secret police, of which I shall have but little to say, and that little anon. The police in Warsaw struck me as a fine, large, well- behaved body of men, and so they did in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Every American, or Englishman, or German who had ever been in Russia, and with whom I had spoken, had assured me of the contrary, and I have been told by those who are well (or ill let me amend it, and say much) read regarding Russia, that the consensus of the testimony of all writers on Russia is that her police are little, inactive, inefficient, stupid, and vicious. That may have been so, may be so in some places to-day, but it was not so in those parts of Russia which I visited, at the time I visited them. We came into contact with these police seldom or never; but we saw them, " single spies " and " whole battalions " ; we saw them at every street corner every day we were in Russia; and in Moscow during the coronation festivities we saw regiments of them regiment after regiment; and the men we saw were, almost without exception, large and businesslike. They wore their black trousers tightly tucked into immense Wellington boots. All the Russians have large feet. Thirteen is the size chiefly kept in stock in a Moscow boot-shop. And the average gorodovoy wears Street vender of sweets and prune cider. AN HOUR IN WARSAW. 21 sixteens at least. It is said that Napoleon chose his gen- erals by the size of their noses. It certainly looked to me as if the chief of the Russian police chose his gorodo- vies, or street police, by the size of their feet. The gorodo- voy wears a long black kaftan. The kaftan is the universal Russian top-coat. At first we thought that it looked very much like a dressing-gown. But we grew accustomed to it soon, and then we thought it a very manly, service- able-looking garment. The street police wear a flat-topped military cap, a sword and a revolver. Each gorodovoy has his own dwelling furnished him by the Government. It is built at the corner of some prin- cipal street, and in it he lives alone, sleeping there, resting there, breakfasting there, lunching there, dining there, and dressing and undressing there if he ever does undress entirely. He often takes off his outer garments, I know, for I have more than once seen him hasten to some small disturbance within his beat in an indescribable state of undress uniform. I do not know whether he is forbidden by law to share the shelter of his roof with any one; but his doing so is a physical impossibility: his house is a kennel, and a kennel emphatically built for one. It is the duty of the gorodovoy to keep peace and order in the streets, and to awake those who fall asleep there if they seem in danger not of being run over, but otherwise. The isvoschik and the drosky horse that will knock down and run over a pedestrian as a matter of course are scrupu- lous about not disturbing the slumber of a street sleeper. The middle of the busiest street is by common consent the appointed and chosen place of repose for the peasant classes, and at noon in summer time you will see scores of men, women, and children with one accord lie down in the centre of the roadway and go to sleep in the most businesslike way. Then for an hour or two some of the chief streets are almost impassable. No one dreams of disturbing the seventy times seven sleepers. All Russia knows that, eat he ever so much, man does not live by bread alone, but even more by sleep. But in winter the street police are very busy arousing those who should freeze 22 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. to death if they slept on. An old pilgrim woman, on the way to say her prayers, offer her kopecks, and tell her every trouble to the Mother of Iberia or some other saint, sits down to rest. She dozes off, and soon the policeman shakes her gently, helps her up, and starts her on. But for him she should die. The streets of the Eussian cities, especially during the carnival times and on the frequent fete days, are full of drunken men, nor freed from drunken women. In the summer they are left where they fall to sleep themselves sober. In winter they must be made to move on, or they will sleep but to awake in eternity. Then the gorodovoy's billet is no sinecure. A drunken man, roughly roused from his first slumber, is never a pleasant person to deal with, and in Eussia he is superlatively un- pleasant. The Eussian peasant sober, is patient, plodding, dumb, and docile. The Eussian peasant mad with drink (or with his mind poisoned by fanatic Nihilistic teachings) is an uglier customer than any enraged wild beast. For- tunately, vodka is as apt to stupefy as to excite his heavy senses. But perhaps the sleeper whom the police have most often to waken is the poor isvoschik. He has sat for hours in his sleigh waiting for the " fare " that never came. He has fought with sleep, and sleep has conquered. He is so muffled up in his padded kaftan and his great shaggy cap that the gorodovoy must be very vigilant of eye and mind to discover that the Jehu has dropped off into the land of " Nod," and summon him quickly back to the Eussia of the living and the awake; for in Eussia, out of doors and in the winter, the land of " Nod " is the nar- row, abruptly downward-sloping bank of the river Styx. The street police have little trouble in keeping peace. The Bussians splendid fighters as they are are anything but a quarrelsome people. I can recall seeing but two street fights during my stay there. Even in the indescrib- able, unimaginable, dense crowds of the coronation cele- brations, where men and women knocked each other down, trod upon each other constantly, often tearing garments as a sudden storm in Farther India rips into ribbons the great leaves of the fan-palms, no one lost his temper. I AN HOUR IN WARSAW. 23 thought the lower classes stupid and often coarse, but I must write them down good of heart and saccharine of temper. I do not doubt that there are some supreme stupids among the street police. It could not be other- wise where so large a body is drawn from the uneducated, inexperienced, and intellectually as well as socially com- mon masses. Mr. Whishaw, who writes warmly about Russia, who liked the place and the people and has the honesty to say so, tells this amusing story: " As an instance of the thick-headedness of that Jack- in-office, the town policeman or gorodovoy, I may mention the following circumstance, for the absolute and unvar- nished truth of which I can vouch: On one occasion, just after the ice had begun to move (on the Neva), a disciple of Bacchus was suddenly descried stumbling across the unstable roadway afforded by the slowly floating ice. He had been accustomed to cross the river at this spot, and was not in a condition to observe the rude barricades erected to inform would-be passengers that the crossing was no longer safe. Having therefore surmounted the ob- struction, he was now embarked upon his perilous journey. The genial soul was not in the least alarmed, however, doubtless supposing that the insecurity of his footing was caused not by any movement of the ground beneath his feet, but by his own deplorable, though familiar, condition. He had often experienced this sensation before; pavements frequently seemed to move beneath one's feet; it was noth- ing. The special Providence which is the recognised friend of drunken men brought him safely, amid a scene of great excitement, to the point on the opposite side of the river toward which he had steered, and where a large crowd, among whom stood the gorodovoy aforementioned, had collected to watch the sensational episode. On the arrival of the traveller, however, the minion of the law delivered himself of the following: 'How dare you cross the river while the ice is moving? Idiot! don't you know it is forbidden to do so? I have no authority to allow you to land here while the ice is in motion; go back and come round by the bridge as the authorities demand. 5 And back 3 24 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. went the reveller, perfectly contented to obey so simple a request, escorted once again by that special Providence in whose good offices he had long since acquired by con- stant use a vested interest. A sober man would undoubt- edly have been drowned, but our Bacchanalian staggered, floundered, and pounded along with impunity, and eventu- ally reached his original starting point with impunity and without the slightest suspicion that he had twice performed a most dangerous feat, such as the boldest and soberest might shrink to essay." There is a moral in everything, even in a funny story, if one will patiently distil it. The moral of Mr. Whishaw's story, and of a plethora of such, seems to me that the pristafs, or chiefs of police, deserve great credit for mak- ing the efficient and effective use they do of the crude and seemingly impossible material available for under- lings. There are few street accidents in Eussia, and few serious blunders in the management of street traffic or of crowds. After a long, slow drive which we would have found unbearably tedious had it not been through streets that to us were both strikingly novel and uniquely interesting, we reached the square of the Eoyal Castle. We moved slowly across the stones that thirty-five years ago were slippery with the blood of the Polish people, and had a look (as long a look as we desired) at the Zamk which was once the royal Polish residence, and where the Cham- ber of Deputies met. Where Poland's laws were once dis- cussed and made, there is now a Eussian barrack; and the Governor of Warsaw lives and rules in the apartments which once sheltered the kings of Poland. A little farther on, a splendid iron bridge, that looked for all the world as if it had been stolen some dark night from the East Eiver, enabled us to cross the wide and beau- tiful Vistula, and we were in the Praga suburb, the in- describably dirty Jewish quarter. There is a large cattle and horse market here, and it needed not to be seen to be recognised. At the station for we got there at last we handed our AN HOUR IN WARSAW. 25 much-booted, coated, and hatted cabby his legal fare with a kopeck or two over for vodka. He took it, hat in hand, and, contrary to what we had been told and therefore ex- pected, made no demur as to the amount. We employed many isvoschiks first and last, and not one ever demurred at the price paid him. The only time I saw one question the equity of his " f are," he was promptly knocked down and got up hat in hand. The typical isvoschik is as docile as he is dirty he could not be more so. He is composed of dirt and docility. CHAPTEK III. GUESTS OF THE TSAK. INSIDE the handsome station all was bustle, warmth, light, and brightness. Eed carpets (but not for hoi polloi), noble palms, and proud little banners betokened that some royal arrival or departure was imminent. I confess I felt rather out of it all the Babel of foreign tongues, the rushing about of liveried servants, the dignified strutting of the officers and soldiers of several different services, and at least twenty different and striking uniforms. Whom could we make understand us? "Where should we buy our tickets? How find our train? But we were at a loss only for a moment. I turned, and lo! he whom I shall always call my good angel of Warsaw was at my elbow. He of the Wagons-Lits, who, earlier in the morning and at the other side of Warsaw, had rescued us from the slough of linguistic despond, stood there, cap in hand, and smiling like a long-lost brother, having escorted a distinguished person across the city, so he informed us. The distin- guished person was in his carriage, and he of the Wagons- Lits was now altogether at our service. If we would do him the distinguished honour to stand still, he would ascer- tain what arrangements could be made for us in the train about to depart for Moscow. We stood still and amused ourselves watching the thronging crowds of men and women. It was a holiday crowd. All laughed and chatted and crashed into each other, and made way for each other with the frankest, happiest, most cordial air of good- fellowship. The upper ten were there en masse. Four fifths of the men were in uniform. A Russian officer is 26 GUESTS OF THE TSAK. 27 never seen in mufti in Russia, at least. Some of the ladies were young, many of them were old. Some were hand- some, others were plain. But all were gowned in triumphs of Paris's greatest art. Most Frenchwomen dress well, and many Americans; but the Russian gentlewomen excel them both. I never saw a Russian lady who was not ex- quisitely robed. The Dowager Empress, H. I. M. Marie Feodorovna, was for fifteen years conceded to be the best- dressed woman in Europe. The lovely Empress of Aus- tria excelled her in beauty, but no one touched her in frocks. A grande dame who was intimate with Worth (almost from the first days of his reign) told me the fol- lowing little anecdote and vouched for its accuracy: " A client of Worth's, a lady of birth and rank equal, or very nearly equal, to that of her Russian Majesty, once charged the grand old man of Paris with partiality. ' Why will you never create for me the chefs-d'oeuvre, the sublime triumphs that you make every week for the Empress of Russia? ' was her question. " ( Madame, it is impossible. I do my best for every one, but I can do but little alone. It is not enough that you pay me when your robe is accomplished (un fait ac- compli); it is necessary first that you inspire me before your robe is begun here,' tapping his brow and then his heart. 'Her Majesty, the Empress of the Russias, she gives me the inspiration sublime, divine. And when she carries my work she so improves it, I do with difficulty recognise it. Bring to me any woman in Europe queen, artiste, or bourgeoise who can inspire me as does Madame Her Majesty, and I will make her confections while I live and charge her nothing.' ' ; It occurred to me when I heard this that every Russian mondaine must have something of the same effect upon her own particular milliner. Our champion returned smiling but anxious. Were we going to the coronation? We were. He seemed a little embarrassed. Who were we? Were we anybody? That was the purport of his next question. 28 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. But he did not put it so. He beat about the bush beauti- fully, and added that a special train was just starting, and that perhaps we might catch it. It was for Eoyalties and other distinguished guests. "We hastened to assure him that we were no one at all (nor were we from his probable point of view) and that we could not possibly board the Eoyal train. G. had his ticket. I wished to buy mine; and then we desired to journey by the first available train for the common run of travellers to Mos- cow. He was pitifully crestfallen; but he clung to his first idea desperately. Had either of us a carte de visite, he asked despairingly. I owned that I had. He was a man transformed. He thanked my distinguished respectability, and would my honourableness intrust it to him? I gave it to him it seemed brutish to damp his ardour but I did insist that we neither wished nor intended to thrust ourselves where we did not belong. He waved me and my remark away with a superb gesture, and rushed off, leaving us feeling most uncomfortable. Our self-appointed chaperon returned almost at once returned triumphant. A Russian officer came with him a pleasant, well-bred looking fellow, who introduced him- self as Lieutenant Gourko. He wore the bright blue, red- piped uniform of the Lancers, and an exceedingly effective helmet of black patent leather, surmounted by a mortar- board shaped piece, from which sprang a large snow- white, drooping aigrette. He had been detailed, he told us, by the Master of Ceremonies to be in attendance during the coronation period upon the members of the special embassy of the United States and the persons from that country upon the "List of Distinguished Guests." He added that a special train was about to start their Royal Highnesses were already on board would we kindly come with him. I explained to him that my offi- cial position was really infinitesimal, and that, moreover, I had yet to get my ticket. He disallowed all this less dramatically, but quite as emphatically as the Prince of Wagons-Lits had done. I was the guest of the Tsar, he insisted, and I would have no use for a ticket. So be- GUESTS OF THE TSAR. 29 tween them the officer and him of the Wagons-Lits they bundled us into the special train literally neck and crop, bag and baggage. And as the train pulled out, which it did almost at once, we left our friend bowing and smiling on the platform, cap in hand and hand on heart, a model knight of the honourable order of Wagons-Lits. I have never been the recipient of such thoughtful hospitality so thoroughgoing, so tireless, alert, and grace- fully systematic as the hospitality which began for ns when we entered the St. Petersburg station at Warsaw, and that neither ended nor flagged until we recrossed the frontier and passed out of Tsarland. We were in- deed guests of the Emperor. We were the guests of Eussia. We were welcomed royally; we were entertained imperially. It seemed as if that mighty nation had con- spired as one man to do honour to its master by honour- ing his bidden guests, and all the strangers within Rus- sia's gates, who had gathered together to keep his sacred coronation fete. It was inconceivable that our faithful squire had been prompted officially to look out for strangers and befriend them. We had fallen upon him quite by accident, and had seized upon him in our diffi- culty. No; it was the spirit of the place, the people, the hour, and he breathed it. Lieutenant Gourko was the first acquaintance we made on Russian soil. We soon grew to hold him as one of our brightest and best-liked friends, and as such I shall always remember him. The Americans going by that train chanced to be few, and so we had Gourko quite to our- selves, which was a stroke of good luck that we soon learned to appreciate. He is the son of the great Field Marshal Gourko, one of the heroes of Plevna, and, aside from being one of the best of good fellows, interested me greatly as a specimen of a Russian gentleman, born in the army and brought up in the army. Almost every Russian offi- cer is courtier as well as soldier. Gourko was both courtly and frank. He said some very pleasant things but said them simply and with apparent sincerity about being pleased that he was temporarily attached to the United 30 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. States Legation. Indeed, I feel sure that the Eussians rather like us. I saw several little straws that indicated a blowing of the wind in that direction. This special train was as complete as it was comfort- able, and as splendid as a special train well could be, even in Russia, the land of glitter and colour and luxury. We had a compartment entirely to ourselves. There were liveried servants eager to answer the slightest tintinnabula- tion of our little bell. Cigars and cigarettes were ours for the ordering, as well as everything liquid not technically poisonous that I had ever heard of, and many things that I had not. One car in the train was a dining-room and restaurant. We do that sort of thing rather well in America, but the Coronation Committee of Entertainment did it better. It did it inconceivably well. Everything of the choicest was served, and freer than water. We didn't even get a chance to tip the waiter. Gourko took us in to lunch soon after we left Warsaw, and we went most willingly, having breakfasted early and lightly. It was our first Russian meal. I thought it capital. G. was beyond words disgusted. Chacun a son gout! " Raw fish! Raw pig! Fermented kerosene! Sweet cham- pagne! Hades! " exclaimed he to me when Lieutenant Gourko left us for a moment after we had lunched. That was what he said every time we ate in Russia veritably a la Russe. And he says it yet whenever the Russian cuisine is referred to. He was so revolted by the invariable first course of Zakuska that he could never bring himself to eat, much less enjoy, any meal that it preceded. The Russian Zakuska corresponds to the Norwegian Smorgasbrod and to the hors d'oeuvres of London and Paris; but it is a much more elaborate, varied, and substantial course than either. At a normal meal the Zakuska is served separately at a small side or corner table. All partake of it standing, helping themselves and each other, whetting their appe- tites for the meal to follow with many mouthfuls of hot, GUESTS OF THE TSAR. 31 savoury comestibles, and generous tastes of strong fiery drinks. The appearance of the Zakuska is a matter of much moment and of serious consideration, both to the careful Russian housewife who looks after her own domes- tic affairs, and to the important maitre d'hotel who is re- sponsible for the daily household arrangements of great people. Table decorations, though by no means overlooked or slighted, are not an over-important item in every-day Russian life, but the Zakuska table is always spread with care and as much positive presentableness as possible. No pains are spared to excite the eye and the nostrils, that they, reacting upon the palate, may excite it too. This struck me very forcibly later, when I came to move about among the peasants a little, and to see something of how they lived. With the poorer of them the details of life are reduced to the utmost possibility of simplicity pushed to its very verge. But there is another class, composed of prosperous farmers, petty tradespeople, etc., who quaintly combine naked simplicity with more elaborate observances borrowed from the rich and well-bred. One of the first things with which a Russian family concerns itself when it emerges from the humblest into the next social stage is the arranging and the serving of the Zakuska. In a household where all other food was served and partaken of in the coarsest, most primitive way, I have seen a snowy towel, embroidered in red and green and blue, and elabo- rately fringed, laid upon the Zakuska table. The table itself was clean, with grotesquely carved legs. The raw her- rings were on a gaily painted plate, and the slices of bread thickly spread with caviar were on another; and three small glasses of red and yellow placed symmetrically around the green and yellow bowls of liquor. And all this to preface a dinner of Spartan simplicity ill-cooked, thrown on the board rather than served, and gulped down rather than eaten. Ivan Ivanovitch is a shock-headed, untutored peasant. His dinner is of boiled buckwheat, highly salted and sea- soned with garlic. He eats from a dirty wooden bowl, and with his dirty fingers seizes upon any portions that fall 32 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. upon his dirty red shirt, if they are of enough constituency to be seized upon; otherwise he seizes them with his mouth, if they have fallen within the possible reach of that mighty but untidy member. But before he dines he has his Zakuska, and he takes it standing, as a Eussian should. He eats a piece of black bread dried in the sun and sprinkled with vinegar. With it he devours a good-sized onion, well seasoned with cayenne. Then he has three peppery red radishes and a cup of vodka. And, mark me, the radishes were laid upon a saucer clean and pink, and the liquor cup is en suite! Upon the special train the Zakuska was of necessity placed upon the tables upon which the lunch itself was to be served, and its arrangement was unelaborate but bountiful. Down the centre of the table I counted ten kinds of liquor. About the drinkables were ranged the eatables. The Eussians take a glass of one liquor and then a generous snack from one dish. They follow this with a glass of some other liquor, and then a snack from an- other dish. And so on until they feel that their appetites are stimulated up to a pitch that will enable them to do justice to the long and heavy meal which is sure to follow. The Eussian liquors are fiery and potent; and at first I did not care to toy with more than two or three of them at a time. The vodka the rival of tea with the Eussian masses I did not like. It was rough and disagreeable of aroma. Listofka I thought decidedly good. I liked the flavour, which was unlike any I had known before. It was partly due, I learned, to the steeping of young black currant leaves in the fermenting spirits. The solids of the Zakuska I tasted one after the other, led by curiosity to run the risk of spoiling my real meal. Eadishes, olives, and smoked salmon I skipped. I had tasted them many a time and oft. And I also knew several of the pickles and all the cheeses, and passed them also by. The raw sucking pig was good. It doesn't sound nice, but I can't help that; it was distinctly good. It was served in very small cubes, highly seasoned, and laid on toast. The smoked goose was aggravatingly tasty, for you could not GUESTS OF THE TSAR. 33 manage much of it at least I couldn't. The uncooked fish was not bad. But it was the fresh caviar that I revelled in; it was spread on bread or on toast. In either case it was put on thick, and was sprinkled with chopped onion and lemon. They removed the Zakuska and brought the soup. It was ice-cold and delicious, the perfection of soup to follow the h'res of the vodka, the delightful torments of the cayenned fish, and the accentuated caviar. It was okroshka they served us the king of potages, barring sterlet soup. Okroshka is largely made of a fer- mented rye wine called kvas. There were slices of cu- cumber, shreds of fish, and scraps of meat floating in it. It was colder than any ice, and, as I heard a small country- man of mine remark some weeks later in a St. Petersburg restaurant, " it was better than ice cream! " The fish with which they served us looked for all the world like bleached doughnuts. It was in fact patties of sturgeon and isinglass, served with an excellent sauce a sauce highly flavoured with the sturgeon. From that on our luncheon became very cosmopolitan. We might have been eating in New York or San Francisco, in Paris or Vienna, in London or Venice, except that we would most certainly have had fewer courses and less of each. We had the invariable Eussian salad: eggs, beet- root, lettuce, onion, radishes, capers, tomatoes, celery, chicken, and salmon, smothered in rich mayonnaise. For our jarkoe or roast of game they served young blackcock with a salad of salted cucumber. Several of the sweets were new to me; but I passed them by for the favourite goody of my Chicago boyhood, Nesselrode pudding. Liqueurs and coif ee and cigarettes followed the lunch, which had been of almost a dozen courses, and which every one but I had washed down with oft-repeated bumpers of champagne. Wines of every kind and vintage were to be had for the asking, however; and when I selected claret they brought me something very sound and with a per- fect bouquet. Verily, in Russia good digestion seems to wait on appe- tite. As a people, the Russians eat often, much, and richly; 34: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. but I never heard the word dyspepsia spoken there save by alien lips. The Eussians are as hospitable as the Arabs are; and the stranger within their splendid gates who would not eat himself to death must be firm of will and know how to say gracefully, " Hold! enough! " CHAPTER IV. THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. THE welfare of a people and the character of a people depend largely upon what that people eats, when it eats, and how it eats. Many a rebellion, many a revolu- tion, has heen begotten in the kitchen. Many a dynasty has fallen, many a ministry gone wrong, because of an ill-filled larder or a badly advised breakfast. The food of one generation forms a very essential portion of the com- ponents parts of the bone, the blood, the muscle, and the brain of the next. Yes, and it determines in a most ap- preciable degree the morality of the unborn. Page after page of history, national as well as personal, international as well as national, has been written in the cook house, the dairy, the bakery, and the wine cellar. More than one of the world's decisive battles have been fought on no broader a battlefield than a dinner-table, with hors d'ceuvres for spies, roast beef for big cannon, and coffee and cigar- ettes for the ambulance corps. Many a defeat, many a triumph of world : wide importance, has been born of, or achieved by, a batterie de cuisine. Most of the ride from Warsaw to Moscow was devoid of any interest but that which was purely personal, and I make no apology for substituting for a chronicle of it a few notes upon the important subject of what the Rus- sians eat and how they eat. I know no other country where there is so great a contrast and yet so distinct a kinship between the food of the rich and the poor as there is in Russia. And a friend who is world-travelled assures me that there is no 85 36 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. other such country except China. A Eussian is a Russian, be he prince or serf, and in no other respect is the Russian strain more clearly marked than it is gastronomically. I have written enough to indicate the character of the cherished national Zakuska. Let me repeat that it pre- cedes every Russian repast, except where poverty has swept the board of every toothsome crumb and left it bare of all but the most meagre necessaries. There are people in Russia so poor that they never have Zakuska, perhaps do not even know what it is. Among the most destitute of the people, who, in Russia as elsewhere, are usually the most shiftless also, there is a class only one degree, and that a small one, removed from starvation. The character of the staple food of this class is well-nigh incredible. It is made of finely ground tree bark mixed with a modicum of flour. They mix it with water, bake it if possible; if not, devour it raw. It is their substitute for bread, it is their substitute for meat, but it is not their sole article of diet. They have an accompany- ing vegetable. They eat grass. It is their salad, their hors d'ceuvre, their vegetable, the single other solid item upon their unvaried bill of fare. One meal differs from another, from all others, only in the " bread " being raw or cooked, and in the relative proportions of bread and grass. The less bread they have, the more grass they must eat and do eat. Water is the only beverage they know. Neither tea nor vodka ever passes their lips. They have only tears always bitter and water often brackish to slake their misery and their thirst. But these wretched creatures form an inexpressibly small fraction of the whole of Russia's immense population. And they shed no tears; they are thriftless, shiftless, and unconcerned. If they find food to eat, they eat. If they find no food, they lie down stolidly and die. The shiftlessness of the lowest type of Russian peasant is his chief characteristic. In- deed, I may almost say that it is his only characteristic; but for that he is a man of dough nerveless and un- malleable. Shiftlessness is his curse, and he is the curse of Russia one of her greatest curses. The only good THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 37 thing about him is that there are so few of him. Eebels can be checked, reformed even, sometimes; traitors ban- ished or executed; but the creature I have described is worthless, hopeless. He is of no use to his Tsar, his coun- try, or himself. Nor can he be made of any, or his condi- tion be bettered. Extermination is the only fate he is fit for and since the children must, indeed, for endless gen- erations suffer for the sins of the fathers, the only fate he .merits. Stay! He serves one purpose, a most petty one 'tis true, but even so let me give the poor devil his due. He serves excellently to point my theory that as the meat is, the man is; that the food a man eats both shows what he is and largely determines what he shall be. Conceive of a man a man with all his parts about him and usable content to browse as Nebuchadnezzar, in his accursed madness, browsed; a man willing to live upon powdered bark! It seems natural enough, does it not, that he grovels through all his life, and never cares to rise? Verily, there is nothing to be done for him, nothing to be done with him, and I, for one, feel that he should not be al- lowed to perpetuate his kind. His only virtue is his Sobriety, and it is of so negative a kind that it really doesn't count. A man who never looks upon the meat when it is smoking, juicy, and crisp, who never cares to break bread that is white and wholesome, who never longs for fruit that is ripe and perfumed, is scarcely to be praised because he never looks upon the wine when it is red, nor gulps the vodka when it is fiery. He is an abomination. He is not even a feather worth the wearing of the total abstainers. As I have said, and as I wish to emphasize, these grass eaters are in the minutest conceivable proportion when considered in relation to the total of the Tsar's subjects, or even in relation to any other class of Eussians. But the shiftlessness which is their only characteristic is un- fortunately one of the salient points of a large body an enormous body of Eussians, who dwell on the next low- est rung of the social ladder. If the Eussian masses could be inoculated with the energy, the love of beauty and com- fort, the appetite for active enjoyment which are so splen- 38 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. didly characteristic of the well-born Russians, the worst of Russia's civil battles would be fought and won, half of Russia's blackest problems forever solved. But all the lower Russian orders are permeated with this deplorable spirit of laisser aller. " It will all be ground up fine and make excellent flour/' is an oft-used Russian proverb, and expresses clearly the doggerel faith of the average Russian, that the good and evil of life, when mixed together in the mill of Time and Fate, will be ground up for good, and furnish a very passable flour of life. " Man may walk, but it is God who leads him," is a saying often quoted and firmly believed by Ivan Ivanovitch. This apathy of the masses is, I firmly believe, the chief reason why we find millions of people living from generation to genera- tion upon buckwheat and sour cabbage soup people who might live upon an amplitude of good things if they would only mingle a decent amount of forethought and common sense with a manly proportion of industry; for Russia is a land of inestimable, if hidden plenty, and only needs the touch of a well-directed wand of industry to gush forth with milk and honey. At the Russian dinner or luncheon of affluence, soup is only tasted. In many a meal of Russian poverty it is the chief, and often indeed the only course. The soups used by the rich are often cold, and frequently made of fish. The soups eaten by the poor are usually steaming and made of cabbage. I remember a cold potage Botvinia which I first tasted when I dined at the " Yard," and which greatly attracted me by its peculiarly beautiful green colour. All Russians rich and poor are devoted to cabbage soup. Made in the kitchens of the elite, it is called stchi and is generously diluted with sour cream. I liked it immensely. It is not unlike a piquant asparagus bisque. Made in the kitchens of the poor, it is an abomination a thing to smell once and fly from. To see it is to lose your relish for all soups for many a long day. It is called schee and is made of rotten cabbage. Its odour is unequalled by all the other vile smells on earth, and it clings for weeks to the room in which it has stood for only a few moments, and THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 39 clings forever to the garments and the persons of those who eat it often. Hundreds of thousands of Russians lit- erally live upon it. The porter at your gate, the policeman at your corner, the soldier you meet on the streets, and the sailor on the Neva, adore it and consume incredible quan- tities of it. A Russian of the lower orders never opens a window. He likes foul air and seems to thrive upon it. Imagine a little, air-tight room of ten by fourteen feet a room in which eight or nine people have eaten schee, two or three times a day, and seven days a week, and every week of the year. Remember that they have been doing this not for one year but for many, and that their fathers and their father's fathers did it before them. Remember that the one window is never opened, and that all through the long winter the temperature is kept at red heat. Need I say more? IJkha, or soup made of fish, is most popular. The cheaper sorts are rancid and nasty. That served to the well-to-do is rich and delicious, but very expensive. Sterlet soup is the triumph of the Russian gourmet. It is better than clam chowder, and not altogether unlike it; but it is a costly dish. Sterlet often sells for five dollars (one sovereign) a pound. From the standpoint of the fish- monger, the epicurean, and the social economist, Russia is rich in fish. From the standpoint of the piscatorial sports- man she is poor. In other words, there is an abundance of fish easily caught and cheaply bought; there is also a variety of delicate and delicious fish for those who are particular of appetite and careless of purse; but there are almost no fish worthy an expert or enthusiastic angler's skill. Most of the fish that are found in Great Britain are found in Russia. There are pike, perch, bream, bleak, and roach in plenty. There are gudgeon and salmon and trout and grayling and salmon-trout for the million. And for the few there are the four unique and choice fishes of Russia the sterlet, the sturgeon, the sig, and the soodak. Herrings are perhaps the favourite of the humbler classes. Cooked herrings and vodka are often the dinner the sole dinner of thousands of families. And raw 4 40 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. herrings are lavishly used in the Zakuskas of rich and poor. In the middle classes a thickly salted raw herring is often eaten, and a cup of vodka drained, at any point in the meal at which the consumer of food feels that he can " no more." He does not give it up as we of more craven stomachs might. Not he! He spurs his inner man on with vodka and raw fish. Sometimes he will do this half a score of times at one meal. This is pre-eminently his habit at " butter time " and on feast days. A recent traveller says: " While upon the heroic subject of her- rings and vodka, I may mention that there is to be seen in a certain restaurant in Moscow, written in large letters upon the wall of the common dining-room, a legend of which the following is a translation: 'I ate twelve her- rings to one glass of vodka.' This is a more remarkable feat for a Eussian than would at first sight appear, for salted herrings are thirsty fare, and the Eussian is a thirsty soul even without herrings twelve to add a dozen arguments to the promptings of Nature. The legend is capped, however, by a second, written just underneath the first; it is to the following effect: "The more fool you! I drank twelve glasses of vodka to one herring! ' A less remarkable but more Eussian feat." I personally know of one or two exceptions to the gen- eral rule that in Eussia the angler will find but tame sport. On the marvellous little Zaritch Eiver, about three hours' journey from St. Petersburg, if I remember, the trout are so splendid and so abundant that at one point the owners of the preserve allow no fish not weighing slightly over a pound to be permanently taken from the water. Two- and three-pound beauties are the average! Men who have angled far and wide assure me that in all the world there is no trout fishing to match that on the Zaritch Eiver. When in Finland we had some capital sport with sal- mon-trout, and it is from Finland that the St. Petersburg fish markets get their abundance of this fish. A Fin peasant took charge of each of us and paddled us up and down one of the fish-rich Finnish rivers. The little boat THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 41 in which I sat (G.'s was almost identical) was as light as our birch-bark canoe, and, on my word, the heavy, dull- looking native managed it as dexterously, got over the water, rough or smooth, as quickly as did ever Indian skim the blue and placid and bright and churning waters of the St. Lawrence. It was a lovely river; I forget its name, but it was not far from the world-famed Imatra Falls, and I think tributary to the Imatra River. Now the banks were wild with unkempt, mutinous shrubs and trees, now they were soft and seductive with delicate, tender flowers. More than once the air was heavy with the incense-like breath of Nature's sweetest child, the lily of the valley. For yard after yard, rod after rod, the dainty, exquisite things fringed the river's edge and perfumed the air until my senses ached from their sweetness. Then once more the scene grew wilder. Flowers trembling and fragile, and unknown to me, followed the dainty lilies. The ferns claimed all the bank, spreading it with carpets of quiver- ing, matchless green. Then coarser ferns and hardier flowers and quarrelsome grasses tangled together and waged sweet-scented, gay-coloured warfare. Now and again we passed a tiny island. From one, where flowers of timid pink and flowers of flaunting ochre grew among the ferns, a brood of bright blue birds rose at our approach and winged swiftly away. On several of the small islands only the sweet, frail white flowers grew. Over one of these in- describably beautiful islets, upon no inch of which a hum- ming bird could have pressed his weight without crushing one of the delicate sprays of tender bells, a swarm of milk- white butterflies hung. Over all was the golden sunshine, under all the emerald water. It seemed too beautiful to be real. But it was real. I saw it with my waking eyes; and, rough and tough though I am, I held my breath, fearful that any sign of my presence should disturb some lovely thing of satin petal or of velvet wing. And as our canoe dashed on like some happy water bird, my heart gave a beat or two of sheer happiness that I had seen so much beauty. I own it without a blush. I'm rather proud of it, in fact. We dashed on into the shadow, and passed a 42 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. tiny island so completely covered with magnificent bright, blue gentians, that, rising from the still, dark-green river, it looked like some great soft sapphire set upon a vast slab of malachite. On we went on to a tiny waterfall and over it. Yes, we did! I can't say how much danger we were in, but it looked dangerous. And it felt dangerous pain- fully so the first time Ivan did it. But I grew used to it soon and resigned myself to the guardian angel of fishermen and to him. We caught, that day, the finest perch I have ever seen and some magnificent salmon-trout. I will not say how many fish I got, nor what they weighed. It is a thankless task to tell of one's piscatorial achieve- ments. But I assure the reader that in the eyes of our Finnish boatman G. was by no means a hero when he landed an eighteen-pound salmon-trout, for the river was full of such fish weighing twenty pounds or more. And even on the next day, while we were fishing on a match- lessly lovely lake, when a monster pike, a perfect sea- horse of a fellow, took the bit between his teeth and, hook in mouth, actually towed G. for several yards, neither of our attendants evinced the least surprise. I may add that all our fishing was done as it always is in that part of the world with spinning bait. Perhaps the four fish that of all the known varieties of finny life afford their captors the least sport are the four that are by all the world conceded to be the choicest that swim in Russian waters the sterlet, the sig, the soodak, and the sturgeon. The perfection of the sterlet is so dependent upon its size and freshness that in many of the crack restaurants of Moscow, and of a few other cities that are near enough to the Volga, a great marble basin forms the centre of the dining-room. This basin is three quarters filled with limpid water water in which great aquatic plants dwell plants between whose splen- did leaves magnificent sterlet dart, lifting now and again their shapely heads to catch the spray falling from the fountain that with a slim, straight, and then gracefully falling shaft of water punctuates the small pool's centre. The Russian gourmet who is old enough and the Russian Lady in Russian dress. THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 43 gourmet who is young enough to take a keen satisfac- tion in the display of his gastronomical judgment and exquisite taste goes to the marble brink of this artificial lake and nets his own sterlet. The waiter hands him a net, fanciful of handle and silken of web. He grasps it, looks critical, then wise, and thrusts it into the pool. If he is lucky he brings up a fish. If not, he tries again. When sooner or later he captures his prey, with a gesture of triumph he hands his net to the attendant and hies him to his poiage. Almost before his soup is removed the sterlet is brought to him, dressed in any way he has ordered, and cooked to perfection. I noticed that most of the travellers dining at the Moscow restaurants liked to net their own sterlet. I did it once. But it was stupid sport, and after that I always left the selection of my fish to the waiter, who understood what I did not which were the choice specimens. During the world-famed annual fair at Nijni Nov- gorod many capital restaurants are kept by famous Mos- cow caterers, who come to Nijni for the purpose, and pride themselves in excelling their Moscow standard of excellence. One boniface is noted throughout the Empire for the excellence of his fish and the extent and condition of his fish wells, as his father was noted before him. The following little description of a visit to these wells is in- teresting, I think. It was written over fifty years ago, but it might have been written yesterday: " The dinner over, we sallied forth. In the middle of dinner, a portly man, his face beaming with good humour, had come up to inquire of our well-doing. This was the host, from Moscow for the nonce, a large genial man. Each year he made a little fortune at Nijni. Now he was told that I wished to see where he kept his sturgeon and sterlet in the river. These were kept under lock and key out on the bridge. Presently he returned with the keys and directions, and confided the guardians of his treasures to Mr. P. with many injunctions; and so we drove off to the great bridge. Arrived at about a third of the way over, we got down from our drosky, and found stairs leading out to what was a 44 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. floating town. On what a scale it was! Here were wooden erections so extensive and so substantial that one might sup- pose they had been there for a century, and were intended to last another century or two, living rooms and covered decks, passages and galleries, small wells for delicate fish, and large wells for the royal sturgeon and princely sterlet. In various parts of the deck were the sacred cavities, the wells fastened with massive iron locks and bars. One of the keys of the Moscow landlord opened a monster pad- lock, and a wide, dark pool yawned beneath the spreading cover. A man with bare legs and short white linen brogues, with red beard and bare neck, came with a net six feet square, in a frame with a long handle, and plunged it into the pool. Then there was a mighty turmoil below of huge monsters rushing about in the wide space, the water surging up all round, and now a great head half appearing, and now a tail fin, the splendid fish lashing in its descent the boiling water. At last the skilful attend- ant secured one in the corner and bore him to the surface a hundred-pounder, a sturgeon a noble fellow. " ' That's not one of the largest/ said the man quietly, and then he dipped the net, turned it over with a twist of the wrist, released the fish, and struck out for another. Then began the turmoil amid the seething water. ' That's a good one,' he exclaimed, as one bigger than the last rose to the surface, and after a savage rush and struggle was captured in the bellying net. ' That's about one hundred and twenty,' said the man, ( and in good season too.' "What a splendid fellow he was! bright and shin- ing and of beautiful proportions. What play that fish would give one on a good line downstream, methought! It would be an hour or two's work to land him, and here he comes up in his prison in two turns of the wrist. He seemed all too grand for his narrow dungeon. Then we had another well opened, and the delight of gourmands, the sterlet, was fished up in the same way. Of all sizes these were from ten pounds up to fifty. Mr. P. told us a story of a fine sturgeon caught in the Volga some years back, on the occasion of the visit of the Crown Prince THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 45 to Nijni, and presented to him. The Prince requested that he might not be killed, but turned back into the river. This was done, a gold ring with an inscription being run through his gill. Three or four years after, a peasant caught the fish with the ring in his gill, and the Governor of Nijni, hearing of the capture, sent off to save the fish's life. ' The Prince had spared his life, no one must kill him/ So the Governor decided, and he gave the peasant five hundred roubles for it, adding a second ring with a fresh inscription in the gill of the fish, and gave him his liberty. ' That fish,' said Mr. P., ' has a fair chance of dying in his bed of old age, a rare case for a sturgeon within reach of Nijni.' ' : One more word in connection with Eussian fish, and I am done. If you ever go to "Russia and a dish called soli- anka is offered to you, as you love your inner man, re- fuse it not. Its ingredients are vulgar, but it is divine. It is created out of fish and cabbage. But sprinkle it royally with cayenne, and oh, ye gods, but it's good! The Muscovites eat buckwheat as the Orientals eat rice. Indeed, their Orientalism is in no way more strongly marked than in the matter and the manner of their eat- ing. The ill-bred Eussian is often dirty in his eating, and the ill-bred Oriental is never that. But still, the Eussians, high and low, have many little table tricks, or rather tricks of table manner, that remind one strangely of their kinship with the peoples of the East, and above all with the Chinese. The use of rice itself the Eussians understand as does no other people in Europe, and we of America even less. Buckwheat porridge, stewed buckwheat, gaieties of buck- wheat, almost piquant with salt and pepper, and half a dozen other primitive dishes of buckwheat, are used by the common and middle-class people enormously, and often to the exclusion of all other foods. Eussian buckwheat has a threefold merit: It is sweet (Ivan Ivanovitch has a complete set of big sweet teeth), it is nutritious, and it is stimulating. And it has another a crowning virtue it is cheap. In the kitchens of the rich buckwheat is usu- ally made into puddings or used to stuff joints of meat. 46 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Mutton and beef crammed with buckwheat and then baked or roasted are excellent eating. And gurief the best of buckwheat sweets is a pudding that I recall with respect and admiration. At certain periods of the year, at butter time, and on feast days, all Eussia devours pancakes as one man. Mushrooms and cabbage seemed to me to be their favourite vegetables. The people eat honey in in- credible quantities. A great shock-headed fellow will take a pound or two of the dripping comb in his greasy, grimy fist, and devour it at a few bites and then he'll buy more, if he has kopecks enough. The Eussians are as fond of nuts as squirrels are. The people munch them. The select introduce them into many of their best-liked and most-used dishes. Nor must I forget the Eussian gourd. Thousands of peasants live on it. Millions of the Tsar's subjects eat it with every- thing. It is, when ripe, sometimes a pale green, sometimes a pale yellow. It tastes rather like a green cucumber, and a little like a mango. It is a small gourd, seldom over four inches long. Endless acres of land are devoted to its culture, and tens of thousands of peasants (chiefly women) earn their livelihood picking it, packing it, and carrying it to market. Eussia has a distinctive game population, most of it exceedingly good to eat, much of it good to kill. No people understand the cooking and the serving of game better than the Eussians do. They almost always serve salads with it, and nothing else except a modest portion of some condiment exactly calculated to accentuate or draw out the bird's flavour. And they know to a nicety what the ingredients should be of the salads served with each kind of game. Blackcock, capercailzie, woodcock, and snipe abound in Eussia. Hazel grouse are plentiful from January to January. The raibchink, or tree par- tridge, is used beyond all other game. And I thought it the most toothsome. I ought perhaps to qualify this ex- pression of my opinion by saying that several varieties of the most highly prized of Eussian game I did not taste. In Eussia " close time " for game begins in May and ends THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 47 late in July, and regarding many kinds of game the law is strictly enforced and implicitly obeyed. The raibchink is chiefly killed in spring, but it is eaten always. It is delicious; it wears well. Your palate never tires of it, eat you it ever so often. It is so plentiful that in many parts of the Empire you can buy a sledge load of it, frozen, for a ridiculously small sum. It is the chief source of income of the sporting peasants. Thousands and thousands of these professional hunters bring sledge after sledge load of brown raibchinks to every large Russian town at cer- tain seasons. No one thinks of buying frozen raibchink by the pair or by the hundred. Every well-to-do house- wife invests in at least one cart load. They keep for months. In many households raibchink is a never-omitted item of the daily menu. In almost every home of even comparative comfort it is eaten constantly when other game is scarce or unobtainable. At no Russian restaurant or hotel of even second- or third-class pretensions need one ever hesitate to order tree partridge. You will get it, for they are never out of it. They would as soon think of being out of salt, or bread, or caviar, or vodka. You will get it good, for the toothsome fellow is hard to spoil, and the Russians, who are born cooks, excel in the broil- ing of birds and the dressing of salads. When free, this partridge affects the tallest of pine trees. It is swifter than swift of wing, and only expert sportsmen ever bring it down, unless they "pot" it as it sits. Every peasant who makes a business of killing this bird carries a small affair which is called a " raibchink whistle." When blown upon by a skilled hunter it emits an infinitesimal sound, very shrill and high of pitch, but sweet and soft of tone. This is so excellent an imitation of the raibchink's note that it deceives the birds themselves. Those of the tribe that hear it wing toward it. The hunters hide behind the trees, or in the grass or undergrowth. The birds perch upon the tree tops, look eagerly about for their comrades, who, as they think, have called to them, and as they sit they are shot. Not very noble sport! Much of the game shoot- ing in Russia is of a kind that we would call unsports- 4:8 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. manlike. If raibchink shooting as usually practised is not noble sport, the bird's white flesh is exceedingly noble eating, and we should but seldom taste it, even in the heart of Russia, if it were never bagged but in a strictly sportsmanlike manner. The luring to their death of the raibchink by the note of the false bird is peculiarly like, almost identical with, a custom of some tribes of our North American Indians, who fashion a " deer whistle " out of the bark of some young sapling's shoot, and with it lure many a distant deer to their gun's range and its death. The whistle of the Indian is a little longer than that of the Russian peasant, but both are small. "Ma- ma " softly calls the Indian's wee instrument. The dis- tant deer hearing it thinks that some fawn is lost or in distress, and rushes to its cruel fate as the soft, feathered partridge rushes to its own. Treacherous instruments! Snipe are to be shot in Russia only during two weeks each year, for that is the length of the bird's sojourn in the Empire of the Tsar. During these two weeks the men and the boys who are not out snipe shooting are either in prison, in bed, or insane. This, again, is not very brave sport, not much for a man to boast of. The birds are too easily shot. Often they are too fat to fly quickly. There is an abundance of good duck shooting in Rus- sia. The bagging of blackcock is the favourite sport of those who hunt for pleasure; but as the capercailzie is the king of all game birds, so is its slaughter the chief joy of the Muscovite hunter. The conditions of sport in Russia are so entirely differ- ent from sport as we know it, that I am tempted to linger over the subject. But we must get on to Moscow; and I must for the moment content myself with saying that blackcock hunting is as curious and interesting as caper- cailzie hunting is great. The blackcocks hold a wonder- ful tournament every spring. They parade and fight (or pretend to fight) while the female birds sit and watch them. And it is then, while doing doughty deeds for its lady love, that the blackcock is oftenest shot. The Rus- sian sportsmen justify this slaughter of the cocks during THE BREAKING OF RUSSIAN BREAD. 49 the pairing and breeding season. The blackcock is a Don Juan of a bird. It is unfaithful to its mate from the first. It never does a stroke of work. Long before the eggs are hatched, it is off. and away, seeking new hens to woo. Its mate and babies are every bit as well off with it dead as alive. Then, too, there is in this species a very large pre- ponderance of male birds. The hens don't go round. Con- sequently two or more cocks frequently select the same gray hen as the object of their ardent if temporary atten- tions. Then there is a fight as is a fight. And the grand finale is almost invariably a nestful of broken eggs and a broken-hearted hen. The preservation of this valuable and useful species necessitates a constant thinning of the male ranks, especially in hatching time. And the Rus- sian sportsman, who is nothing if not a casuist, is stanch in the belief that the righteous end justifies the unsports- manlike means. Eussia is full of fruit. Among the upper classes it is not much used at dinner, except as an ingredient of ices and frozen puddings, or as a confiture. But the people who can get it eat it lavishly, chiefly between meals, as do the people of the Orient. The ubiquitous, the in- evitable banana flaunts its long yellow coats at you wherever you go in Russia. I don't know where they grow, or where they all come from, or where they go to (for they are beyond the common people), but there they are wher- ever you go, millions of them yes, and billions! Of the fruits that I ate in Russia, and was told grew there, I on the spur of this moment's writing recall an endless variety of grapes, strawberries, currants, apricots, peaches, goose- berries (as big as plums), raspberries, pears, and melons. In a later chapter I shall have much to say about a dinner of the Tsar, and about another that I ate as his guest. Let me close this chapter .with just a word about the dinner of a Russian convict. As I have already stated, it is no part or parcel of my purpose to go into any burn- ing Russian questions. I am firmly convinced that all that sort of thing has been overdone to the verge of ab- surdity; that Russian outrages have been grossly exag- 50 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. gerated, and, above all, that Eussia is quite capable of tak- ing care of herself and hers, and of doing her own re- forming. Moreover, I have matter more attractive for my pen. The bells are ringing, the bugles call, all Eussia is glad and gay. And I am en route for the crowning of the Tsar. But this is by the way. I personally saw some- thing of the food served to the prisoners in three of Eus- sia's largest prisons. It was not a Delmoniconian diet, but it was ample, clean, and wholesome. In both quality and quantity it was superior to the food given to the con- victs at Sing Sing and to that served to the prisoners in Holloway. And this is, I think, a most significant fact it is at least sixty per cent better than most of the mis- demeanants were accustomed to before they became the involuntary guests of the Government, as is almost uni- versally the case. Among both the plutocracy and the aristocracy of Eus- sia the cuisine is largely French. But almost always there is a dash of Orientalness a dish or two, at least, that are sharply Eussian. No people have more characteristic and palatable dishes of their own. No people know better how to cook, serve, and enjoy food a la Frangaise. Eussia is the gastronomic link between the tables of the Orient and of the Occident. CHAPTER V. AS SEEN EN BOUTE. INSIDE the car all went merry as coronation bells. Out- side it was for the most part uninteresting enough even while the sun shone, as it did most of the time in an opu- lent, Oriental sort of way. When the sun sulked behind a barricade of heavy clouds, for all the world like some peevish, vacillating Eastern potentate, the prospect from the windows was bleak in the extreme. We passed through forests that were monotonous and unimpressive ; we crossed long, weary tracts of gray, sterile-looking land like a Kansas prairie deserted by the Indians, unimproved by the white settlers, and stricken by the blight. But now and again we steamed slowly through some interesting Russian villages, and twice, when we made an unexpected and by no means brief halt, we saw something of village life. Every village in Russia is like every other village there. Let me assure you of this emphatically, for it is unquali- fiedly true. See one, and you have seen them all. I sus- pected this during that first ride from Warsaw to Moscow; I knew it for a surety a few weeks later when we had traversed Russia, north, south, east, and west. Look out of the car window with me, will you? We are merely crawling along and are on the outskirts of a village. That rickety, gray, weather-beaten signpost proclaims it. The sun is out, but even so we can only half read the inscrip- tion on the post, " vtsee " ! That is the last syllable, and all that we can decipher of the village's name. No matter; our loss is small, as we could by no possibility pro- si 52 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. nounce it. Beneath, the name there is a clearer line, a less defaced " 61 " that is plain enough. And Gourko courte- ously translates the accompanying word of Eussian. It means souls " 61 souls." Sixty-one men and boys (the women and girls don't count) when the last Government revision was made. The taxes of each village are assessed and collected in a lump by the Government when a re- vision is made or the census is taken. Every man or male child counts one, be he a century old or aged but one hour. Their number forms the basis of taxation, and the tax then fixed remains unchanged until the date of the next re- vision. The male population may increase or decrease greatly; the tax never fluctuates, but remains a fixed, un- debatable, unchanging, and unchangeable sum for a period not often less than ten years. If such a thing should or could occur as the death of every male but one in the village, that one survivor would have the pleasure of pay- ing the whole of the communal village taxes. Were this one " soul " still in his swaddling clothes, what would he do then? It would be rather embarrassing to the tax- collecting official, would it not? On the other hand, the allotment of land to the different villagers, the portion and situation given to each, and the share of the general tax that each must contribute to the common fund on or before tax day, are all decided in the village itself, and by a governing body elected by the villagers from their own number. And though the sturdy women never figure as souls on the aforementioned wooden documents, they are allowed to work the land, to labour for the common good, and to contribute their hard-earned kopecks to the fund. The official assessment is never disputed, its equity is never questioned, and I never heard of the figures on the signpost being altered or defaced (save by time and weather), though. I often asked if such an enormity ever happened. The Russian moujik is patient, law-abiding, law-respecting, except where sedition and alcohol have done their damning work. Having touched upon the eternal woman question, let me interject a passing word about the women of the AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 53 Eussian peasantry. We saw far fewer women doing hard out-of-door work in Eussia than we did in Germany and some other continental countries. By " hard out-of-door work " I mean such work as we in America associate with men and beasts only; such work that, should it suddenly occur to us that it was fitted for women's hands, we should find forever left undone. What a nation of men left in the lurch we should be, indeed, did we depute to woman any one of a dozen occupations which are her common lot in Germany and Holland! I do not mean that we saw no women working in the Eussian fields; we saw many, but they had no monopoly of such labour. And in Eussia you never by any chance see a woman and a cow yoked together, a woman and a dog hitched to the same cart sights common in nearly all other European countries. In one picture of peasants harvesting which I bought there are five men and one woman. As far as my observation went, this is about the proportion in which Eussian men and women are apt to do those sorts of labour which we do not associate with women's hands at all. The village street no, that won't do; I must hit upon some other term, for there is no village street. The muddy space which takes its place stretches for a quarter or half a mile, and separates the fronts of one row of tumbledown wooden huts from the fronts of another row of tumble- down wooden huts, and is never by any chance edged with footways. In the village there is usually one two-storied house and (unless the souls be very few) a church. All the other buildings are alike. They are low, one-storied, sharp-roofed structures, built of roughly hewn, unpainted logs. In the front of each are three windows, narrow and close together, with frames of vivid red and violent green, and above each frame a crude cornice of redder red and shrieking yellow. The solid blinds are thrown open, and we see that their inner surfaces are daubed white and deco- rated with barbaric curves and lines of red, blue, and orange. Each window is glazed with five disproportionate panes. The low doorways are at the sides. The tone of the houses is mellow gray, with roofs and foundations of dull, cold 54: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. brown. The decorated windows give a flash touch of colour that is as characteristic as it is striking, and saves the street from being sad and hopeless. On the side of the house which is unbroken by doorway, porch, or window, there often hangs a duga, for nearly every peasant owns some sort of rough cart or vehicle for the hauling of grain, fuel, and other necessaries. The points of the shafts of every Eussian vehicle are bound to this duga. It is a high, cumbersome yoke, shaped like a gigantic horseshoe, and rises two or three feet above the horse's collar, to which it is attached near the bottom. It holds the collar and shafts together rigidly, and a bearing rein is attached to a ring at its apex. It thus serves as a combination of har- ness, tug-loop, and over-check. Where there are three horses driven abreast (Troika fashion), as is often the case in Eussia, the duga is placed upon the middle horse. From the duga's apex hangs a big, noisy bell. In some parts of Eussia two, three, or even more bells adorn each duga. These bells are heard at a distance of a mile or more. " The use of the bell/' writes an extensive Eussian traveller, "is variously ex- plained. Some say it is in order to frighten the wolves and others that it is to avoid collisions on the narrow forest paths. But neither of these explanations is entirely satis- factory. It is used chiefly in summer when there is no danger of an attack from wolves; and the number of bells is greater in the south, where there are no forests. Per- haps the original intention was I throw out the hint for the benefit of a certain number of archaologists to frighten away evil spirits; and the practice has been re- tained partly from unreasoning conservatism and partly with a view to lessen chances of collision. As the roads are noiselessly soft, and the drivers not always vigilant, the dangers of collision are considerably diminished by the ceaseless peal/' The moujik's duga is always a highly coloured affair. Most often it is a deep, bright crimson, forming a pleasant relief to the cold gray of the wall upon which it hangs, and a barbaric clash of colour with the vivid scarlet decora- AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 55 tions of the windows. The interiors of these houses are as like each other as the exteriors. At the side of the hut, two or three steps, more or less rickety, lead to a small roofed stoop or porch which protects the entrance. From the more or less decayed roof hangs a gipsy-like earthen kettle having a spout and thin handles. Ivan Ivanovitch is not a monomaniac on the subject of personal cleanliness, but once in a great while he, or some member of his family, is moved to wash his face or hands. This spirit of clean- liness is very apt to move him, if at all, as he enters or leaves the house. In that case he gives the hanging earthen vessel a tip, tilts a little water on to his hands, rubs them together, smears them over his face, wipes them on the tails of his red shirt (which is never tucked in), and then goes on his way washed and rejoicing. And this is the manner in which the moujik washes. To be sure, he takes a steam bath two or three times a month, and would almost as soon do without vodka as without this red-hot lavation. But upon close observation, I am firmly per- suaded that he goes to the village bath-house for sensuous enjoyment, and that his shedding there of a certain amount of extraneous matter is a mere accidental accompaniment to which he himself is sublimely indifferent. Pass through the door it will probably be shut to keep the fresh air out, but is never locked and you are in the house, in its principal and, I may say, only room. There is a shed or catch-all at the back, but it is never lived in and need scarcely be counted. The room you have entered is twelve feet wide and sixteen feet long. Such rooms are occasionally, but only occasionally, larger than is the one we have entered, but they are very often much smaller. There is one piece of furniture in the room, and only one, unless you count as furniture a bench and a stove, both of which are stationary and really integral parts of the house, having been built with it and for it. The family sit and sleep upon the bench and stove. They eat off the table a rough, rickety, lopsided thing, not over clean, and put together in the most shiftless way. One of its four legs is gone and another is charred; at 5 56 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. least half of its bulk has crumbled away. The table stands in the angle of the bench which extends along the side and back walls of the room. By this arrangement the en- tire family are able, with crowding, to sit near enough the table to reach each his or her share of the family meal. This is a consummation greatly to be wished for, as it does away with any temptation toward the extravagance of chairs or stools. Were it not for the bench and the table and their relative positions in the room, Ivan Ivanovitch would certainly be compelled to either purchase or, worse still, to manufacture chairs or stools. Perish the thought! Ivan has no kopecks to squander on superfluities. He needs every coin for the purchase of vodka and herrings and black bread and greasy soup ingredients and red shirts, and other stern necessities. But for all that, Ivan Ivano- vitch must sit down (and therefore must have something to sit down upon), and so must all the little Ivan Ivano- vitches, and Mrs. Ivan too, especially at mealtimes. He is a single-minded man, is Ivan Ivanovitch, and he likes to eat with an undiverted mind. He has no mental or physical energy to spare from the all-important rite, and it would entail some exertion both of mind and body did Ivan Ivanovitch stand during his meal. This is why the table is commensurate in size with that of the family. In the living room of almost every Eussian peasant you will find a table large enough to allow the entire family to sit at two of its four sides. The bench is at a convenient distance from the ground. It is a foot, or at the most two feet, wide more often the former. From these dimen- sions the reader will without difficulty infer that with the broader members of the family the stove is usually the more popular bed. As a rule, however, the Ivan Ivanovitches are not broad except in the matter of clothes. But, though niggardly narrow, the bench is always gener- ously substantial. Sometimes it is unpainted and almost unplaned, but often it is stained, or coloured a gorgeous red, a brilliant yellow, a flashing green, or a royal blue. It is this love of colour and indifference to dilapidation (both traits are universal) that largely make every Eussian AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 57 interior picturesque,, even the poorest. Somehow, Ivan contrives to make of his surroundings one barbaric blaze of shrieking, wrangling colour. Then time and decay creep in, and, backed by Ivan's laziness, his deep-rooted, insuperable laissez faire, touch all with quaint deft fingers, and soften the whole into a thing of real artistic value and genuine beauty. In the corner of the room diagonally opposite the table stands the stove. This is the most important thing in the house, not excepting the ikon. Another ikon could be purchased for a few kopecks; another stove would cost many, many roubles. Mr. Whishaw, to whom I owe a debt of deep gratitude for his delightful book on Eussia, and who must be a jolly good fellow as well as a charming writer, describes this ubiquitous and all-important stove so pho- tographically that I will borrow his words rather than use less adequate ones of my own. It is, he tells us, a huge brick structure reaching almost to the ceiling, five feet in breadth and four feet deep, and "having a lower portion jutting out from the side to a length of six feet or so. This branch establishment is used by the family to sleep upon, and a nice warm bed it makes. As for the stove itself, a description of its work- ing may be of interest to the reader. The door of the stove is a foot or so from the ground, and opens into a huge empty cavern formed by the whole of the inside of the stove. Into this logs of wood are thrust in quantities and are ignited. This is only the beginning, and the heat of the wood while burning is a mere trifle. "When the logs are reduced to red embers the door of the stove is shut up tight and the chimney securely closed. By this means all the heat is kept in the stove, which soon becomes a veritable scorcher, and retains its heat for nearly twenty- four hours. But woe to the inhabitants of the house if the chimney be closed before the wood shall have properly consumed, for speedy suffocation is their certain fate death if they happen to be asleep, terrible nausea and sick- ness if awake and able to whisk off the iron covering which closes the chimney in time to save their lives. I have spoken 58 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. to an English gentleman who once nearly fell a victim to suffocation through the carelessness of a Russian servant. He was passing the night at a shooting box near St. Peters- burg, and, the cold being intense, had instructed the keeper on retiring to enter his room at six in the morning and relight the stove in case it should have cooled down by that time. The keeper obeyed these instructions to the letter, but closed the chimney before the wood had been sufficiently reduced. At half-past seven my friend was awakened by the most violent headache he had ever experienced, accompanied by terrible sickness. He barely had strength to crawl out of bed and stagger into the fresh air, thus saving his life, when he fell insensible into the snow. There he was found shortly afterward, half frozen and very ill, but alive enough to make remarks to that offending keeper which were almost sufficiently strong to thaw the snow in which he found himself outstretched." The small children crawl down from the top of the stove as we enter Ivan's room and stand staring at us. On the table there is a samovar, or Russian urn, hissing very com- fortably, and Mrs. Ivan smiles and bows over it. She has been cutting hunks from a large round loaf of black bread, for this is dinner time. There is also a smoked herring lying on the table, half wrapped in a truly hor- rible scrap of newspaper. Probably Ivan will get the whole of this dainty morsel, for he is a " soul " and must be fed; black bread will do well enough for the women, who have no souls to support. No, thank you, Mrs. Ivan, we won't take any tea, though it is very kind of you to offer it. So far as I can see you only possess one tumbler, and that a remarkably unclean one. What would the " soul " do if we used his tumbler? You suggest, reader, that Ivan would go to the kabak and drink vodka, and so he would; but he will do this anyhow, for we shall probably give him twenty kopecks for his services in show- ing us over his establishment, and Ivan's money all goes one way. In the corner of the wall, as near the ceiling as pos- sible, hangs an ikon. On entering the room every faith- AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 59 ful peasant crosses him or herself, and the men uncover. I have seen Ivan stumble across the threshold so very drunk that only the proverbial luck that protects babies, puppy dogs, and tipsy men enabled him to move at all, and yet he contrived to pull the greasy cap from his greasier head, lift his bleary, bloodshot eyes to the ikon, and cross himself. There is an ikon on the wall of every room in every Eussian house, be it an imperial palace or a prison, a luxurious hotel or wayside inn, a foetid peasant's hut, or some woman of the town's gaudy boudoir. Nor does the orthodox Eussian leave his religion behind him (as do the orthodox of so many other peoples) when he leaves his home and goes to his counting-house or shop. Go to buy velvet: on a corner of the wall above the chif- fon-strewn counter you will see an ikon. Step inside the nearest fishmonger's: on a corner of the wall above the marble slab heaped with slippery beauties hangs an ikon. Join the steady stream of moujiks, and press your way into the crowded vodka shop: it has an ikon as surely as it has its supply of liquor and its plenitude of patrons. Enter some luxurious restaurant, the favourite haunt of the gilded, reckless youth of Moscow or St. Petersburg look up from your richly laid table, where the blackcock smokes and the champagne bubbles against the ice: on the corner of the wall you will see an ikon a costly one this time. Some reader will perhaps wonder what an ikon is. It is a half-length picture, or, to speak with more exactness, a pictorial representation of the Virgin or of Jesus, or of some one of the many saints of the Eusso-Greek Church. Ikons are usually square, and vary greatly both in size and quality in cost, beauty, and workmanship. I have seen many that were not larger than a square inch, and I have seen a considerable number that covered many square feet. The background of the figure is usually gold leaf or vivid yellow. Yellow is supremely the Eussian favourite colour, and is also of significance to the devout believer of the Greek Church. The artist or the artisan who makes the ikon invariably employs the archaic Byzan- 60 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. tine style. The picture may or may not be framed; when it is, the frame is always as costly as its owner or guardians can afford. Whole fortunes have been spent on the fram- ing of an ikon, sometimes even on the purchase of a single jewel for the enriching of such a frame. Usually the whole picture, with the exception of the face and hands, is covered with an embossed plaque of metal. Great pains are lavished upon this embossing, that it may represent faithfully the undulations of the drapery and the outlines of the limbs and the body. The garments and the halo (the sacred figure always wears a halo) are frequently set with jewels of more or less value sometimes with gems that are priceless. Pearls are used oftenest, for the Rus- sians, like all Oriental people, prize pearls above rubies and diamonds. Emeralds, diamonds, turquoises, rubies, sapphires, opals, garnets, amethysts, beryls, and a score of other precious and semi-precious stones often appear in the ikon's adornment. They are sometimes, but not often, placed on the figure itself, even when it is other- wise quite flat that is, neither in semi-relief nor covered with a plaque. Quite frequently the halo alone is in bas- relief. Upon the ikons are found some of the finest speci- mens of the celebrated Russian enamelling. An authority says: " A careful examination of ikons belonging to vari- ous periods has led me to the conclusion that they were originally simple pictures, and that the metallic plaque is a modern innovation. The first departure from purely pictorial representation seems to have been the habit of placing on the head of the painted figure a piece of orna- mental gold work, sometimes set with precious stones, to represent a nimbus or a crown. This strange and, to our mind, barbarous method of combining painting with haut- relief if such a term may be applied to this peculiar kind of decoration was afterward gradually extended to the various parts of the costume, until only the face and hands of the figure remained visible, when it was found convenient to unite these various ornaments with the gilt background into a single embossed plate/' There are no jewels on the ikon of Ivan Ivanovitch. AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 61 It belongs to an immensely larger class, called " simple " ikons, which are accredited with no miraculous powers. Should a " simple " ikon work a miracle, it would at once pass from the second to the first or superior class. There is probably in Eussia no peasant's home without at least one simple ikon. They are manufactured in incredible numbers, and are the sole industry of one entire province. Men, women, and children make or help to make the sacred pictures, and do as little else in the way of work as is con- sistent with existence itself. After the ikon has been blessed by a priest it is sacred. A peasant buys it and enshrines it on the wall of his room, high up, where it may easily be seen by all who cross the threshold. In Ivan's home bread is never broken, nor soup swallowed, but that each one who is about to partake, or who has partaken, bows to the ikon and crosses himself. On the night preceding a fete day a lamp filled with holy or con- secrated oil is lighted and placed before at least one ikon in every house. Of the first class, or miracle-performing ikons, there are, comparatively speaking, very few. They are called tchudotrormy. It would be impossible to convey to the mind of any Anglo-Saxon not well acquainted with Eus- sia and things Eussian any commensurate idea of the reverence in which these tchudotrormies are held by rich and poor. The shrines and temples that are built for them, the gems, the fortunes that are given to them, the revenues that are dedicated to them, the incomes that are secured to them, the pilgrimages that are made to them, the secrets and sorrows that are told to them, and the punctilious and adulating respect that is shown to them must be seen to be believed. A tchudotrormy is never, I believe, kept in a mere dwelling, but is enshrined in a cathedral, church, monas- tery, nunnery, or other holy house. Several of them have estates broad acres of their own. Many of them have per- sonal servants, all of them have devotees and jewels. It is the general belief that the tchudotrormies are not only endowed with miraculous power, but are of miraculous 62 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. origin, and that before their installation in their present regal shrines their whereabouts have been shown to some holy man in a vision. A goodly-sized book, and a very interesting one, might easily be filled with the histories of the more celebrated ikons. Many of them have annual fete days; the anniver- sary of their discovery is held as a holiday. " A few of them," writes Wallace, " have an additional title to popu- lar respect and veneration that of being intimately asso- ciated with great events in Russian national history. The Vladimir Madonna, for example, once saved Moscow from the Tartars; the Smolensk Madonna accompanied the army in the glorious campaign against Napoleon in 1812; and when in that year it was known in Moscow that the French were advancing on the city, the people wished the Metropolitan to take the Iberian Madonna, which may now be seen near one of the gates of the Old Wall, and lead them armed with hatchets against the enemy." When I add to the table, stove, bench, ikon, etc., al- ready enumerated, a meagre supply of crockery and cook- ing utensils, and a liberal number of dogs, I have, I believe, given a complete inventory of the things contained within the four walls of the living room of Ivan Ivanovitch. There are thousands and thousands of just such homes, con- taining just such rooms and inhabited by just such people, scattered thickly over the length and breadth of Russia. It is not worth our while to peep into the lower shed into which the door at the back of the living room leads. Very cramped is this little back room, and " chock-a- block " with the shreds and patches of peasant life none of them very clean and none of them of interest. In this place as many of the household dogs sleep as can not crowd their way in among the family. In this heterogeneous mass of things is sure to be at least one litter of extremely young puppies. Multiply the inhabitants of any Russian village by thirteen, and you arrive at something near the number of the village dogs. This estimate is not exces- sive, I assure you. Against the outside of the house leans a ladder; climb AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 63 it, crawl through a hole of a window, and you are in the cherdak or garret squat, dirty, and oh, what a triumph of disorder! Here clothes are dried, if they ever by any chance get washed, or as often as any of the family get caught out in a rain storm. Here Ivan stores his grain, if he has any, and here is also stored all the overflow of rubbish from the little lower back room, or from the out- house or shed which is usually found standing like a great gray ant-hill somewhere in the waste of mud which Ivan calls his back yard. It would be interesting to ex- amine the interior of the two-storied building which is the house and shop of that great and good man, the vil- lage merchant. And the sociology of the village would well repay our study. But we have time for neither now, for we must on to Moscow. CHAPTEE VI. LOVELY, LAUGHING MOSCOW. There is a charm peculiar to Moscow among the cities of the world. She is in herself the centre of the history of a people a peo- ple fated to play a great part in the drama of the future. But at present the charm of Moscow is in its past story, and in its present life. The interest of the past story of the city arises out of its pecul- iar position as the connecting link between the East and the West. In this its situation is somewhat analogous to that of Constantinople, standing upon the confines of two divisions of the earth, and thus it has to bear the discords of different races and to be the scene of the conflicts of opposing peoples. Moscow grew up from a collection of small villages to a town in the midst of warring and half -barbarous tribes, and thus as it increased in concentration, and therefore in im- portance, it was sometimes attacked by Polish forces from the west, partly with the ambitious object of the sovereigns of Warsaw to ex- tend their possessions eastward over the Muscovite plains, and partly out of the fear of the threatening increase of strength of the popula- tions accumulating on their exposed and eastern border. At other times the country round was invaded from the east ; and Tartar hordes came up in overwhelming numbers to the walls, and, bursting over them, devoted the unhappy place to sack and pillage. These latter were actuated by no motives such as those which led the Poles up to the gates of Moscow motives of possession and increase of national strength. These were only lured from their tents and their wild plains on the Don by the hopes of plunder and the gratification of their instincts of destruction. But the hardy sons of Muscovy, though often beaten by the Poles and frequently despoiled by the Tartar hordes, yet rose from their defeats in renewed strength, as Antaeus from his mother earth, until, becoming the nucleus of a na- tion, they were able to beat off their enemies both on the east and on the west, and becoming the victors in the place of the vanquished, they threw back the armies of Poland on the one side and the horse- men of the Don on the other, and, following the rule of the law of the 64 LOVELY, LAUGHING MOSCOW. 65 weak and the strong, they forced all their former enemies to submis- sion. It is thus, in and around Moscow, that the story of Russia is to be read. St. Petersburg is but the modern town of yesterday. It is as yet but the port of Russia, an imperfect city, and bearing in all its accessories the marks of a new town. Even Peter could not make at once a capital city in all its completeness by even his iron and dom- ineering will. G. T. LOWTH. IN addition to some of the villages through which we passed, there were a few little bush houses huddled together here and there. They were shapeless; they sank in and bulged out at the sides; and as for their roofs of grass, these were at most picturesque. But as for architectural definiteness or any pretence to symmetry of form, they were utter failures. The more desperately conditioned of them were held together by lackadaisical, irregular sup- ports of undressed branches. But only where the hut was palpably new and not always then did any roof appear to have been planned to measure, or built with even moderate care. Most of the villages looked deserted, as they momen- tarily were; all the inhabitants were working in the fields. Later in the day we passed idle groups of men, women, and, numerically speaking, unlimited children, all of them clad in blazing colours. All were tow-headed, all were shock-headed. The women and girls wore over their heads, and knotted under their chins, kerchiefs even more gaily coloured than their dresses. Every positive hue known to the eye of man was there, and so was every combination of colour calculated to set an artist's teeth on edge. They were almost all barefooted, though I recall one little red- headed fellow who wore a pair of high Eussian boots, and nothing else. They sat on the ground and on the stray logs that littered their untidy doorways, and stared at us stolidly or grinned at us uncouthly as we steamed slow- ly by. But for the most part we were moving on through dull, desolate wastes of uninhabited and unimproved land. It was all flat and gray and dreary. Much of it was marshy. Clouds gathered thickly over the sun. Now and again 66 IN JOYFUL KUSSIA. the dim horizon line was broken by dreary belts of timber. Just before sunset we plunged into a wood. It was al- most a forest, and the most desolate place I was ever in. It was sadder than any dismal swamp that the mind can picture. The train crept through it painfully like some huge reptile, twisting its slow way among the gloom and the trunks of the tall attenuated trees. It was the deso- lation of Nature. The glass in the carriage windows rattled, and I shivered for very sympathy. The cold and sickly air stirred slowly among the half-clad branches, and the craven trees bent their great heads meekly and sullenly in their complete inertia. There was no diminution of the sad wood's density or gloom. We passed from it far more suddenly than we had entered. Chained by a. horrid fas- cination, I gazed into its repellent gloom, then closed my eyes but for a moment; and on opening them Moscow, the triumph of daring, lavish architecture; Moscow, the golden, glittering link between the Orient and the West; Moscow, holding high her imperial gem-decked head, sit- ting proudly upon her green hills, basking radiantly in her own regal beauty and God's superb sunlight, smiled into my amazed, enchanted eyes. Earth has no picture to compare with this. Nature has often done more than she has upon the shores of the Moskva, but man has achieved nothing to equal Moscow in unique, surprising, irregular, lawless beauty, nor in imperious barbaric splendour. Did the old City of Mexico present half so brave a sight when Cortez and his "iron warriors" beheld it first? I doubt it. Moscow, "Mother Moscow," whom the Eussians love with a love passing the love of women, a love unmatched in history even by those superb old warriors who prayed to their father Tiber and proudly died for Eome. Moscow, " Holy Mos- cow," where all that is most sacred in the Greek Church is enshrined, where religion and devotion wear their brightest, richest vestments. Moscow! Imperial Moscow, to which the great White Tsar comes to receive the crown of all the Russias from the hand of God. Moscow, where the newly crowned Tsar kneels and prays to God for LOVELY, LAUGHING MOSCOW. 67 strength and wisdom, and for his people's, his children's welfare. Moscow, where the autocrat of all the Eussias makes a solemn covenant with all his subjects and with God himself. Moscow the Beautiful! Moscow the Glad! Moscow the Gay and Laughing! The city lies upon the banks of the Moskva like some Asiatic Venus Genetrix. I shall not attempt to give any detailed description of the marvellous, gorgeous build- ings which, welded together with the trees and lovely smiling gardens, made up the sumptuous panorama that met my delighted eyes. Time enough for that, reader (I know that I shall have at least one reader), when we walk together, as Robert Browning walked, Over the Kremlin's pavement bright With serpentine and syenite. To see Moscow for the first time and in its entirety is an intoxicating event, enough to stir the pulses and confuse the cool judgment of a far more sober-minded man than I am. It was a red-letter day a punctuation point in my life which I shall never forget, a wealth of which I can never be robbed. Blase travellers often tell us that the world is a small place and everywhere much alike. They are blind, or they have never seen " Moscow the White Walled! " Sumptuousness of colour and eccentricity of form was what impressed me more than all else. Centring all, and above all, stood- the Kremlin, the indescribable, the sacred. I could but recognise it, with its splendour of churches and palaces, its gate-pierced and tower-broken wall, and its outer encirclement of exquisite gardens that were once a formidable moat. About the Kremlin lay beautiful, bar- baric Moscow. Wherever the eye rested were roofs of blue, of green, of red; walls of yellow and of purple. Green parks and gardens broke the picture everywhere, a grateful relief to stranger eyes, wearied by their first gloating over this mad carnival of colour. Innumerable churches, Oriental of shape and barbarically sumptuous of roof, lifted on high the cross of Christ, made of pure 68 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. gold, and, pointing to the calm blue heavens above, bore bright but silent witness that as Rome is the city of Mary, so is Moscow the dedicated city of Jesus of Nazareth. You can not lift your eyes as you stand in the streets of Moscow without seeing the sacred emblem of the Christian Church. Almost every church is a mass of green and glittering cupolas, of star-bespangled belfries and golden spires, of twisted towers and grace- ful minarets that look as if they had been filched from some Oriental mosque and bodily transported to Mos- cow. It is a city of indescribably sumptuous churches, of splendid palaces and palace-like buildings, of twisting, irregular streets, of gaily painted houses and plenteous, well-kept gardens. Yes, it is all that, the Moscow that I looked upon with awed eyes and pulsating admiration. As I try to solve the riddle of her permanent fascina- tion, I am convinced that she both startled and held me, not so much because of her beauty, her unequalled splendour, her supreme peculiarities, as because of her diversities. No two churches were alike in colour or out- line. All glittered, gleamed, and sparkled, but all differed. The sun was slowly setting and intensifying the splendour of colour it could not rival, illuminating the myriads of creations of Russo-Byzantine architecture with which Mos- cow is replete. Moscow rests upon a succession of low waving hills. Almost through the heart of the sacred and glittering city flows that lazy, lagging river, the pur- plish Moskva. Its motionless bosom reflected the bright but gentle colours of the prodigal sunset that was bathing with a good-night benediction every nook and crevice of this strangely fascinating city. Among all this vast, indescribable melee of colour and of bizarre form (Moscow has a circumference of twenty- five miles) the great gold dome of the Temple of the Saviour glittered supreme. Rising against the bright blue sky, and crowning a magnificent edifice of pure white, it is pre-eminent among all the showy ornaments of " Holy Mother Moscow," and attracts the eye and holds it, until LOVELY, LAUGHING MOSCOW. 69 the gathering dark dims the matchless picture and re- minds us that our journey is ended. At the station all was bustle, life, and excitement. A fine spread of crimson carpet was laid along the platform, bordered by double lines of smart soldiery. We wasted little time after we had thanked Lieutenant Gourko and bidden him au revoir, but drove at once to the house that our Consul had kindly taken for us, and where I found my mother waiting to welcome us, surrounded by many familiar objects from our own far-distant home. Could journey have a better ending, or sojourn in a foreign land a brighter beginning? I thought not. In one corner of the room hung a resplendent ikon; on an easel stood my mother's ikon, my father's picture, and, surrounding it, that which he had loved and reverenced as the devoutest Russian loves and reveres the Holy Iberian Mother; for about his portrait my widowed mother had with loving hands draped the Stars and Stripes. CHAPTEE VII. HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW. "I WONDEK if we won't have batter cakes for break- fast ? " said G. as he rubbed his eyes the next morning. He, as I have already mentioned, had not taken kindly to Slavonic diet, and had great faith in my mother, but I knew better. I knew that we should find ourselves in a truly Muscovite menage. And so it proved. My mother emphatically believes in trying the ways of the people among whom one chances to be, and I knew that she would seize upon our four weeks' residence in Moscow as an ex- cellent opportunity to educate us in the domestic customs of the upper-class Muscovites. And so she did. There- fore a slight record of how we kept house in Moscow may be of interest. Our rooms were brightened here and there with a few flowers. That was a shocking extravagance of mother's, for in Moscow just then flowers were worth many times their weight in silver. And the place was made homelike by the presence of some trifles that she always carries with her, her Lares and Penates, each of which is the valued memento of some sacred bit of home history. But for all that it was the veriest Russian home, and we led a Eussian sort of home life in it. Our temporary abode had been secured for us months before, and luckily so; for at the time of our arrival the price for such accommodations would have been quite prohibitive, if any had been obtainable, which is most improbable. "When we had determined, several months before, to see the Eussian coronation, we had written to TO HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW. 71 the United States Minister in St. Petersburg begging his good offices in securing for us a temporary domicile in Moscow. Minister Breckinridge had kindly put the matter in the hands of Dr. Billiard, the United States Consul in Moscow, and the latter had taken for us Dom Schlippe, Gagarinski Pereulok. Dom Schlippe was the name of the house, and Gagarinski Pereulok was the little street on which it stood. No Russian house has a number, but all are named after their owners instead. Dom Schlippe means the house of Schlippe; and Dom Schlippe was all we ever said to an isvoschik when directing him to take us home. We neither mentioned the street nor the quarter. The reader must not infer from this that ours was an excep- tionally fine or well-known place. It was not. It was good enough, but there were thousands like it in Moscow, and thousands much better. No matter where we wished to drive, we merely mentioned the name of the building which was the object of our search. It seemed a miracle to me that we always reached our destination without the slightest confusion or delay. And this seems a miracle to me still when I recall the intricate labyrinths of the twist- ing, turning Moscow streets, and the unnumbered houses bearing only the owner's name, with nothing to indicate their particular situation or relation to other houses. Most of all I marvel when I reflect what a stupid fellow the Eus- sian isvoschik always seemed to be. The fact of the matter is that, looks or no looks, Ivan has a phenomenal bump of locality and a gigantic memory for names hidden some- where in that thick, dumb, shaggy head of his. Our landlord was not Schlippe, but the house had some years before belonged to a well-known citizen of that name. It was now the residence of a Mr. Spohr, a very well-to-do Muscovite, who, like many of his thrifty fellow-citizens, tempted by the rents offered for temporary accommodation, had adjusted himself and family to the narrow confines of the upper rooms, and placed the lower apartments in which he usually lived at our disposal. They were large, comfortable, and fairly luxurious. Our landlord we scarce- ly ever saw. He often sent a courteous inquiry if he could .G 72 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. be of any service, or if the servants he had procured for us were satisfactory? Sometimes we passed him in the courtyard. But our intercourse seldom went beyond a civil greeting, and we felt that Dom Schlippe was quite our own. Our servants were a dainty lot. First, there was the dvornik or yard porter. He was the most solemn man I ever met. He deserves more than passing mention, not only because he was a person of character, but because he represents a very essential wheel in the domestic machinery of every Eussian household of the better class. Then there was Anuska, our cook, and pretty Yertza, our gipsy- faced kitchen-maid. Anuska looked somewhat matronly. I think that her head-dress was that of a wife. Except in the matter of head-dress and a scarf that Anuska wore, these two servants dressed alike. They both wore thick, loose boots. Each wore a white linen or cotton shirt, coarsely embroidered with crimson, with very loose elbow sleeves leg-o'-mutton is the technical term, I believe. Each wore several strings of coloured beads about her throat, and a big, green baize, crimson-bound apron fastened about her waist. Under the apron was a short Eussian skirt, reaching to within a foot of the ankles, made of coarse stuff, in which fancy stripes of light yellow .crosses and pink and green lozenges alternated with plain ones of green, magenta, scarlet, and brown. The effect of the whole was rich, dark, and hideous. These skirts were stiff and straight. They opened in front over a longer but equally stiff garment of white. Indeed, they were more like an ugly imitation of the straight piece of cloth which the women of so many Eastern countries wrap about their hips than a civilized dress skirt. Yertza wore a band of crimson among her black braids. Anuska covered her hair turban fashion with a gaudily embroidered, magenta- coloured scarf, whose long fringed ends she brought round her waist and knotted in front. Please observe our stove our Moscow cooking-stove! How and where upon it Anuska cooked I never could discover. But she did cook, and cook supremely well. We had kalatchs and chocolate Our little servant. HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW. 73 in bed each, morning, and a hearty breakfast later. We always emphasized our morning meal because of the ex- hausting and fatiguing functions which usually lay be- fore us. Dinner we rarely had at home. But the occa- sional ones we did have were astonishingly good, admirably selected, and admirably cooked. Anuska did the market- ing, and the day's menu was left quite to her discretion. The result amazed us until we learned her history from our landlord, Mr. Spohr, who related it as follows: " There was an old nobleman in Russia, some fifty or sixty years ago, who was famous throughout the Empire for his appetite, both for its quantity and for its quality. To make Anuska's story intelligible, I must preface it with his. I will not mention his name. He made it his boast that he was the greatest gourmand in Eussia; his whole conversation was concerning savoury dishes and delicious meats, to the concocting of which his entire mental ener- gies were devoted. His dreams were visions of soups, fricassees, and pates, varied with ragouts, jellies, and macedoines. Whenever his genius had discovered some new combination of good things he seemed to think it redounded as much to his honour as the victory at Aus- terlitz did to Napoleon's, or the discovery of the theory of gravitation to Newton's. By excessively high living he had attained so enormous a size that the door of his car- riage had to be made of the entire width of one side to allow of his getting in and out; his eyes were almost buried in the fat of his cheeks, and his thick lips and heavy looks showed to what an extent he pursued the gratifica- tion of his favourite vice. "This estimable old gentleman, in order to have the cookery of every nation in its highest perfection, hit upon the ingenious plan of sending one of his serfs to each of the great capitals of Europe to be initiated in all the mysteries of the cuisine of that country. One was in Vienna, another in Paris, a third in London, and the fourth in Naples. The sum this cost him was enormous, not only for the journeys, but on account of the high premium demanded for their instruction. The man sent 74 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. to Paris was bound for three years; he was the most in- telligent of the four. His master built many castles in the air about him; he was never tired of talking of the great progress this servant was making in the culinary art, while the agreeable prospect of innumerable good din- ners, -rich soups, and magnificent entremets solaced him and served to cheer him up whenever an attack of indiges- tion caused him a fit of the blues. He did not know, poor man! that the dreams of his distant serf were widely dif- ferent from his own; nor perhaps had it ever entered his mind that in learning la cuisine Frangaise he might pos- sibly learn the language, and imbibe French notions of liberty as well; but so it was. The three years at last were up, and the old gentleman was on the tiptoe of expectation; his delicious dreams were about to become realized; he had invited a host of acquaintances to dine with him on a certain day. But, alas! the very morning on which he made so sure of welcoming with open arms his chef de cuisine from abroad there came a letter in which the former slave politely and delicately informed him that, owing to a great change in his views, both social and political, he could not decide upon devoting the rest of his days to his service; that he was going to be married to a charming young grisette, and had resolved upon becoming a French citizen in fact, as he was already one at heart. He concluded by returning his sincere thanks for the protection and patronage his former master had given him, sent the receipted bills for the expenses which had been incurred on his account, which he assured him had been honourably paid in his name out of the money forwarded to Paris for the purpose, and finished with the most amiable wishes for his health and prosperity. The grief and dis- may of the old gourmand were inconceivable, and such an effect did the mortification have on him that he re- mained in bed a whole fortnight to lament in solitude his irreparable loss. The serf who had been sent to Vienna came faithfully back, and proved a veritable cordon bleu, the joy, the pride, and the solace of his high-born mas- ter's declining years. In the course of time he became HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW. 75 Anuska's grandfather. Anuska's father was born with a talent for cooking; was he not the son and the pupil of the Vienna-trained cJief? Anuska inherited the family gift, and, having no brothers, fell heir to the ancestral lore." She came high, if I remember aright, but why not? She was an artist. And who shall say that that rara avis, a cook who can cook, is not worth a great wage? Not I, for one. I know better. As I write, we are again keeping house, but the scene has changed from Moscow to Lucerne, a little village where the shadows of Pilatus and the Eigi meet upon the rippled mirror of the lovely lake, and I am engaged in writing, and in handing over princely fractions of my income which is less princely than I could wish to incompetent, bungling Swiss servants. The first fortnight we were in residence here we had two chefs, a kitchen-maid, and three lady cooks (you must be polite to your servants in Switzerland; it is a republic and the people are proud). They don't import labour here. I wish they did. I am no gourmet and far less a gourmand, but often of late have I sighed for the sweets and the savouries pro- duced by Anuska, our Moscow cook. And she was as will- ing as she was efficient. Cooking was both her art and her trade, and she loved to ply it. She never stood upon the order of her cooking, but was always upon the qui vive to cook at once. Several nights, or rather very early in the mornings, she rose with alacrity in answer to our hungry summons, and cooked us a quick, hearty, delicious meal. She gloried in doing it, and we gloried in eating it, tired, famished, and worn out as we so often were. I have no exact information about Yertza's history or duties; the latter were, I believe, very similar to those of other scullery maids all the world over. She washed pans and scoured pots, and fetched and carried and waited upon Anuska, and kow-towed to her. To be honest, I only saw Yertza once. I believe her wages were small. She was rather a delicate-looking little thing, but they said that her appetite was large. There were three men servants 76 IN JOYFUL EUSSIA. in our menage. They all were quiet, quick, well-trained, and obliging. I have spoken of our dvornik spoken of him as part and parcel of our household and so indeed he was; but for a household servant he continued to spend an amazing amount of time on the street. Our house stood at the back of a deep and not over-clean courtyard. Beside the gate, directly on the street, stood the lodge, the dvornik's little one-roomed house. It was a dirty room and evil- smelling. Small wonder that its occupant occupied it as little as possible, but left it to his wife and their four children. But I fear that a distaste for foetid air and the smell of decomposed cabbage soup had nothing to do with the porter's distaste for indoor life. He liked to see and be seen. And unless the day was drenching wet, he nearly always was to be seen sitting on the narrow old bench that stood beside the gate opposite to his house. He was a great musician that is, if quantity as well as quality counts in the musical art and why should it not? Ivan Dvornik made much music. He made it upon a square, greasy concertina, an instrument dear to the heart of every moujik, and euphoniously called a garmouka. I personally did not dote upon Ivan Dvornik's musical re- citals. But far be it from me to hint that the fault was his. I am not musical not seriously so. And I have even heard world-famous virtuosos whom I did not yearn ever to hear again. Certainly, I did not understand the sacred spirit of Slavonic music as possibly Ivan Dvornik did. Moreover, I have never loved the concertina; he adored it. When I was last in London, all the music-hall world was singing or whistling a Homeric ditty, which began He wanted something to play with, Something to love and adore ; Something attractive and pretty, Something to love evermore. I never hear those pathetic lines without thinking of Ivan Dvornik and his concertina. He wanted something to play with, something to love and adore, and, by Jinks! HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW. 77 he had it. He loved and adored his garmouka, and, by all the gods and little fishes, he played with it evermore, and even more. He loved it every moment of his life, and in his waking hours he only ceased to play it when food and vodka were placed before him, or when he was con- fronted by some piece of work which he found it abso- lutely impossible to depute to a lieutenant, or to leave unperformed. He had three lieutenants his wife and his two strapping boys. The elder boy was nearly grown, and the younger a sixteen-year-old giant. In the summer the three subordinates do most of the work, and musical Ivan Dvornik keeps up appearances and the dignity of the position. In the winter he does rather more work himself, not so much because there is more work to be done as because for the moment his darling garmouka is hushed, for the most skilled concertinaist can not ply his charming art with frozen fingers. And through all the long cold winter Ivan Dvornik still sits on the narrow old bench that stands beside the gate. Oh, the cruel, cruel Eussian winter! There is snow snow everywhere. Icicles hang their frosty fringe from the old bench's edge. And the falling, ever-falling snow drifts up swiftly, burying the bench, icicles, Ivan Dvornik's legs, and all. Still, he sits on stolidly; even when he moves heavily to kick and shake himself free from the fleecy covering, you can only see his eyes, so thickly and so completely is he swathed and swathed again in shaggy, greasy sheepskins. He is even a duller, sadder dog then than he is as I knew him in summer time, for his sweet- voiced, or rather his squeak- voiced, garmouka is laid away, and the vodka has only half the effect upon his sluggish nature that it has in summer. Let me enumerate such of Ivan Dvornik's duties as linger in my memory. I beg of my patient victim to bear in mind that some are only performed in winter, others only in summer, and that three fourths are always done by deputy. It is his duty to see to the passports of all who dwell within the house, and to see that each of these in- mates is properly provided, as the law prescribes, with all due papers and documents pertaining to citizenship, tern- 78 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. porary residence, etc. He is responsible to the police for all this. He must also see that all passports are duly vised or renewed at the proper time and at the proper place. It is his duty to aid the street police in arresting the miscreants and arousing the benumbed about his gates. He must also assist the gorodovoy when any disturbance or accident occurs in the near street. In the house-yard shed there are vast piles of firewood. These he must cut, break, or saw into lengths or shapes suitable for the dif- ferent stoves in the house's many rooms. Then he must carry the fuel to the flame, the wood to the stove. Every drop of water used in the house for any purpose whatso- ever is brought to the gates in carts or barrels. At least it was so in our house, and it is in almost all. From the gate Ivan Dvornik must carry it into the kitchen. In many households Ivan has to bring it from the river to the door as well. In many ways our dvornik was, com- pared with others, a man of leisure. Often ten or twenty families occupy apartments or flats in the same house. Then there is work for the dvornik, and to spare. In ad- dition to the many things I have mentioned, he often acts as the landlord's agent or steward, letting the apartments, collecting the rent, etc. Ivan Dvornik our particular Ivan Dvornik never, that I remember, spoke to me. He touched his greasy cap solemnly when he saw me, and crossed himself devoutly when I tipped him. He was superlatively "a smileless man," though I knew him in the springtime when the fields were brightening with bloom, the birds in voice, and the garmoukas well in tune. Take him all in all, I have no wish to meet his like again. Our house itself was most comfortable and spacious. We had rooms enough. They were all large and well furnished. The floors were of different patterns, but all of inlaid oak. There was not a carpet in the place, except a bright blue Persian square on the floor of a delightful little boudoir, which was quite a gem of a room. Figures in scenes a la Watteau smiled and courtesied from the walls, and on the ceilings quite an army of bowed and arrowed Cupids waged their pretty warfare and pursued their harm- HOW WE KEPT HOUSE IN MOSCOW. 79 less amourettes. There was a bit of gilt everywhere on ceil- ing and wall; there were dainty gilt ornamentations on the crystal candelabras, delicate threads of gold woven in the rose brocade that hung at window and door and cov- ered the chairs and couch. Every room on the entire floor opened into at least one other. This is usual in the houses of the Kussian better classes. Such an arrangement lends itself to lavish entertaining and to display in per- spective effects. In front of each bedroom door stood a large screen. And into each room an enormous porcelain stove projected. These stoves are built so as to heat two rooms. No nation is more hospitable than the Eussian. The half-starved moujik will share with the stranger, traveller, friend, or foe, his last loaf of black bread and his last glass of tea as willingly and generously as will the Arab of the desert divide his last handful of dried dates and the remnant of brackish water in his almost empty water skin. To the lavish hospitality of the Eussian of the upper class there is no limit. The rich spend their wealth like water to entertain their friends, and many a family, nobly born but impoverished, stints itself of all but the neces- saries of life for months that enough money may be saved to give a sumptuous dinner. Our Moscow household had one great drawback. The day after our arrival I desired, I trust not unreasonably, to take a bath. Lo and behold, there was neither bath-tub nor bathroom in the house! I used a sponge and some language, dressed as best I could, and went out to order a tub made. I succeeded in bribing the tinsmith to be quick in executing the order. On the second or third day at about noon the tub arrived. I ordered a warm bath. They were about three hours and a half preparing it, and then it was not emphatically warm. They had heated the water in the samovar, and while one vesselful had been boil- ing, its predecessor had been growing cold in my tub. About five o'clock one of the servants asked for kopecks that he might send for enough water for our afternoon tea. It had all been used in the Barm's bath, he said. After 80 IN JOYFUL EUSSIA. that we had a larger quantity of water bought from the cart that came to our door each day. "We paid for the water on delivery, and bought it by the quart. Scarcity of water seemed to me rather a characteristic of Russian housekeeping. CHAPTER VIIL ROUND ABOUT THE COW PATHS. THEY used to say of Boston, before the great fire straightened out a large portion of that Athenian city, that it was originally laid out upon the paths which the cows had made in their wanderings about the pastures! That may or may not be true of Boston, but it certainly appears to be true of Moscow. As it is one of the most picturesque, so it is one of the most bewildering cities in Europe to the stranger. We engaged early in our stay, as guide and courier, an individual who had formerly been in the employ of the American Consul, Dr. Bilhard. We also secured for use during our stay in Moscow two car- riages; it may interest the reader to know that, notwith- standing the enhanced price of everything at this time, we paid for each at the rate of twenty dollars per day. Thus armed at every point, we prepared to see the city. Of course, as every other traveller has placed on record, we found the streets of Moscow irregular, narrow, and bad- ly paved. The buildings, with few exceptions, are of two stories. On every hand were swarms of workmen, and swarms of Russian peasants, strangers, and pilgrims who, most of them, had journeyed great distances to be present at the crowning of the Great White Tsar. What Mecca is to the Mohammedan, what Jerusalem used to be, and perhaps still is, to the devout Israelite, that Moscow is to the devout Russian. It is the capital of the nation. St. Petersburg, called into being by the mandate of the auto- crat Peter the Great, has never displaced in the affec- tions of the patriotic and devout Russian the sacred city 81 82 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. which is known as "Mother" Moscow. To the Eussian it represents nationalism. It is the head centre of the Holy Church; here its Tsars have been crowned for centu- ries, here they have been buried. Here are grouped to- gether six hundred sacred shrines, among the most beau- tiful in the world; and here the stream of modernism has dashed in vain against the traditions and memories of the past. Miracles have been performed within its walls; the inrushing footsteps of savage hordes have been turned back at the threshold of its gates, and armies that have elsewhere conquered all before them have here failed, or won their victory only to see it turned into defeat. I suppose that every one interested in military affairs, as I have always been, naturally reverts in thought to the experience of Napoleon when he first visits Eussia, or, indeed, when he reads of it. I certainly did; and so one of the very first pilgrimages I made in the ancient city was to the spot where Napoleon caught his first view of it, and where the entire French army is said to have burst out in one exultant shout, " Moscou! Moscou! " All the streets through which we drove on the way to this celebrated spot were in the hands of workmen busy erect- ing Venetian masts and triumphal columns. I noticed that they did all their work on the spot, not bringing their poles hewn and painted and ready to pop into holes already dug. They hewed and planed them on the spot, and erected them one by one with a deliberate earnestness quite out of tune with the nervous haste which would have char- acterized such preparations in one of our own cities. In Eussia time seems to be of no moment; indeed, the nearer to the rising sun one travels, the more time every one appears to have at his disposal. There were enormous numbers of these workmen, but not one was in a hurry. The crowning of the Tsar might have been twelve months off rather than a few days, so deliberate was the move- ment of those engaged in decorating. The nature of the buildings in Moscow lends itself readily to the erection of temporary decorations. The houses in the more preten- tious quarters are most of them covered with stucco; in the a, S o HOUND ABOUT THE COW PATHS. 83 poorer quarters they are of wood. Strips of narrow lath were nailed to the walls, forming the' designs intended. To these strips were fastened the brackets of wire into which the small different-coloured globes were set. In these globes candles were placed during the morning of the day of the coronation and the two days succeeding, for use at night. During the ceremonies millions of these candles must have been used. The Venetian masts which lined the streets at regular intervals were painted in black and gold, and decorated, at a height convenient to the eyes, with the arms of Moscow, St. George and the Dragon, the Eussian Imperial arms, the double-headed eagle, and the significant letters " N " and " A." It was on this drive that I for the first time attended a regular service of the Eussian Church at the Cathedral of Our Saviour. I believe that I was hemmed in by the immense crowd for not less than four weary hours listen- ing to a service of which not one word was comprehensible to me. The church, however, richly repays a visit. Viewed from the bridge which crosses the sluggish Moskva in its vicinity, the Cathedral of Our Saviour is indescribably beau- tiful. I know of no temple in Europe to compare with it. It appears a trifle commercial to attempt to convey an im- pression of any of these buildings by their money value; but as this one has been built in the present century, by Eussian labour, and exclusively of Eussian materials, we get a fair estimate of its superb extent and magnificent appearance in a statement of the cost, which is put down at twelve millions of dollars. It was originally intended to erect this cathedral in the neighbourhood of Sparrow Hill, as commemorating the retreat of the French army, but the ground was found to be unsuitable, and in 1839 the present site was chosen. The interior is richly deco- rated with gold and syenite marble, and at night is illumi- nated by candles running around the lofty cornice. The pictures on the ceilings of the domes of the several cupolas are costly and magnificent. They may be said to be some- what grotesque, containing figures of Jehovah, the Old Testament patriarchs, and Eussian emperors in juxta- 84 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. position, which a close reading of Eussian history does not always justify. Of these pictures, which have all been painted by Eussian artists, those in the central dome alone cost one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. On the walls of the galleries and in other parts of the cathedral are tablets enumerating the officers who fought and fell in the endeavour to repulse the Napoleonic invasion. From without, the cathedral is massive and resplendent. The cross on the central dome is three hundred and fifty feet from the ground, and the dome itself and the four sur- rounding cupolas are all covered with pure gold. The effect of these domes surmounting the white marble of the building in contrast with the cobalt blue of the other portions of the roof can be safely left to the imagina- tion, for it is difficult to describe it moderately. From this remarkable building we drove rapidly to Sparrow Hill from the church built to commemorate the retreat of Napoleon to the spot from which that brilliant genius of the art of war first looked upon the Holy City. On the 14th of September, 1812, Napoleon, having ridden to the spot now occupied by a monument, cried out to his sol- diers, " All that is yours! " Never was boast more idle. The city they entered was empty of all save the dissolute, the priests, and the liberated prisoners, who had been set free by Eostopchine and instructed to fire the city after the entrance of the French Emperor. How well they kept their bargain history records, for within three days from the French occupation Moscow lay in smouldering ashes. After brief but ineffectual attempts to obtain terms of peace, Napoleon turned his saddened steps toward France, followed by the broken and disorganized remnant of the splendid army with which he had set out to subdue the Muscovite, as he had in the past humbled the Italian, the Austrian, the Turk, and the Prussian. On this spot the greatest military disaster recorded in history occurred. From Moscow to the Berezina the snow was strewn with the bodies of French soldiers, and at the frightful slaughter which occurred during the crossing of that fate- ful river it is estimated that not less than forty thousand ROUND ABOUT THE COW PATHS. 85 Frenchmen perished. On Sparrow Hill the Russians have erected a monument to commemorate the tragic event of which it was the scene, and on summer evenings they are wont to walk and lounge in the neighbourhood and to drink their tea and gossip. A writer of much interest in regard to all things Russian has thus described this famous spot: " On the western side of the Moskva, at a distance of three miles from the barrier, rises a hill, or a succession of hills, of no great height. These are the Sparrow Hills, and at their foot flows the Moskva. There is a small vil- lage on the ridge, and a few private houses of gentlemen stand on either side of the village and look down over the river toward the city. There are some small wooden build- ings along the roadside in front of the village, and these are used by people from the city-^-parties of pleasure who come up to the Sparrow Hills to enjoy their tea or dine and look out from the veranda over their sacred and glittering Moscow. The position, the broken and green and grassy slopes with trees and shrubs at intervals, puts one in mind of Richmond Hill, London. The height from the water to the houses is about the same in both; but instead of running, like the Thames, in a straight line across the wide expanse of country below, the Moskva comes up from the left hand with a circular sweep, passes along at the foot of the hill, then descends again by a similar bend to the right, and continues in sight until it is concealed by the houses and bridges of the city at a distance of three miles. From this height the whole of Moscow lies spread out before you like a map. You can see every part of it to its extremities, can mark every rise and fall of the numerous hills, its endless pinnacles and cupolas glittering in the sun, its towers, its bright- coloured houses, and its universal gardens/' As I stood there and looked out upon the spectacle before me, I could well imagine the emotions of Napoleon and his soldiers as they gazed upon it after their terrific journey through frost and snow and blood. Here, at last, was the reward of all their hardships. Here, surely, was spoil enough to satisfy the most exacting; here was a 86 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. conquest great enough to add a star even to the crown of that great French conqueror. But the star of destiny had begun to set, the tide of that overwhelming fortune which had prostrated thrones and laid ancient dynasties humbly at his feet had begun to ebb, and Napoleon left Moscow defeated and .broken. Defeated, as he claimed, by the severity of the winter and all its horrors; defeated, as the Russians claim, by their superior military prowess. From the Sparrow Hills we drove homeward by way of the Holy Gate, where the traveller, no matter what his faith may be, is compelled by usage to remove his hat as he passes through. It is said that when Napoleon rode through this gate he was told of this custom, but haughtily declined to uncover, whereupon a providential gust of wind did for him what he had refused to do for himself, and he passed through the sacred portals bareheaded. Upon our return we had only sufficient time to effect the necessary change of dress and hasten away to the palace of the Civil Governor of Moscow, to attend the reception given by the Grand Duke Serge to all connected with the foreign embassies and legations then in the city for the purpose of being present at the coronation ceremonies. The reception was purely formal, and such as might have occurred in any official circle, and served but to introduce me to the invariable and exquisite polish of manner which everywhere characterizes the high-born Russian. The presentations were made by the Grand Duke's chamber- lain, and the entire function lasted but a little over an hour. I was glad to meet here again an old friend, Admiral Selfridge, of the United States Navy, who had been or- dered to Moscow to attend the coronation as our special ambassador, representing the naval forces of our Govern- ment. The admiral's position is not only one of the high- est in our navy, but is unique in that his official rank and position are the same as those held formerly by his father. There is no parallel case to this either in our army or navy, and, more remarkable still, both men are still living to enjoy their well-merited distinction, and, I trust, will con- BOUND ABOUT THE COW PATHS. 87 tinue to do so for many years to come. I also met at this function the British Ambassador, Sir Nicholas O'Connor, Count Yamagata of Japan, and many other dignitaries. Li Hung Chang, the Grand Old Man of China, had not yet arrived. The following day, Monday, I was kept busy paying calls of ceremony. Among those called upon were the Grand Dukes Serge, Dimitri Constantinovitch, Mikalovitch, Vladimir Alexandrovitch, Alexis Alexandrovitch, and Con- stantine Constantinovitch; Prince Dolgorouki and Prince Jules Ourroussow. This was not so formidable a task as it sounds, for all that is required of one in fulfilling this social obligation is to inscribe his name in the register which is kept at the door of all great houses for that purpose. On Monday a function corresponding to that of the previous day was held by the Grand Duchess Serge for the ladies accompanying the different foreign embassies. My mother, who attended this, tells me that the Grand Duchess Serge was peculiarly gracious in her manner. Late in the afternoon of the same day I drove to the railway station for the purpose of seeing the Tsar arrive from St. Petersburg, but the crowd about the station was so enormous that I only caught a most distant view of him as he was being whisked away to his temporary abiding place in the Petrovski Palace. The evening, however, afforded a sufficiently delight- ful form of enjoyment to atone for the mere officialism of the day. I dined with the officers of the guard at the " Yard " (pronounced yar). The Yard has scarcely an equivalent in America or England. It is situated in the Petrovski Park, and unites the functions of a restaurant wifh those of a concert hall and a variety stage, the pecul- iarity being that the performance proceeds during dinner. If you could add Delmonico's to Koster and Bial's, or Frascati's to the Empire, you would pretty closely assimi- late the Yard. Only you would still have to add the Kus- sian features and hosts, which were upon this occasion the chief charm of the entertainment. The front of the 7 88 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Yard is entirely of glass; the spacious dining-room is elaborately decorated, and was adorned, I imagine for this occasion, with oleanders and palms. At one end is the stage. The variety performers, who were all distinctly good, were chiefly Americans and English. They were treated munificently by the Eussian officers, who showered gifts upon them. I have been told by some of these artists that there is no place in the world where a favourite is so generously treated as in St. Petersburg or Moscow. The only distinctively Eussian feature of the entertainment was a gipsy dance. This is as popular in Eussia as the dance of the Nautch girl in India, the Geisha girl in the Farther East, or the ubiquitous skirt dancer in America. I had heard a great deal of the grace and beauty of the gipsy dancers the " Tsiganes," as they are called but I must confess that those that I saw were neither fascinat- ing from the standpoint of beauty nor bewitching from the standpoint of grace. I believe it is considered quite the thing for the jeunesse doree of the capital to engage these gipsy dancers to assist at such entertainments; but to me they were a distinct disappointment. They wear short skirts and jackets of bright colours, knee boots of red, yellow, green, or bronze, and bright-coloured hand- kerchiefs about their heads and necks. They sing and dance to wild Tartar music, swaying their bodies as they do so. The chief characteristic of the dance is that it proceeds in a constantly increasing ratio of noise and mo- tion until it reaches the climax of a final crash. They were very popular with our hosts, who applauded vocifer- ously and bestowed much largess upon them. The dinner we had upon this occasion was mainly of French cooking, and everything was upon a lavish scale. Certainly, Eus- sian hospitality is of a free and generous type. Expense is never spared in the entertainment of a guest in the ter- ritory of the Tsar; and one has the delightful feeling when entertained in Eussia that he is conferring as well as re- ceiving a favour. This, I take it, is the acme of hospitality. It was four o'clock as I drove home from the Yard, and as The Cathedral of St. Basil, Moscow. ROUND ABOUT THE COW PATHS. 89 the silver bells of Moscow announced the hour in the soft light of the opening day, I remembered that it was the birth- day of the Emperor, and before turning in for a few hours' rest, wished him from afar "many happy returns of the day/' CHAPTER IX. RAIN AND ETIQUETTE. IT has always proved a good rule with me to do in Rome as the Romans do. And I certainly never found the rule to work more satisfactorily than in Moscow. A little de- liberation, a bit of careful forethought, and a due regard for the minute directions which had been laid down by the officials in charge of the guests at the coronation ceremonies, saved us, I have no doubt, a world of trouble. During the few days immediately preceding the entree of the Em- peror into his sacred capital it rained hard enough to per- suade one almost that the heavens, too, were in prepara- tion for the great event, emptying themselves of all the spare rain they had on hand. This impression was deep- ened by the splendid weather which was reserved for the ceremonies and for the days immediately following. They speak of the Queen's weather in England, meaning there- by fair weather, and it is an observable fact that it is almost invariably fine when the Queen honours London with a visit. I am sure that they have Tsar's weather in Mos- cow, for no sooner did the young Emperor draw near the capital where he was to be crowned, than the rain abated, the sun shone forth, and all Nature assumed a smiling aspect, which augured well for the reign just about to receive the indorsement of a coronation in the most sacred city of Russia. During the days immediately preceding the Tsar's solemn entry we concerned ourselves with getting set- tled in our apartments, securing our courier and carriages, and paying such visits of ceremony as were incumbent 90 EAIN AND ETIQUETTE. 91 upon us. Besides this we took pains to inform ourselves as to the exact requirements of court etiquette in the dif- ferent functions to which we had been, or knew we were to be invited. First of all we called upon the Gentlemen of the Chamber to make inquiries about the course to be observed in the matter of dress and other details. They were most polite and thorough, and the brief visit we paid them persuaded us that, with the aid of a little common sense, we should be able to avoid the rocks and shallows which usually bring novices to grief. The names of these Gentlemen of the Chamber were Nicholas von Bunting, Basil de Verechagine, and Lubounier Dinisha. I was interested to see to what perfection of detail these court functions are reduced in the Old World. Nothing was left to the imagination, everything was provided for. And the hands of the Tsar were as firmly bound by a cut-and-dried pre-arrangement of detail as were those of the most incon- spicuous visitor to the coronation. Not only was the position fixed of every person who was at all entitled to consideration, but the very costumes to be worn at the different receptions and ceremonials were decided for one. It is, I imagine, this autocratic supervision of individuals in the older world upon such occasions as the one under consideration that makes it possible for European coun- tries to far surpass us in the display they make at any state or official assemblage. I have beside me, as I write, a card giving explicit instructions for the dresses to be worn by ladies at more than a couple of dozen functions, all under the direction of the Arch Grand Master of Cere- monies. As for men, it was either court dress or uniform. The former, of course, was fixed within certain and im- movable limits, and the latter as elaborate as the individ- ual's service and rank permitted. During this round of investigation I had occasion to visit several of the best hotels; and I can, without reservation, testify to the ad- mirable character of Eussian hostelries. They are large and luxuriously furnished, have splendid sleeping apart- ments, good French cooking, and are in every way quite abreast of the age, comparing favourably with the hotels 92 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. of any other European country. During even a short call at a Russian hotel or private residence overcoats are in- variably removed and left in charge of servants in the hall. In the hotels the domestic work is all in charge of men, the chambermaid nuisance thus being done away with. The rates at the best hotels are about five dollars a day for ordinary accommodation. Of course, one look- ing for extra luxuries in Russia will have to pay for them there as elsewhere. Although I have mentioned it previ- ously, I find, upon referring to my notebook, that it was upon this day, Tuesday the 19th, that we bargained with a Polish individual, Count Bobjinski, for the use of two carriages during our stay in Moscow. The carriages were in all ways satisfactory, but before we got through with the Count we found that it is quite as possible for an aristocrat to be tricky as it is for the veriest democrat in the world. During our use of his carriages he was to furnish us with extra horses if either of those in use went lame. "Well, of course one of them did go lame; but the Count was not forthcoming with an extra horse, and upon an occasion when we especially needed both carriages we found that he had let one of them over our heads for the day without making any provision for us. It was a nasty bit of trickery, which only served as a foil for the other- wise splendid treatment which we received during our stay. During the rambles which we made on the 19th and 20th we had ample opportunity to observe those features of every Russian city, the isvoschiks and the gorodovoys. During the festivities of the coronation there were within Moscow sixty-three thousand policemen, not counting the large number of troops that practically did police duty. It is no exaggeration to say that in the matter of discipline the Russian police are as good as any in the world. In the streets of Moscow the police are supreme. The isvoschiks live in constant and unending dread of them. It is but necessary for a policeman to glance angrily at an isvoschik to send the latter into a state bordering on collapse. It was during our drives about the city on these two The holy or Redeemer's gate of the Kremlin. RAIN AND ETIQUETTE. 93 days that we saw a good deal of the Kremlin, and over- came that feeling of comparative disappointment with which I believe almost every one gazes for the first time upon that sacred pile. The Kremlin, of course, stands quite by itself, and defies comparison with any other group of buildings in the world. Its arrangement is Oriental that is, in the massing together of a large number of im- portant buildings within very prescribed and narrow limits. Let me erase from the reader's mind a mistake under which I had always rested until I visited Moscow namely, that the Kremlin is a single magnificent building, famous for a variety of reasons. This is not so. The Kremlin, to speak strictly, is a wall, or rampart, about one third of a mile in circumference, which surrounds and incloses a collection of churches^ palaces, and public build- ings, among the most costly and sacred in all Russia. This wall is pierced by five gates, which are all of more or less traditional significance to the devout and patriotic among the Eussians. The first and chief gate is the Spaski Vorota, or Gate of the Redeemer; next comes the Mkolsky, or Nicholas Gate; then the Troitski, or Trinity Gate; while the last two, of less significance, are the Borovitski and the Tainitski, or Prison Gate. The principal one of these, the Holy Gate, is, as I have already indicated, of the very highest sanctity in Russian eyes. Over it is a golden ikon of the Saviour, which is held in peculiar veneration by all the faithful. It is supposed to have withstood any number of sacrilegious attempts to displace it, and is worshipped by the Russians with a devotion as sincere as it is universal. Sentries are constantly on duty to see that strangers going through this gate uncover; here the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries, the Emperor and the noble, as gladly do rever- ence as the humblest peasant that comes to Moscow on in- frequent and memorable pilgrimages. The Kremlin stands almost in the centre of Moscow, as any one may see by a glance at the plan of that city, which, by the way, looks as much like a spider's web as anything one can suggest. The moat, which originally surrounded the Kremlin, has been turned into a garden, 94: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. and now lies at the base of the grim wall like a gay fringe upon a sombre garment. The glories of the Kremlin have been frequently described, and by able pens; but I should do injustice to my own most vivid recollections if I failed to record the splendid and imperishable impression made upon me by a view from the summit of the Tower of Ivan Veliki. This tower stands within the Kremlin, and con- tains a chime of forty bells, the heaviest of which weighs some sixty tons. The smallest of these bells are cast of pure silver, and the sound issuing from them is peculiarly liquid and sweet. The bells of Moscow are almost as cele- brated as those of Newport, but, like the latter, they struck me as being sometimes a trifle loud. In fact, when the Eussians ring, they ring for all they are worth, and their chiming quite as often as not reminded me of Ophelia's lament over Hamlet, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. Near our house there were two churches, and when, after some late function, we were inclined to take a bit of extra sleep in the morning, their bells were definitely re- solved that we should not; and they usually had their way. But the view from the summit of Ivan ah, that was a coup d'ceil well-nigh matchless! I have often looked upon the beauties which may be seen from the Washington Monument. I have surveyed the splendid panorama spread before one from the top of some high building in lower New York; I have looked over the might and gloom of London from the summit of St. Paul's; I have seen the fairy spectacle Paris presents from the Eiffel Tower, but I never saw anything so bewitchingly beautiful as the view of Moscow from the Tower of Ivan. It was as if a rainbow had been broken up by the hand of some god and thrown down in splendid and yet symmetric confusion, the whole being sprinkled with gems of some genie of the East. At the very foot of the tower was the un- rivalled collection of magnificent buildings within the wall of the Kremlin, huddled together with an opulent disregard of wealth, in a confusion of beauty. Beyond, EAIN AND ETIQUETTE. 95 the city of Moscow its squares, its brilliant thoroughfares, seen through the light of an early summer's day looked like a glittering stage spectacle viewed through a gauze, with different-coloured lights thrown on the different ob- jects; only that no stage spectacle was ever so over- whelming or quite so beautiful. Think of it six hundred churches with glittering, bejewelled roofs, all of different style; yonder the Arc de Triomphe, there the Eed Gate with its figure of Fame; just at hand the splendid pile of the Hotel de Ville, contrasting in severe but fine simplicity with the Orientalism all about it. And beyond are the two green towers with their golden crosses which surmount the Chapel of the Mother of Iberia; still farther away, and glistening in the sun like the helmets of a group of mighty giants, are the five cupolas of the Cathedral of Our Saviour; and St. Basil, more beautiful than a poet's dream the beauty of which cost the architect his eyes, for when Ivan the Terrible first saw its glory he resolved that its like should not be built again, and so blinded the architect. In the distance stands the Petrovski Palace, showing brightly with its white and red against the sur- rounding landscape, and behind it its many-pinnacled Im- perial Chapel, displaying its dark-green cupolas and pin- nacles against a sky just now as blue as any the languor of Southern seas may ever woo; and through it all the Moskva threads its silent way to the plains beyond, till at last it is lost to sight, a single gleam of silver in a magnificent tangle of green. Do I exaggerate? Stand where I stood upon that summer's morning, and then tell me whether I have not fallen short, far short, of the scene spread before you? It was, if my memory serves me rightly, upon this visit to the Palace of the Kremlin that I first had the pleasure of meeting Prince Dolgorouki, who is the Arch Grand Master of Ceremonies, and who figured through all the ceremonies of the coronation as supreme in control. The Prince is an exceedingly polished gentleman, and with his swarthy complexion and silver hair presents a most striking and handsome appearance. In his hands are all 96 IN JOYFUL KUSSIA. the details of ceremony connected with the Court of the Tsar, and if easy manner and courteous bearing to all be the essentials of such a position, certainly the Prince is well placed. Tuesday, the 20th of May, the day before the solemn entry of the Tsar into Moscow, was used in about the same way as the previous day had been. We made our- selves better acquainted with Moscow and all there was to be seen within it. On the afternoon of this day a pleasant diversion was presented by a serenade offered by all the musical societies of Moscow to the Emperor, which was given outside the Petrovski Palace. In the afternoon, also, the Dowager Empress arrived to take part in the coronation. I was pleased to notice how warm a welcome this gracious lady received, not only when she arrived in Moscow, but whenever she was seen by the public during the various functions. Not even the Emperor himself was the recipient of warmer popular favours. The Dowager Empress is strikingly like the Princess of Wales, except that now her face wears an invariable expression of sadness, which that of the English Princess has begun to lose. I could not help reflecting how in the very midst of life she is called upon to retire into the background by that imperious Master before whose wand even Tsars must bend. It is such thoughts as these that serve to brush away the cobwebby thing called pomp and majesty, and to show us all on what a complete level we stand in the court of Death. Before that Mighty Monarch we all are commoners. It seemed but yesterday that the Emperor Alexander was on the throne; and now his stricken widow came as in duty bound to be present as her son took the seat left vacant by the death of his father. It is a pleasant and a consol- ing thought that behind all the purple of royalty, and be- neath the imperial crown, the heart of a loving son beats in warmest sympathy for the solitary mother whose chief comfort he is. Thus does the one touch of Nature, not excepting emperors and kings, make the whole world kin. CHAPTEE X. THEN" THE TSAR CAME. I SUPPOSE that in the medieval ages, when knights and crusaders, gaily caparisoned horses and mail-clad warriors abounded on every hand; or in, the old Eoman days, when sweeping togas contrasted with golden armour, glittering shields, and the decorated helmets of the Praetorian Guards; or in those days when the gallant Harry the Fifth made uproarious war on France, and ended by carrying off the gentle Katharine; or when bluff King Hal and Frangois Premier made peace upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold I suppose that in those days they had splendid spectacles; sights to make men cry out with wonder and surprise; but I do not believe that any ancient spectacle ever exceeded the entry of Nicholas II into the ancient capital of Moscow, except, perhaps, the magnificent scene at Alexandria, when Antony and Cleopatra sat in sensuous abandon and gazed upon the glories of Rome and Egypt linked. From every corner of the Russian Empire sub- sidiary princes, covered with gold and gems and sweeping draperies of texture so rich as to put to the blush the weav- ing of many a European loom, had gathered to swell the mighty train. Every European crown was represented, every petty principality, every republic. And all had come to the crowning of the Tsar, prepared to make a brave dis- play to show that they honoured the occasion. The cortege was arranged at or near the Petrovski Palace, where the Emperor had spent his time since his arrival in Moscow. Early in the morning the firing of nine guns and the ringing of the bells on the Cathedral of 97 98 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. the Assumption told all who were to take part in the ceremonial, either actively in the procession or as passive spectators, that they had better be up and stirring. Then in every direction might be seen a stream of splendidly caparisoned horses, carriages decorated with royal and im- perial arms, bodies of troops in spotless and brilliant uni- forms, all hastening to the one objective point the Petrov- ski Palace. The morning was beautiful. There had been overnight a slight shower of rain just enough to lay the dust; a gentle breeze was blowing, and the sun lit up the scene with a brilliance which brought out every detail of the magnificent spectacle that had been prepared. The procession must leave the palace and make its way past the railway station, along the Tverskaya, past the palace of the Grand Duke Serge, the Civil Governor of Moscow, and the Chapel of the Sacred Mother of Iberia, and so on to the Kremlin. There were two points of supreme advantage from which to witness this, the gala cortege of the nineteenth century: one at or near the station, which the procession must pass on its way to the palace; and the other at the palace of the Grand Duke Serge, which may be spoken of as the central point of the display. I had arranged to drive to the station, see the cortege pass that point, and then by a detour reach my place in the pavilion that had been erected in the square facing the Grand Duke Serge's palace. I found, by com- paring notes with others afterward, that I could not have hit upon a better plan for viewing the spectacle in its en- tirety. Of course the procession was a bit late in starting. I suppose none ever did, or ever will, start quite on time. But after waiting patiently for a little time three guns were heard in quick succession, announcing that Nicholas had mounted his snow-white horse and, attended by his liegemen from all his mighty Empire, was about to enter in state the Holy City of which he is the supreme ruler. From the station I could look down the wide boulevard that stretches between this building and the Petrovski Palace, and see the procession approaching long before it T in m m n o n Chapel of the Iberian Mother of, Gpd. THEN THE TSAR CAME. 99 came abreast of me. And now all was excitement, as it is at a race meeting when the word passes, " They're off! they're off! " First came a body of gendarmes under the control of the chief of police, followed by the splendid bodyguard of the Emperor. Then came a squadron of those wild and fearless soldiers of whom one hears so con- stantly in Kussia the Cossacks of the Guard. These men, with their swarthy faces, black hair, and piercing eyes, made a fine appearance as they passed. Their uniform consists of a scarlet tunic with silver facings and broad silver epaulettes and blue breeches tucked into knee-boots of black leather. They wear small round caps of black astrachan with scarlet tops, faced with the arms of Russia. These formed a fitting vanguard for the splendid body of Asiatic princes which followed a body of men as various in face and figure as they were brilliant in garb, and dis- playing by their differences the extent of the victories won by the arms of Eussia through all the mighty wastes of central Asia. Following these were the representatives of the various Cossack populations which acknowledge the sceptre of the Tsar, and behind them representatives of the nobility of Moscow, led by their marshal. Following this brave dis- play of horsemen came a troop of court footmen and court couriers half of them white and half of them coal-black Africans all in gorgeous uniforms; then a troop of the imperial huntsmen, led by the Master of the Hunt, an official equivalent to the Lord High Falconer in England. All these officials were apparelled in uniforms resplendent with colour, gold embroideries, and glistening orders. And now the line of horsemen was broken for the introduction of some magnificent vehicles, bearing the high officials having in charge the different ceremonies of the coronation. First of these were the two Grand Masters of Ceremonies; and then immediately following was Prince Dolgorouki, the Arch Grand Master of the Court, in a splendid court carriage drawn by six white horses, and riding in solitary state. I should have noticed, in order to be altogether faithful in my narrative, that an imperial 100 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. band preceded the huntsmen, led by the chief of the band on horseback. After Prince Dolgorouki came twenty-four Gentlemen of the Chamber, and then twelve Chamberlains. Following these, and in the order named, were four digni- taries of the foreign courts; the Marshal of the Court with his insignia of office; members of the council of the Em- pire, their Grand Marshal, bearing his insignia of office, being seated in a magnificent state phaeton worthy of a king. Then followed a squadron of the Cavalier Guard, of which her Imperial Majesty, the Dowager Empress, is the Honorary Colonel; and a squadron of the Gardes a Cheval. These are supposedly the two crack regiments of the Bus- sian army though, for my part, I preferred the light and dashing Hussars, who, I thought, made a much more effect- ive and taking appearance, judged from a military point of view. The Gardes a Cheval correspond to the Life Guards of the English army. They are a splendid body of men, but serve more for purposes of display about the court than for really effective field service. They are recruited from the flower of the Eussian population, wealth being a sine qua non of admission to their ranks. Their uniform, which is beautifully bright, consists of a white tunic trimmed with gold braid laid on scarlet, a golden cuirass, and a massive golden helmet surmounted by the Imperial Eagle in gold. On the front of the helmet is a white star with a blue centre, and the uniform is completed by white gauntlets, blue breeches tucked into black boots, and a cavalry sabre. The saddle-cloth is dark blue edged with scarlet and gold, and bears in each corner a star similar to that worn upon the helmet. The uniform of the Cavalier Guards is very similar. There is more white in the facings, and scarcely any scarlet in the body of the dress. The helmet is topped with a silver eagle instead of a gold one, the epaulettes are of silver, and the saddle-cloth is scarlet edged with blue and white. Of course, the dis- play made by such bodies of men is imposing in the last degree. It was to these two regiments that the place of honour, immediately preceding his Majesty the Emperor, THEN THE TSAR CAMjJ.' /, j ^ was accorded. And now the supreme moment in the pro- cession had arrived. A hush fell over all. I was reminded I hope not sacrilegiously of that triumphant line, " Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates, and let the King of Glory come in! " Who is the King of Glory? Look! A fair-haired boy, slightly built, with blonde and silken beard, astride a horse that is white as untrodden snow and as gentle as the plaything of a child, clad in a simple uniform of dark green, and holding his gloved hand con- stantly to his astrachan cap in salute this is the King of Glory. He is pale evident emotion stirs within him as he turns quietly from side to side acknowledging the thor- oughly imperial reception accorded him. His eye glistens. And he is alone, the one solitary. figure in all that mighty host. His person is open to the admiration, or it may be the assault, of all. At any rate, no craven fear prevents his riding in such a position that all his faithful people may have a complete view of their Emperor. It was a moment to stir the most phlegmatic breast. It was of no use to say to one's self, " I am a republican; it will never do for me to display enthusiasm over a regal show." No; the veriest socialist in the world yes, even a deep-dyed Nihilist would, as he glanced upon that youthful figure, have cast his theories to the wind and shouted, in spite of himself, " Long live the Emperor! " At the gate of the city opposite the railway station the Governor of Moscow advanced on foot and tendered to the Emperor the plate of bread and salt which is the sym- bol of friendship and fealty. And now I made my escape. Driving swiftly by a cir- cuitous route that removed me altogether from the crowds gathered along the route of the procession, I made my way to the pavilion erected opposite the Grand Duke Serge's palace, to occupy the place which had been reserved for me, and to which the ladies of our party had gone earlier in the day. Here the crowd was very dense. Looking either way from this elevation, one saw nothing but in- terminable lines of soldiers, and a sea of upturned eager faces, all gazing in one direction all watching for the ^ IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. coming of that solitary horseman. While we were thus waiting, an unexpected incident occurred in the Grand Duke's palace, where the dignitaries of the Diplomatic Corps were assembled. A fire started in to celebrate the coronation in its own way and afforded an almost amusing diversion. No harm was done, but there was about as lively a scattering of diplomats as was ever witnessed; and con- spicuous among those to make what is called upon the stage, I believe, " a quick exit," were the members of the Chinese Embassy. The way they held their many-coloured skirts aloft in running across the street was worthy of a Paris boulevard upon a rainy day. Here, also, I had an- other confirmation of my fast-growing conviction that there is no country on earth superior to Eussia in the matter of discipline. The fire department was called out. It came with little or no bustle. The crowd displayed no excitement; the men went to work, and in a very few minutes all was over. There are no water mains in Mos- cow; and that used for extinguishing fires is brought to the scene in barrels and pumped on to the flames by hand appa- ratus which would disgrace a third-class Western town. The firemen wear short double-breasted jackets of gray blanket goods, a very wide leather belt, and attached to the latter a big ring and hatchet. All bear coils of rope over their shoulders. The brass helmet is very similar to that worn by the London Fire Brigade. They are large men, under perfect discipline, and go to work without the slightest show of excitement. Indeed, the only excitement on this occasion was on the part of the diplomats. While we were awaiting the arrival of the procession, I noticed that in the square beneath us the police had made room for a large number of school children, who were marched to the place for the purpose of catching a glimpse of their Emperor. At about two o'clock the murmur of voices, which always in a great crowd preludes a climax, began to grow louder and still louder, and all knew that the Tsar was approaching. It was indeed a scene to live forever in the memory of the spectator. The street was lined with infantry; behind these were mounted Cossacks, THEN THE TSAR CAME. 103 behind the latter the police, and then everywhere crowds of faces. And now they come the Tsar riding alone, as before. Such a roar as greeted him! Such a waving of handkerchiefs from the balconies resplendent with femi- nine beauty attired as richly as that in the pageant below! The Emperor was followed at some little distance by an imperial escort of grand dukes and royal princes, which would have graced the retinue of a world-conqueror in the zenith of his glory. Among these foreign princes the Duke of Connaught looked remarkably well, and was every- where greeted with enthusiasm and respect. Before this royal group rode the Minister of War, the Aide-de-camp General commanding the military household of the Tsar, and other great military officials. Shortly after the Tsar in the procession came, first, the Dowager Empress in a state carriage drawn by eight horses; then the Tsaritsa, to whose golden vehicle were attached eight snow-white stallions; and for these two the crowd, already hoarse, seemed anxious to expand its last fragment of lung power. And after them came a train of queens, grand duchesses, princesses, and other high ladies, followed by squadrons of the Cuirassier Guards, the Lancers, and the Hussars. Think of a procession of human beings clothed so richly that the pen falters at a description of their attire, most of them mounted on as fine a lot of horses as the eye could wish to look upon; vary the picture by in- serting here and there the representatives of the Orient; then punctuate it with these magnificent vehicles which carried the high officials and court ladies! Watch it as it passes along. Listen to the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, the ever-repeated shout of the never-tired multi- tude. Flood this scene with undimmed sunshine worthy of Italy in her fairest moments, and keep in sight that fair boy yonder on the white horse as he passes into the Kremlin, and you will have been witness to as grand a display and to as touching a sight withal as this genera- tion, or indeed any other, is likely to look upon. And thus it swept along, borne by the hoarse cheers of men, the chorused shout of soldiers, the shrill voices of 8 104 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. school children, the flaunting of flags, the waving of hand- kerchiefs, and the blare of trumpets. Surely, never was prince more royally welcomed to his capital; never more heartily blessed by his waiting subjects. It should be a proud moment for Nicholas II, never to be effaced from his memory; for to him, at least, can there come no other day quite so significant or so grand. From this point the Emperor passed on until he came to the entrance of the Kitai Gorod. Here he dismounted and, with the Tsaritsa, entered the Chapel of the Mother of Iberia, and all alone in this tiny sanctuary they two did reverence to one of the most revered of Russian saints. No Tsar ever comes to Moscow without dismounting on his way to the Kremlin to worship here. When at last the Tsar came within the Kremlin walls, he found a mighty throng awaiting him. All around the great square had been erected tribunes, which were filled with Eussian nobles and the dignitaries from the Asiatic countries under Russian rule or protection. Prominent among the latter, the Ameer of Bokhara and the Khan of Khiva in their gorgeous robes of red and green and gold viewed the scene with Oriental stoicism. Near them the Lamas from Thibet blazed in yellow satin robes and brass head-dresses. In contrast to these were prelates from every evangelical denomination in their serious and sober-col- oured vestments. Farther on, great numbers of Russian nuns and long rows of orphans and charity-school chil- dren occupied a considerable space; bodies of men repre- senting the trades and industries filled in the centre of the square, and bordering all was a double line of soldiery. The Metropolitans, clothed in vestments of cloth of gold, awaited the Emperor's coming at the doors of the churches, holding the censers, crosses, and ikons. The cortege, when it arrived, dismounted and entered the Cathedral of the Assumption; the Emperor was preceded by his marshals, and had on either side the Empresses, whose long trains were borne by pages. They were followed by the grand dukes and duchesses and foreign sovereigns and princes, and the ladies and gentlemen of the court. After a brief THEN THE TSAE CAME. 105 service they left the Cathedral of the Assumption and visited those of the Archangel Michael and of the Saviour in the Wood; returning, the Emperor mounted the Eed Staircase, and, amid the shouting and rejoicing of his people, took possession of the Palace of the Kremlin. He had at last come to rule in the house of his fathers as the father of his people. Thus ended the first great act in this wonderful spectacular performance which meant so much to this mighty nation. CHAPTER XI. PROCLAIMING THE CORONATION. IN no European country has the rich ceremonial of past ages so perfectly survived as in the Russian Empire. Linked as the state is in closest intimacy to the Greek Church, and rich in the atmosphere of the Orient, it is the soil of all others for the growth and fruition of an elaborate and perfected pageantry. The succession of functions at the coronation of the Tsar was at once fas- cinating and bewildering. I found myself wondering what new forms this extended series of acts of allegiance and devotion could still assume; and I also found myself won- dering whether I should not become hopelessly mixed when I came to try to assort them and place them in order in my memory. This was at the time; but distance some- times has a clarifying effect, and, as I look back, the dif- ferent scenes in the brilliant spectacle arrange themselves in as orderly array as the succession of views presented in a well-painted panorama. I see their relations to each other and to the whole; and I wonder at the ingenuity, the skill, and the infinite industry and painstaking of the persons to whom was intrusted the weaving of this perplexing fabric. One of its most interesting features from the standpoint of the populace was the proclamation of the coronation. This was attended with very intricate detail, and by a body of officials arrayed in garments as bright and glowing as those of any stage king, and of far greater value. This ceremony was under the direction of a full general, who was assisted by two aide-de-camp generals, two aide-de-camp lieutenant-generals, two Grand Masters 106 .> PROCLAIMING THE CORONATION. 107 of the Ceremonies of the Coronation, two Imperial Heralds at Arms, four Masters of Ceremonies, and two Secretaries of the Senate. The military escort consisted of four squad- rons of cavalry: two from the Chevalier Guards and two from the regiment of the Gardes a Cheval, with a complete corps of drummers and trumpeters. The proclamation was to be repeated on three days the three immediately pre- ceding the coronation i. e., the llth, 12th, and 13th of May, according to the Eussian calendar, corresponding to the 23d, 24th, and 25th of ours. The proclamation, which was first read in the Senate building within the Kremlin, is as follows: " Our Most August, Most High and Puissant Sover- eign, the Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, having as- cended the hereditary throne of the Empire of Russia, and of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Fin- land, which are inseparable therefrom, has deigned to order, after the example of the most pious sovereigns his glorious ancestors, that the holy ceremony of the corona- tion and anointment of his Imperial Majesty should, with the help of the Almighty, take place on the 14th day of May; furthermore, his Majesty has commanded that his august spouse, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, should participate in this holy function. "By the present proclamation this solemnity is an- nounced to all the faithful subjects of his Majesty, in order that on this ardently desired day they may raise their most fervent prayers to the King of Kings, so that of his un- failing grace he may deign to bless his Majesty's reign, and preserve the public peace and tranquility to the greater glory of his Holy Name and the unalterable pros- perity of the Empire." From the Senate building the procession proceeded in great state to the Red Square, which is immediately without the inclosure of the Kremlin, and there, the cav- alry having taken up positions on each flank, the heralds, secretaries, and other officials being in the centre, after a fanfare of trumpets, the proclamation was again read, this time to the assembled multitude, which listened in silence, 108 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. and at the close, as the trumpets and drums executed the National Anthem, broke out in cheers and shouts. The display was very imposing and interesting, and highly successful in all respects, save the reading, which was scarcely a first-class elocutionary effort. From this point the cortege separated, and, riding to different well-known points throughout the city, repeated the reading and the salutes. During the three days this ceremony was carried out at between thirty and forty different places within the city. The heralds were supposed to scatter the printed proclama- tions among the people, but this was a detail which, so far as I could observe, was not carried out. At any rate, I had to pay two roubles for the copy I secured, and I did not hear of any one else procuring a free copy. The heralds, in all their finery of gold and white, and decorated surtouts, riding white horses clad in golden trappings, looked for all the world like the conventional pictures of that king of England who was as much celebrated for his fondness of marriage as he was for defending the faith. Such, then, was the ceremony of the Solemn Proclamation of Nicholas II similar, I suppose, to all other proclama- tions for the last two centuries at least. Among the delightful Americans I met at Moscow who have taken up Eussian citizenship was the Baroness Hune. Baron Hune is commander of the squadron of the Chevalier Guards which is on duty in the Imperial Palace; and consequently, during all the ceremonies of the coro- nation, he was actively engaged and very near the person of the Emperor. He is a tall, handsome man, a fine sol- dier, and reminded me more of a splendid specimen of the German guard than of a thorough Eussian, as he is. The Baroness is an exceedingly popular and very beautiful woman. She is the daughter of Cyrus Lothrop, a former United States Minister to St. Petersburg, and is an illus- tration of the typical American woman. She told me in con- versation that she had grown very fond of Eussia and the Eussians, and that, while she had not forgotten America, she felt that America and Eussia should be bracketed to- gether. They are both great countries, and, although they PROCLAIMING THE CORONATION. 109 differ widely in many respects, they have a great deal in common, which should tend to cement a perpetual friend- ship. Another link between the two countries is found in the person of Mr. Alexander P. Berry, that brilliant and successful engineer, who designed and constructed the buildings of our Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, and who, while seeking rest and recreation in foreign travels, perceived the opportunity presented in Eussia for the employment of skill and enterprise. In his thir- teen years of residence in that country, by the combina- tion of American energy and talent with Kussian industry, he has not only achieved for himself a national reputation and amassed a large fortune, but has been personally in- strumental in developing the iron manufacturing industry, and raised to a high standard mechanical construction in all its branches. He at present maintains offices in eleven of the principal cities of Eussia, and has works of various kinds scattered over the length and breadth of the Em- pire. Within the last few years American enterprise and capital have found a highly productive field in Eussia. Among those thus induced to make their homes in that far- off country is Mr. Fred. Smith, formerly of Philadel- phia, who, with his associates, has established a large loco- motive works and steel plant, whose success is assured. A number of these self-exiled Americans meeting in Moscow during the coronation celebrated the event by a little dinner at the Ermitage. There was nothing remark- able about the dinner, except the place in which it was given. There are in Moscow several first-class establish- ments for the giving of entertainments, but none is better than the Ermitage. The Praga is smaller and more of the order of a club; this is an enormous establishment and quite unique of its kind. If one goes to Eussia with the idea that he will have to live on an indifferent diet, he only needs to dine at the Ermitage to have that impression swiftly and permanently dissipated. The dinner we had upon this occasion was as good as we could have secured at the best places in London or New York; it was served HO IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. smoothly and picturesquely by the white-clad waiters, and the cost was about what it would have been elsewhere in Europe, or in America. The dinner passed off very pleasantly. While we were feasting, the Tsar and Tsaritsa had already entered upon the three days of fasting and prayer which immediately preceded the coronation. This is a kind of retreat prescribed for the Tsar's observation by the Church functionaries, and religiously observed by him. These three days were spent in the Petrovski Palace, largely in the observation of certain acts of devotion and self-abasement which are regarded by the ecclesiastical authorities as of the highest value in connection with the enthronement of the Emperor. To omit this retreat and its accompanying ceremonies would be an offence in the minds of the faithful, and would augur ill for the reign about to commence. No Tsar, whatever his own proclivi- ties, would think of neglecting a single link in this long chain of elaborate ceremony. Sunday, the 24th, was passed quietly. In the morning took place the consecration of the imperial standards in the armory of the Kremlin. This is a ceremony which is observed afresh with the accession of each new occupant of the Russian throne. It is essentially a private func- tion, and was attended only by the Tsar, his immediate family, and the more intimate and exalted members of his military household. The ceremonial merely consists of the blessing of the standards, and the offering of prayers appropriate to the occasion for the prosperity of those standards during the forthcoming reign. In the after- noon I visited the Cathedral of St. Basil, which, as I have mentioned elsewhere, cost its architect the loss of his eyes. From without, its aspect is most perplexing, sur- mounted as it is by no less than eleven different domes. By looking closely at the illustration, it will be observed that no two of these domes are exactly alike; but when one looks at the building in its entirety, and sees the variety of colours employed in the adornment of the domes and minarets, the effect is strange and weird. Here is a PROCLAIMING THE CORONATION. deep magenta, there a sky-blue, yonder a rich terra-cotta, beside it a tender violet, flanked with a deep sea-green; and over all, on the principal, shaft-like steeple, a golden dome surmounted by a slender, graceful cross of the same precious metal. It is easier to imagine the effect of this combination than to describe it. The cathedral stands at one end of the Eed Square, and was originally erected on the site of an ancient cemetery where the remains of St. Basil were buried. Ivan the Terrible caused a wooden church to be built over the saint's remains in 1554, in com- memoration of the victory of his arms over some foreign foe. Later the wooden structure was taken down, and the present and magnificent house of worship erected. As may be well imagined, the church within is quaint in the ex- treme. Each of the domes covers a distinct and separate chapel, and these are all connected by a labyrinth of pas- sages covered with the pictures of saints and with sacred relics. Among these are the chains and crosses which St. Basil used to wear for the purpose of penance and to further promote his growth in grace. The cathedral is, of course, worth visiting, but one never gets a better im- pression of it than when it is seen from a distance under the illuminating effect of a brilliant sun. It then presents a vision of startling, irregular beauty, such as the spec- tator is not likely to see repeated, travel he ever so far. We ended this quiet Sunday most delightfully by din- ing at the German Embassy. This was a state dinner given by Prince Radolin, the German Ambassador. This dinner, although given by Prince Radolin, was presided over by the Grand Duke Vladimir, who took the Princess Radolin in to dinner, the Prince escorting the Grand Duchess. My mother was escorted by the Portuguese Am- bassador. The dinner was purely formal, and there was no after-dinner speaking, or any other form of mental torture with which so many good dinners are spoiled, both in Eng- land and America. At one end of the dining-room there was suspended a full-length portrait of the German Emperor. The menu was in French. Emperor William had sent to Moscow his own plate for use at this occasion, and the IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. servants were in the elaborate livery of the German court. There was, of course, music during the dinner. I learned, among other interesting items, that the dates of the entire list of state dinners had been arranged by the Grand Master of Ceremonies, so that there might be no clashing; some- thing altogether necessary when one reflects upon the gigantic scale upon which everything connected with the coronation was conducted. n o * I e I CHAPTER XII. THE CROWNING OF A TSAE. I HAVE been assured by those familiar with court func- tions that this century has not witnessed anything superior as a state spectacle to the crowning of Nicholas II. I can easily believe this. To say that I had never seen anything approaching it is to say little, for almost all my experi- ence has been along the line of republican simplicity, rather than in the direction of monarchical display. I should not, therefore, have trusted my own judgment in comparing this ceremony with others of the same sort at other courts. There were, however, present in Moscow during the coronation celebrities from every clime diplomats who had had experience of Oriental opulence, Occidental extravagance and democratic simplicity, and their unanimous decision was that which I have stated. Moscow had outdone herself. The resources of Tsardom had been called upon to make such a display as this gen- eration had not seen, and they proved equal to the de- mand. A blaze of glory! Jewels without number and without price bedecking women as fair as poet's dream could paint them! A constant stream of brilliant uniforms, flashing with decorations, and putting the rainbow to shame for variety and splendour of colour. A city scintillating by night with millions of minute illuminations in such a combination of colour and form as to baffle description and defy the imagination; by day gay with innumerable flags, bannerets, and picturesque designs all this set off by a city whose normal beauty and quaintness excel those 113 114 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. of any of Europe, and perhaps of the world. Such was the impression left en Hoc upon my mind by the coronation day and its elaborate functions. I shall perhaps give the reader a fairer idea of this full and fascinating day if I describe the event as we actually saw it from its beginning, and drift through its hours, pen in hand, trying to reproduce the dazzling, kaleidoscopic panorama as it impressed itself upon my memory. Of course, we were all excitement. We had reached the apex. Everything else in the way of ceremony had been simply preparatory to this. After it, all else would gradually fade away until the dead level of the common- place had been reached once more. We had retired early on the previous night, knowing well that a hard day's work awaited us. At 5.30 we were aroused, and soon all were astir and bustling with excitement. Our one long looking-glass was in great demand, for every one was to display everything in the way of full dress which he or she possessed. To-day G. revealed himself in the very fetching court costume which he had procured in Paris. And I must confess that, when he appeared in all the glory of cocked hat, brass buttons, knee breeches, silk stockings, dress sword, and silver buckles, he was a very fine-looking young American. We did ample justice to a hearty break- fast before starting, as we were forewarned that it would be many a long hour before we should have another chance to eat. At 6.45 we left the house in two carriages my mother, whom I thought beautiful enough for a place in any court ceremony the world over, and the other ladies occupying one, G. and I, with our ubiquitous, not to say iniquitous, courier, the other. Our first rendezvous was at the house of the Turkish Ambassador, to whom, as the senior of the Corps Diplo- matique, the ambassadorial honours of the day were paid. At his residence we formed in line and made our way to the Kremlin. The air was charged with electricity. Every one was more or less excited. The crowds in the streets gazed with open-mouthed wonder at anything and at THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. H5 everything. A Eussian crowd is not mercurial. One might, perhaps with justice, declare it lymphatic. During the coronation itself, however, the fire of genuine interest and enthusiasm seemed to have melted the ice, and from prince to peasant all classes were alive with eager curiosity and clamorous applause. The scene on the way to the Kremlin was indicative of the representative nature of the multitude assembled in Moscow to do honour to the Tsar. From every corner of his Empire, men, women, and little babes even, had come many of them travelling hundreds of miles afoot to be present at the crowning of the Great White Tsar. What devotion! At best, all they could hope for was a far-away glimpse of their ruler as he drove through the streets, perhaps the shadow of one of the win- some smiles which illuminated and beautified the features of the Tsaritsa throughout all the weary succession of form and ceremony. The order was superb. I could scarcely realize that I was in the land of which so many exaggerations had been published, as I looked upon the quiet, orderly, and enthusiastic throngs which lined the streets on our way to the function which should enthrone the Tsar. By one of those remarkable mistakes which our courier was constantly making, we succeeded in getting lost on our way to the Kremlin. It was a habit of this person to make mistakes which resulted almost invariably in land- ing us in just the place for which we were not intended. Usually we landed in a better one. As a matter of fact, we could scarcely have been in better hands or worse. For the seeing of sights, for the securing of advantages difficult to be obtained, for the framing of useful lies in the midst of embarrassing emergencies, our courier was cer- tainly a past master. As may be well supposed, a nature possessing these qualities would not be altogether free from certain capacities in the way of duplicity and im- pertinence. However, cheek and deception are probably more valuable in a courier at such a function than modesty. As a matter of fact, we were bound for the diplomatic tribune, but, as G. described our experience afterward in 116 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. a letter home, " we got lost in the shuffle, and turned up in the throne room." "We did not, however, immediately enter the throne room, but by one of those sudden move- ments which one experiences in a crowd, we found our- selves in one of the antechambers which seemed to be devoted to the ladies in waiting. G. immediately became an object of interest. And I fancied that I detected a slight straightening of the vertebras on G.'s part when he found himself the cynosure of so many sparkling eyes. In this room we had our first and, indeed, only glimpse of the imperial baby. It was a sweet little thing, peacefully reclining in its nurse's arms, and might have been any one else's baby quite as well as the baby of a Tsar and a Grand Duchess of Eussia. We were allowed to look at it, and, indeed, it was allowed to look at us, which it did in a very witching way, smiling sweetly. After all, when one gets down to the buff, we are all very much alike. I have often seen my own babies smile quite as sweetly; but still, in that tiny tot's smile I found the one touch of Nature which established between it and us the human kinship that is universal. Firmly convinced that we were in the wrong shop, we yet determined to assume an air of proprietorship and see what was to be seen. So we sauntered out of the ante- chamber in which the little Grand Duchess Olga was hold- ing her court, and, passing into the next room, found that we were in the throne room of the palace, otherwise known as the Hall of St. Andrew. This was simply crowded with uniformed and order-bedecked princes, generals, official and court dignitaries of the highest rank. It was diffi- cult to realize their exalted positions on account of their multitude. Anything more beautiful than this hall it is scarcely possible to conceive. The floor is of polished woods, which throw back into the spectator's eyes brilliant reflections of the gold and crystal ornamentation of the walls and ceiling. The hall is one hundred and sixty feet long by sixty-eight feet wide; down each side is a row of columns, which at the top bend to the curve of the domed ceiling. THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. H7 These pillars are picked out in gold on a background of light blue, the colour of the Order of St. Andrew. Be- tween the columns, and pendent from the ceiling, which is also of blue and gold, are the splendid gold and crystal chandeliers. At night, when the candles required to il- luminate this room more than two thousand in number are lighted, the scene presented to the eye is one of scintil- lating magnificence, difficult to exaggerate. It reminded me of some splendid stage spectacle, with this difference: that here all the properties were genuine. The Order of St. Andrew is the Russian equivalent of the English Order of St. George, being the senior among Russian orders. At the extreme end of this hall, on a platform reached by six gentle steps, was the throne of Russia. It was made august by a rich over-reaching canopy bedight with gold and sil- ver embroidery; and the draperies which depended on either side were without of velvet and cloth of gold heavy with the arms of Russia, and within white with costly ermine, the fur which royalty chiefly affects. When I saw the throne, there were three chairs on the platform. These were for the Tsar, his wife, and his mother. That was, I thought, as it should be. The Dowager Empress is not pushed aside by the incoming Tsar. The affection between mother and son is said to be very intense, and certainly, through all the ceremonies, next to the gentle lady by his side, she whom the Tsar most delighted to honour was the widowed mother whose chastened grief seemed to sanctify and ennoble every scene upon which she gazed. I suppose that moralizing in such circum- stances is a rather cheap refuge, and I had hoped to avoid it altogether. It was, however, difficult to stand before that throne and suppress all reflections of a sociological character. Napoleon the Great, in one of his bitter mo- ments, scoffed at the throne as a device of pine boards and velvet. Even so: With what significance can pine boards and velvet be laden in certain circumstances! This throne before which I stood, how tremendous is its power, how sweeping are its responsibilities! It is charged with the government of one seventh of the land surface of the 118 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. earth; revered by a population of over one hundred and twelve millions of human beings; supported by an army of more than a million men, which on a war footing is swiftly turned into two millions; gathering within its paternal embrace men of all colours and many climes; in- trenched in a series of traditions strong as death; but- tressed by a Church whose chief is the Tsar, and whose highest tenet, after faith in God, is submissive devotion to him. Surely, I thought, as I looked upon it, that pine boards and velvet are in such circumstances significant and eloquent. And as my thought turned to the young monarch upon whose shoulders so early in life this tre- mendous power had been placed, I found myself hoping that he might find a way to soothe the irritated among his subjects, and to lead his people, like a modern Moses, into the broad fields of peace, plenty, and contentment. While we were in the throne room I noticed on each side of it a rank of the Chevalier Guards on duty. Why they were there, except as part of the general pageant, it is difficult to say. Upon this occasion they were all in absolutely new uniforms to grace the Holy Coronation, and I was much amused, as they stood there in all their magnificence, to notice a couple of soldier-servants going down each line and dusting off their boots, of which opera- tion they took no more notice than if carved out of stone. In this room (I had an excellent chance to observe them) were the crown jewels of Russia. They were exhibited on a long table covered with cloth of gold and surrounded by a silver chain which was suspended from the beaks of silver eagles surmounting silver posts. The jewels were there awaiting the supreme moment when they should be taken away to be used in the sacred ceremony in the cathedral. Among them were the Imperial Sceptre, the globe of gold with its sparkling ornamentations, the sacred crown with which Nicholas II later crowned himself the supreme monarch of the Russian Empire, the two crowns of the Empresses (both masses of diamonds), the two jewelled collars of the Order of St. Andrew, the two royal robes, the great Sword of State, and the Imperial Seal. THE CROWNING OP A TSAR. H9 I could have stretched forth my hand and touched these precious gems. If crowns are going to be worn at all, I should say that the imperial crown of Eussia is a very good kind of a crown to wear; though when an hour or two later I saw it upon the brow of the Tsar, I was forcibly reminded of the line, Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, for it was tilted slightly, and appeared to be a bit too large for his Majesty's head. However, real monarchs unlike the kings and queens of stage life do not spend their entire lives carrying about their crowns. I should pity them if they did. This view of the throne room and crown jewels, as also of the baby Grand Duchess, the reader will understand was entirely accidental, and altogether owing to the crass impertinence of our courier, who had driven us up to the wrong entrance, and then, by the exercise of a degree of assurance which would have made him an eminent com- petitor of the lamented Barnum, had forced our way into an imperial zone, where, to say the least, we were not ex- pected. This was one of the occasions when his assurance yielded a rich return. Besides the sights we thus unex- pectedly saw, we experienced one more instance of the unfailing courtesy of Russian court officials. While we were looking at the jewels we were approached by a gentle- man one of the chamberlains I took him to be who pro- ceeded to enter into a pleasant conversation with us about the gems. He gave us the history of each and every one of them, together with much valuable information, and from this turned to a pleasant remark about the corona- tion, asking us almost indifferently if we were not going to the tribune ? We answered, " Yes." And with the greatest possible ease he said, " I shall take pleasure in sending an official with you to show you the way." It was about the most delightfully easy manner in which I had ever been told that my room was more desired than my com- pany. We had, however, seen the throne, the crown, and the baby! 9 120 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. And now came a supreme moment not so much in its present significance as in its historic associations. We were led through the two lines of Guards, returning the salute so gallantly given with a simple bow, then through a throng of civilians, and at last, by a sudden turn to the left, brought to a stop at the head of the Eed Stairs, at whose foot was a sea of faces, all of them eagerly looking for the Tsar. The effect was startling. From these stairs Napoleon had turned to look upon Moscow as he entered the Palace of the Kremlin; down these stairs he had gone when Mos- cow, fired by the torch of Rostopchine, no longer gave shelter to his army; from them the father of the present Tsar had turned to salute, and to be saluted by his people, when returning from the very function through which his son was about to pass. The picture was dazzling. Every- where faces faces! On every side were colour, gold and gems glistening in the sun, fair women vivacious and eager, stalwart men glittering with steel and gold and brass and scarlet, swarthy Cossacks, lithe Hussars, gigantic Guards, sturdy police, and, above and beyond all else, the eager, throbbing, acclaiming multitude, waiting for ita monarch. I shall not soon forget the scene. I should like to make the situation plain to the reader. Standing at the head of the Eed Stairs, and so looking out from the palace, we saw to the immediate right an open tribune, full of Russian nobles and their womenkind; beyond this, in the right-hand corner of the square, nearest the palace, stands the Cathedral of the Saviour in the Wood, and in the farther corner of the right-hand side of the square stands the Cathedral of St. Michael. Between these two churches was erected a two-storied tribune. This also was filled with a glittering multitude. Immediately opposite the Red Stairs, and with their backs to the Tower of Ivan, were other tribunes; and, turning sharply to the left from the foot of the Stairs, and going through a human lane, one would reach the Cathedral of the Assumption, in which the great ceremony was to take place. Will the reader, then, imagine himself at the head of this famous Red Staircase? Before him he will see a multicoloured mass THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 121 of human beings, on every side bunting, for a background the splendid architecture of the churches, and, if he glances to the right, over the two-storied tribune between the two cathedrals, he will catch a glimpse of field and woodland, looking like some superb landscape framed and hung in a crowded palace. A band stationed in the corner is playing soft and sensuous strains, the distant boom of cannon is heard mingling with the chime of bells; and over all and through it all, like a solemn river making its way slowly but irresistibly through a great, unheeding metropolis, is the imperishable murmur of the multitude waiting for its king. We now made our way to the seats in the tribune, which my mother, with genuine maternal care, had kept for us all this time. From this coign of vantage we had a splendid view of the square of the Kremlin, as well as of the large number of distinguished individuals gathered to do honour to the Tsar. The square itself had been marked off into a huge cross which intersected it at right angles. This cross was carpeted in royal red a colour which served to throw into vivid contrast the splendid uniforms of the Guards and of the Cossacks that lined its arms. In the spaces not marked off as pathways, and not occupied by the military, were the people. And when, shortly before noon, the Tsar came out of the palace, on his way to the coronation, one might almost have thought that he was looking down upon an American crowd assembled at the installation of a president, so genuine and so hearty was the applause. Hats were thrown in the air, handkerchiefs waved, and men and women cheered and cheered again until they were hoarse. The only thing which was dis- tinctly different from either an English or American crowd was the cheer, which was certainly the most peculiar I ever heard. It sounded very much like a prolonged growl, rising higher and higher as it approached its culmination; and again and again this peculiar acclamation swept over the multitude, and was caught up by those without the palace walls, and then by the more distant masses, until the volume of sound was deafening. 122 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. As it rose and fell there approached the first proces- sion the procession of her Imperial Majesty, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna. This was composed of the members of her own court, and of other dignitaries ap- pointed for the occasion. She bore herself with regal dignity. Every detail of the order of her procession had been fixed to a nicety. Preceded by a detachment of the guards of her own regiment, accompanied on either side by two very distinguished court ladies, and wearing her imperial crown and robe, she slowly made her way from the Hall of St. Catherine in the palace down the Eed Stairs, at whose foot her palanquin awaited her, and under its shade across the square to the Cathedral of the Assump- tion. How full of both joy and sorrow must this day have been to her! It was only thirteen years ago that she had taken part in a similar function as one of the two leading dramatis persona. Then she had walked beside Alexander to take up a share of his crown and of his responsibilities; now she was at the best a revered looker-on. In her train were ladies of honour, pages of honour, grand duchesses and their dames of honour, and any number of lesser officials. She looked well, but sad, and bowed with stately dignity to the cheering multitude through which she passed. At the door of the cathedral her Majesty was met by the Metropolitan of Moscow and his assisting clergy, who presented to her the cross and the holy water. After this she took her place in the church on the throne of the Tsar Alexis Mikhalilovitch, which was placed on a special dais and surmounted by a magnificent canopy. A few of the more important members of her suite remained in the cathedral, but the large majority passed out by another door and waited for the conclusion of the service in the Synodal Chamber hard by. After the Dowager Empress had entered the cathedral, an official known as the Treas- urer of the Emperor, carrying the cross, assisted by two deacons,^ went over the course to be traversed by the Em- peror, and sprinkled it with the holy water the deacons car- ried. This function, much to my surprise, was the signal for a flourish of trumpets and the ringing of bells and cheering. THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 123 After this had been done, the Arch Grand Marshal in- formed his Majesty that the august moment had arrived for him to proceed to the cathedral, and the Tsar and the Tsaritsa entered the throne room and took their places on the throne which I have already described, to await the formation of the procession by which they were to be accompanied. A nourish of trumpets by the trumpeter of the Chevalier Guards announced the moment of the departure of the Emperor from the throne room. I will give a brief statement of the order of the procession which accompanied him: 1. A detachment of the Chevalier Guards the regi- ment of the Dowager Empress. 2. The Pages, and Pages of the Chamber. 3. The Masters of Ceremony. 4. A group of the rural representatives of the Empire. Of these the eldest fourteen were allowed to remain in the cathedral; the rest waited outside. 5. The Mayors of the two capitals. 6. Delegates from the Grand Duchy of Finland. Following these, and in the order named, came dele- gates from the government of Zemstvos, the President and members of the Committee of the Moscow Bourse, delegates of the bourgeoisie and artisans, of the different banks, and the principal manufactories of Moscow, to- gether with its City Government; delegates from the various public institutions of Moscow, and so many others that to enumerate them in complete detail would weary both the reader and the writer. I noticed among the deputations one which specially interested me viz., a delegation from the Cossack troops and populations. These were arrayed in semi-barbaric splendour, which was quite characteristic. The reader will gain some idea of the magnitude of this procession if I mention that in the official order of the Grand Master of Ceremonies it is set out in fifty-seven separate divisions. It is quite certain that none of the fifty-seven was absent. Of course, every important interest and section of society was represented, though a majority of those in the procession only passed 124 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. through the cathedral, catching the merest glance of the sacred spot, and then passed on to await the conclusion of the service in the adjoining Synodal Chamber. The forty-fifth division is worthy of a moment's notice. It consisted of the officials bearing on cushions of gold and silver cloth, or of velvet studded with jewels, the jewels which we had shortly before unexpectedly seen in the throne room. It may prove of interest to the careful reader to know just what these were. I give them in the order in which they were borne: The Collar of the Order of St. Andrew for the Empress; the Sword of State; the Standard; the State Seal; the Imperial Mantle of the Empress; the Emperor's Eobes; the Globe; the Sceptre; the Empress's Crown; and the Emperor's Crown. On each side of the imperial insignia marched the Emperor's aides-de-camp, the generals of the suite, and the aides- de-camp of the generals, in the reversed order of their seniority, the juniors marching first. The fiftieth division was the group of which his Majesty was the centre. This was made up of the most eminent men in his Empire. Beside him walked two members of the nobility, and he was followed immediately by the Ministers of the Household and of War, the Commander of the Imperial Household, the Aide-de-Camp in General and other military officials, with the commander of the Chevalier Guards at the rear with drawn sword and wearing his helmet. Then followed the Empress. This group was sheltered by a magnificent canopy of gold, silver, and embroidered silk. And in the midst of all this was the youthful Tsar! The first thought that struck me was, How young is he, to be burdened with the government of a mighty state! Fair of face, with a kindly, beaming eye, an almost boyish expression, he reminded me much of his English cousin, the Duke of York. On him, at this moment, every eye was fixed as he slowly moved along. His face was pale, as though the tremendous strain of function on function had begun to tell; but there was a quiet determination in his mien, a simplicity and modesty that augured well THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 125 for the future of Eussia. If ever monarch was blessed with a kindly, benevolent face, certainly Nicholas II has been so endowed by Nature. And so quietly, and al- most with an air of humility, as is becoming on the edge of such terrific responsibilities, the young Tsar and his sweet, gracious wife made their way to the Cathedral of the Assumption. It is scarcely needful for me to say that during all the time the procession had been making its way from the palace to the cathedral there had been a ringing of bells, presenting of arms by the military, and cheering by the multitude. Arrived at the door of the cathedral, the Emperor and Empress were met by the Metropolitans. After the customary genuflexions, the Metropolitan of Mos- cow pronounced an allocution; the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg held a jewelled crucifix to their lips for them to kiss, and the Metropolitan of Kieff besprinkled them with holy water. Then they passed on with slow and rev- erent step, bowing, and bowing low, to the sacred images on either hand, until they reached at length the plat- form in the centre of the cathedral, which was to be the centre of the stage for all the intricate ceremonial which was to follow. On this platform were two thrones, those of the Tsars Michel Feodorovitch and Jean III. "When Emperor and Empress were seated, the archbishops, archi- mandrites, and the officiating clergy formed in two lines between the platform and the Holy Door leading to the sanctuary, in which the anointing of the Tsar was to take place. This position assumed, the clergy and choristers took up the refrain of the Misericordiam et Judicum Can- tabo Tibi Domine. Meanwhile, the officials who had borne the insignia, and the high officials of state, had grouped themselves about the thrones of the Tsar and his spouse. At each corner of the platform stood a Chevalier Guard with drawn sword, and right behind the Emperor, the commander of this famous regiment with drawn sword also, and clasping his helmet in his right hand. All the insignia had been placed on a table, and the officials who had borne them stood near by in readiness to pass them to the Metropolitan 126 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. or the Tsar when they were demanded. All this had been done while their Majesties were slowly approaching the throne and doing obeisance to the sacred images. Near the throne stood the Civil Governor of Moscow with a roll of cloth of gold and crimson velvet, ready to un- fold it before the Tsar when he should leave the throne to approach the sacred altar. All was now in readiness. The cathedral was a blaze of light and beauty. The vest- ments of the priests, the uniforms of the soldiers, the coro- nets and crowns of assembled monarchs, the sacred pic- tures, the odour of incense, the intoning of priests, the sunlight distilled through the rich windows of the sacred edifice all this made up a scene never to be effaced from the mind. And in the centre of all stood the young Tsar, panoplied with the dignity which responsibility gives, the strength which necessity creates. The ceremony itself was just such an one as one would look for in a church which is interwoven with a state so splendid and so Oriental. First, the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg called upon the Emperor for a confession of faith, handing him a book from which to read it. This the Tsar read in a clear voice, but low; and then the Metropolitan pronounced the blessing, Gratia Spiritus Sancti sit semper tecum. Amen. After the reading of the Gospel by the Metropolitan, the Emperor, having removed the collar of the Order of St. Andrew, replaced it with the coronation robe and the diamond collar of the same Order. The robe and collar were presented to the Emperor on two cushions by the Metropolitans of St. Petersburg and Kieff; and then the former crossed his hands upon the Emperor's bowed head and pronounced the benediction, In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. While holding his hands in the form of a cross, the Metro- politan also delivered two prayers, prescribed by ritual. After this the Emperor in a low voice ordered the imperial crown to be brought. The official who had borne it in the procession now advanced with it to the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, who in turn presented it to the Em- peror. Very deliberately and with great dignity the Tsar THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 127 placed the crown upon his head; and then in a high voice the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg pronounced the pre- scribed allocution. To me this was a significant moment. Nicholas had crowned himself, not as Napoleon did, in defiance of the Church, but with all the ecclesiastical sanction, as being the highest functionary in that Church. I was impressed at every step in this lengthy ceremonial with the supreme wisdom of the ecclesiastical authorities who had shaped the early course of the Greek Church in the Eussian Empire. It has not alienated itself from the State, as Rome has done, but has so welded itself to it that every function of State is also a function of the Church. Here there is no possible antagonism. There is no question of relative au- thority and comparative dignity, no jealous observation of the Church by the State, no acrid recriminations ad- dressed to the State by the Church. Here there is no division of interests, for the interest of both is one; and the chief care of the Church in Russia is to inspire all its children, from the highest Grand Duke to the poorest peasant, with loyalty and reverence for the Tsar. As head of the Church, therefore, Nicholas II had crowned him- self as head of the State; and that because in the Church there was no higher functionary to crown him. The sceptre and the globe having next been presented to him, the Emperor seated himself for a moment only the high- est embodiment of power, civil, military, or ecclesiastic, within the Russian Empire. Then, having placed the globe and sceptre on the cushions held in readiness by the officials, he called the Empress. With stately step, and clothed with a simple grace and beauty more rich than all the gold and gems by which she was surrounded, the young Empress took her place before her husband, and kneeled down with a devout air to await her coronation at his hands. The Emperor, having first touched the brow of the Empress with his own crown, as a sign of her partner- ship in that crown, then crowned her with the coronet of diamonds which had been especially made for her. The crown and imperial mantle having been adjusted by the 128 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Ladies of Honour,, the Archdeacon then proclaimed in a loud voice all the titles of the Emperor and Empress., in- toning the line, Domine, Salvem fac Imperatorem and Domine, Salvem fac Imperatricem. This is intoned three times, and is responded to by the choir, with the words Ad multos annos. At this all the bells within and with- out the Kremlin were set to ringing. One hundred and one guns were fired as an imperial salute, and the multi- tude took up the paean of rejoicing, for the Tsar was crowned at last, and the throne of Russia was once more filled. And now perhaps the most solemn and really impres- sive moment of the entire celebration had arrived. The Emperor uttered a prayer for himself and his people, of which I give here the translation: " Lord God of our fathers, and supreme Ruler of Sovereigns, who hast created everything by Thy word, and in Thy wisdom hast set up man that he may govern the world in holiness and righteousness; Thou hast chosen me as Tsar and judge of the people. I confess Thy in- scrutable providence with regard to me; and in giving thanks, bow down before Thy Majesty, and Thou, my Lord and God, instruct me in the work for which Thou hast sent me; enlighten my path and direct me in this great ministry; let the wisdom of Thy throne abide with me, send it down from Thy holy heavens, that I may know what is pleasing in Thy eyes, and what is in accordance with Thy commandments. Let my heart be in Thy hand, that I may order everything to the advantage of the people intrusted to me, and to Thy glory, so that even on the Day of Judgment I may without condemnation render my account to Thee; by the mercy and bounty of Thy only begotten Son, with whom, and with Thy holy and good life-giving Spirit, Thou art blessed unto the ages. Amen." This prayer concluded, the Emperor stood alone, and, figuratively, at least, all Russia knelt, while the Metro- politan offered prayers for the long life and prosperity of the Tsar and his Empress. And before the pathetic solemnity of this moment THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 129 all the ceremonial fades away. The booming of thousands of cannon, the ringing of thousands of bells, the chanting of choirs, the waving of flags, the cheering of a million throats may blazon forth the fact, but they can not add to the majestic significance of that moment, when the Tsar, pale, and perhaps nervous, stood, a solitary figure, within the Cathedral of the Assumption, while all within the sacred building were prostrate, invoking Heaven's blessing on his reign an invocation echoed and re-echoed in thou- sands of Eussian homes and millions of Eussian hearts. CHAPTER XIII. THE CEOWNING OF A TSAE. BEFOEE taking tip the legend at the point where I dropped it in the last chapter, it may interest the reader to interweave a sentence or two about the Cathedral of the Assumption, in which the coronation took place. There are within the Kremlin, let me say, a half dozen cathedrals, a dozen or more special chapels, a monastery, a convent, an arsenal, and the splendid Imperial Treasury. A de- scription in detail of any one of these would fill a good- sized volume, and would besides, I fear, prove rather dry- as-dust reading. So much, however, has been said and written of late about the Cathedral of the Assumption, that I shall be easily forgiven for giving at this point some slight description of it. Unpenski Sobor, as the cathedral is called in Russian, was built early in the fourteenth century by the Metro- politan Peter, who lies buried within its walls in a place of honour. It is of massive, costly, and magnificent con- struction. As to size it can not vie with many other sacred shrines in Russia; but, as the burial-place for many decades of the chiefs of the Church, and as the scene of all Russian coronations since that of Ivan the Terrible, it is held in peculiar sanctity by the Russians, and con- tains in the way of jewels, gold and silver ornamentations, precious robes, holy relics, paintings, and sculpture, riches which would form the ransom of many kings. The build- ing stands almost in the centre of the space inclosed by the Kremlin. The doors through which the Tsar and Tsaritsa entered are surrounded and adorned with sacred 130 Place of Coronation. Interior of the Cathedral of the Assurnption, Moscow. THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. pictures and images, to which they addressed their first genuflexions upon entering the sacred shrine. It is here that they were met by the three leading Metropolitans of the Church, and welcomed with significant rites to their coronation. Standing within these doors, the scene is one of resplendent magnificence. On every side are paint- ings of sacred subjects framed in precious stones and metals. Upon a screen which faces the spectator as he enters, and which is seen at a distance through a vista of golden columns decorated with elaborate frescoes, is the celebrated picture of the Virgin brought from Con- stantinople in the twelfth century, to which wonderful and miraculous powers have been ascribed. Its frame alone is decorated with jewels to the value of $250,000, among them being a matchless emerald valued at $50,000. Immediately in the centre of the space formed by the four columns which support the roof of the body of the build- ing is the platform on which all the Tsars are crowned. In front of this are the "Royal Doors," through which the Tsar enters to receive the sacrament and to be anointed. At this function the Tsar is surrounded by the highest nobles and officials of his Empire. Before him is the altar with its varied, sacred, and priceless adornments, and almost at his feet the throng of ecclesiastics of every rank who take more or less important parts in the ceremony. It is almost impossible to exaggerate to one who has never seen it the magnificence or value of this splendid fane. But above this one should remember that to the devout Eussian the very ground on which it stands is sacred. Westminster Abbey, with its wealth of sacred dust, its resplendent record of literary, military, diplo- matic, and patriotic fame, is significant, indeed, to every member of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Cathedral of the Assumption occupies in Russian thought an even more sublime eminence; for here not only lie the famous and holy dead, but here are those emblems of the faith and relics of miraculous interposition on behalf of Holy Rus- sia, which lend to the building and all within it a super- natural glory to the faithful, and give a promise of pro- 132 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. tection and guidance in the future for all within the sacred fold of the Greek Church. One needs to wrench himself loose from his Western ideas, to separate himself from modernism, and to plunge reverently back into mediseval- ism before he can place himself en rapport with such a scene and such a shrine. For my part, as I gazed I won- dered. But there what I wondered, and what the re- sult of my wonderings was, would prove of little interest to any save myself. I left the Tsar in the last chapter at that point in the coronation ceremonies where he stood a solitary figure, while all about him were prostrate in prayer on his behalf. Immediately after this the Metropolitans and officiating priests bowed their congratulations to the Emperor, the choir chanted the Te Deum, and the bells of all the churches within the Kremlin announced again to the world that the actual crowning was finished. Then the Emperor removed his crown which, to tell the truth, bears the appearance of being a heavy load and did not put it on again until the end of the liturgy. Mass was now intoned; after the reading of the Gospel, the Metro- politan presented the sacred book to the Tsar to be kissed and then the Civil Governor of Moscow the Grand Duke Serge assisted by two aides-de-camp, stretched a roll of cloth of gold and crimson velvet from the platform of the throne to the " Eoyal Doors " of the sanctuary, through which the Emperor was to pass. He spread it as far as the door, where he stopped, the Archdeacon taking up the task by spreading it through the doors, and up to the very altar where the Tsar was shortly to stand. The anthem finished, two Archbishops, assisted by Arch- deacons, advanced toward his Majesty, and announced that the holy ceremony of anointment was to commence. The Emperor, handing his sword to one of his assistants, de- scended from the throne, and, walking on the cloth of gold, approached the door of the sanctuary, followed at a short distance by the Empress. His Majesty was accom- panied by the Grand Master of Ceremonies, the Grand Marshal of the Court, several of the dignitaries who had car- The Cathedral of the Assumption, in the Kremlin, Moscow, the place of coronation of the Emperors of Russia. THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 133 ried the insignia, and two officers of the Chevalier Guards, the Empress being followed by ladies of her suite. The Emperor alone passed into the sanctuary, where he was met by the Metropolitan. The Empress remained at the door, for beyond the threshold no woman may pass. The different officials ranged themselves on either side, and waited in reverent silence for the return of the Em- peror. Within the sanctuary the Emperor was received by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, who anointed him on the forehead, eyelids, nostrils, lips, ears, chest, and hands, pronouncing the words, Impressio doni Spiritus Sancti. The Metropolitan of Kieff removed the vestiges of the holy oil, and, in obedience to a secret signal, all the bells of all the churches again broke forth, this time to the accompaniment of an imperial salute of one hundred and one guns. The Empress next approached the door of the sanctuary, and was there anointed by the same officiant, but on the forehead only. After this the Em- peror received the Holy Communion; and then their Majesties returned to the thrones and resumed their places. This was the point in the ceremony which, next to the crowning of the Tsaritsa, presented the most human and touching aspect, for it was then that the various mem- bers of the court presented their felicitations upon the consummation which had been so splendidly and withal so wearily reached. There were many glistening eyes among the august persons who in slow procession moved forward to add their good wishes to the multitude which had gone before. The poor Emperor appeared very weary, as well he might; but his lip trembled as he turned to receive the embrace of the mother whose memories must have been so sad, and for whom many an unheard benediction was uttered at the moment. The sweet young Empress, too, seemed touched almost to the point of tears, as one per- sonage after the other bowed to her felicitations and homage; but as she stood there in all the glory of ermine and gold and gems, with an almost saintly expression on her face, she looked truly an empress! 134 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. It will be seen that the crowning of a Tsar is what we should call in America " a long-drawn-out affair." And yet, so interwoven are Church and State in Russia, that every item of the function has its traditional significance, and not a single detail of the long succession of ceremony could be omitted. The ceremonies in the cathedral being finished in due form, with a nice observance of etiquette and the delibera- tion of dignity, the procession filed back to the palace; but on the way it wound in and out among the different buildings of the Kremlin, for the purpose, I thought at the time, of affording all the vast multitude an oppor- tunity of seeing and doing reverence to the newly crowned Tsar. But I afterward discovered that I was mistaken, and thai it was part and parcel of the coronation for the Tsar to visit, before re-entering the palace, two other cathedrals, and to go through certain supplementary cere- monies in these. The first was the Cathedral of the Arch- angel Michael. At the entrance the Emperor and Em- press were met by his Highness the Bishop of Kostroma and his assistant clergy, who offered to their Majesties the golden cross and the holy water. After this, the Em- peror, having removed his crown and passed the sceptre and globe to the officials, made a circuit of the cathedral, offering homage to the images of the saints and the sacred relics, and at the tombs of his ancestors. The Arch- deacon read a litany to which the response was intoned, Ad multos annos. So I take it that the burden of the prayers offered here was for the long life and welfare of the Tsar and his consort. Having completoc 1 the circuit of this cathedral, their Majesties, all the time accom- panied by the same brilliant cortege, next entered the Cathedral of the Annunciation, where they were received by his Highness the Archbishop of Kherson. Here the same ceremonial was repeated. It was as the procession left this cathedral that the members of the Corps Diplomatique, who had remained in the tribune set apart for them, caught the best view of its magnificence. The Emperor, robed and crowned, pre- THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 135 ceded by soldiers of the superb Guards, sheltered by a resplendent palanquin, made his way back to the palace, closely followed by the Empress. The crown he wore is that of Peter I, surmounted by a diamond cross rising from the centre of an uncut ruby. It is said that this crown contains over nine hundred diamonds, besides large numbers of pearls, and what is supposed to be the largest ruby in the world. The orb, which he carried in his left hand, is splendidly decorated with diamonds set in two bands encircling it at right angles. At the centre of the top or vertical band, equidistant from all points of the other or horizontal band, is a large sapphire surmounted by a diamond cross. The sceptre is chiefly remarkable for the magnificent gem at the top, known as the Orloff diamond, which, even in an ordinary photograph, shines above all the other gems. The effect of the procession at this point was rich and imposing beyond the reach of exaggeration. The palan- quin under which the Emperor walked was richly covered with velvet and cloth of gold, surmounted by plumes of ostrich feathers in three colours black, white, and yel- low. This was supported at intervals by lances of ebony and mother of pearl, and held firmly by golden cords. The palanquin and cords were carried and held respective- ly by sixteen aides-de-camp generals of the highest rank in the imperial service. The Emperor looked tired, and, I have no doubt, felt so; for the mere watching of the ceremonial during four or five seemingly interminable hours had been extremely fatiguing. The same cheers and cannonading and ringing of bells which had marked his journey to the cathedral and accentuated the principal point in the service accompanied his return; only that the enthusiasm of the Eussians seemed even greater than be- fore. At the foot of the Eed Stairs their Majesties left the shelter of the palanquin and slowly mounted the steps, stopping to turn at the summit and bow their appreciation of the enthusiasm which was now at white heat. My friends have asked me since whom I considered the most beautiful woman I saw at the coronation. I can answer 10 136 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. them at this point by saying that when the young Empress turned to acknowledge the applause of her people, and stood clothed in her royal robes, and glistening with in- numerable gems, I thought that there might be a more beautiful woman in Moscow, but that I had not seen her. It must not be supposed that the comfort of those who had during all these hours to wait outside the cathedral for the return of the Emperor had been neglected. In the various tribunes an appetizing and generous dejeuner had been served, consisting of sandwiches, pastries, ices, tea, and champagne, to which there seemed to be no limit. So that although those not favoured with entrance to the cathedral had a long wait, they managed to pass the time in comfort and pleasant conversation. Entering the palace, their Majesties removed their crowns, the Emperor resigned the sceptre and globe to the appointed dignitaries, and both then retired to their private apartments. We will not seek to follow them, or to analyze their emotions in this surely needed retire- ment. I have often been sorry for public officials in my own country when placed under the strain of enor- mous public entertainments, but I never so sincerely sym- pathized with any one as I did with these two young monarchs on the day of their coronation. And yet the day was only half over, for there was to be a solemn state banquet in the evening, and after that the illuminations. They had borne themselves with simplicity and dignity throughout it all, and must have knit closer to them the hearts of all who were allowed to be present; and now, in the retirement of their own rooms, let us leave them for the moment on the threshold of what every one hopes and expects will be a long and glorious reign. Eussia is just now more prosperous and more peaceful than she has been for years. The restlessness of the radicals seems to be soothed, let us hope permanently. And let us wish that all friends of true reform may find in the reign of Nicho- las II the completion of all that is noble in Eussian his- tory, as well as the dawn of an era of development and advancement. i i THE CROWNING OF A TSAR. 137 Nicholas II begins his reign with the good wishes of the entire world. Monarchies, empires, and republics, alike, united to wish him ~bon voyage on his momentous journey. From Germany, from France, from the vener- able Queen who has reigned longest in the history of Eng- land's throne, from our own President, and from many other rulers of nations, great and small, he received mes- sages of warmest greeting; and above all, the great heart of the common people with a single impulse felt that it has in the kindly, smiling face of this youthful Tsar the promise of a reign beneficent and just. He begins his reign with a mind well endowed with all that modern education and foreign travel can do to widen and to en- rich his outlook upon life; he has the history of the past to govern his thought of the future; he has by his side a wife as sweet and queenly as any woman in the wide world; and with all these he has the splendid generous impulse which the spirit of the age in which we live gives to any man that seeks it a spirit of brotherhood, of catholicity, of high endeavour, and of lofty ambition. His power for good is simply enormous. He can preserve the peace of nations or he can destroy it. He can bring prosperity and enlightenment to his subject, he can strew his pathway wherever he goes with the blessings of those he has blessed. And as he stood solitary in that great scene in the Cathedral of the Assumption, while all else knelt in prayer for him, both he and they must have real- ized that never was opportunity more regal bestowed upon man; and as his subjects looked in his face, they must have thought that never was man more likely to turn into glorious fruition the highest hopes and prayers of all the myriad hearts turned toward him. CHAPTEE XIV. AN IMPEKIAL FEAST. AND now to dinner, for even kings and emperors must descend from the lofty heights of statecraft and the splendour of civic function to the commonplace occupa- tion of satisfying the inner man. And yet they dine by rote at least they did at the coronation of the Tsar. As at the coronation itself, here everything was prear- ranged; and the result was that this enormous function passed off without the slightest friction or mistake of any kind. It will give the reader some idea of the perfection of arrangement and detail when I say that at the corona- tion banquet there sat down the large number of eighteen hundred guests; that to serve these there was a retinue of forty-five hundred servants all of them the regular servants of the Tsar; and that the banquet went through from beginning to end as a well-ordered dinner would at any private house in London or New York. But this was so on every hand in Russia. Wherever large numbers of men were employed, there was the most perfect discipline, the most complete submission to authority the result being, of course, good and efficient service. The Granovitaya Palata, or Palace of Facets, was where the Emperor took his coronation dinner. It takes its name from the peculiar facets which are presented by the surfaces of its walls, and is certainly one of the most interesting buildings within the Kremlin, when judged from the standpoint of historical association, from the nature and value of its contents, and from its ancient and remarkable appearance. The principal hall, which is 138 AN IMPE1UAL FEAST. 139 used for the coronation banquets of the Tsars, is unique. Its vaulted ceiling spreads, umbrella-like, from a central column and is richly decorated with religious and allegor- ical frescoes. The prevailing tones are purple and gold, but in the frescoes of the ceiling and walls bright blues and flaming scarlets are introduced, greatly to the enliven- ing of the scene. At the base of this column and all about it are shelves, upon which on state occasions the imperial plate, or part of it, is displayed. I say part of it advisedly, for it would certainly take many such rooms to exhibit all the gold and silver services of the Emperor. The floor is of rich and beautifully arranged marbles. In the corner stands the throne (upon this occasion, however, there were three thrones) on a canopied dais; and it was on this platform that Nicholas II dined in great state after the ceremony of his coronation. Beside him sat, on his right hand, his mother, and on his left -hand the Tsaritsa. But I am anticipating. At the appointed hour or as near thereafter as possible the Emperor and Empress entered the Throne Eoom, and, assuming the insignia which they had laid aside, crowned and sceptred, proceeded to the banquet hall just described. With them entered the Dowager Empress. They were accompanied by chamberlains, court marshals, aides and officers of the Chevalier Guards, and behind these followed the brilliant company of kings, queens, and nobles of every degree, whose privilege it was either to take part in the entire banquet or to be present at its opening. For not every one that sees a Tsar start his din- ner stays for the almonds and raisins. But of that anon. Most of the guests and officials, after accompanying the imperial cortege to the Granovitaya Palata, made profound obeisances, and passed on to the Hall of St. Vladimir, where they were separately dined; for only the very dis- tinguished are privileged to eat in the actual presence of the Tsar upon this august occasion. The Diplomatic Corps, the Holy Synod, the high clergy, and the highest of the court ladies, who had been invited to the banquet, gathered at the palace before the 140 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. appearance of the Emperor,, and stood waiting to welcome his Majesty formally to the banquet room. The disposi- tion of the imperial table was interesting. There were three thrones the centre one for the Tsar, the others for the two Empresses. On the platform at the back of the throne stood the various officials chamberlains and marshals whose duty it was to be constantly near the Emperor upon this eventful day. The Grand Carver, or Master of the Table, and the Grand Equerry of the Cup took up their positions on the floor opposite the plat- form, and to the right and left respectively. The com- mander of the Chevalier Guards, with drawn sword and helmeted, stood behind the Emperor on the platform. At the foot of the throne, and on either side, stood four officers of the Chevalier Guards, also with drawn swords. At each front corner of the throne stood two Heralds. Facing the throne were the Grand Marshal, the Grand Marshal of the Court, the Grand Master of Ceremonies, and other high officials. When their Majesties had as- cended the throne in the presence of this brilliant com- pany, the Minister of Finance presented to them the medal which had been struck in commemoration of the event. This medal was also distributed among the in- vited guests present, and to those in the Hall of St. Vladimir. Then the actual dinner began. In the fol- lowing manner was the first dish, and, indeed, were all the successive dishes, brought to the imperial table. The Arch Grand Marshal, the Grand Marshal of the Court, the Arch Grand Master of Ceremonies, the Mar- shal of the Court, the Grand Masters of the Coronation Ceremonies, and the Masters of Ceremonies, having made a profound bow to the Emperor, left the hall for the purpose of ushering in the first dish, which was carried, mark you, by retired officers belonging to the nobility of Moscow. The dishes made their appearance after a short pause, and this is the honourable cortege that accompanied them: The Arch Grand Marshal, the Grand Marshal of the Court, the Arch Grand Master of Ceremonies, and the Marshal of the Court, and, on each side of the dishes, two AN IMPERIAL FEAST. officers of the Chevalier Guards, with swords drawn and helmeted; following them came the Grand Master of the Coronation Ceremonies and the Master of Ceremonies. Surely, this should be " a dainty dish " enough " to set before " an Emperor. When this dish had duly arrived, the Emperor removed his crown, and I can imagine him paraphrasing the line of Francisco in Hamlet by saying, For this relief much thanks ; 'tis bitter heavy, And I am sick of it. Having laid aside the crown, the Emperor also resigned the sceptre and the globe, and was then prepared to prove himself "a valiant trencher man." At this point the Metropolitan of Moscow said the appointed grace, and then their Imperial Majesties broke their long fast and if by this time they wanted their dinners as badly as I wanted mine, I am sure they must have eaten with a right good will. And here came in a most interesting moment a moment and a circumstance which show from what slight beginnings court traditions arise, and, having arisen, how they persist. After the first course was finished no one as yet having sat down save royalty and just at the moment when the Emperor was about to take his first sip of wine, the high clergy and other exalted guests that are privileged to eat in the presence of the Tsar, after making a profound obeisance, took their places at the table. But the Diplomatic Corps and other high guests, who up to this point had been standing in in- terested silence watching this stately ceremonial, bowed profoundly, and, walking backward, quitted the presence of the Tsar, and made their way to their own dinner which had been set for them in another room. They only re- appeared to join in the cortege which was formed to escort their Majesties back to their private apartments. This usage arose from the fact that an early Tsar of Eussia was given to imbibing too freely and, not wishing to be seen in an intoxicated state by foreigners and strangers, ordered that all such should withdraw when he commenced to drink. The custom still remains, although his inebriated IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Majesty has long since been laid beside his fathers in the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael. The following toasts were proposed during the ban- quet in the Granovitaya Palata: First to his Majesty the Emperor, and at the moment of its proposition a salute of sixty-one guns was fired, so that all Moscow might, if it so chose, pledge the health of the Tsar at the same moment; then to her Majesty the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, a salute of fifty-one guns being fired; then to the Tsaritsa, with a like salute; and thereafter, in the order named, to the imperial family, with a salute of thirty-one guns; and to the clergy and all faithful sub- jects, with a last salute of twenty-one guns. The drink- ing cups were presented to their Majesties by the Grand Cup Bearer; the Chamberlains and the Pages of the Cham- ber served at the table, and the Grand Cup Bearer pro- posed the toasts, seconded by a fanfare of trumpets. There was for which the Tsar may breathe a prayer of grati- tude no speech making. Throughout the banquet the imperial band discoursed the choicest selections of music from a raised plat- form in the corner of the room diagonally opposite to that occupied by the imperial family. And while every- thing was conducted with a due and formal regard for the etiquette of the occasion, there was an air of relief at the imperial table, as if its occupants were quietly say- ing, "It will soon be over," while the royal and noble guests were quietly jolly among themselves, as became the august and auspicious event. The banquet finished, the Emperor reassumed his crown, sceptre, and globe, and left the banqueting hall for the Throne Room. I can not help wondering how the ancient Tsars managed to carry out half or a quarter of this ceremonial. If rumour be true, they were, like the early Anglo-Saxon kings, rather given to look upon the wine when it was red, and, if they managed to carry -the in- ternal and the external load safely from the Granovitaya Palata back to the Throne Room, they must have been blessed with a capacity to which the present generation AN IMPERIAL FEAST. 143 is entirely strange. In the Throne Room the Emperor laid aside for the last time on his coronation day the crown of Peter I and the emblems of his kingship, and, slipping back almost into private life, he, his mother, and his wife made their way to their apartments. I should like to know what the Tsar himself thought of it all, what were his true feelings, and whether he was thoroughly satisfied with the exalted position which he had just occupied in all its completeness. Certainly, every one else was loud in praise of the dignity, gentleness, and modesty with which he carried himself during one of the most trying days that mortal could be called upon to pass through. But what does lie think of it? Perhaps some of these days he may write down for the public " What I thought of my Coronation," as the Queen of England has let all the world into her domestic life at Balmoral. It would prove interesting reading. But I don't think I'd try it if I were the Tsar. One half of the significance and value of a ceremonial consists in keeping concealed the strings which work the figures; and the divinity which doth hedge a king shines best through the glamour of mystery. To complete the record, I should say that, aside from the royal guests who had dined with the Tsar or in the Hall of St. Vladimir, the great throng of distinguished guests were entertained in tents which had been set up in the court of the palace. As I have said, eighteen hundred sat down at this banquet. To serve this host, the total staff of the household of the Emperor was brought into use, the entire dinner being served on gold plate. There was no speech-making anywhere, and "good digestion/' which "waits on appetite," spread a kindly glow over the assemblage; every one was jolly. The menu was in Russian, and the repast was as good as the bill was incomprehensible. The fact is, the dinner was a purely French one, with nothing distinctively Rus- sian about it except the place in which it was eaten and the language of this menu which was placed beside each 144 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. plate. The air was full of gladness, the atmosphere was one of rejoicing and congratulation. Surely, a day so brilliant in every way called for a brilliant termination; and it had been prepared. The il- luminations, which we viewed from the terrace of the Kremlin, were the most elaborate I have ever seen at any time or place. I remember well the splendid displays pre- sented at the World's Fair in Chicago, but I saw nothing there at all equal to the sight of Moscow on the night of the coronation; even the Court of Honour in its most brilliant aspect was but a feeble flame compared to this mammoth spectacle. To say that the entire city was a blaze of light is but to express feebly the glorious display which had been provided by the people of the ancient capital. It was more. It was a blaze of fantastic and scintillating light. On every hand one saw lines of beauty and grace picked out with myriads of illuminating and varicoloured points, which were utilized in every conceiv- able way. Before going to Moscow I had heard much of its Oriental aspect, but certainly I could truly say, as I gazed upon the fairy vision presented to my view from the terrace of the Kremlin, as the Queen of Sheba said to King Solomon, "Not the half of all thy glory had been told unto me! " I had already seen the vast preparations which had been made to illuminate the city, but the dif- ference between the preparations and the thing itself was about the same as exists between the costume of a famous belle hanging in her wardrobe and its splendour when set off by her imperial beauty. Certainly, one could well and truly call Moscow the " City of Light." To begin with the Kremlin. All the buildings within it were fringed with lines of light beneath the cornices, and the Tower of Ivan, which rises over three hundred feet, was ablaze with electric lights at its summit. In the daytime this matchless array of buildings had been resplendent with costly gems, which flashed from a thousand glitter- ing costumes, from the frames of sacred pictures and from the imperial insignia; at night they were aflame with bewitching lines of light which brought out and threw AN IMPERIAL FEAST. 145 into even greater beauty every architectural wonder of the place. And beyond, Moscow was spread as a vision of that celestial city toward which the thoughts of the faith- ful had been so constantly turned by priestly admonition through all the long and sinuous ceremonial of the day. Moscow will be a permanent gainer by the coronation., for in preparation for it there had been a universal freshening and decoration of all buildings, public and private. As one approaches Moscow by day, it offers to the eye a scene of which I can suggest no equivalent. Colour, colour, colour! And everywhere still colour! Domes of colour against backgrounds of resplendent greens and matchless purples, scarlet, yellow, and, indeed, every other hue of which the eye kens or the heart dreams. I used to think when I was a boy that the visions of Lalla Eookh drawn by the pen of Moore were but the creations of the fantastic imagination of a fevered poet; but when I first looked upon Moscow, I said that Lalla Eookh is the positive degree of which Moscow is the superlative. And at night, when all these colours were enriched and deepened, when the golden domes reflected back the myriad lights by which they were encircled, when the soft and shimmering glow melted the differing colours into a woof so dazzling, so bewildering, so indescribable, that one stood enraptured before it, I felt that I beheld a spectacle which would have challenged the most au- dacious pen and would have received no answering taunt. A merchant of Moscow, who was asked during the ceremonies, " How much will the decorations cost the city?" replied with some pride, "It does not matter, we have placed no limit on the expense; we are rich enough to pay the bill whatever it is, and are more than willing." It was this spirit which for the moment emphasized the ever permanent beauty of the place. All Moscow was new at least as to the outside. Everywhere the houses had been recoloured, and the city might have stood as the creation of that invincible Eussian monarch, Peter the Great, who ordered a new capital to be built for him, and when he returned from his shipbuilding apprentice- 146 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. ship complained that it was not yet finished. About the entire city there was no appearance of age, except as to form. The surface of all was new and fresh and bright and beautiful; and only the marvellous varieties of form suggested a city built by different architects from various climes, in widely separated epochs. I have already described the decorations of the city along the route followed by the Tsar upon his entry, and will here only specify some of the leading illuminations of the coronation night. There were no fireworks no "pyrotechnics" in our western sense. The city was ablaze, but it was quietly ablaze. The rocket was con- spicuous by its absence; there was nothing to disturb the mind of the spectator. It might have been some mirage lit at every salient point by the pearls, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires of the Orient. As a matter of fact, most of this impression was produced by millions and millions of candles held in globes of different-coloured glass, and affixed to every possible coign of vantage. Everywhere one saw the arms of Eussia, and everywhere else the sig- nificant initials N" and A, written in letters of light. May they never be written otherwise. On some of the more conspicuous buildings there were ambitious set pieces, not to burn but a few minutes and then leave enhanced gloom behind them, but to burn on and on till all Moscow had fallen asleep bathed in the soft and sensuous glow. On the Noblesse Club, one of the finest buildings in Moscow, there was an enormous crystal crown flanked by the ini- tials of the Tsar and of the Tsaritsa. On the Opera House the decorations of light were peculiarly grand and impos- ing. All the lines of the building had been brought out by thousands of candles, which clung like an embroidery of diamonds to its splendid proportions; at each corner of the fagade were great flaming torches, like enormous beacon lights; and behind the figure of Phaeton whipping his fiery-footed steeds was a gigantic sun which threw that mythological charioteer into unwonted splendour and unusual proportions. The famous Eed Gate, erected by the merchants of Moscow to commemorate a past corona- AN IMPERIAL FEAST. 147 tion, was decorated entirely with red lights, and the figure of Fame on its summit might have stood for a gentle but fiery companion to the traditional scarlet Mephisto. All the embassies were decorated splendidly, save one, and I regret to say that it was that of my own country. The Persian Embassy and the German Embassy were pecul- iarly beautiful, although the former was, perhaps, a shade too delicate for the very strong and high colours by which it was surrounded. The outlines of the Hotel de Ville were emphasized with pure white lights, which showed its fine proportions most admirably; and, in brief, there was not a prominent public building in Moscow which was not displayed to the very utmost advantage. The word had been given to " decorate," and the city had decorated. It was almost pathetic to observe the dwellings of some of the poorer classes in the obscure portions of the city. They were all lit up in honour of the Great White Tsar, and I thought the few candles which illumi- nated the tiny dwelling of some wage-earner a much more precious gem in the diadem of the young Emperor than all the blazing lights of the grander buildings, or the shimmering jewels with which he had been clothed. The widow's mite was not absent from the fete of Nicho- las II. If I have failed to convey an adequate idea of the kaleidoscopic panorama, I am at least resigned, for I have yet to see the spectator of the ceremonies who felt at all equal to setting down on paper anything, like a complete account of it. The difficulty is that to the writer no lan- guage seems opulent enough to portray so delightful a spectacle, while to the reader the constant iteration of superlatives becomes tedious. I have heard those who have looked upon the Taj Mahal in all its glory by the pale light of the moon declare that in that surpassing vision they were repaid for all the weary journey which a pilgrimage to the Holy Tomb involves. They tell me that, as one looks for the first time upon the marble mausoleum of that dead beauty of the East, he catches his breath in ecstatic pain. I can believe it now. I said to 148 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. myself, " Live I a thousand years, I shall not look upon the like again." During the evening the young couple walked quietly about the terrace, gazing with evident admiration and keenest interest upon the indescribable sight of this an- cient city glowing with light and love for them. And in the streets thousands upon thousands of carriages were formed in line and compelled to travel only in one direc- tion, and then to make the return journey by another route. To say that the people were wild with excitement would be true; but it would scarcely describe the pent- up, well-suppressed excitement and enthusiasm which marked the occasion and differentiated it from everything of the kind I had ever seen before. Every one for once was happy, or appeared to be so. The carriages of the nobles, full of laughing and merry occupants, jostled, but gently, the happy peasants and pilgrims and moujiks who thronged the streets. Even the isvoschiks and the policemen seemed to have caught the hilarious mood, and it is no exaggeration to say that this was Joyful Eussia indeed. CHAPTER XV. THE COSSACKS AND LI HUNG CHANG. ON the 22d of May the day after his solemn entry into Moscow the Tsar received all the ambassadors, ministers, and other distinguished guests from foreign countries in the Palace of the Kremlin. In speaking of the representatives of foreign nations, I shall be forgiven, I am sure, by every patriotic American, if I comment upon the fact that the display made by our own Government at the crowning of the Tsar was quite out of proportion to the size, importance, and wealth of the United States. Add to this the facts that Russia is a country with which we have always lived on terms of cordial amity, and that it was the only one of all Europe which maintained a friendly and sympathetic attitude to us during our own internecine strife, and I think it will be agreed that we might have been much more liberal in our representation and expenditure at this function without compromising in the least our position as a republic, or our neutrality regarding foreign affairs. Our Minister at the Imperial Court, the Honourable Clifton R. Breckinridge, is a de- lightful and thoroughly representative American, and certainly Mrs. Breckinridge supports him with dignity and grace. Admiral Selfridge is a naval officer of splendid record, one calculated to do honour to our country wherever he may represent it, and accompanied by his personal staff of six charming fellows, all creditable representatives of their service, redeemed America from an obscure position among the visiting embassies. It is, however, a matter of regret that our army, filled as it is with gallant men, many with 149 150 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. brilliant records, and well deserving the honour, should have been so insignificantly represented. Small in comparison as our representation was, the beggarly appropriation that was made ($5,000) was even in greater contrast to that of other foreign powers. There was no petty principality in Europe or Asia that did not treat its representatives with more generosity. Republican simplicity is all very well in its way, but I submit that self-respect is quite as important a factor in a nation's life. If we are going to send representatives to such func- tions at all, it would be a wise policy to enable them at least to compete in appearance with other first-class powers. Of course, I am entering upon a wide field, the very fringe of which I shall but skirt. In the East, in Russia, and, indeed, in many European countries, the dignity and power of a nation are estimated according to the appear- ance made by its representatives. If our country was thus judged by the delegates of the different nations at the coronation of the Tsar, they must certainly have placed us at the foot of the list. I wonder how long it will be before our consuls, ministers, and ambassadors are so paid that they can go to their posts without a constant dread of impending financial disaster if they are poor men, or without the knowledge, if they are rich, that their ap- pointment simply means an opportunity to make them- selves a good deal poorer before their term of office ex- pires. Surely the United States is big enough and gen- erous enough to deal with an open hand with the citizens it sends abroad to care for its interests in foreign lands. We must also take into consideration our position among the other great nations of the world, and the nature of our diplomatic intercourse with them. We are essentially a nation of producers, producing more than is necessary for home consumption; we are eager to augment our com- mercial importance in the markets of the world; and in many of those markets we must first of all enhance our importance by lifting up the dignity of those who repre- sent us. It is a very poor policy to make a meagre display in the show window of either a nation or a shop. THE COSSACKS AND LI HUNG CHANG. 151 I hope I shall be forgiven for this digression, but I must confess that while in Moscow., although intensely American, I felt more than once put to the blush that our country, which we believe to be the greatest on earth, should have made so poor a display when compared with even insignificant South American powers. And I must confess that the false position into which our accredited representatives abroad are frequently forced by the policy of mistaken economy pursued by our Government is scarcely commensurate with our dignity and position. It is not doing quite the square thing by our representatives to send them to courts where every other power is lavish in the treatment of its diplomatic agents, and then to ask them to " keep up their end " on a beggarly pittance. This may be republican simplicity, but it is not good sense. A nation, to gain the consideration of other foreign powers, must employ diplomats mentally and physically equipped for their duties; and, having employed them, it is its bounden duty to place them upon such a footing, with every available facility at their disposal, that they can command the attention and respect of the Government and people to whom they are accredited. In many of the great capitals foreign governments own and maintain at their own expense the houses in which the embassies and legations are domiciled. These are always of a size and elegance suitable to the position of their representatives. In addition to this, they pay them salaries sufficiently large for the maintenance, in every way, of a state creditable to their governments. Our Government owns no house in any foreign capital, nor is any provision or allowance made for the renting or maintaining of such. Our ambassadors and ministers are supposed to provide this from their salaries, which are, when compared to those of the representatives of even third-rate powers, very small and mean. In any of the large capitals of Europe the rent of a house at all suitable for the occupancy of an ambassador or minister is ex- tremely high. I know the case of one American ambas- sador whose house rent alone exceeded his salary by five 11 152 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. thousand dollars. There are also courtesies in the form of social entertainments that are almost obligatory among representatives at a foreign court. These entertainments do not represent the personal feeling of one representative for another, so much as the feeling between the two coun- tries represented. Is it, therefore, right or just that we send our representative abroad and expect him to bear personally the expenses of discharging the obligations devolving upon him in order to maintain the dignity and prestige of his country? If this mistaken petty economy be persistently followed by our Government, the time will soon arrive when none but the rich can afford to represent us abroad, and we shall soon build up a plutocratical gov- ernmental service in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of the Eepublic. What matters it if the recom- pense of our representatives abroad be doubled, or even trebled? The increased expenditure would not be felt, or hardly noticed, in the annual expenses of the Government. Then the ablest and the best-fitted men could be sent to represent us abroad, were they rich or poor, without fear of causing pecuniary embarrassment. On my way to the barracks, which I drove out to see on this day with Colonel Ismaillof, son of the very dis- tinguished general of that name, whose brilliant record is well known to all students of the Eusso-Turkish War, I passed the Tsar and the Tsaritsa driving in an open victoria, entirely unattended by any escort, and preceded only by a single aide-de-camp in a troika. They were on their way to the Kremlin to the reception of the ambassa- dors, and it was refreshing to observe the complete con- fidence and ease and absence of display with which they drove through the streets. If to show confidence is the surest way to beget confidence, certainly the young Em- peror and his wife were laying the foundation for universal good feeling among their people. They bowed on every hand as they passed along, and everywhere were greeted with cheers and smiles. The Empress was dressed in a beautiful but simple costume of pink and gray, and the Emperor looked very soldierly in his splendid uniform. THE COSSACKS AND LI HUNG CHANG. 153 I only mention this to dissipate the impression, which I think is general, that the Tsar never stirs abroad without / a military escort. This incident was more striking, as it occurred at a time when the city was full of strangers, and when one would suppose that more than ordinary precau- tions would be adopted. On our way to the barracks we visited the Palanka Square, which is one of the interesting shows of Moscow. Here the " thieves' market " is situated. It is the Rus- sian equivalent of Petticoat Lane in London. I do not know of its like in America. It is averred that only stolen goods are on sale here. Whether this is true I can not say, but I incline to the belief that a very considerable proportion of the second-hand stock-in-trade of these side- walk merchants has been "lifted." Petty thieves, sneak thieves, domestic servants who pilfer trifles from care- less masters, and the more ambitious burglar, are all re- puted to find a ready sale for their spoil at the " thieves' market." The character of many of the faces would quite justify the belief that the thieves themselves were dispos- ing of their gains, for I never saw more beetle-browed, ill-looking specimens anywhere in my life. My visit to the barracks was interesting to me, as help- ing me to form an independent opinion of the manner in which the Russian soldier is housed. I had read a great deal about the inhuman treatment of the private soldiers of the Russian Army. This I did not find to be corrobo- rated by my personal inspection. And I saw the barracks at a disadvantage, for accommodations of a temporary character had been erected in every available spot for the enormous number of extra troops concentrated in Mos- cow for the coronation. Indeed, I found upon personal observation that many of the gruesome stories I had read of Russian life were either manufactured out of "whole cloth," or exaggerations of such magnitude that one would scarcely recognise the original. The barracks were one- story buildings covered with stucco. Each room ac- commodated not less than twelve nor more than twenty men. As we passed through the rooms, the soldiers in 154: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. them stood at attention and saluted. I could only see that they were as well cared for as the men of our own army, and I have seen many English barracks that were not a whit more comfortable. In front of the buildings is a large sandy plain, on which the temporary sheds spoken of above had been erected. The scene was one of bustle and activity; soldiers in various uniforms were everywhere occupied in active preparation for some im- pending military function. I noticed a relief guard going out, and as they marched the soldiers munched big chunks of the black bread of which the lower classes in Eussia are so fond, and which, despite its dark colour, is both wholesome and nutritious. . This was the first time I had come in close contact with the famous Cossacks. From what I then saw of them, I can fully realize how they have won and so long main- tained their reputation in every kind of irregular warfare. They are fierce-looking customers, with black hair and piercing black eyes. Fully half of them bore some scar, or were minus an eye or ear. They were, in truth, more disfigured than a corps of German duelling students. They are, so Colonel Ismaillof told me, under complete dis- cipline, regard the Tsar with reverence and affection, and would serve him, in the words of the late Sir John Mac- donald, with their " last man and their last dollar." How strange it all appears, as one glances back through his recollections of history, to see these children of the desert, who were once the terror of the Muscovite, now amenable to discipline, and holding a place among the most valued forces of the Empire. In nothing, it seems to me, is the might and material progress of the Eussian Empire more clearly displayed than in its gradual but complete sub- jugation of the various barbaric tribes which once held its borders in constant terror, and enjoyed an independ- ence as complete as their present subjugation. Among no people has there ever been a more complete system of social equality than among those inhabiting the lower stretches of Eussian territory bordering the Black Sea, reaching across the Caucasus Mountains, and including THE COSSACKS AND LI HUNG CHANG. 155 the country surrounding the Caspian Sea. Eepublicanism as practised in the United States, in France, or even in Switzerland where it is said to be most nearly ideal is stark autocracy compared with the social equality and individualism which the Cossacks once enjoyed. In those early commonwealths every man stood on an absolute equality with his fellows. Each individual member of the community could call it together to redress any wrong of which he supposed himself the victim. It is true, their councils were often disturbed by a resort to arms, but even then every man was on an equitable footing, and a rude system of justice was maintained that was alto- gether satisfactory to the people and quite in keeping with their natural proclivities. After the Muscovite Tsar had gained an ascendency in northern or greater Eussia, these wild sons of the desert long maintained their independ- ence; and when at last they succumbed to the sway of the Great White Father, their submission was greatly salted with reservations unexpressed, but none the less emphatic in favour of a continuance of that nomadic life and border warfare which had to them all the charm that the tourney of the Middle Ages held for the feudal lords. It is, perhaps, one of the most hopeful signs of the slow but sure advance of civilization over all the world, that the Cossacks of the Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga are now simply the" Cossacks of the Tsar. Among all his troops the Emperor has none more fearless and none more obedient. They are most valuable, however, in those forms of warfare which approach nearest the guerilla, and espe- cially enjoy being engaged in suppressing any uprising among the regular Russian population, between whom and themselves there is little love lost. I could not help thinking, as I looked at them, of the merciless manner in which the forerunners of these same Cossacks had swooped down again and again upon the remnants of the French Army as it struggled through frost and snow toward the borders of what proved its graveyard. They seemed to the French soldiers, according to the account 156 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. of one of their officers, like wolves of the forest, so swift, so cruel, so absolutely without mercy was their mode of attack. They are magnificent horsemen, so far as riding is concerned, and it was this, as well as his brilliant uni- form and bravery, which endeared to them the French General Murat, whom they styled the " Cossack of the French." They have no modern ideas of managing their horses. They rule them by brute force rather than by kindness. The animals they ride are very like the Mexi- can broncho swift and sure of foot, and perhaps more amenable to force than to a gentler sway. I had heard much of their daring riding, and must confess that they are as clever horsemen as our own Indians, but their far-famed riding in a standing position lost some of its wonder to me when I saw that to accomplish this they cross their stirrups over the saddle, and, thrusting their feet into these, secure a pretty firm foothold. They are absolutely fearless, and impressed me as being a troublesome lot to tackle in anything like frontier warfare. An escort espe- cially designed for service near the person of his Majesty is chosen from the Cossacks, and in their long flowing scarlet coats, with white facings, together with their fierce aspect, they make a most picturesque addition to the regiments of the Guard. One peculiar feature of their uniform is a long sweeping black cloak, for all the world the counterpart of the circulars that our ladies used to affect a few years ago. These, when they are walking, reach to the ground, covering them entirely, and when on horseback extend over the quarters of their horses. From the barracks I accompanied Colonel Ismaillof to a luncheon at the Ermitage. We sat down to a charac- teristic Eussian meal, which, after all the French menus I had lately faced, was quite a relief. After an elaborate Zakuska, we discussed a delicious iced green soup, a pecul- iarly tasty fish patty, and cold roast pig, served with cu- cumbers and onions. This, washed down with a very good brand of champagne, and followed by a well-concocted article in the way of coffee, served to cast a rosy hue over the very arduous work of sight-seeing. THE COSSACKS AND LI HUNG CHANG. 157 After lunch, having bidden my most agreeable host au revoir, I called at the residence of the French Ambas- sador, and ended a very enjoyable and most interesting afternoon by a visit to Li Hung Chang. The astute Chi- nese statesman was in many respects quite the figure among the list of distinguished strangers, and, singularly enough, seemed to overshadow the Japanese representa- tives. I found him a most delightful and entertaining man. He was more polite than the occasion or our relative ages demanded. Kising when I was presented, he greeted me with cordiality, and gave me an opportunity to observe his great height. He talked freely and well through an interpreter. It was evident that, although this was his first trip round the world, he was no stranger to the cur- rent events of Europe, or to the ideas which were mak- ing themselves felt among civilized nations. He spoke of General Grant in terms of enthusiasm, and said that they had been "good friends." He spoke of China as having been too conservative, and hoped to learn much on his trip which would prove of value to his people. He was domiciled at the residence of a promi- nent Muscovite tea-merchant, which had been placed at his disposal during the coronation ceremonies. I noticed that he wore his red button and peacock feather, and that he toyed with a string of aromatic beads as he conversed, constantly inhaling their fragrance. Li Hung Chang is no stranger in either England or America by this time, and has discovered to both countries a vein of humour which he did not attempt to conceal in Eussia. " How old are you ? " he asked the Tsar, when he was presented to him. " Twenty-seven," replied his Majesty. " You look forty, your face contains so much wisdom?" This, of course, from the celestial standpoint was a very emphatic compliment. "And how old are you?" queried the Em- peror, intending to comment pleasantly upon the aged statesman's vigorous appearance and activity. Li Hung Chang smiled, and his bright eyes twinkled slyly as he replied, " Oh, I'm only a boy, too! " To the Duke of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha, who has very noticeably increased in weight 158 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. during the last few years, and had been describing his duchy to Li Hung Chang, the latter quietly said, " But it's such a little country; I should think you would find it difficult to live in it." It is needless to say that Li Hung Chang's touches of humour were received by both Tsar and Duke with merriment. The Chinese statesman im- pressed me as far too astute to give utterance to any im- portant views concerning the future policy of his Govern- ment, so anxiously awaited by the world of diplomacy. And I imagined even then that he would escape from the United States, as he has from Eussia, Germany, France, and England, without committing himself as to China's projects, either commercial or diplomatic. From what I saw of him, I could but feel that if his country had pos- sessed a few more such statesmen, the issue of the war be- tween China and Japan would have worn a very different complexion. But one swallow does not make a summer, and one statesman can not make an empire. CHAPTER XVI. THE TSAKITSA. So good, so kind, so clever. THE present Tsaritsa of Russia is the daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, and that Princess Alice of England who is usually styled "the Queen's favourite daughter.' 3 The name which was conferred upon her in baptism, and which she laid aside upon entering the Russian Church before her marriage, was Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice. She was born on June 6, 1872, and from the dawn of her life disclosed the same engaging qualities of heart and mind which led the Prince of Wales to speak of her mother, at the time of her death, as one " so good, so kind, so clever." In giving a brief description of the august and gracious lady who now shares the throne of Russia with Nicholas II, it will not be inappropriate to revert to her parentage and family connections. Indeed, it is upon these family connections and their potent though non-political influ- ence that some of the wisest and most far-seeing minds in Europe predicate an era of peace and good-will among the continental nations. At the time of her marriage, the London Times, which always speaks with greatest cau- tion, said: "It is quite possible that the new Empress may be able to exercise a quiet and wholly unobjection- able influence in favour of peace by helping to remove the somewhat jealous and suspicious feeling with which the Russian people regarded both England and Germany during the greater part of the last reign." " Quiet and 159 160 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. wholly unobjectionable " are precisely the words which one would apply to that kind of influence which proceeds from a gracious and potential personality, and is rooted in family love and affection. Such is likely to be the kind of influence exerted in Eussia and throughout Europe by the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. The Empress's family connections ally her closely with the royal throne of England and the imperial throne of Germany. If it is true of royal as of ordinary mortals, that " blood is thicker than water," it is also true that the quality of blood in royal veins is determined altogether by considerations of he- redity. Judged by the standards of heredity, no happier or more benign personality than that of the Empress of Eussia is to be found among the crowned heads of Europe. Her mother, Princess Alice of England, was universally conceded, by her own family, by the people of England, and by the inhabitants of Hesse-Darmstadt, to be a woman of great sweetness and beauty of nature, as well as the possessor of an incisive intellect and a thoroughly cultured mind. At the time of her death, the Earl of Beaconsfield, Lord Granville, and many others of scarcely less au- thority, united to praise the strength and beauty of her life in no measured terms; and her biographer, writing at or near the same time, and speaking of her swift adaptability to her new sphere at the time of her mar- riage, says: " Brilliant, but solid in her accomplishments, she speedily entered, in her new home among the Ger- man people, on an increasing interest in their art and literature; and being an accomplished sculptor and painter, with a hearty and kind disposition, she soon drew around her friends who forgot the Princess to love and admire the woman." The Princess Alice was always a prime favourite among the people of England, and her death was sincerely mourned. She is declared to have inherited the amiable disposition and bright, comprehensive intel- lect of Albert the Good, her father. She was his favourite child and chief companion, and it was she who soothed his last moments with the tenderness of a daughter and a fortitude far beyond her years. THE TSARITSA. 161 Through her mother and her grandfather, then, we see the Empress of Eussia to be descended from a line in which strength of intellect was enriched and modified by generosity, gentleness, and affection. The benign life of the Prince Consort, the gracious, devoted life of Princess Alice, if reproduced in the Empress of Russia, bespeak a character in which " mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other." The Empress is also, it should be remembered, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, whose reign is at once the longest and the most brilliant in the history of the Eng- lish throne; a woman who has generated wholesome in- fluences, not alone in her own kingdom, but among the different royalties of Europe, most of whom are more or less closely connected with her. Supposing, then, that the present Empress inherits the capacity for affairs of her grandfather, the warm and womanly temperament of Queen Victoria, and adds to these the sweet gracious- ness of her own mother, and it will be instantly seen that she has taken to the throne of Russia a rarer gift than that throne can possibly bestow upon her the gift of a pure, exalted, gentle, and loving type of woman- hood. On her father's side, too Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt she is well descended; for he was not only a good husband and father, but a brave soldier, who risked his life for his fatherland on many a hard-fought field. Such, then, are the two streams immediately converg- ing in the present Empress. "Aliky," as she was nick- named by her mother, may well be proud of an ancestry which closely allies her to not only the best blood in Europe, but also to individuals of exceptional brilliance and beauty of nature. Add to this distinguished heredity the delightfully simple and wholesome environment of the girl's early years, and we have present the two con- ditions upon which philosophers are accustomed to predict ideal types of character. When the Princess Alice left "Windsor for Hesse-Darm- 162 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. stadt it was like a descent from palace to cottage. The house she went to live in, and in which her children were born, was unpretentious, and her husband's treasury dic- tated thrift. Not in an atmosphere of poverty, but in one of prudence and frugality then, was the young Princess reared. Moreover, she was reared among a people as re- ligious, simple, industrious, conscientious, and thrifty as any in Europe. The Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt is an integral part of the German Empire, comprises an area of 2,965 square miles, and has a population of about 1,000,000 souls, chiefly Protestants. As lately as 1866 Hesse-Darm- stadt sided with Austria against Prussia, and incurred a heavy indemnity in so doing; but the people are of an in- dependent spirit, and value their individual national exist- ence, notwithstanding their inclusion in the German Em- pire. It was, then, in an environment of simplicity, fru- gality, honest, earnest endeavour, unostentatious and home- like individuality, that "Aliky's" childhood and young girlhood were spent. Fit preparation for the future occu- pant of one of the mightiest thrones in Europe! There is a beautiful line in one of the New Testament epistles: " It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." Surely, if closeness to the common people, a constant sympathy with their wants, their cares, their weaknesses, and an intimate and lifelong knowledge of the conditions which create those cares and weaknesses, are likely to fit one to appreciate and deal leniently with his subjects, then the Empress of Russia possesses all the qualities of a merciful and faithful high priestess, for she has in most essentials been "made like unto her brethren." It has been my object, in thus glancing at the parentage and early life of the Empress of Russia, to show that she possesses all the qualifications to be derived from those sources when they exist in the most wholesome and en- nobling circumstances. As an individual, she went laden to the throne of Russia with the precious heritage of a THE TSAKITSA. 163 noble ancestry, a clean home life, and a charming, unaf- fected personality. On the other hand, considered politically, she has welded another link, and a very strong one, in the chain of family relationship which already holds together as with "hooks of steel" the thrones of Eussia, Germany, and England. Already an English prince was married to a sister of the late Tsar, while he in turn was wedded to the sister of England's much-loved Princess of Wales. The present Tsar is thus the nephew of the Princess of Wales, and the cousin of the Duke of York, whom he so closely resembles. And by his marriage with the Queen's own granddaughter, he establishes a closer relationship than ever between the two thrones. The present German Emperor is first cousin to the Empress of Russia, and so it is likely that, notwithstanding the entente cordiale estab- lished between the French and Russians, there will yet be a "still, small," but mightily potential voice near the Tsar to maintain the prestige of Germany. Of course, it is quite impossible to arrive at state con- clusions from the outside, and I am well aware how com- mon is the taunt that "the Queen has no power," or "the Emperor is the mere puppet of ministers." It may be, and probably is, true that statesmen and legislators rule empires in fact, leaving only tinsel and bauble to their nominal rulers; but I can but believe that the close binding together of these mighty thrones by the mar- riage and intermarriage of the royal and imperial families must tend to promote peace and good fellowship among the nations. The German Emperor is not likely to attack a throne which is shared by his charming cousin; nor is the young Tsar likely to antagonize a kingdom ruled by the wise and venerable grandmother of his wife. Now, all these considerations are, as I am aware, large- ly apart from the immediate personality of the Tsaritsa; but when we come to consider the effect of her character and bearing upon those with whom she comes in intimate contact, it seems safe to predict that, as the mother im- mediately won the hearts of all the Hessians, so will the 164 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. daughter achieve a similar conquest of the Eussians. It would be difficult, indeed, to portray a woman of more gracious, gentle, and withal dignified bearing than the Empress Alexandrovna. A smile in which tenderness and pathos are mingled with a serene self-possession gives the beholder the impression of one strong and true, who derives strength from within, and judges the objective world by a standard self-created, rather than supinely submitting to be carried hither and yon by every suc- cessive breeze. The Tsaritsa is a woman of great and self-determining force. This force is not the less because it is masked by gentleness. M. Felix Faure, speaking at Chalons after the Tsar's review of the French soldiers, said, " Like a smile of good omen, the charm of the presence of her Majesty the Empress will remain interwoven with this visit." And such has been the impression created by the young Tsaritsa everywhere. How potential and far-reaching such an influence as hers may be is easily judged by an almost parallel case. It is often said in England to-day that the Prince of Wales is the most popular man in the country a saying which is, I judge, pretty true. However that may be, the one woman in England who rules all hearts by the sceptre of true womanhood and unfailing beauty of life is the Princess of Wales. This daughter of the sea came from her Danish home many years ago to be the bride of Eng- land's future king. She came a stranger, unknown; but from the first her conquest of the British people has been indisputable, and to-day it is scarcely extravagant to say that the nation adores her. A similar case to hers is that of the young Empress of Eussia. She is already creating an atmosphere of domesticity and gentleness about the throne whose traditions are stained with violence and with blood. Her mother once wrote to Queen Victoria, " I am proud of my girls, for they are warm-hearted and gifted too!" And in another letter she says: "All my chil- dren are great lovers of Nature, and I develop this as much as I can. It makes life so rich, and they can never THE TSAKITSA. 165 feel dull anywhere, if they know how to seek and find around them the thousand beauties and wonders of Nature. They are very happy and contented, and always see that the less people have the less they want, and that the greater is the enjoyment of that which they have. I bring my children up as simply and with as few wants as I can, and, above all, teach them to help themselves and others, so as to become independent." Such, then, is the woman called upon to share the glories of the Russian throne. A woman strong and simple in nature, trained to rely upon herself, and to be quick to help others. Born of a brilliant mother, educated in all the best learning of the day, young and beautiful, who can say how vast may be the power she may wield in an Empire peculiarly susceptible to the beautiful and ready to receive the truth? In the latter part of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries the tsaritsas of Russia were practically purdah women. So great was their state that they lived apart. For them to seek amusement or enjoy it was alike undignified. They visited convents; and in the churches, even the place where they sat was screened and secluded like that of an Indian Maharanee at the theatre. But all that is changed. Between then and now looms the figure of Catharine, who while in the world was " of the world." A woman of strength and opulent opportunity she was, whose moral influence upon her time and people was as much to be deplored as her self- reliance and force were to be praised. This figure looms between the dark past and the bright, hopeful present. To-day there stands upon the shore of that limitless ocean called the Future a soft and radiant figure beside the autocrat of all the Russias. It is the Empress. The light of mercy is in her eyes. Benignity illuminates her face. Her heart is linked to England and to Germany yes, to all mankind, for she comes of humanitarian stock. They stand upon the threshold of a voyage, these two. A little child with golden curls and laughing eyes is be- tween them. It is their first pledge of love the Grand 166 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Duchess Olga. Who shall say how mighty may be the influence of that soft-voiced, gentle, smiling woman, and that happy, crowing babe upon the young monarch who, in the midst of universal acclaim, is about to dare all the tempests of an untried sea? Of this we may at least be sure, that for that simple family group all hearts and lips will move in unison of happiest aspiration; and if, when the reign of Nicholas II is written, the name of Alexandra Feodorovna occupies a noble and exalted place, it will but confirm the theory of the philosopher, while it fulfils the philanthropist's dream, in proving that from a noble stock a noble posterity will surely spring. CHAPTER XVII. BEEAD AND SALT AND DANCING. THE ancient practice of presenting bread and salt to the Tsar was observed with due form in the Palace of the Kremlin on the 28th of May. From one of the sim- plest and most primitive of customs, a custom born in the desert, this peculiar and interesting rite has developed into an elaborate and ceremonious function. The ex- change of bread and salt between sovereign and subject, as a sign of fealty and submission, was a very early and almost universal custom of Oriental tribes. From a mouth- ful of bread and a pinch of salt thus eaten in common under the burning sun of the desert this usage has grown, until now the presenting of bread and salt to the Tsar in the Palace of the Kremlin is an event of only less signifi- cance than the solemn entry and the coronation. At half- past eleven the Tsar and the Tsaritsa, attended in state, entered St. Andrew's Hall for the purpose of receiving the different delegations from all parts of their mighty Empire, which had been commissioned to present this traditional tribute, accompanied by felicitations. Among these were delegations from the Holy Synod, the Christian clergy, the Ministers of State, the Council of the Empire, the Senate, the nobility, the Secretaries of State, the Duchy of Finland, the bourse, the commerce committees, and various municipal and provincial authorities. In some cases valuable presents were brought to the Emperor by the visiting bodies, in addition to the bread plates and salt cellars. From one province in Siberia was sent a huge goblet which had been cut out of a single enormous ame- 12 167 168 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. thyst. It had a beautifully executed Bacchanalian scene chased upon its entire surface. I saw these plates and salt cellars that evening at the Grand Bal de Cour. They were on display in the Throne Eoom. Some of them were beautiful in design and execution, and all were massive and of great richness. The plates were all of pure gold, and upon many the Emperor's initial was embossed. On some it was written with gems, while the centre of others presented beautifully etched scenes in the province whose gift it was. There were in all, I should think, at least one thousand of these plates, and beside each was its accom- panying salt cellar. In some cases it formed an ingeniously contrived part of the plate. I recall seeing in the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg an enormous room whose walls were entirely decorated with plates of this description, which had been presented to former Tsars. Used as plaques, and arranged in different designs, they produced a very rich and massive effect. On some of the plates which were in the Throne Eoom on the night of the Courtag there were yet remaining crumbs of bread, and several of the salt cellars had salt in them, showing that the actual partaking of bread and salt is kept in propria forma. It is considered a great honour to be selected to carry these gifts to the Tsar; and the different provinces, cities, institutions, trades, and professions vie with each other to produce the most beautiful and costly pieces of plate. The Courtag, or Bal de Cour, was, of course, a most elaborate and magnificent function. It was held in the three principal halls of state of the Kremlin Palace those of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Alexander, which upon this occasion offered a most brilliant aspect. There were uniforms glittering with orders, varied in colour and design as widely as the imagination can possibly conceive, mingling with the costumes of the great ladies of the court, some of whom seemed oppressed by their weight of diamonds; and, to accentuate the splendour of the scene, appeared here and there the bizarre costume of some Oriental potentate, a Chinese dignitary, or a Siam- BREAD AND SALT AND DANCING. 169 ese prince. Such was the picture framed within the three great historic rooms. I have already described with some detail the Hall of St. Andrew, which is the Throne Room, and will therefore only give here a brief description of the halls of St. George and St. Alex- ander. Having ascended a massive granite staircase, which is inclosed with walls of scagliola, we entered the state apart- ments, which were illuminated by thousands and thou- sands of candles. At the top of the staircase, and before entering, I noticed a great picture of the victory of Di- mitri of the Don over the Tartars, and just beyond an- other of the present Emperor's father receiving the dele- gations of rural mayors after his coronation. Behind him stand together the now Dowager Empress and the present Tsar. The first hall we entered was that of St. George. It is decorated in white and gold, the walls and the arched ceiling being ornamented with delicately de- signed bas-reliefs. The enormous chandeliers which are suspended down the centre are of gold. The hall is two hundred feet in length and seventy feet high, while its full width is fifty-eight feet. The floor, like that of the Hall of St. Alexander, is of parquetry, and is composed of the richest woods known in the Empire, highly polished. On the columns are inscribed the names of the Knights of St. George, and of the regiments which have received the Order since its foundation. They are written in let- ters of gold on a white background, and form the honour roll of the Eussian Empire. On the capitals of the col- umns are figures of Victory. Each of them bears a shield with the names of the most notable Russian conquests engraved thereon. From this hall we passed into the Hall of St. Andrew. Here the decoration is of a differ- ent character, though not a whit less brilliant. In place of the simple white and gold, it has all the colours of the rainbow arranged with the greatest possible taste. On the walls are six superb pictures from the brush of Muller, representing the principal exploits of St. Alexander Nevski, to whom the hall is dedicated. These are let into 170 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. panels which are edged with gold. All the columns of this hall are heavily gilded, and the shields, panels, and cornices of walls and ceiling are resplendent with the same gleaming metal. There are both pendent and bracket chandeliers, and when illuminated with nearly five thou- sand candles, the apartment presents a rich and dazzling scene of beauty. The chairs which are placed round the walls are of gold framework with maroon plush uphol- stery. Of the same colour and fabric is the covering of the pyramidal shelves at each side of the immense en- trances, upon which during any great fete the imperial plate is displayed. Beyond this room is the Hall of St. Andrew, the three being en suite. A progress through them involves a distance of four hundred and sixty-three feet. Each hall has its own peculiar charm, and each seems to be so beautiful that the spectator is lost in wonder as he turns from it to its successor. Conceive, if possible, this superb setting, and add the gorgeous assembly of human beings which thronged it upon that night, and you will have a faint mental picture of the scene. It was, of course, the night of all others for the display of regal attire; and surely every person present seemed to have entered into a conspiracy of splendour. The young Tsar was arrayed in the striking uniform of the Red Hussars of the Guard, while the Empress was in the simple white which she so much affected, and which seemed to become so well her noble girlish beauty. Seven times did this royal pair traverse the length of the three halls I have just described, each time escorting and escorted by a dif- ferent personage: the Tsar leading first the Empress, then the Queen of Greece, then the Crown Princess of Eou- mania, and Grand Duchesses in their order of precedence. The Tsaritsa was led, after the Emperor, by the Due de Montebello (the French Ambassador), Grand Duke Vladi- mir, the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, the English Ambassador, and others. A retinue of royal guests followed in the train of the Emperor and Empress. These processions were made to the stately music of the polonaise, and were watched by the throng of nobles and distinguished visi- BREAD AND SALT AND DANCING. tors present, who formed a living avenue for them to pass through. I noted with no little pride that my countrywomen present fully sustained their reputation for grace of man- ner and elegance of appearance. Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. Eoebling, the wife of the famous bridge engineer, Mrs. Breckinridge, Mrs. Alexander, daughter of the late Charles Crocker of California, Mrs. Peirce, the wife of our Secretary of Legation, the Misses Koon of Minneapolis, Miss Town- send of New York, and my own dear mother, were all worthy representatives of America's womanhood. Among the many distinguished women from other countries who particularly attracted my notice were the Duchess of Connaught, Duchess of Montebello, Mrs. Lionel Sackville West, Viscountess Coke, Mile. Deprey, and Princess Eadolin and her beautiful daughters. The Americans present were escorted by Mr. Pierre Botkin, the former Secretary of the Eussian Legation at Wash- ington, and now a Gentleman of the Chamber at the Im- perial Court. His many attentions and untiring efforts added greatly to the evening's enjoyment. The other noteworthy balls during the coronation festivities included one given by the Grand Duke Serge, Civil Governor of Moscow, on June 1st, one by the No- blesse Club on June 2d, and the grand ball of the Palace of the Kremlin on June 4th. At all of these the Emperor and Empress and all the high court dignitaries were pres- ent. The ball given by the Grand Duke Serge, while an affair of great elegance, did not sufficiently differ from similar entertainments in foreign court circles to call for a detailed description. It took place in the official resi- dence of the Governor of Moscow, the Grand Duke and Duchess receiving their guests with gracious dignity of manner. The ball given by the Noblesse Club of Moscow was an entirely novel and " chic " affair. The club's home, as befits its name, is one of the noblest buildings in all Moscow, and its great ballroom presented a gay and beau- tiful spectacle. The dancing hall was surrounded on all 172 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. sides by salons which were devoted to the use of the guests. At the end of this ballroom was a fountain partly con- cealed by foliage plants; at the other end was the plat- form upon which the Tsar watched the dancing. Around the room were lavish floral decorations, in pleasing con- trast to the white and gold of the walls and ceilings and the great crystal chandeliers. The punch bowls upon this occa- sion were ingeniously devised from blocks of ice; and every dainty artifice known to the caterer or the florist had been employed to beautify and enrich the scene. I noticed at one end of the room a balcony filled by a group of gaily dressed little ones, the children of the nobility, who were thus privileged to look upon a scene which they would probably never forget. Taken all in all, this ball was one of the most enjoyable functions given in Mos- cow during the coronation. The grand ball at the Palace of the Kremlin was much more enjoyable than the formal Courtag. Here every one danced, not excepting the Em- peror and Empress, who joined in several royal quadrilles. The dancing and all other arrangements on this occa- sion were under the control of the Court Chamberlains, who carried as a badge of office ivory sticks crowned with the imperial arms in gold, and with a bow of blue ribbons tied near the top. Among the throng were the Ameer of Bokhara, clothed in scarlet robes heavy with gold em- broidery and wearing an immense fur headdress, and the Khan of Khiva in garments of Oriental richness. The most sumptuously dressed of all were certain Georgian princes, whose costumes consisted of differently coloured and very rich velvets, which, were ablaze with orders, shoulder capes of rare skins, and gilt knee boots. I was told upon inquiry that these costumes were not uniforms of any branch of the military service, but the dresses peculiar to the house to which each belonged. At 12.30 a banquet was served in St. George's Hall, at which the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and the royalties sat down with all the assembled guests. This magnificent affair practically ended the entertain- ments of the coronation. Shall I say that I was tired? BREAD AND SALT AND DANCING. 173 It sounds ungracious; yet when the reader remembers the constant succession of elaborate ceremonies, each treading upon the heels of the other, which we had been attending during the three weeks of our stay in Moscow, it will not be matter of wonder to him if he thinks of me as saying, " Hold, enough! " As I look back upon these three weeks, they seem to me like a dream of splendour through which I had passed; as if no reality could reach up to the height of such con- tinued and constantly varied effect. To the officials who arranged and carried out the elaborate and well-ordered pageant it is impossible to accord too high a meed of praise. Of course, the splendid company which had gathered from the ends of the earth to do honour to the Tsar formed a picture worthy of an imperial frame. Such a frame the Palace of the Kremlin provided, and so indeed did the city of Moscow with its matchless beauty. Nature, too, seemed to exert herself to add to the success of the coro- nation. The weather was beautiful; the trees were dressed in their brightest and freshest foliage; and as one looked from some point of vantage upon the surrounding fields, and saw their carpets of green, it was easy to understand why the authorities chose the month of May for the crown- ing of their Tsar. If the bright and happy scene which attended the crowning of Nicholas II may be taken as augury of his reign, then that reign will be fair and pros- perous indeed. That it may be so was the wish, I feel con- fident, of every one privileged to be present at its com- mencement, and of the millions who see in the security and welfare of Eussia the security and welfare of Europe and Asia. CHAPTER XVIII. IT is not to be supposed that the enormous crowds of peasants and others of the lower classes congregated in Moscow during the coronation festivities were attracted there solely by the promptings of patriotism. There were other motives at work, though, so far as patriotism is concerned, I suppose that no other peasantry in the wide world can compare with the Russian moujik for thor- oughgoing worship, for absolute, unreasoning, and blind idolatry of his ruler. Whatever happens of an evil nature in the nation is by the moujik charged up to some one else probably the priests never by any means to the " Lit- tle Father." In their eyes he can do no wrong. If at any time he should command a certain number of them to be killed, they would go to their death confident that some unseen power of evil was working through the Emperor; and that in his heart of hearts he was as true and merciful to his children as they were loyal and faithful to him. By the enormous strength of such unreasoning patriotism is the throne of Russia supported. From this class the rank and file of the army are recruited, an army which is the consummation of discipline because every soldier in its ranks is a blind idolater and has learned at his mother's knees, and in the village church, that the noblest thing he can do is to lay down his life for his ruler or to spend it in unquestioning service. To such a peasantry the crowning of a new Tsar is the event of a lifetime. It is something to date back to ever after. They look forward to it for months; every nerve is strained; every neces- 174 THE PEOPLE'S F^TE. 175 sary of life curtailed in order to enable the father, mother, and one or two of the older children to make the journey to Moscow to participate in the magnificent event in which every Eussian rejoices. Without this patriotic motive, however, the peasants would be attracted to Moscow during the coronation festi- val by other and far less idealistic reasons. To the com- mon people a coronation partakes of the nature of an enormous spree. Thousands leave their homes, their daily drudgery, and their colourless dreary life, to make this, to them, the journey of a lifetime. And so, with pack on back, they set forth, trudging long weary miles. They go in droves from neighbouring villages, carrying with them meagre rations of black bread; and by the roadside they brew their thin decoction called tea. At night they sleep beneath the stars, and wherever they happen to be. So far it is a rather mild sort of spree. As they journey on, the throng grows in size. Tributary streams from con- vergent roads swell the multitude. The lethargic joy develops. Views are interchanged Did I say views? Forbid the term! They have no views only crudest senti- ments. These they vary with mouthfuls of their beloved kalatschs and occasional cups of the burning, dreadful vodka. The one health they drink is to " the Little Father." The one word upon their lips is the name of Nicholas; or it may be varied now and again by the name of his fair young Empress, Alexandra Feodorovna! And presently, so proceeding, the " Holy City " dawns upon their delighted eyes. Their mouths open in amazement, if it is the first time they have gazed upon it; in joyful greeting, if they have looked upon its sacred minarets be- fore. Once within the city, this village Ivan, his tributary "souls" and his patient, plodding wife, stalk about its streets as the Huns must have done in ancient Eome, only far less haughtily. Still they trudge and trudge, and still wonder. They seldom speak. Language is but a poor and feeble instrument to express such amazement as they experience. If the stern gorodovoy bids them 176 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. clear the path, they move like dumb cattle aside, and look upon him as upon some lesser god. If he beats or kicks them, like the patient ox they move on but a shade faster, and almost think themselves raised in dignity that they have lived to be kicked in Moscow. And so they gaze upon the city. They stand rapt in holy ecstasy before her sacred shrines. " With, divinest self -surrender " they bow before the tombs of the saints. The earth is not low enough for the prostrations with which they worship the Sacred Mother of Iberia. As they do reverence before the Holy Gate, they look upon the Palace of the Kremlin, and whisper to each other with bated breath, " J Tis the home of the Great White Tsar! " There is not a shrine in Mos- cow that is not dear to them dear though in their hope- less ignorance they know nothing of its history; though the saint to whom it is sacred means nothing more to them than the merest name; though all the splendour of its architecture, the wealth of its possessions, the awe of its tradition, is to them now and forever a sealed, yea, a thrice-sealed book. Still those dumb, oxlike eyes look upon the celestial scene, and as they look, the wealth of all these associations, the beauty of the imperial kaleido- scope of gorgeous colour, sweeps through their quiet souls, and, though they know it not, they are from that moment richer they become then more truly " souls," and life never again can become quite so dumb, so hopeless, or so gray! And then they eat and drink! Ah! Heaven itself would be a poor abiding place to Ivan without the fact of food. But here he eats en prince. He has brought a few roubles with him. With these he buys food galore, chiefly black bread and a villainous compound of fat, garlic, and scraps of meat rolled together, and called by courtesy a " sausage." Between the huge mouthfuls he swallows boiling tea; and, to complete his happiness, finally becomes serenely and completely drunk on vodka. Ah! This is indeed the " spree of a lifetime! " Then he sleeps the sleep of the virtuous and the drunken, and it matters not to him where he may find that sleep. I have seen him drop down THE PEOPLE'S F^ITE. 177 in the middle of the public highway and compose him- self as serenely as if he were in a private room in the best hotel in Moscow. And the careful isvoschik will pick his way in and out among these drunken or weary sleepers, and leave them unharmed; for if they are drunk he re- spects the cause of their drunkenness, while he envies them their drink; and if they are simply asleep with weari- ness, he still more respects the devout impulse which has brought them so far and made them so tired. For those who have no food, the Tsar provides during each day of his stay in Moscow dinners to the number of five thousand. This is a usual thing. At the coronation of one of the Tsars I think it was Nicholas I there were tables spread every day that reached for miles, and about these tables gathered the hungry mob, to eat and drink, and glut themselves as they probably had never done before, and in all likelihood never would do again. Here is a relic of feudalism, in which the serf always looked to his lord for food and raiment, and always re- ceived it. Day after day the streets of Moscow were filled with crowds of just such peasants and pilgrims. They were like sheep without a shepherd. In the churches they kissed anything and everything pertaining to a saint; they bowed willing knees at every shrine, gaped in wonder at every gaudy equipage; and when, perchance, the word was passed along that the Emperor was coming, their dull eyes would light up almost flash and as he swept by, they would gaze like lost souls upon a saviour god, and, having seen that imperial face, straightway fall upon their knees, in the midst of all the throng, and begin to offer thanks to their Maker that they had seen the Tsar! Match that if you can outside of Eussia. I know not of its equal. It stands unique for blind political and re- ligious devotion to the person of a monarch. Now, of all this wondering, gaping, sleepy throng, the Tsar has been duly mindful. He has made provision for all his guests, peasant as well as prince, moujik as well as grand duke. For them is the daily dinner I have men- 178 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. tioned; for them are the medals, if perchance they may happily prevail against the mighty crowd and gain one; and for them, above all else, is that great day of the " people's fete." Ah! that was a day to be remembered. It will rest forever beneath the shadow of a great catas- trophe, for on that day nearly three thousand human beings paid the penalty of their enthusiasm, of their pa- triotism. But of that later on. Saturday, the 30th of May, was set apart for this popu- lar celebration on the mighty Khodynskoe plain. It is a vast level of sand and grass, which lies opposite the Petrovski Palace and stretches away beyond the line of vision, for it is on the border of the city, where it merges into the great flat surrounding country. This is the people's fete, but it is also the fete of their Emperor. An imperial pavilion had been erected from which the Tsar and Tsaritsa, surrounded by the members of their court, watched the spectacle which they had provided. Behind them and on the floor below, the pavilion was crowded with the nobility of Eussia. And such a fete! Only a Barnum could have designed it. Everything in the way of outdoor shows was there, from classical concert to alle- gorical drama, from resplendent ballet to jolly clown. Some one compared the great crowd to Donny brook Fair! Yes, multiply Donnybrook Fair by fifty, and then double that, and you would about reach the proportions of this mighty throng, and of the heterogeneous show. Stand- ing nearly opposite the Petrovski Palace, with its back to the road, was the imperial pavilion, surrounded with immense foliage plants and various other adornments, and draped with flags and gaily-coloured bunting. It was a matchless day. The sun illuminated everything. And the sight from that pavilion was brilliant indeed. Flanking the structure on either hand stood two large tribunes erected for the use of the Diplomatic Corps. These also were filled with a brilliant assembly of notables. Standing in front, and slightly to the left of these structures, was an enormous stand for the united singing societies which furnished the choral music; behind this were the booths THE PEOPLE'S F^TE. 179 before which the terrible disaster had occurred earlier in the day. As I glanced upon the scene, it seemed scarcely credible that not twelve hours before so many lives had been sacrificed upon this very spot. On this mighty plain, and stretching as far as the eye could reach, was a great mass of human beings, face to face with the Tsar they had come so far to see; for, not- withstanding the disaster of the early morning, the young monarch had wisely come to the festival of the common people wisely, for it is not best to let the unthinking brood too deeply over the irretrievable, nor was it well to cheat the mighty multitude of the show which was essen- tially its own. I can not attempt to give a detailed description of the feast in all its well-nigh infinite variety; but cast an eye with me over the bewildering, ever-changing scene. Stand in the centre of the Tsar's pavilion and look outward. Everywhere people, everywhere laughter, shouts of joy, and faces beaming with interest. On the plain different stages have been erected, and different sets of performers are engaged in amusing the people. Here every taste may be satisfied. Projecting the proverbial grain of salt into the quotation, we may say with Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragi- cal-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited : Seneca can not be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. But, indeed, the pastoral-comical seemed to prevail both as to number and popularity. Among the different scenes I had a chance to witness were some allegorical representations. One, in which the fortunes of Eussia, after doing battle with all manner of contending evil, were gloriously triumphant, awakened considerable in- terest among the more thoughtful; but this was not to be compared with that created by the entertainment given by a clever juggler, or by the clown who interspersed his own weak jokes with the marvellous antics of a troupe of trained hedgehogs. 180 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. I was interested to observe that the comedy scene was the most attractive, even to the sober-minded Russian peasants. Of course they were greatly pleased with the historical representations whenever the Russian was vic- torious and, by the way, he always was victorious, by some special providence; but it was always the clown, the conjuror, or the comedian who succeeded in attract- ing the largest throngs. Russian peasants are after all like so many overgrown children, " pleased with a straw, and tickled with a feather " ; they enjoyed with all the zest of little children at a Christmas pantomime the vari- ous scenes provided for them. Look yonder, and you will see that great bearded Muscovite, who looks as though he could fell an ox with his naked fist, almost go into hys- terics as the conjuror extracts a pretty little white rabbit from his wife's ear, which, in all truth, is almost big enough for a rabbit hutch. Observe the strained expres- sion of deathless interest with which they watch the scene from village life, in which all the rust and dirt are re- moved, and it is shown as it might be, clean and glad and frolicsome. This must be heaven indeed to these peasant people. The glittering ballet is almost too much for Ivan, who does not, however, look upon its bewildering charms with a lustful eye. The dancers are to him all personifications of grace and beauty and innocence. He does not look behind the rouge and the tinsel, nor stop to analyze the morality of the troupe. Happy Ivan! This day all to him is fair. He takes the scene for its face value; and from his point of view the face value is very great indeed. Among other joys provided for him were a troupe of trained bears bears that rode bicycles, and that sat up in a grave family circle, and looked almost, if not quite, as grave as Ivan himself. Here was the circus, with its trained horses and bespangled riders, its chariot races and its other wonders. There a lot of ambitious peasants, intent upon trying to reach the top of three well-greased poles, sweat, swear, and toil but the grease is too much even for a moujik a moujik, who is never anything else than greasy. THE PEOPLE'S FfiTE. 181 Athletes of all varieties performed their marvellous feats for Ivan. On one side, the awkward movements of a sack race; on the other, the still more ungainly move- ments of a man on stilts; here a tight-rope walker; there a juggler, balancing half a dozen spinning plates and, to crown all, a lighted lamp, amazed and held him spell- bound. But the joy of joys for Ivan was when his turn ar- rived to sit astride one of the painted wooden horses in the " merry-go-round." This was almost too much for the simple peasant. Ah, ride on, Ivan! Shout for joy. This is to you the most joyful moment of existence, and the memory of it shall serve to brighten the hunger-stricken, half -frozen hours of the coming winter. Ride on! For who shall say, my Ivan, that your joy is not as great as that of the mighty lords yonder who, covered with glit- tering orders, bestride their prancing steeds, but perhaps are weighed down with how great a load of misery and self- reproach? Yes, ride on, Ivan! Shout and shout yet again for the Great White Tsar, who knows full well the dreari- ness of your daily life, and, as he hears your joyful voice, smiles happily, for you yes, even you, Ivan are one of his children. I apprehend that there is nowhere else to be seen any- thing like this great fete for the people which occurs at the coronation of a Tsar. It was like the gathering of a family of half a million simple children and setting them loose among all they loved best in the way of fun and hilarity. The Khodynskoe plain was fairly alive with these big, hairy, unwashed, simple creatures, and all of them were as happy as they ever would be on earth. All, did I say? Scarcely; for here and there one saw a face of gloom, which brought to mind the early morning tragedy. It is bad policy to reserve the gloom and shadow for the closing lines of such a narrative as this; and did I not think that the disaster of the Khodynskoe plain had served to bring into prominence one of the brightest facts of the entire fete, I should have passed it by altogether or made mention of it earlier. I have not yet seen the entire truth 182 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. told about the terrible accident which marred the early hours of that day. It had become rumoured among the moujiks that the supply of souvenir cups to be given out was out of all pro- portion to the number there to receive them. Ugly rumours were circulated that this was the result of jobbery on the part of foreign contractors. Ivan's mind immedi- ately became tense. His Tsar had meant to honour him, but some rogue would thwart the imperial will. Not if he (Ivan) knew it. Not if he (Ivan) had to sit up all night to be in place; not even if he had to fight for it would he miss one of the longed-for mementos of his Emperor's thought of him. And so he did sit up all night; or, rather, he lay out upon the broad Khodynskoe plain beneath the stars. Here, then, was a mighty throng of several hun- dred thousand people all intent upon not being cheated out of this souvenir of their Emperor's love. Consider this seething mass! Think of the mighty blind force within it and behind it! Let it sleep; for if it once awaken and find out its own power, there will be death and doom for many. And so indeed there were! Two thou- sand eight hundred and thirty-six were gathered in the early morning from the scene of this terrible awakening and carried to the morgue, the churches, and the build- ings of the fire department. It is dangerous to play with Ivan too long. He stretches out his arms and tears those before him. He tramples on them, he destroys them. I was told, and truthfully, that in an attempt to separate the crowd at the point where the greatest havoc was being wrought, fifty Cossacks, headed by a young lieutenant, were told to ride among the people, but not to use their weapons. They did so. And though history will not tell the story in phrase so eloquent, they matched the achieve- ment of the six hundred at Balaklava. Not one of them returned. They were torn apart. Ivan was awake. Some one he cared not who stood between the Little Father and himself. Some one suffered. Yes, Ivan was, indeed, awake! THE PEOPLE'S FfiTE. 183 The story of how it happened is simple. The officials, having heard of the discontent and suspicion among the people, determined to distribute the cups and bread and meat before the crowd grew either greater or angrier. So they opened the booths, and then, like the waves of the sea, up rolled the mighty throng. That is all. The rest is just what would have happened with any crowd of maddened human beings. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an excited crowd. Sea and tempest and fire are terrible when aroused; they are as lambs beside wolves when compared with the raging of a human tempest or the burning of a human fire. And the "Little Father," the "Great White Tsar," what does he say? It is often said that there is no catastrophe so great but that it carries with it some accompanying blessing. "Well, the tragedy on the Khodynskoe plain served to show the entire Eussian people that their new ruler has a kind, a brave, a manly heart. As soon as he was informed of the accident the Emperor called for his horse, and, accompanied by an aide-de-camp, rode to the scene of the carnage. Here he showed the greatest grief over what had happened, and at once gave orders that all the resources of the Government should be employed for the relief of the injured and for the removal of the dead. Out of his own private purse he ordered that five hundred roubles should be given to each family a member of which had been killed; and, better than all else, he and the Empress went in person to the different hospitals, and expressed their personal sympathy for the sufferers. So the death of the unfortunate victims of the Khodynskoe plain laid the foundations of a sympathy between the great under class of the Eussian people and the throne. It showed the Tsar how much Ivan loved him; it revealed to Ivan how much he was loved by his Tsar. 13 CHAPTER XIX. HOW WE WASHED IN KUSSIA. THE Russians as a nation and to a man bathe so pecul- iarly, so uniquely, that the casual observer associates hot vapour baths with fur-clad Slavs and scarcely thinks of the former without automatically thinking of the latter. By a study of the Russian's bathing habits does the man of learning trace the Russian's descent; or, at least, he cites those habits as strong corroborative evidence of the descent of the Slavs from the Scythians of old. Herodotus, the truth teller, says of the Scythians that they used hot vapour baths, and never washed their bodies in water. And scholars have quoted this statement ever since in sup- port of the theory that the Russians are largely of Scythian stock. But, however that may be, and leaving so nice a question as the remote origin of the Slavic peoples to men of wide and deep erudition, the Russian baths are distinct- ively Russian far more so than were the sumptuous baths of old Rome Roman. And I thought them interesting interesting in themselves and interesting in the similarity of essentials and dissimilarity of detail that exist between the baths of the Russian rich and the baths of the Russian poor. My tin bath-tub was not an unqualified success. It was a very nice tub, too. But they still persisted in heat- ing the water a samovarful at a time. Perhaps they had no choice but to do so. At all events, I became a fre- quent patron of the Moscow vapour baths. I think the story of the Moscow baths is worth the telling. As I have already said, the ordinary bath-tub 184 HOW WE WASHED IN RUSSIA. 185 without which no well-ordered house in America is con- sidered complete is altogether a stranger to Eussian domiciles. This is perhaps owing to imperfect water sup- ply; or it may be due to the fact that the Kussian when he bathes goes in for something very elaborate and luxurious. The Turkish bath of America or England is not to be compared with the fine new bath-house which has been recently completed in Moscow at a cost of two millions of dollars. From the top to the bottom of society, which is a far greater stretch in Russia than with us, all classes are provided for in these great bathing caravansaries. Hav- ing once found my way to them, after facing the almost insuperable difficulties which bathing at home involved, I became a frequent visitor. After one gets used to the novelties involved in the Eussian bath they are as decidedly agreeable as they are splendidly luxurious. There is in every Eussian village a bath-house in which the peasants steam themselves at least once a week, but I shall speak of these later on. I mention them here merely to em- phasize the fact that the practice of taking a weekly steam is a national practice, and embraces all classes. Perhaps in the case of the vodka-drinking peasant it is this weekly parboil which saves his life and postpones the dreadful day when the constant imbibing of unlimited quantities of the deadly liquor must be paid for. The principal bath in Moscow occupies an entire square. It is divided through the centre each way, and thus forms four equal departments. These departments are used separately for the different kinds of baths I should say for the different classes; for as with the stars, so in Eus- sia one bath differeth from another bath in glory. They also differ very widely indeed in price. The highest priced bath is twelve roubles practically about six dollars and a half while the lowest is, I believe, twenty-five kopecks, or about thirteen cents. The distance here ex- pressed in values is about the distance which separates the most opulent from the poorest class in Eussian life. For the lowest price the bather gets a good fierce steam- ing, soap and water to give himself a good scrubbing, and 186 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. a coarse towel with which to dry himself. That, together with the exceptional luxury of clean surroundings, is all he does get for his twenty-five kopecks. It was at the other end of the line that I experimented with the Eussian baths, and very enjoyable and Oriental I found them to be. The building is a fine one. It is of brick covered with adamantine plaster in imitation of stone, which prevents its being affected by frost. The entrances to the more ex- pensive baths are very fine and imposing indeed; and the entrances for the lower-priced baths are also very inviting. Within the outer door of the bath which I frequented, and facing the door, was a fountain with foliage plants, and adjoining these a buffet for drinks, " soft " and other- wise. At the entrance stood a porter, dressed in white, to whom we handed our outer wraps, and also our cards. This, I suppose, for identification in case of any accident occurring while one is within the bath. The long hall which leads to the baths is floored and ceiled with marble; the windows are of rich stained glass, and at the end there is a flight of marble steps, at the head of which is an iron gateway richly decorated with gilt, which leads into the inner apartments. This hall is in the form of a cloister, and creates an impression of ecclesiasticism. Behind these gates is a long, narrow hallway, and on each side of this hall are the doors leading into the private suites of apart- ments which are set apart for the more expensive baths. Each bather has a separate suite of apartments, which may be used by a small party, if two or three friends wish to bathe together. I will attempt to give the reader a description of the suite which I used while in Moscow. The first apart- ment is a boudoir. This is richly furnished with Turkish hangings and rugs. On the walls are splendid mirrors and oil paintings, mostly of bathing scenes, peopled by large-limbed females; arranged about the room are dress- ing tables and luxurious chairs and couches. In this boudoir the bather disrobes. The second room is much larger in size and is lined with tiles throughout. In the centre of this chamber is HOW WE WASHED IN RUSSIA. 187' a fountain of water, clear as crystal, surrounded by a marble basin. On one side of the room are two marble slabs for the bather to recline upon while being shampooed; and on the opposite side is a small plunge., octagonal in shape, and surrounded by a brass rail. This plunge is five feet deep and about ten feet in diameter. In one corner of the room are a shower and needle spray. Of course, every- thing is scrupulously clean. The bather passes through this apartment to the third, which is the hot room; and here the serious business of the bath begins. This room is in size about fourteen by ten feet. It is lined throughout with wood, and around the wall is a balcony so close to the ceiling that when an ordinary man stands erect his head is within a few inches of it. On the balcony are benches to lie upon, and in the corner is a sink from which the attendant constantly brings supplies of cold water to refresh the bather. Lying on this bench, the novice discovers just how serious a business a Russian bath is. In one corner is a large oven in which large blocks of wood are placed, and when they have become sufficiently heated the attendant throws over them quantities of cold water sufficient to make as much steam as if a boiler had burst. At first the feeling is one of suffocation. It is almost impossible to bear the steam, and would be quite so but for the douch- ing with cold water which the attendant never neglects. In order to enhance the steam, bunches of birch twigs are first dipped in water and then thrust into the oven. Dur- ing the steaming process the attendant takes one of these bunches of birch rods and proceeds to beat the bather, with the idea of driving the steam into the pores of the skin. This part of the bath was quite reminiscent of one's school days. All this time, however, there is the cold water as a refuge. When one has endured this torture till he is of the colour of a well-boiled lobster, and his skin suffi- ciently tender and sore, he leaves the hot room for the second room. Here takes place the ordinary shampooing process which is a part of every Turkish bath with us. There is any quantity of clean, fresh excelsior, which is 188 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. never used twice, warm water, and a thoroughly accom- plished shampooer. After this come the plunge and the douche, or both or neither, as one's tastes dictate. I have never had a more luxurious bath, so far as this section of it was concerned, though I must confess that the vigorous treatment of the hot room was at first a trifle too much for me. I grew accustomed to it, however, and the feeling of invigoration which followed quite recon- ciled me to its momentary rigours. From the shampooing room you return to the boudoir, and there sleep, or smoke, or drink, as the mood suits. The surroundings are Oriental in their magnificence, and one feels quite like a Maharajah as he, having finished his bath, makes his exit into the glare of the sun. I should say, to be accurate in my account, that extra charges are made for sheets, towels, soap, birch brushes, and attend- ant. And it here occurs to me that this is the only in- stance in my life where I ever bought a rod for my own flogging. The baths are expensive, but very satisfying and comfortable. The time allowed for each bather to retain a suite of rooms is one hour. If he exceeds that time, he is charged for each additional quarter of an hour that he remains. Of course, the more expensive baths are patron- ized only by the wealthy among the Eussians, or by visit- ors who are anxious to explore all there is in the way of novelty in the ancient capital. But, as I have said, baths of a sufficiently pleasant and delightful character within the means of the very poorest may always be had. Herodotus may have been entirely right about the Scythians, and no doubt he was, for there are innumer- able proofs that he was the most truthful and exact man that has ever written. I have not been quite so in saying that the Eussians never wash their bodies in water. In the summer the young villager is very fond of river or lake bathing; and if the village is near a pool or stream, half the boys of the community may be found on the banks or in the water. The chances are that the stream is shallow, and not perfectly clean, but it suffices for all the village purposes. The boys bathe here, leaving each HOW WE WASHED IN RUSSIA. 189 his one garment on the bank, plunging into the water, or wading as far in as its depth renders feasible. The one garment is a simple affair a shirt of red very neglige as to the extremities, but very proper at the belt, being se- curely kept in place by a drawstring of dirty tape or greasy twine. And in all seasons this pool or stream is the com- mon laundry of the village. The Russian moujik women do not wash clothes over-often; but they do sometimes. On that rare occasion, a family wash-day, the women of the house gather together everything in the way of wash- able clothing they consider sufficiently dirty, and carry it to the water side. Sometimes the laundress tucks her skirts, etc., well up above her knees (for she and the clothes are going into the water together), hangs her big, bulging bundle of things over her shoulder, and trudges off on her bare, brown legs, singing to herself, and sing- ing sweetly, as she goes. A Russian woman always sings while washing. In fact, all the Russians have a remarkable faculty for catching up and improving upon the differ- ent parts of any tune they hear; and they are eminently a nation of fine voices. When a dozen or more Russian peasant women are washing together and singing, the ensemble is as pleasing to the musical ear as it is picturesque to the eye. In the winter holes are broken or hacked in the ice, and on the ice at the edges of these holes the women kneel and wash their clothes, plunging their hands and arms into the icy water. It must be excruciatingly cold work, yet still as they wash they sing. But the gilded youth of the village do not seem to relish ice-water plunges. In winter the long, cold win- ter they patronize the steam baths exclusively. The steam bath-house is the Russian's only temple of ablutions, bar the earthen kettle on the porch of his hut. At this seething shrine does the moujik pray for cleanliness and perform his cleansing rites. Let us stroll through some Russian village and glance into the bath-house. Ah! you are looking askance at that completely naked man who has come out of the nearest hut, and is passing complacently along. " Is he mad ? " 190 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. you ask. No, reader, he is not mad. He is altogether in his right mind, if not altogether clothed in his accus- tomed red shirt. It is you, if you will pardon me for saying so, who are ignorant, or, to express myself more courteously, largely unacquainted with the modus vivendi of the Russian moujik. Yon nude, shock-headed fellow is Ivan our dear old friend Ivan Ivan Ivanovitch. He is going to the village bath-house. Put your mock mod- esty into your pocket, and we will follow Ivan, and I will gossip to you as we go. Every Eussian peasant, as I have told you, takes regu- larly periodical vapour baths. He does it as a matter of health and cleanliness. He does it as a luxurious, sensu- ous self-indulgence. And he does it as a religious ob- servance. As an almost universal rule, he has his bath once a week, and usually on Saturday; that makes him nice and clean and purified for Sunday. To the ortho- dox moujik the bath has a real religious significance, and he believes that it has powers of moral as well as of physi- cal purification. After certain pollutions not unfrequent in his mode of life, no orthodox peasant would think of entering any church or ikon shrine without first steaming himself thoroughly. During the period which begins with Saturday afternoon's bath and ends with Sunday morning's church service he is careful to keep himself strictly unpolluted. Most villages have a communal bath- house where all bathe. We are at the door now the men's door; let us look in. We need not look long. It is the crudest, roughest, barest place imaginable. There are three rooms, each hotter than the other. Ivan goes from room to room, and couches himself upon a succession of hot and hotter shelves. The principle is identical with that of the princely baths I have described. But the surroundings are different! However, the essentials are all there, and Ivan is not a stickler for frippery. He wishes to roast, and boil, and simmer, and steam; and he is enabled to do it to profusion at the village bath-house. He does it, going quite as far as he can go and continue to live. Then he HOW WE WASHED IN RUSSIA. 191 goes into the coolest of the seething rooms,, dries himself, and walks home. At least he dries himself after a fash- ion in summer. In winter he rushes out naked as at his birth and rolls and rolls in the snow, and bellows with delight. The Scandinavians who, like the Russians, are devoted to steam baths, also love to roll and toss in the snow after the bath, but they do it more soberly. Ivan is in an animal ecstasy when he plunges his great sweating self into the cold and glittering snow, and he roars aloud in his delirium of pleasurable pain as the snow bites and stings him. There are parts of Russia where the people do not bathe en masse. Each " soul " or woman takes his or her vapour bath at home, where there is neither bath-room nor tub or vessel for the bath. What do you suppose they use? You give it up? That's wise, for you would never guess. They use the oven the family oven the oven in which their daily bread is baked! On my word, they do. They get into it, roast in it, sweat in it but need I go more into detail? I think not. I have said that the moujik boys never break the ice in their anxiety for out-of-door baths, nor do they bathe outdoors in winter. But, strangely enough, there are some people who do a certain class of penitents. In many Russian villages it is customary for the peas- ants at certain seasons, and upon certain gala days, to array themselves in strange and fantastic disguises, very much as Roman merry-makers do at carnival times. In both instances it is, of course, a survival of an old pagan custom. Rome, the wise, the liberal, the broad-minded for Rome is all these sanctions, or at least does not cen- sure, the paganlike masquerade of the rollicking, carni- val-keeping Italians. But the Russian Church is a jealous church, and says to her children, " Ye shall have no other customs than mine." The Russian peasant who makes holiday in some sort of a heathenish guise feels that he has pandered somewhat to Satan, and given that evil one a mortgage on his future life. To rectify this, the orthodox moujik does penance, and in a way that can 192 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. but remind us of the penitential performances of a devout Hindoo who has broken his caste. In Russia you are re- minded hourly of the Orient. Above all, you are re- minded of China. But to our penitent Ivan who has worn sinful raiment: how does Ivan cleanse himself, how re- gain his orthodox caste? Listen. There is a peculiarly interesting and picturesque Rus- sian religious ceremonial called " The Blessing of the Waters." It takes place in winter. A hole is made in the ice, and to the accompaniment of prayer and sacred song a cross is plunged into the water. As soon as the religious rite is concluded, Ivan plunges in, and as nearly as possible where the cross was submerged. Incredible as it may seem, I never heard of this icy penance killing Ivan; and he has the happy assurance that his faithful mind and his devout body are purged from the uncleanness they had absorbed from his indiscreet wearing of heathenlike gar- ments. CHAPTER XX. THE GALA PERFORMANCE AND THE RUSSIAN" STAGE. THE theatre, among other public institutions, was also honoured during the coronation of the Tsar. I did not suppose that with all the other enormous functions on their hands, with all the infinite weariness of reiterated ceremonial to which the Tsar and his courtiers were sub- jected, he would have chosen this occasion for going to the theatre solely for amusement or recreation. No. In Rus- sia the stage is greatly honoured and warmly supported by the nobility and by the throne; and an occasion such as the crowning of a Tsar could not be allowed to pass without setting the imperial seal of approval upon an in- stitution that in every country does so much to alleviate the cares and dissipate the anxieties of mankind. I was glad to find that Russia delights to honour her artists of merit, and that the theatre was not forgotten upon this great occasion of national rejoicing. When we drove up to the entrance of the opera house on the evening set apart for the great gala performance, it was a blaze of light and beauty. Over the great porch, which is surmounted by a magnificent group of statuary, was an enormous illumination which threw the mythological figures out in bold relief, and made them assume even greater proportions than they usually bear. All round the cornice a perfect embroidery of lights brought into delicate and exquisitely beautiful contrast the architec- tural features of the imposing building. Over the main entrance a canopy of gold and scarlet, mingled with the national colours, made a passage worthy of an Emperor. 194: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Of course, all the paths leading into the various entrances were covered with the colour of royalty; and there were hosts of soldiers in brilliant uniforms, and attaches of the opera house, wearing the imperial household livery, wait- ing to receive the resplendent company which was pres- ently to fill the theatre and make it seem something more than a scene from this commonplace world of ours. I thought I had seen as much in the way of magnificent spectacle during the different ceremonies as even Eussia could display; but I am forced to confess that, consid- ered as a gorgeous display of wealth and beauty, of variety in design, of wild revelry in colour, of jewels of untold value, the gala performance was simply beyond any ordi- nary creation of an intoxicated imagination. Of course, such gatherings always are more effective in a brilliantly-lighted theatre than they are when viewed by the cold and severe light of day. Then, too, the opera house itself was no mean part of the spectacle. Its interior was gorgeous in gold and scarlet. Beautiful designs enriched the walls, and the boxes were draped in brocades and vel- vets, every line of which was accentuated by threads of gold. The great chandelier which hung from the centre of the ceiling, and the innumerable lights which were held aloft by dainty golden figures standing out from the side walls, illuminated the scene so that not a single feature was obscured. As deep answereth to deep, so upon that night from every part of the large theatre did jewel answer to jewel, and the face of flashing beauty respond from one box to beauty quite as great in another. I enjoyed the very great privilege of occupying a box near the proscenium, from which I was enabled to look down upon the scene in the parquet or orchestra stalls, and also to every corner of the immense house. It is no exaggeration to say that when the audience had gathered and the seats were filled, the scene was one of such splendour that it is hopeless to at- tempt to describe it adequately. The imperial box was in the centre of the first tier. It was a very large affair; be- sides the Emperor and Empress, there were seated and standing in this box a number of royal guests. The Tsar, I GALA PERFORMANCE AND RUSSIAN STAGE. 195 accompanied by the Tsaritsa, arrived at half-past eight. And such a welcome as they received! Perhaps the theatre, with its resounding walls, echoing and re-echoing the great shouts which went up, served to augment the en- thusiasm and make it seem even greater than it was. But be that as it may, the welcome which the imperial couple received was as warm as one could wish, and they seemed to be deeply moved and to appreciate greatly the wonderful greeting. They stood and bowed for several seconds; and as they bowed, the shouts gathered re- newed force. The Tsaritsa, looking as beautiful as ever, was dressed in white, and wore her wonderful pearls and a coronet of diamonds. She was evidently the object of the most loyal and hearty interest on the part of all present. And now the audience was seated. The lower floor upon which I looked down was a mass of colour and sparkle and gold, for it was filled with officers men of the highest rank, distinction, and achievement in their various serv- ices; and every one of them was clad in his most sumptuous uniform, glistening with orders, the gorgeous variety of colours brightened by the ever-recurring gold. It was a scene I shall never forget, and the like of which I had never seen before, and probably shall not look upon again. And in the boxes the beauty of the fair wearers of royal and imperial raiment must have been great indeed to stand the wonderful frame in which it was set; but it did stand it, and triumphed over it, for here were gathered women as beautiful as any in Europe. Back of the Emperor's box was an immense drawing- room for the imperial party. At both sides of the imperial box were boxes filled with princes and grand dukes in all their gala dress, making a rich setting for the main figures in the centre; for of the eminent persons there, only those highest in rank were furnished with seats in the immediate vicinity of the Tsar. As the imperial party entered and left the theatre, every one present rose, and remained standing, in the first case until they had taken their seats, and in the other until they were out of the theatre. 196 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. The stage performance would have to be wonderful indeed to outshine the spectacle before the footlights. And it was so. Indeed, it was difficult at the close of the evening to say which provided the most glorious sight, the theatrical spectacle behind the footlights, with all its wealth of tinsel and its vari-coloured lights, bringing out each feature and enriching it a hundredfold, or the company of royalties gathered from all parts of the world as an audience. I could but think of the boast which Napoleon made to one of his favourite actors, when en- couraging him to do his best at a gala performance which he gave at Dresden: "I will fill the parquet for you with an audience of kings! " But the stage was true to its richest if not its highest traditions upon this occasion. Of course, one would scarcely have looked for anything heavy for a performance of this description, and if he had, he would have been disappointed. It was not a play of Shakespeare, nor a problem play of the modern school, which we were invited to attend upon this memorable night. Indeed, I think anything of that sort would have been wearying to the audience present, for every one there was seething with excitement, and it was no occasion upon which to regret the woes of Hamlet or sigh over the mis- fortunes of a second Mrs. Tanqueray. It was joyful Rus- sia which was present; and therefore the performance was very properly of a kind fitted to merrymaking and revelry. First came the national opera, A Life for the Tsar. The music was, of course, of a highly patriotic character; and the scenes such as were calculated to harmonize with the feelings of those present who had been assisting in one way and another at a veritable coronation. The stage pictures presented in this work were delightfully true to the Eussia which I had been so sedulously studying for several weeks. Groups of Russians of all degrees, in the costumes of peasant, and merchant, and prince, were seen gathered in some familiar street, thanking Heaven with devout mien for their new Tsar, and presently throwing their caps aloft, and breaking into cheers which seemed too GALA PERFORMANCE AND RUSSIAN STAGE. 197 real to be of the stage, stagey. Another group was seen outside the Cathedral of St. Basil, which was represented in all its Oriental and bewildering confusion of architecture and colour. No one who has not seen the rich and varied use of colour employed by all classes in Eussia can imagine to just what extremes the arrangement of colours in this picture was carried. Yellow and scarlet, green and blue and gold and purple, white and maroon and pink, and silver and gold were mingled in a maze of inex- tricable but always admirable confusion. And then the lights! Everything that could be done with lime light and calcium and electric light to enrich and ennoble a stage spectacle was done. The effect can be imagined. It was a show worthy of the audience which was gathered to witness it. From a spectacular point of view I could not possibly give it higher praise. And after this the ballet. This was, of course, in many respects similar to all other ballets; but I have never seen, even at the Empire in London, or at any of our best houses in America, anything which equalled that which had upon this occasion been prepared for the Tsar and his guests. The theme was the Birth of Light. Light was represented as buried in ocean depths in the person of the pearl, to be rescued and brought to earth by the forces of Good, and to be restrained and kept in darkness, if pos- sible, by the powers of Evil. The reader can easily imagine what a successful stage manager could make of such a theme in the way of brilliant stage pictures. Knights clad in gleaming armour of coral and richly coloured shells and anemone fought for mer- maids whose fairy forms were resplendent with the soft light of opals and shimmering pearls. Mammoth green sea monsters, with naming eyes of scarlet, crept about and in and out of gigantic shells, and the scene went on from struggle to struggle, Light and the Truth always com- ing nearer to the surface, and the powers of Evil receding into their native darkness. And through it all the best dancers in the world, who had been specially brought to Moscow for the occasion, threaded their sinuous and gra- 198 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. cious way to music as soft and sensuous as ever wooed a maiden or told the love of a suffering swain. The scene was altogether too costly to make it possible for an ordinary management to give anything like it as part of a regular performance. I thpught the combina- tion of performance and ballet most happy. The crown- ing of the Tsar gave expression to what every one present was feeling: enthusiasm over and happy wishes for the young couple who sat together in the midst of the brilliant throng; the Triumph of Light over Darkness provided a theme for happy augury for the reign just commencing; for who would not say,, as he witnessed the final triumph of Light in the mimic show of the stage, " So may Light triumph, now and always, through the reign of the new Tsar! " Between the acts there was a sumptuous collation served in the corridors of the opera house, including the omni- present champagne for champagne is omnipresent in Kussia to all of which the guests of the evening were royally welcome; and every one was a guest, for this entire performance was provided by the Ceremonies Committee. In many ways I was even more interested in the sev- eral minor and altogether ordinary theatrical performances that I witnessed while in Eussia than I was in the great gala performance of the coronation celebration. It was sumptuous beyond words. It o'ertopped all the perform- ances of my most excited and most inspired imaginings. But for all that, and for all its intense loyalty, it was a cosmopolitan show it was Eussian in its splendour, it was Eussian in its daring, it was Eussian in its contemptuous disregard of expense or trouble; but, in spite of all that, it was on cosmopolitan lines. The stage markets, the scene ateliers of the world, had been ransacked for the elaboration and the perfection of its ensemble. The per- formance was cosmopolitan and the audience was cosmo- politan. The former, not because premieres of many nations danced out its brief but maddeningly beautiful life, but because it was the concentration of all that many nations have achieved in theatrical and spectacular art. GALA PERFORMANCE AND RUSSIAN STAGE. 199 The audience was cosmopolitan, not because of the in- cidental presence of guests from many nations, but because the rich and the travelled are cosmopolitan at the core, citizens of the world the earth over. The men of some nations are far slower to come out of their national shell than are the men of others, but they do come out all of them, if they are rich and if they travel. The coronation ceremonies interested me and delighted me immensely; but Eussia interested me far more in- tensely; and so it was that the peep shows and the side shows, the ridiculous melodramas, the garish plays, and the indescribable ballets of gape-a-mouth Ivan Ivanovitch (shows and performances that I paid my honest kopecks to witness, and watched sitting beside Ivan upon a bench of paintless wood) interested me more, and gave me far more to remember and ponder over than did the supreme, sublime gala performance of the newly crowned Tsar of all the Russias, Nicholas Alexandrovitch. Tell you about those Russian people's plays about the truly Slavic drama and about the Russian actors? "No, I can not; the theme is too big, and I am too con- vinced of its greatness even to attempt to deal with it in the meagre space at my disposal. 14 CHAPTER XXI. THE CITY OF THE FIRST MODERN TSAR. I LEFT Moscow finally on the evening of June 7th. To say that I was surfeited with my stay in the most sacred of Russian cities would be untrue. I was, how- ever, quite satisfied. Like one who has sat long at a sumptuous banquet, and has eaten and drunk all that he requires, and is then glad to go out into the fresh air, so was I glad to get away from the atmosphere of ceremony and festival back into the ordinary affairs of everyday life, and to reflect upon all the wonders I had seen and all the rejoicings in which I had participated. The ride to St. Petersburg is one of slightly over thirteen hours. We left Moscow at 10.30 P. M. on Sunday night and arrived in the capital of Peter the Great at 12 A. M. the next day. There is nothing to be added to my impressions already recorded of Russian railway travel. It is slow but comfortable; and after one has so far become Oriental- ized as to be largely indifferent to the passage of time, the slowness is regarded with indifference. St. Petersburg is the exact antithesis of Moscow. The latter is ancient, picturesque, and irregular; the former is modern, commonplace, and regular. It is like Chicago built on a plain; its streets are laid out on the rectangular plan so familiar to the cities of a new country, and it bears marks on every hand of being what it is a city made to order. It is built along the Neva, has many splendid build- ings, and presents some delightful spots for parks and drives; but the quaintness, the antiquity, and the ecclesi- 200 THE CITY OF THE FIRST MODERN TSAR. 201 asticism of the Holy City are all absent from the Capital of the North. We staid while in St. Petersburg at the Hotel de France, a thoroughly modern and comfortable hotel, and one con- veniently situated to all those points of interest which the traveller usually visits. We spent eight days in this hotel, and have only the pleasantest recollections of its comfort and cleanliness. St. Petersburg is like a city built upon an enormous float. It is perfectly flat, and occupies several islands formed by the delta of the Neva, together with the mainland lying several miles along the left bank of that river. The nature of the ground upon which the city is built necessitated the erection of many of the buildings on foundations of piles, and the difficulties which must have been encountered in conquering the sea in order to lay these foundations presented a task to the founder of the city which only such a daring and restless tempera- ment and determination of will as his would have sought to accomplish. The best view of St. Petersburg is obtained from the dome of the Cathedral of St. Isaac. From this point the city is spread out in simple and panoramic dis- play before the eye. By a half-hour's study of it, the stranger is able to master its main divisions and locate its principal objects of interest. The Neva in summer pre- sents a very bright and lively appearance. It is alive with passenger steamers very similar to those in use on the Seine pleasure boats, yachts, and other craft. On a clear day its waters reflect the palatial buildings which line its banks. Peter built his capital upon the water for the ex- press purpose of cultivating a fondness for that water in his people. The great Tsar's relations to the sea are among the most interesting of his highly diversified life. He had been frightened when a child of five years by the unex- pected sound of a cascade, and for years afterward the sight of water sent him into the cataleptic fits from which, like several of his ancestors, he suffered. He not only overcame this fear of the water by constantly accus- toming himself to it, but developed such a fondness for 202 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. the sea that he built St. Petersburg literally upon it, and " without bridges, that our people may be constantly on the waters of the Neva crossing and recrossing." The one predominating personality in St. Petersburg is that of its founder. It attacks one on every side. Just as in Paris to-day one can not escape the omnipresence of Napoleon,, so in St. Petersburg one can not escape from the mighty personality of Peter. Speaking of the semi-barbaric and Oriental atmosphere in which Peter was born and reared, Dean Stanley says, in a passage of great strength: " What must the man have been who, born and bred in this at- mosphere, conceived and by one tremendous wrench, almost by his own manual labour and his own sole gigantic strength, executed the prodigious idea of dragging the nation, against its will, into the light of Europe, and erecting a new capital and a new empire among the cities and the kingdoms of the world. St. Petersburg is, in- deed, his most enduring monument. A spot up to that time without a single association, selected instead of the Holy City to which even now every Eussian turns as to his mother; a site which but a few years before had belonged to his most inveterate enemies, won from morass and forest, with difficulty defended, and perhaps even yet doomed to fall before the inundations of its own river; and now, though still Asiatic beyond any city of the West, yet in grandeur and magnificence, in the total subjugation of nature to art, entirely European." It was with such thoughts as these teeming in my mind that I started for my first drive in St. Petersburg with my friend Soustchevsky. I soon found that Peter's idea of a bridgeless Neva had been abandoned. The river is now spanned by four bridges, three of which are floating bridges, removed in winter to avoid the ice, and one, the Nicholas Bridge, on massive granite piers, which, of course, stands permanently. We crossed the river by the Troitski floating bridge, which spans it near the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul, between that fortress and the Champ de Mars. I had first noticed the fortress from the balcony of the English Club on the other side of the THE CITY OF THE FIRST MODERN TSAR. 203 river, and was glad of an opportunity to take a nearer view of a building so full of suggestions of the Great Tsar. The fortress itself is far from imposing viewed from a distance. It is a long, low, red-brick building, somewhat mellowed in appearance by age, and presenting as its most notable feature the tall spire of the Cathe- dral of St. Peter and St. Paul within. The garrison in the fort is maintained for guard purposes; but the military strength of the fortress would be absolutely nil against a few rounds from a modern warship. I shall not go into a weary description of the churches of St. Petersburg; but it is perhaps worth remarking that this cathedral spire rises to a height of three hundred and two feet. To me the objects of real and vital interest were the cottage in which Peter lived while he was supervising the building of the city, and the boat in which he first learned to sail. It is called the " Grandsire," as from his fondness for sail- ing engendered by his aquatic amusements in this boat Peter's enthusiasm for the sea was begotten, and so his determination to create a navy for Eussia, and to intro- duce her to the circle of European nations. The boat is kept in exactly the condition in which he used it, and so is the cottage in which he lived, which stands a short distance to the right of the fortress. One of the rooms his bedroom is now used for a dining-room. In front of the cottage stands his bust, and the grounds about the cottage are prettily arranged, though somewhat contracted. This was the first house built in St. Petersburg, its foun- dations being laid in 1703. Our drive continued along a road which passes through a district of comparatively poorer residences, leaves the barracks on the right, and finally reaches the fine suburban locality so much affected by the elite of the city for their evening drives and walks. " The islands of the Neva," of which there are half a dozen larger and several smaller ones, are all beautifully situated. The breeze from the Gulf of Finland sweeps across them and thus keeps them cool upon the hottest day of sum- mer. The pretty summer homes of the better class of citizens, surrounded by trees and flowers, with their gar- 204 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. dens running down to the banks of the river, which is here clear and peaceful, form a picture of arcadian beauty. Late in the afternoon the fashion and wealth of the city may be seen driving or walking among these islands, and one of them, which projects far out into the gulf, cor- responds very closely to the promenade in Hyde Park the people leaving their carriages here to enjoy a stroll and a chat. I should say that the different islands which make up this eligible group are connected by bridges, and one can either walk or drive freely from one to the other. Having made the round of the islands, we drove back to the English Club, where we dined. This is called the English Club because Peter the Great founded it upon his return from his sojourn in England, and incorporated in it the ideas he had gathered during his residence in London. For aught I know, there is not a single member of English nationality in the club, unless it be an honor- ary one. The club is in the best quarter of the city, and stands on the bank of the Neva, near the Winter Palace, the Admiralty, etc. It is a very delightful and sumptuous lounging place for the better class of Eussians. Sitting on its balcony after dinner, and looking across at the fortress, and to the left where Basil Island presents many of the finest public buildings in the city, the scene is a very fine and imposing one. The club itself contains every comfort. Its reading-room has the latest and best of European literature on file. Its billiard-rooms are well arranged and lighted, the tables being the large ones used in the English game, which to an American player at first are so difficult. There are no accommodations in this or other Eussian clubs for the residence of members. The dinner to which we sat down was on the table d'hote plan. It was excellent, too, and the Zakuska which preceded it was served in a different room. We dined at large tables, two or three, I forget which, about which the mem- bers sat quite en famille. I liked this feature. It pro- moted sociability in the club and turned the dinner from a solemn function into an occasion of mirth and jollity. It was after dinner, while enjoying a cup of coffee THE CITY OF THE FIRST MODERN TSAR. 205 and a cigarette upon the balcony of the club, that I had a very good opportunity to see the beauties which the Neva presents. As one looks down the river, the scene pre- sented by the Exchange, the University buildings, the Academy of Arts, the Corps de Cadets, and the Academy of Sciences, surrounded as they are by well-kept sward and beautiful flower beds, is peculiarly pleasing. The stately Exchange building stands on the point of the island nearest the club. It is of white marble, and great flights of steps lead down from it to the water's edge. On each side of it, and in front, are two immense columns surmounted by figures of Atalanta bearing urns in which fires are sometimes lighted. Beyond this and farther down the river is the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, which is an excel- lently equipped and very popular organization. It sup- plies its members with rowboats, sailing craft of nearly every description devoted to pleasure, and has several fine steam yachts, which are at the disposal of members for trips on the Gulf. On a summer's evening, as one sits on the balcony of the English Club, or strolls upon the quay, or listens to the band in the garden of the Summer Palace, the pleasure craft, prettily decorated launches from the Admiralty, and the swift-moving passenger boats, backed by the splendid buildings and gilded spires of the churches, form a most beautiful picture indeed, and one which is turned to again and again with pleasure. St. Petersburg has its trams, electric lights, and busy thoroughfares. The Nevsky Prospect, which runs in a straight line from the river to the Moscow Railway Station several miles away, is one of the most attractive streets to be found in any city. I shall not dwell, however, upon the various " show " sights of St. Petersburg, for not only would this carry me too far, but my primary object, which was to convey a fair impression of the coronation of the Tsar, is accom- plished. I can not, however, close my brief record of my stay in St. Petersburg without mentioning a most de-' lightful trip which we made to Cronstadt in company with Mr. Greger, the former Charge d? Affaires of the Russian Government in America, and his beautiful wife. 206 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. The party consisted of our hosts, Madame Schege, Paul Schege, my mother, the Misses Koon, Mr. Nobokoff, a gen- tleman of the Chamber of the Imperial Court, G., and myself. Mr. Greger had secured a most comfortable steam yacht from the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, and in this we made the journey, in a very independent and charming manner, to the great naval station of the northern capital. The distance to Cronstadt is about seven miles, but the navi- gation is difficult, and our run down took long enough for us to do full justice to a most excellent lunch which had been provided by our hospitable hosts. We drank the health of Tsar, Tsaritsa, and of dear old far-away America in some excellent champagne; and presently descried in the offing a boat from the Minneapolis, which was then at Cronstadt in dry dock undergoing re- pairs. The young officer in charge hailed us and we found that he had been sent out to welcome us back to United States territory, aboard the warship. It did not take us long to transfer ourselves to the ship's boat, and once aboard, we soon made our way through one of the tunnel-shaped canals which led from the roadway to the interior of the docks. As I have said, the ship was in dock; but aboard she was as " right as rain," and we were welcomed to her deck with musical honours, the band playing " Yankee Doodle " as we came over the ship's side. Never, perhaps, does a patriotic strain sound more welcome than in a foreign land, when one has for a long time been absent from home. It is then that one's sup- posed indifference is put to flight; the old familiar air brings back memories of faces, of hard-fought battles, of many a hero's self-sacrifice, and all of a sudden there is a mist across the eyes and a lump in one's throat that tells him that after all he is a pretty enthusiastic American. So it was with us as we heard the old tune from the band of the Minneapolis. We were welcomed to that bit of "home" most cor- dially by Captain Wadley, Commodore Gheen, and the other officers of the ship; and after a good look round the cruiser we adjourned to the wardroom and pledged THE CITY OF THE FIRST MODERN TSAR. 207 the health of the dear old land so far away. The admiral was absent visiting his sister at the time, so we left our cards for him. After quitting the ship we went in com- pany with our hosts for a stroll through the docks. Lieu- tenant Bodiskoe, of the Eussian Navy, who was the officer deputed to attend the Minneapolis while she was in port, was very anxious that we should go aboard his ship, which was not far away; but, as we intended to return by the way of Peterhof, we were obliged to decline. The fortress of Cronstadt is well worth a visit. It was built by Peter the Great in 1703. It contains a garrison of twenty-five thousand men, and is thoroughly calculated to protect the neighbouring city from any foreign ap- proach. This is the chief station for the Baltic fleet of the Eussian Navy, which is sheltered in the harbour be- hind the fortifications. The forts of Cronstadt, begun by Peter, have been strengthened in successive reigns. There is at Cronstadt, besides the garrison, a population of about twenty thousand civilians; and its port has a shipping business of its own quite independent of that of St. Peters- burg, which passes through the great canal constructed to overcome the bar at the harbour's mouth. The dry docks at Cronstadt are thoroughly modern, built of solid masonry, and have accommodations for the largest ves- sels afloat. We visited Peterhof on our return, as we had planned, and found it a delightfully situated and very beautiful imperial residence. It was built by Peter the Great, but has been greatly added to by successive sovereigns. From there we steamed back to St. Petersburg, and to a sumptu- ous dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Greger at Donon's, the famous Delmonico's of St. Petersburg, which served to close most delightfully as cheerful and pleasant a day's picnicking as one could well imagine. CHAPTER XXII. EUSSIAN HOUSES. A CHKONICLE, however brief, of a visit to Russia would be incomplete without a mention of her world-famous horses. Whenever and wherever Russian horses are men- tioned, a name is instantly called to mind, one that is well- nigh inseparable from them that of " Orloff." Many of my readers will perhaps think that this refers to a breed, or a district, the home of a breed, and associate it with the Russian horse as we do the word " Kentucky " with Ameri- can horses, or "Yorkshire" with English; but this is not so. It is the name of one of the most rugged and striking characters in Russian history, Count Alexis Orloff Tchestmensky, to whom is due the credit of first improv- ing the native horses of Russia and establishing the first records of pedigree, many of them, written with his own hand, being still preserved. Count Orion*, born in the early part of the last century, of a poor but noble family, was exceedingly handsome, and of powerful, athletic physique. He had great mental gifts, and was most ener- getic, becoming famous as a successful general, and after- ward adding to his honour and reputation as one of the greatest statesmen of his country and time. He devoted much of his leisure to experimenting with horses and dogs for the purpose of improving the various breeds, and in- troduced many reforms for the benefit of the agricultural and stock-raising classes. His industry in this line bore fruit in the permanent establishment of the breed that was ever afterward to bear his name the Orloff trotter. It is a happy though un-Shakespearian truth that "the RUSSIAN HORSES. 209 good that men do lives after them/' and yet how curiously mankind fixes upon those qualities by which it perpetuates the memory of its fellows! When Orloff is spoken of it is not in connection with his great victories, nor his re- markable achievements in statecraft, but with the horses he loved so well. This is, perhaps, as he would have wished it. His great rugged nature, his modest disposition, his strong mind, and his loyal heart, gave of their best to them, their welfare and improvement. He loved domestic animals, he loved his country, and he did more than any other single man for the domestic animals of his country at a time when they needed it most. He laid the founda- tion so strongly, and planned the structure so well, that to-day, nearly a hundred years after the sod closed over his head, the horses of Eussia are the equals of those of any country in the world; and the Orloff trotter stands not only pre-eminently first, but as the accepted national horse. This being the case, I propose to commence my description of Eussian horses with the Orloff trotter. It is no gigantic task for the breeder of to-day to pro- duce a horse of good form and blood to suit the require- ments of any particular locality. With sufficient funds and fair intelligence at his command, he can quickly col- lect from the different parts of the world the material for his foundation, and in a very few years, with the proper crosses, he will arrive at the desired result. How dif- ferent the task which lay before this noble Slav! He recognised in the native animal a poor, inferior, inefficient beast, in no way suited to the country or the requirements of the people. The time and necessities demanded a more fitting substitute, and he set to work to supply this de- ficiency. Travel in those days was a matter of moment; it meant an expenditure of much time and money. Coun- tries from which he must gather his materials were far distant and difficult of access. The task of transporting home that material when gathered was a stupendous under- taking. While serving in some of his early campaigns he had seen several specimens of the pure Arab, and, recog- nising in it great beauty of form, nobleness, force, and 210 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. energy, he decided to use this blood as his foundation. But for the purposes for which he intended his new breed, the Arab was too small of stature and too fine of coat. The rigours of the Russian winter would soon make an end of so tender-skinned an animal. To remedy this, the Count procured some large, big-boned, heavy-coated Dutch mares. His first experiments were confined to the crossing of these two breeds; and he obtained results evi- dently altogether satisfactory to himself, as we find him having constant recourse to these infusions. He next pro- ceeded to collect other breeds, and to use them in his ex- periments. He seems to have been greatly pleased with the English thoroughbreds, as he bought and used a great many. He added to his stud constantly until, in 1772, we find that he had gathered together forty-six stallions and seventy-four mares, as follows: Stallions. Mares. Arabian 12 10 Persian 3 2 Turkish 1 2 Armenian 1 2 Bulgarian 1 2 Caucasian 1 3 English 20 32 Dutch 1 8 Mecklenburg .... 1 5 Spanish 1 1 Neapolitan 1 1 Polish 1 3 Ukraine 1 1 Crimean 1 2 The Count served as commander-in-chief of the Rus- sian fleets in the war with Turkey in 1770-'74, and ob- tained at its close from Hassan Bey, to whom he had been very kind while holding him a captive, four Arab stallions: Smetanka (colour not given); Sultan, a chestnut; Caesar Bey, a gray; and Arab 1st, also a bay. All of these were RUSSIAN HORSES. 211 supposed to be of the purest Arabian breed, and arrived at Moscow, the Count's home, in 1775. Smetanka was bred to Dutch mares, and from this source in 1778 was pro- duced a horse called Polkan 1st. This horse was again crossed upon the Dutch mares, and in 1784 produced Barss 1st, "a horse with powerful muscles, and an elegant trotter, from which the whole breed originated." Barss 1st was crossed upon mares that combined the following crosses: Arab, English thoroughbred, Dutch and Mecklen- burg; and from this mating begat the three stallions, Dobry, Lubezny, and Lebed, from which have descended all the Or- loff trotters. Thus it will be seen that from a foundation well grounded on Arab and Dutch blood, and by an infusion of two other strains, the Count succeeded in establishing a breed that for size and beauty of form, together with extreme speed and endurance, has no equal. The process followed by Count Orloff in perfecting and fixing permanently this breed after he had once estab- lished it, can be best shown by quoting from the work on Eussian horses by Colonel Theo. Ismailoff, director of the stud of the Grand Duke Dimitry, who was commissioner in charge of the Eussian Horse Exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition. " After having thus established the form of the horse," he says, "most suitable for the needs and conditions of Eussian life, since it had to draw the large and heavy car- riages which were then in vogue, and at that time con- sidered a necessary adjunct of civilized comfort, the Count knew that these fine forms must be fixed and improved or they would degenerate if left to chance. For this pur- pose he kept up systematic trotting exercises of different distances, carefully noting the speeds by a stop watch, and insisting on strictly regular motion. Short brushes, four times over a course of fourteen hundred feet, the turning about being done at a walk, served to keep up and develop the regularity and speed. To develop power and endur- ance in his horses, the Count often made trips to the vil- lage of Ostrov, twelve miles from Moscow, accompanied by his pupils and admirers." 212 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Stachoff and Jichareff, two Eussian writers of the Count's time, say that they have been eyewitnesses to exercises such as that described above; but their descrip- tion of what Colonel Ismailoff calls a stop watch is rather amusing to those familiar with the " split second fly backs" now in vogue. "A servant stood on the course with a large timepiece of the size of a soup plate, over the dial of which ran a big second hand, and he reported the time to the Count after the race; this time seldom exceeded thirty seconds." When we realize that fourteen hundred feet is over a quarter of a mile, and that the Count's horse must have trotted at a speed greater than a mile in two minutes, to say nothing of the weight of the vehicle then probably used, or the condition of the courses of that day, I think that the " soup-plate " timer must have been a trifle fast. It was probably the one the Count used when he had a sale on, or our ancient chroniclers must have been mistaken. In connection with the ac- count just quoted there are two interesting facts viz., that this is the earliest record I have ever been able to find of a watch being used to time the speed of horses, and that probably Count Orloff was the originator of this practice, although his instrument was evidently a crude affair. Again, the method he employed to develop the speed in his animals, and to fix it when developed, is exactly the one adopted at the present day by the best and most suc- cessful trainers of trotters in America. The Orloff trotter is one of the purest gaited animals in existence. Even in races you see none of the boots and rigging so commonly used upon our own trotters. They travel with their legs well under them, never sprawling behind, and with more action than we are accustomed to see upon our tracks. That the Russians have succeeded in developing extreme speed, while retaining form and size in their animals, is evidenced by the records they make, which equal, or nearly so, those of American trotters. I was very fortunate during my visit to Moscow in witnessing trotting races in which both Russian and American horses participated, and which I shall describe in another chapter. The colour of the " Or- RUSSIAN HORSES. 213 loff " varies, being black, bay, chestnut, brown, and gray; but I believe many of the purest breed are of the last colour. This was, however, naturally very unpopular, and the use of many of the best animals and strains of blood came near being discontinued several years ago on account of it, when, the matter being brought to the attention of the Emperor, he ordered that all the horses purchased for use in the imperial stables should be white. Many of the aristocracy quickly imitated the Emperor, and thus the very best of the Orloff blood was saved from being irretrievably lost. The Orloff trotter is not only the light harness race horse of Eussia, but almost the only carriage animal used there. During the mild weather the Eussians use a light victoria, drawn by a pair of Orloffs, and drive at a furious pace. It is common to see these vehicles flying through the city streets at a much faster than a three-minute gait. What iron limbs these animals must necessarily have to stand this use, when we remember that all Eussian cities are paved almost exclusively with cobble stones! In the winter the one-, two-, and three-horse sleighs are seen everywhere dashing along at a tremendous speed. Then every street, boulevard, and road presents a scene similar to that viewed in our country upon Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Jerome Avenue, New York, and like special thoroughfares frequented by the "tal- ent." While developing the trotter, Count Orloff produced many animals not up to his standard for size or form or gait in perfecting and perpetuating this breed. They were withal beautiful animals, and with his keen percep- tion he at once saw that, with the proper infusions of new blood, he could from these evolve an excellent type of sad- dle horse. This he immediately proceeded to do. With the assistance of Count Yorontzoff, then Eussian Minister at the Court of St. James, he purchased the following thor- oughbred celebrities of that day: Tartar by Florizel, win- ner of the St. Leger of 1792; Dardalus by Justice, winner of the Derby of 1794; also stallions and mares by Eclipse, IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. Harehound, Gunpowder, and Potatoes, altogether some twenty-three stallions and fifty-three mares. These he crossed freely with the animals he had already selected from those of his own breeding, and used Arab stallions for an out cross. By judicious selection and mating he eventually produced a magnificent type of large saddle horse, a breed that is maintained and kept pure in the Government studs to-day. These horses are used almost exclusively for mounting the Russian regular cavalry regi- ments, and are wonderfully uniform in their size and ap- pearance. Count Orloff gives great credit for the per- fecting of this breed to the English trainers whom he em- ployed, and who accompanied the thoroughbreds to Eus- sia. These three trainers were named Roman, Smith, and Banks. The two breeds just described are the ones to which Count Orloff chiefly devoted his attention, and they are the ones that bear his name. There are, however, other breeds of horses in Russia, quite peculiar to that country, and among them that of greatest importance and most widely used is the Bitiug, a small draught-horse, very strong and quick, in almost universal use in the cities and on the farms of Russia. One sees them at every turn, trotting along, drawing the heavy, clumsy wagons, weighing three or four times as much as, and of about one quarter the capacity of, an ordinary American wagon, with an im- mense gaily-painted wooden arch over their heads. They are most symmetrically formed, with hard, flat legs, and beautifully developed muscle power. Their heads strong- ly resemble that of the Arab, being neat and fine, with small ears and large, full eye. They are of different colours, but blacks seem to be in the. majority. They are active fellows and can get over the ground at a very smart gait, bending their knees and hocks like a hackney. In fact, they very much resemble a Norfolk hackney, but are much larger and thicker. They are bred along the river Bitiug, whence their name, and form the chief industry of the provinces of Tambov and Vorenej. Here they have been produced and reared for over a hundred and fifty years RUSSIAN HORSES. 215 some claim since the reign of Peter the Great, who is credited with being the first to perfect this animal. Others maintain that the close proximity of the celebrated Khreno- voy estate of Count Orloff exercised its good influence upon this breed. Be that as it may, the Bitiug is cer- tainly a most excellent horse, and of great value to the country. It will be seen that in Russia, as well as in all other European countries and in America, the Arab has played no small part in the foundation of their different races of horses. As has been shown, the horses of this great Empire in almost every case trace back to the Arabs im- ported by Count Orloff. So, also, we find the English thor- oughbreds and hackneys claiming Godolphin Arabian, Darley Arabian, and Byaly Turk as their common ances- tors. The first Arabian horse was taken to England in 1121 during the reign of Henry I. Even the great Nor- man Percheron of France displays the name of the Godol- phin Arabian in its pedigree. American pedigrees are full of Arab blood, as also are those of Austria, Spain, Italy, and other continental countries. It is getting very diffi- cult to procure Arab horses of pure blood, even in the Orient. But Russia, with more care and forethought than her continental sisters, has preserved this strain pure, and has within her borders immense numbers of these beauti- ful and now hardy animals a hardiness which they have gained through residence for generations in her rigor- ous climate. These are greatly affected for saddle horses by the gentry, and upon them are mounted the Cos- sacks of the Guard and some of the light cavalry regi- ments. I have given a brief account of the more important breeds of horseflesh which prevail in Russia. There are several others, but they are scarcely of peculiar interest. The horse of the steppes of Siberia resembles closely our own Western broncho. There are other similar families of trotters and draught horses. Russia also produces many thoroughbreds, but they differ in few points from those of England or America. I could fill a good-sized volume 15 216 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. with, this to me fascinating subject; but I fear that the general reader would find but slight interest in it,, and can scarcely hope for an audience of horse breeders or students of equineology for a book bearing the title of the present one. CHAPTEE XXIII. RUSSIAN EACES. ONE delightful afternoon during the period of the coronation ceremonies, at the invitation of my friend Colo- nel Ismailoff, I drove out to the trotting track and wit- nessed some excellent races. The trotting track is situated upon the Boulevard Tverskaya, about a mile from Moscow, and next to the running course. It is very similar in plan and construction to like places in America. But the track itself, instead of being made of clay, is of brick dust pounded very fine and packed and rolled very hard. The space within the track is a beautiful green lawn, occu- pied in the centre by the band stand. The entrance to the grounds, the stands for reserved seats and boxes, and the betting ring, are all quite like those at the French race courses. The club house stands in the centre at one side of the track. It is a very pretty two-storied structure. The front of the first floor is occupied by a private stand for members and their families. The interior is divided off into dining, smoking, and retiring rooms for their use. The second floor has upon its front a balcony that ex- tends out over the roof of the stand below. This is for the use of the judges, governing committee, and officers. The interior of this floor is similar in arrangement to the one below. In the centre of this upper stand or porch is a space reserved for the presiding judge and timekeepers. Upon the rail, about three feet from the floor, is fixed a marble slab upon which is a keyboard connected by elec- tric wires with different parts of the track and stables, and last, but not least in importance, with an immense 217 218 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. electrical timing clock. By means of this keyboard the presiding judge summons the horses to the post, starts them, and records the time made in each heat, or rather in each race, for in Russia each heat is a race. In this and in the distance trotted lies the greatest difference between American and Eussian trotting races. Upon the day of which I speak the stands and lawns were well filled. The bright uniforms of the officers mingled with the gay toi- lettes of the women folk, and were neutralized by the sombre costumes of the civilian male members of Mos- cow's elite. The racing commenced at four o'clock and lasted till after seven, a rather late hour to American minds; but when we left the course the day was as light and bright as when we arrived. I had anticipated seeing some curious sights upon the track, as I had heard and read so much of the peculiar vehicles used for racing among the Russians. In this I was not disappointed. A few of the trotting men of Russia still cling to their national appliances and costumes, and I fortunately saw three or four of those queer little wagons to which the horses were attached in the Russian style, and driven by native drivers. I luckily succeeded in getting a very good picture of one of these. For the most part, however, American pneumatic sulkies obtained, and American track harness was used. I was also surprised to find many fa- miliar faces " riding the ring " as of yore in my own dis- tant land. Frank and Sam Caton and the latter's son piloted frequent winners that day. The Brothers Raymer and old " Red Murphy," the hero of many a hard-fought turf battle on Yankee soil, seem to have lost none of their skill or cunning by being transferred to another clime. They all, however, have apparently forgotten how to make use of the usual "kick" that follows every contest of this character in our country; or the racing rules of Russia have effectually done away with this annoying feature; for I stood at the elbow of the judge all the afternoon and failed to see or hear anything that could in the least be mistaken for a complaint or protest. There are sev- eral points at which Russian harness races differ greatly RUSSIAN RACES. 219 from ours. Some of these differences are decided improve- ments, some of them are not. The first that attracted my attention was the absence of all class distinction. No horse was barred from any race on account of its speed. One naturally supposes that under such conditions one horse would win all or nearly all of the races. This is avoided by a system of handicapping which is most excel- lent if justly applied. Their handicapping is one of weight and distance. For example, when a horse shows itself superior by reason of speed, it has to pull a few more pounds' weight and start a few yards farther back, there- by travelling a greater distance. This tends to increase the stamina and endurance of the animals, and I consider it a good practice. In Russian races, therefore, the horses do not start abreast, but at different points beliind the post; nor is a flying start made, but the animals are stationed at their designated places, and at a given signal upon the electric gong all start, thus doing away with jostling and jockeying for position and an advantageous " send-off." Of necessity, the judge has a greater stretch of the track to observe, but from his elevated position this is not dif- ficult. Another wide difference is in the length of races trotted. They are from one to two and a half miles, but these, being dashes, are not so taxing, on the whole, as a number of heats of lesser distance. Another form of race quite popular in Russia, and one tending to test the endurance of the horses to the utmost, is to drive them from twenty-five to fifty miles, and then finish the last mile or two at the limit of their speed. The animal completing this task in the best condition and show- ing the greatest speed at the finish is adjudged the win- ner. Some of the courses in Russia are divided into a series of little tracks about ten feet wide and separated from each other by a strip of sod a couple of feet in width. By this means each horse contending has a track of its own, and the difference in their lengths makes the required handicapping distance for horses of various speeds. This does away with all struggle to obtain the "pole." An- other feature to which I alluded in the last chapter, and 220 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. which impressed me most favourably, was the almost uni- versal absence on the native animals of " boots " and "gaiting" appliances. This distinction enabled one to pick out easily the Eussian horses from the imported ones, even when they were both " hitched " to American sulkies. Upon this particular afternoon the contests were in the main close, and some of the finishes exciting, while the time made was good in nearly every case. Here another feature of their system produced a good impression. No sooner was a race finished than two men, carrying aloft on poles a couple of blackboards, upon which were marked the name and number of the winner, with the distance of the race and the time made, proceeded to every point of the grand stand, lawn, and grounds, so that all could read for themselves the result, thus making annoying questions unnecessary. I enjoyed this afternoon among the horses and their stanch friends immensely. It was as great a relief as it was a change from the court functions and ceremonials through which we were passing and had yet to pass. I met at the club house many delightful people, both men and women, among them Count Alexander Merod, Equerry to his Imperial Majesty and Director of the Government thoroughbred stud, located at Warschan Teraspal, near Bela. He told me that he had in his keeping Lavish, Sally L, and Uarda, three thorough- breds that I had bred and sold to the Russian Govern- ment several years ago. I was delighted to hear good ac- counts of them from him, and naturally felt a pride that my humble efforts at breeding had found an appreciative person in such a distant land. We talked long regarding these former members of my little equine family, and the Count courteously invited me to make him a visit at the stud. I was, however, unable to do this owing to the dis- tance and the press of other engagements which would quite fill my time in the country. What with good races and pleasant people, this delightful afternoon passed all too quickly, and the time for our home-going was scarcely welcomed. I afterward stole away several times from the RUSSIAN RACES. 221 atmosphere of glitter and gilt to pass a few hours with my new-foimd four-footed friends of the trotting track and race course opposite, and spent the early mornings watching them at their exercise and inspecting them in their stables. I remember one glorious morning, about four o'clock, driving through sleeping Moscow in an old tumble-down drosky to join Ismailoff at the race course. And what a superb morning it was too; how refreshing the smell of the new grass upon the plain of the great inclosure; how bracing the fresh air not yet heated by the just-rising sun! How pleasing the colours of the great city, softened by the distance and the haze of the early dawn! I drank deep breaths of the glorious air and watched the horses at their morning work. Here long lines of them were walking in ceaseless rounds; there two or three were just starting off on their warming gallop. Along the rails one had just swept in his finishing brush. Near where we stood several were being cooled off, wrapped in their vari-coloured blankets. Time, distance, everything real vanished! I was once more in my native land. I stood in the centre of the infield at dear old Sheepshead. Surely, that flying steed is the mighty Salvator! This restless little beast, just coming upon the track with the superb shape of his head disfigured by hood and blinkers, is the game little sway-backed Ten- ny. That blanketed figure slowly moving under the shed yonder is the queen of them all. No other horse ever walked with that dainty tread but Firenzi. That care- less boy, stripping the long bay, is pulling my own cherry and green sheet from his back. Yonder gilt dome sur- mounts Gilmore's stand at Manhattan. This man com- ing across the field we all know well, and know his clam- bakes better. What race course would be complete with- out dear " old Bab " ? The reverie is on me, and I stand and dream and dream; but the awakening is rude, as all such awakenings are. " Come, let us have some break- fast," remarks my friend, and together with some half dozen sport-loving Russian officers we make our way across the great field to the club house, and there, while doing 222 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. justice to a very welcome meal, discuss speed, stride, wind, form, blemishes, and things that are discussed in every club house on every race track in every country in the world. Time flies! I must be off; so, bidding my pleasant hosts adieu, I hastily enter my decrepit vehicle and am rapidly jerked back into another world and to scenes of a different nature. During my sojourn in St. Petersburg I had two ex- periences that I remember with particular pleasure. One was a forenoon spent with that superb soldier and polished gentleman, General Moerder; and the other was a day at the races at Tsarskoeseloe. When I left Moscow, Colonel Ismailoff said to me, " I want you to know Gen- eral Moerder, and have written to him to call upon you at your hotel." A day or two after my arrival in St. Peters- burg the general called. I was out; but he left his card and a polite note inviting me to come to see him the next day. I gladly availed myself of this opportunity. General Moerder occupies the important position of Direc- tor in Chief of the Department of Horse Breeding of the Eussian Government, and as such has an enormous number of men and horses under his direction. His official resi- dence and offices occupy a large building in the capital city, and it was there I saw him. In response to my card a servant in livery showed me into a drawing-room in the residential portion. Here I was soon joined by the general, a tall, straight, soldierly man, with a handsome face, adorned by a snow-white mustache. His hair is white, and slightly thin on top; he is extremely courtly and has a charm and elegance of manner that not only put you at once at your ease, but attract you to him. Our conversation naturally turned upon horses, which we dis- cussed at some length, dwelling more particularly on those of Eussia and America. I found the general thoroughly well posted, and was surprised at his familiarity with American blood lines and noted individuals that had borne their influence upon our different breeds. He has a large collection of valuable pictures and interesting curiosities, which he showed me with much pride, and RUSSIAN RACES. 223 which I thoroughly enjoyed. After some time spent in this portion of the house we went into that devoted to offi- cial business. Here many rooms were occupied by clerks, and shelves filled with books, papers, and records. Here also was his own private office, with its attendant ante- room. The walls of both were hung with oil portraits of former directors, and such celebrities as Orloff and others who had done much for horse-breeding in Bussia. After introducing several officers who are detailed for work in his bureau, and explaining the methods employed in the conduct of this great department, he led the way to his private apartments, where tea was served. After presenting me with a copy of his work, Apergu Historique sur les Institutions Hippiques et les Races Chevalines de la Russie, he kindly asked me to repeat my visit if the length of my stay in St. Petersburg would per- mit. This visit, although too brief from my point of view, enabled me to gather a rich store of valuable in- formation. The Russian Government has established and maintains this department or bureau, devoted solely to the industry of horse-breeding a department as large and better equipped than our entire Agricultural Department. It is controlled and managed in all its ramifications by a head and a corps of officers thoroughly learned and ex- perienced in this great industry. All books of pedigree and register are not only kept and compiled under Govern- ment supervision, but by the Government itself, and under such regulations as make falsification out of the question. Certificates are given upon paper of such character and under such seals that alteration or counterfeiting is made impossible. The Government has established and main- tains under this department large studs, where not only the best strains of each breed are kept pure, and in their most perfect form, but where all experiments of crossing are tried at Government expense, for the benefit of all Russian breeders. The results of such experiments are accurately kept and full reports published and distributed. The Government offers liberal prizes and money purses 224 IN JOYFUL KUSSIA. under fixed conditions at all shows and race meetings, and has a certain supervision over all of them. It places at different points in the Empire the best obtainable sires of breeds suited to the various localities, for the use of the breeders under specified conditions. The im- mense number of animals produced at these Government studs and experiment stations are used for the army and other Government necessities. By this system disease is stamped out, unsoundness not permitted to be trans- mitted, and animals produced of uniform goodness. The people are spared all expense of experiments, and the best and most suitable blood is placed at their disposal, no mat- ter what remote localities they inhabit. The saving to the Government of the increased expense of purchasing ani- mals for its own use nearly " pays the bill." A few days after my visit to General Moerder I at- tended a race meeting at Tsarskoeseloe, near the beau- tiful palace located in that pretty little village. Ac- companied by three friends I boarded the train, and after a ride of about twenty minutes our journey terminated back of the grand stand at the course, exactly as it would have done at home had we been going down to Graves- end. Leaving the train with the crowd, we were greeted on' every hand by programme boys and loud-voiced tip- sters. We knew them of old, albeit in a different language; and pushing our way along over the rough board walk to the gates, we quickly obtained badges, which were in every respect similar to those in use in America. Passing under the long covered walks, we found ourselves in the betting ring, which was located in the generous space under the grand stand. The buildings and general air of this course reminded me forcibly of old Monmouth Park in its palmy days. I have seen races and race-courses in America, England, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia, and they are wonderfully similar in all things except their methods of betting. The result of that is always the same! Making our way through the multitude of pool buyers and on past the beer stands and lunch counters, we emerged from a tunnel-like opening on to the lawn in 2s rfij RUSSIAN RACES. 225 front of the boxes and reserved seats. Here everything was even more familiar than the scenes we had just wit- nessed. Men and women of all kinds and nearly every class bankers, lawyers, merchants, soldiers, sports, " touts," ladies, pretty young misses, actresses, music-hall singers, and women of scarlet every scale in the social ladder was represented. All was one heterogeneous mass of life, colour, and evident enjoyment. Over the heads of this crowd I could see the jockeys in their jackets of all hues and combinations flash past on their way to the post, though the horses they bestrode were obscured from view. Reader, are you a racing man? Or have you attended many races? If so, you will know the feeling of being packed in a crowd, and to have that crowd rise on tip- toe, and with a great roar rush forward, carrying you with it; hold you packed there so that you can not even raise your arms. Your hat falls over one side of your face; the case of the field-glass of the man behind you digs into your back; the man in front has his heel planted upon your instep; one two minutes of mortal agony pass; a cloud of dust is blown into your eyes; the crowd breaks into cheers and then separates some on the run for the open- ings under the grand stand and you gaze about you in a dazed way. Down the track you see a horse leisurely walking toward the judges' stand with a boy in blue and white on its back. Surely, it is coming from the wrong direction and altogether too slowly. When it arrives near the stand another shout goes up; some one rushes out and catches the bridle, the jockey jumps down, and you realize that the race is over, that thousands have been lost and won, that you have seen absolutely nothing, and experi- enced, in the place of that thrill that a race engenders in the breast of every true, sport-loving being, nothing but pain, anguish, and discomfort. Your first impulse is to go home. Reader, if you have ever had any such experi- ence you will realize how much I enjoyed the first actual running race I ever saw no, that is not correct; the first running race that ever took place in my presence in Russia. I was soon again among my friends, and after a council 226 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. of war we decided to make our way to as high a point as possible in the grand stand, and to try to get comfortably located. This we eventually succeeded in doing. Finding four vacant seats, we were soon comfortably ensconced, and from this coign of vantage witnessed the next three races. I discovered that running races in Russia are ex- cellently managed, though very similarly to the way they are in America. The starting is the same as in nearly all countries, by the use of a flag. The judges' stand is, however, placed upon the inside edge of the course, and is very much more elevated than those to which I was accustomed. After seeing several races, we got familiar with the names and faces of some of the leading jockeys and other details. And here was a novel feature to me: I noticed that many of the riders were young officers, who waged a sporting and friendly war with the professionals upon an apparently equal footing. I attributed this to the comparative newness of this sport in Russia, and the fact that most of the professionals were foreigners, mainly English lads. It certainly demonstrated that most of these amateurs must be very high class, as they frequently rode the winners. While watching the horses being warmed up for the last race, a particularly fine chestnut attracted my eye. The race was to be a steeplechase, and his superb build and strength, together with a long sweeping stride, seemed to pronounce his superiority so loudly that our little party decided to buy a pool upon his chances. We quickly made up a purse, intrusting it to G., who volunteered to pur- chase the ticket. After being thoroughly instructed as to which horse to back, he descended in the direction of the pool room. " The big chestnut with the near hind foot white, remember! " was our parting shot as he dis- appeared in the crowd. Presently he returned in great exuberance of spirits and profuse in perspiration. Mop- pingly he explained to us that he had met a very accom- modating man on the lawn, who was intimately acquainted with our horse, and knew he was sure to win. After pointing to the particular name upon G.'s card, he related RUSSIAN RACES. 227 with, an expression of disappointment and grief how he had come out on purpose to back this very nag, but, being tempted during the long wait for the last race to make just one bet, he had lost all his coin but three roubles, and if G. would kindly lend him two to put with it he could get a ticket; and as he was nearly always exception- ally lucky, and well posted the truthfulness of this was scarcely borne out by the early part of his statement, though I refrained from pointing this out to G. he was sure to win, and it would be of great advantage to us to have him " on " the same horse. He also knew where G. was sitting he could see at once he was a perfect gen- tleman, and not a " regular." G. insisted upon his accept- ing the two roubles, and his friend felt so grateful that he volunteered to purchase Gt.'s ticket, thus saving him the trouble of going through the crowd. This he was allowed to do, and he returned so promptly, and gave G. the little blue card, covered with Eussian hieroglyphics and num- bers, in such a gentlemanly way, that G. really felt small and ashamed at having loaned him such a small amount. This was all very interesting, still further showing to me the similarity of race courses the world over. While G. was relating this piece of good luck of his, I noticed that the horses were gathering at the post. Our chestnut came by at a grand stride, and I remarked that he was backed by an officer, which did not reassure me to the extent I wish it had; but he had a good seat and his red cap covered a bullet-shaped head that showed determination. Two or three others now passed, but they were rather an indiffer- ent lot; then came a cracking fine big bay at a rattling hand-gallop, topped by a young English lad whose every move showed that he knew his business. As he swept by, his lavender jacket whipping in the breeze, my heart sank, and I would have sold my share in that pool ticket for a very few kopecks. They were soon gathered at the post eight in all. The little red flag fluttered in the breeze and suddenly fell. " They are off! " Every one is on his feet. A shout goes up, and then dead silence reigns. They are nearing the first jump. An over-anxious young 228 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. officer riding well to the left rushes his mount. There is a momentary glimpse of green and yellow as he rises, then horse and rider disappear on the far side of the wall all in a heap. The next three have barely time to swerve and take the jump together. The bay is right behind. He can not swerve, or he will collide with them. He can not pull up! He will crush the fellow on the ground. There is a flash of lavender in the air. Thousands of hearts stand still. A whip pops like a pistol, and the bay lands with a few feet to spare. He has cleared fence, horse, rider, and all, and goes spinning away up the hill. The shout that arose from that grand stand shook the very ground. The others got over safely, and the fallen man and horse struggled to their feet. The next three jumps were passed in safety by all. Then a stiff hillside facer reduced the field two more, one bolting and the other going down. "Now the long stretch of level opposite the stand is reached, and the bay and chestnut draw away from the field. The boy on the former sits perfectly cool and eases his mount when two thirds of the way across. I fancy I detect a nervousness about our man on the big chestnut. He appears to grow too anxious. His horse has his full head. He passes the bay by a length, but does not his rider see that wall just ahead? Apparently not. On he goes at the limit of his speed. He rises to the wall. A cloud of dust is thrown up from the top. The red cap plunges forward on the horse's neck. The chestnut staggers and lands on his knees. The rider struggles back into his seat and re- covers his horse, just as the bay takes the wall gallantly. I see the lad in lavender turn his head as he lands. They are off almost together for the far track fence. This they take abreast. Now they sit down and ride, for there is but one more jump and then the stretch home. But that last obstacle that terror to backers, that breaker of stanchest hearts it is the big "wall and water jump." See them rise to it horse and horse, man and man! See that look of quiet confidence upon the face of the lad. He has his mount well in hand. How nicely he calculates the distance! How surely his bay rises! See him his knees RUSSIAN RACES. 229 well pressed into the horse's foam-flecked flanks. See him strike him at the proper moment with his heels. See him drop his hands. How truly that gallant-hearted ani- mal does his part! See him land with a good two feet to spare! Watch him take his stride, and make for the gap that leads to the open track, home, and victory. Watch those intent faces all around us their mouths half open already forming his name to break forth in wildest shouts. The chestnut lands a trifle short. His hind feet slip upon the brink of the pool. He recovers, and is off like a shot; but this trifle, this momentary hesitation, has cost him dearly. He is already a good half length behind and the goal is so near, so awfully near. Watch! see that bullet head bent forward look at the determination in that face. Pop! pop! Two awful cuts fall upon those throbbing wet sides; then the whip flies through the air from his hand a little puff of dust arises from the track where it falls. Has that young amateur lost his head? Watch the freed hand grasp the reins beside its brother. See that rowing motion of the arms. His knees are glued to the chestnut's shoulders; but not his heels. See them strike, and strike again. Can a horse be lifted and borne along on the dead level? Look! See yon chestnut. Inch by inch he gains. He is now at the bay's saddle skirt. Now steadily and surely he creeps up until his hot breath is upon the shoulder of his worthy foe. My brave lad of lavender is riding too with all the skill and science he has learned from his cradle in dear old England, where they breed horsemen. But his strength is not so great as that of his adversary. No mat- ter; they are home. But two more strides and the wire is reached. One mighty effort, one mighty plunge, and the red cap flashes by the post, a winner by a nose! Pan- demonium broken loose would scarcely describe the scene that followed. But why weary the reader with useless descriptions? You have all seen similar scenes. When we had shouted ourselves hoarse we hurried to the train by way of the betting room to cash our valuable ticket. G. got in line near the window, and when his turn came presented it. The man looked at it a moment, frowned, 230 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. and waved him aside. He attempted to say something, but was pushed on by the eager winners crowding to re- ceive their gains. He tried two or three other places, but met with similar treatment. Fearing to lose our train we hurried to the cars, and secured places in a general com- partment. Among the other passengers happened to be a gentleman whom we heard say something in English. G. stepped up to him, and asked him to tell him what was on his little blue ticket for which he had paid five roubles. " Certainly, sir," was the courteous reply; " this is to cer- tify that the bearer weighs one hundred and sixty-nine pounds, and was weighed by one of the 'International Automatic Weighing Machines.' " CHAPTER XXIV. THE RUSSIAN" CHURCH. WHEN Moses struck the rock in the wilderness, a stream of pure and crystal water gushed forth to assuage the thirsty multitude. When Jesus of Nazareth struck the decayed Judaism of his time with the force of his noble, lofty life, a scheme of ethics, a vast religious impulse, was set afoot, whose mighty progress and extension through the earth have been the measure of their strength and beauty. Just how closely any existing system of religion assimi- lates the sublimely simple standard then set up, or just how remote all existing systems are from that standard, it is not for me to say. It appears to be true that all religions have increased in the complexity of their theology and in the differentiation of their ritual as they have increased in age. If Christ came to the earth again in disguise and visited successively the various branches of the great Church that bears his name, which of them would impress him as most closely akin to the simple brotherhood of faith, love, and charity, whose foundations he laid during his wanderings in Judaea, is a problem more easy to pro- pound than to solve. I am persuaded that a mistake is often made, on the part of those who adhere to the more simple forms of re- ligious observance, in the estimate they place upon the ceremonial and ritualistic types of worship. It is difficult for those who are impatient of ritual to remember that back of every form, behind every sacred image or picture, within every sacred shrine, to the devout and earnest soul there sits enthroned a vivifying and spiritual significance 16 231 232 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. concealed from alien eyes. Nowhere does one need to call to his aid such broadening reflections more than at the altar of the Russian Church. Its ceremonial is as much more elaborate and various than that of the Roman Catho- lic Church as the latter is more complex and mysterious than the service of the Anglican establishment. It is, par excellence, the Church of extreme, diverse, perplexing, and very often most beautiful ritualism. Springing as it did from the loins of the great Byzantine Church, cradled in an Oriental atmosphere of metaphor and symbol, it stands pre-eminent among all the creeds of Europe for the sanctified symbolism with which it speaks to its children. The Christian religion was adopted by the Muscovites in a very wholesale and national man- ner near the close of the tenth century. There was noth- ing half-hearted in the Russian acceptance of the Byzan- tine ecclesiasticism. It accepted the faith and the service of Constantinople en Hoc. Hence, from its very incipience on the banks of the Dnieper, down to the present day, the Russian Church has been one of perfected ritual. It ac- cepted a completed system. An interesting and significant tale is related by Bunsen of the manner in which the half-barbaric envoys of the Norman Grand Duke Vladimir were impressed by the mag- nificent ceremonial they witnessed in the Church of St. Sophia. Vladimir, a prince of decision and power, had been approached by the propagandists of the various great faiths of Europe and Asia. He listened to all. He was looking for a national religion. Having listened to, he also answered all; until at last there came a subtle sophist from the great Eastern Church, whose acknowledged chief was the Patriarch of Constantinople. So impressed was the rugged Prince by the skilful rhetoric of the scholastic orator, that he sent forthwith an embassy to examine and report upon that religion whose most sacred shrine was laved by the waters of the Bosphorus. It is probable that to no other embassy was there ever intrusted a mission so vast and so far-reaching in its effect. Imagine these untutored Russian envoys, fresh from the V f Chapel at PetrovsM palace. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 233 crude, barbaric environment of the Slavonic court, stand- ing on the threshold of that splendid temple which even yet challenges defiantly the cathedrals of the world! They enter its sacred portals. Its walls throw into their dazzled eyes the reflections of gold and crystal and mosaic. Its priests are burdened with bejewelled and glistening vest- ments. The chanting of the soft-voiced Grecians fills the air. The cloud of incense rises before the altar. The venerable Patriarch like some prophet of the distant past sweeps through the awe-struck throng; and behind him follow the lesser clergy, clothed in purest white, with wings of filmy gossamer attached to their shoulders, in imitation of the angels of Heaven. The splendour of the moment was too much for the children of the steppes. They fell upon their knees and cried, " This is the gate of Heaven itself! " And so they returned to Vladimir. " We can not describe to you all that we have seen," they said to the expectant prince. " We can only believe that there, in all likelihood, one is in the presence of God, and that the worship of other countries is there entirely eclipsed. We shall never forget so much grandeur. Whosoever has seen so sweet a spectacle will be pleased with nothing elsewhere. It is impossible for us to remain where we are." This decided the Grand Duke. He forthwith destroyed his idols, married the Byzantine Princess Anne, sister of the reigning Emperor, and was at once baptized at Kher- son, which he had but newly subjugated. Having thus accepted the Christian faith for himself, he commanded that the entire population of Kief where he then was should accept the Christian yoke and submit to the rite of baptism. In a single day all the population was bap- tized in the waters of the Dnieper; and thus was the Greek Church transplanted to Eussian soil, where it has become acclimated as a more rugged ecclesiastical organism than the parent stock, while it has lost little of its sensuous splendour. The Church which presents at once the most striking contrast and the strongest similarity to the Eussian is, 234: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. of course, the great Roman Catholic organization. Both alike depend upon an elaborate and to the uninitiated mind often incomprehensible ritual; both use the accessory of sensuous appeal; both attach to their priesthood plenary powers of absolution and indulgence; both repose a more than symbolic faith in the sacraments; and both hold in common many of the fundamental doctrines of the Chris- tian religion. And there the similarity ends. The con- trast is very wide. The Russian Church denies the su- premacy of the Eoman Pontiff. She never has sought, and probably never will seek, for the political power and influence which to the See of Rome have been so precious a prerogative through all the ages. Emperors, kings, princes of alien faith, have never bowed to the Patriarchs and Metropolitans of Russia as they often have to the slightest wish of the Vatican. For herself, as an organization, the Russian Church has no political ambition; the Roman Church has never been without it. In psychological pe- culiarity, too, the two organizations differ widely. The Latin Church is essentially a church of discipline; the Russian is one of almost transcendental mysticism. The former is devisive, propagandist, and like a great mili- tary organization in the supervision of the conduct and the lives of its devotees. The latter is careless of discipline, and relies upon the splendour of its appeal to the senses, the subtlety, the almost Oriental intricacy and mysticism of its philosophy. The antagonism on the part of the Russian Church is greater toward the Roman Catholic than it is toward any other religious organization. Not only their divergencies, but their convergencies have bred discussion. And yet, as I have said, both depend upon an elaborate ritualistic service in their approach to the people. In the case of Russia, at least, this is wise. Extreme ritual- ism attracts to its embrace intelligences the most diverse. To the cultivated it appeals through their assthetic sen- sibilities, while it enchains and subdues the ignorant through their love of the mysterious and the theatric. In Russia the chief appeal of the Church numerically, at least is to the latter class; while it affords at the same A metropolitan of the Crreek Church, THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 235 time to the educated and refined a purely formal religion which does not too seriously impinge upon the sphere of individualism. I have spoken of the absence of political aspiration from the Eussian Church. Let me amplify. The Russian Church has no separated political ambition. It does not present the antithesis of a Vatican whose shadow lies crossed by the shadow of a Quirinal. All its ambitions are to support the state, to aggrandize the throne, to glorify the Tsar. No Metropolitan or Patriarch has ever thrown down the gauntlet of defiance to a Tsar, as popes of Rome have often done to emperors and kings. It is true, the Patriarch Nicon quarrelled with the Tsar Alexis; but he was reduced to the lowest rank of priesthood and banished to the Siberian desert. The relation of the Russian Church to the Russian State is now, and always has been, one of cordial support, and of sincere, if somewhat selfish, reverence. It acknowledges the Tsar as its spiritual chief, it upholds both his hands, either in prayer or battle, as Aaron and Hur sustained the hands of Moses. In every extremity of the Muscovite throne the Church has up- held it by its wealth, its eloquence, by the might of super- natural suggestion, and by the awful power of threatened excommunication. There is therefore in Russia no ques- tion of Church and State. The two are one. The State finds in the Metropolitans, Archbishops, Bishops, and lower clergy, an army of stanch and unflinching supporters. In every war they have carried the holy standards and sacred ikons in the vanguard of the armies; and in stress of State they have reversed the career of Cardinal Riche- lieu and laid aside the cross to wield the sword. The Church, on the other hand, is fostered by the State. And nowhere is there an instance of a great national Church which is more loyally supported than is the case in Russia; nowhere a Church more absolutely free from all trammel- lings of State dictation. The Greek Church is thus stronger, and its future more assured, in Russia to-day than in any other country where it exists; and with the pos- sible exception of the English Church, it has the promise, 236 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. through, its amiable relations with the State, of a more steady expansion than any other Christian organization. The opportunity offered to the Church of Rome in the Western hemisphere is afforded to the Greek Church in the Russian Empire. The first impression made upon the mind of a stranger by the services of the Russian Church is that of extreme reliance upon ceremonial. Everything about the Church and its priesthood is symbolical. Ecclesiastical casuistry could go no farther than it has gone in the defence of minute forms and customs in the Russian Church. Vol- umes have been filled with grave disputes over the shape of an ecclesiast's cap, or the colour of a vestment. But to the devout disciple of the Russian Church all this is significant. Every shred of symbol is illustrative of a truth, and eloquent with memories of that golden vision upon which the Russian envoys gazed with wonder-stricken eyes beneath St. Sophia's sacred dome. The Russian priest claims for his Church as does every other churchman and sectary in the world that it is more closely allied to primitive Christianity, that it more loyally perpetuates the teachings of Jesus and the wor- ship of the Apostles, than any other Church in existence. He points with pride to the fact that no music except that of the human voice is heard within his temples; that the early habit of standing while in the act of prayer still ob- tains there; that immersion is still practised in baptism as it was by Jesus and his great forerunner. His Church still clings to the Greek calendar in the face of a diverse practice by all the other nations of Europe. His Church anoints the sick with oil, but it is for their healing and not as a rite of extreme unction. Confession is enjoined, but it is neither so frequent in practice nor so searching in character as it is in the Latin Church. The holy kiss of brotherhood a heritage of the Orient is given by the priests at the altar to each other, and by the people to their priests. To all these practices the Russian points as proofs that his Church is still clinging to the simplicity and devotion of its peasant chief. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 37 The Russian Church has no sacred images, but it has sacred pictures without number. Its devotion to saintly relics is extreme. Its tradition of miracle is opulent. It prays for the dead. Its fasts and festivals exceed those of Rome. Its posturings and genuflexions are more numerous, its spectacular displays more rich and varied than those of any other church in Europe. It is the legitimate de- scendant of the Byzantine Church, and it preserves the heritage it has received with unabating zeal. It has many distinguishing features. It administers the Eucharist to infants. Its parish priests are married. The general par- ticipation in the elements of the Eucharistic sacrifice re- minds one of the Reformed churches, and not at all of the Latin. And it stands forth as a mighty testimony to the power of symbolism among the ignorant. The Rus- sian peasants love their Church and their Tsar with the same unreasoning and complete devotion. To them the Tsar and the Church are one and inseparable. The Tsar they adore; in and through the Church they worship God, whose earthly representative is the Emperor. Take it all in all, the Russian Church is a strange commingling of apostolic simplicity and the extremest ritualism. It is Catholic and tolerant to all other creeds; and, above all, its past is free from the stain of blood. The priesthood in Russia is separated into two great classes the monastic and the parochial commonly called the black and white clergy. To the former belongs all ecclesiastical administration; they are separated from the parish priests as widely as the aristocracy is from the great body of the peasants. They are usually men of intelli- gence superior to that of the Batushkas or pastors. There are in Russia at least five hundred monasteries, and though they are shorn of many of the privileges which they en- joyed prior to the reign of Peter the Great, still many of them possess enormous wealth, and receive princely reve- nues. It was no uncommon thing, early in the eighteenth century, for the monks to engage in commerce, and travel- lers of that time speak of them as the sharpest and most intelligent merchants in all Russia. It is doubtless true 238 E* JOYFUL RUSSIA. that this participation in commercial enterprises did much to justify the accusation often brought against them of worldliness and greed. Acquisitiveness and abnegation are antithetical qualities. Yet the latter was by Jesus declared to be the greatest of graces. Mackenzie Wallace, whose pen is never tinged with prejudice, in speaking of Rus- sian monasteries, says: " During casual visits to some of them, I have always been disagreeably impressed by the vulgar, commercial spirit which seemed to reign in the place. Some of them have appeared to me as little better than houses of refuge for the indolent, and I have had on more than one occasion good ground for concluding that among monks, as among ordinary mortals, indolence leads to drunkenness and other vices." The village priests or Batushkas have, on the other hand, small opportunity for the self-indulgence which proceeds from indolence. They are altogether dependent for their living upon the benefactions of their followers and the fees which they derive from the exercise of their offices. Outside of these Jees, which vary according to the means of the penitent, their position is one of absolute mendicancy. They all from necessity are married men. No priest can receive a cure until he has first become a husband. They usually intermarry with the daughters of priests, but marry they must. Often at the last moment a young priest who has received notice that he has had a parish bestowed upon him, will rush to the nearest bishop, or to the superior of a neighbouring convent, to find a wife. The former will tell him of some fair damsel the daughter of one of his clergy who is waiting to be wooed; the latter will produce such matrimonial wares as are in her keeping for his selection. It need not take a priest long to marry in Russia. And then the trouble begins. It is a daily struggle with poverty poverty, that prolific mother of selfishness and greed. It breeds its offspring in priests as in laymen; and so the Russian priests are put before their people as avaricious and grasping, when they are simply intent upon providing bread for the mouths dependent upon them. An unpaid priesthood, or an ill- One of Muscoivs sixteen hundred churches. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 239 paid priesthood, is a shame and a blight upon any nation. It has proved a detriment to Russia. The clergy sell their prayers and haggle over the price of a priestly office, while the sick and the dying gasp in superstitious fear. The Eussian parochial clergy are withal very often an intelligent and kindly class of men. They are almost uni- versally good to their wives, and for the excellent reasons that they can not marry a second time, and that when they become widowers they lose their cures and must become monks. The intelligence of the parish priests need not be great. In the past, indeed, they were often arbitrarily selected by their masters from the untutored peasants. Now they are selected usually from the families of the priests, educated and ordained under the direction of one or other of the principal sees. They seldom preach. The functions of the altar they discharge with fidelity. They pray for the dead, they anoint the sick and the dying with holy oil, collect alms and fees with eager zeal, toil upon their bit of land, and give themselves otherwise to the pains and pleasures of connubial partnership. It is not a merry life. It is scarcely a life calculated to evoke and strengthen ideal qualities; but when one considers the environment, the product is not surprising. In their flocks the priests encounter, on the one hand, easy and implicit credulity; on the other, indifferent conformity. The peasants are as ignorant of theology as they are of other forms of learning. A peasant was once asked if he could name the three persons of the Trinity. " Batushka! " he replied; " who would not know that? It is the Saviour, the Mother of God, and Saint Nicholas, the worker of miracles! " It is not likely that such intelligences would investigate keenly the sources of inspiration or the grounds of faith. The educated and cultivated Russians are devoted to the Church as one of the chief supports of the State; to its ritual as a heritage of the past, rich alike in sacred tradi- tion and divine significance; but they do not concern themselves with philosophical speculations or theological argument. To them the superb, manifold, glowing cere- 240 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. monies of the Greek Church are welcome as a gift of the Orient which they love, and as enabling them to dis- charge a troublesome business in a perfunctory and con- scientious way. Still, they are all devout disciples of Mother Church, and do not fail to " tithe the mint, anise, and cumin " of their ecclesiastical home. In this rapid sketch of the Russian Church I have endeavoured to dwell upon those features of salient in- terest which it presents in common with all other religions, as well as those distinguishing characteristics which sepa- rate it from all others. As a Church it long maintained its corporate connection with the Mother Church of Greece; but as it grew in importance, it gradually assumed ecclesi- astical independence, which was consummated during the reign of Peter the Great. The Eussian Church is, in my judgment, suited to the Eussian people. It is useless, hopeless, and often imperti- nent, to attempt to thrust an Occidental religion upon an Oriental people. Eussia is at least one half Oriental in mind, habit, and inclination. The Greek Church mingles the mysticism and form so welcome to the Oriental mind with the classicism and casuistry of the Occident. It is, therefore, exactly suited to the mind of Eussia. As the religion of a great, prosperous, and increasing Empire, it is worthy of respect and careful study. Its past is rich in the story of saints and heroes. It has not made its progress through the blood and storm of religious persecu- tion, but by a gradual accretion and constant devotion. If with the inrush of modern light if with the spread of learning and science in the Eussian Empire a spirit of religious zeal go hand in hand, then the spiritual signifi- cance of its glorious churches, its sacred shrines, its hal- lowed ikons, its elaborate ceremonial of the altar, shall become instinct with a new and beautiful force which shall lead both prince and peasant nearer to the standard of that ideal humanity which is the brightest dream of the present and the most golden promise of the future. CHAPTER XXV. VILLAGE LIFE. WHEN* on the way to Moscow, we noticed in every Bus- sian village, even the smallest, one building conspicuous because of its location and its height. It is always there, always two-storied, always exactly in the centre of the village, and almost always in a slightly better state of re- pair than the low little houses that squat pertly about it. I say pertly because of their sharp-pointed roofs. The one two-storied house belongs to the village koop- yets. It is his residence and his shop. The koopyets, or village trader, is a person of the utmost importance from the village point of view. He is a thrifty Ivan. The chances are not against his being the one truly thrifty soul within the village limits. He is a man of substance of considerable substance sometimes. Often he is the holder of half or even more of the village land. Every other soul in the place is in the debt of this " soul " of much importance. When this debt grows so large that the koopyets demurs about letting it grow larger, the debtor- soul is only glad to exchange part or even all of his allot- ment of land for continued credit; for credit on the koopyets's books means red shirts and black bread, tea and prianniki, herrings and calico. Above all, it means vodka! It would be difficult to overestimate the koopyets's power in the village. The moujiks are at his mercy. Literally they are dependent upon him for everything. They are dependent upon him for the clothes they wear, the red shirts of summer, the sheepskin coats of winter, 241 242 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. the embroidered scarfs, and the gay kerchiefs of festival days. They are dependent upon him for the food they eat, the relishy herring and the delightful buckwheat. Each moujik grows his own supply of rye. But he is not a lavish provider, while he is, on the other hand, a most lavish consumer. So the home-grown and home-baked supply of black rye bread soon comes to an end, and Ivan Ivanovitch and all his household would starve were it not for the food-supplying, credit-giving koopyets. It needs no demonstration that the man who is at one and the same time the village banker and its general provider has a mighty voice in all the village counsels, and wields in all its affairs a power that it is difficult to exaggerate. Often he holds the village politics in the hollow of his hand, and the welfare of its people is dependent upon his good will. The koopyets is seldom a native of the village in which he has his tracktir (shop). He is a capitalist who has come there to increase his capital. In an inner room, ad- joining that in which he displays and sells his stock, he holds a daily reception and gives a perpetual tea-party. A good-natured fellow enough, for all his wide-open eye to the main chance, is Michael Michaelovitch. In the centre of his reception-room stands a table surrounded by chairs or benches. The seats are generally well occupied. On the table stand a samovar, a bowl of lemon bits, a saucer of cut sugar, and sundry glasses. When Michael Michaelo- vitch is not in the outer room selling or bartering (though, to do him justice, he, unlike the city shopkeepers, usu- ally has a fixed price for all his wares), he is very apt to be seated beside this table, drinking and dispensing what he fondly believes to be tea. And it was tea once. But the teapot has been replenished and replenished so often, and with warm water only, that the once present tea is no longer perceptible to sight, taste, or smell. But there is an abundance of lump sugar, a genteel sufficiency of sliced lemon, and an absolute plethora of boiling water. Michael Michaelovitch welcomes all his friends and his more im- portant customers to his tea-table. He deluges them with VILLAGE LIFE.' 243 scalding water (more or less tea-tainted, according to the hour); nor does he stint them in sugar. One slice of lemon is supposed to do duty for each tea-drinker, no matter how often his glass is replenished. I myself have seen a party of moujiks take twenty rounds out of one poor, long- suffering teapot, and I have been told, and doubt it not, that a tea-drinking peasant can do far more than that if he only gets his chance. The good-natured koopyets goes on filling Ivan's glass until Ivan can no more. At that point Ivan turns down his empty tumbler in token that he has really had enough. He rises, as do all the others, shakes hands with Michael Michaelovitch, and thanks him for his hospitality. Then Ivan shakes hands with each of his fellow guests, and thanks them individually and collectively for their company. Then all turn to the ikon hanging in the corner, cross themselves, and mutter a brief prayer. Ivan slouches out; the others reseat themselves, and recommence their drinking. Outside the koopyets's house are two troughs, one al- ways full of water, the other sometimes half full of grain. If the village is near St. Petersburg, as was the one I saw most thoroughly, the troughs never lead an idle life. The industrious Finnish peasants travel from village to village, from town to town, from some Finnish farm or fishery, to the metropolis itself. They carry e'ggs and grain, butter and fish; and, returning to Finland, they pack their little two-wheeled telyegis with all manner of Eussian commodi- ties such as find a ready sale in Finland. To each telyegis is harnessed a sturdy, faithful, sagacious little Finn pony. These steeds are very like their masters cheerful, frugal, industrious, slow, tireless, and contented. It is for them that Michael Michaelovitch keeps a trough full of water and leaves the other ready for the serving out of the pony's daily dole of grain. There is one other person in the village of almost as much importance as the koopyets. The starvst, or village head-man, is its aristocrat; but the koopyets is the pluto- crat, and alas! even in Holy Eussia, a bank account is apt to outrank rank itself. The office of a Eussian village starvst 244 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. reminded me in many ways of the office of a United States consul. Neither office is a sinecure. Both officials are hard-worked, plagued to death, and draw a salary the minuteness of which really seems adding insult to injury. In a Russian village there is an election every few years. The heads of the family gather together and select their own starvst, or presiding officer. It is the starvst who calls together the Mir or village commune, which is com- posed of the heads of all the households. The Mir, pre- sided over hy the starvst, is the village governing body, for in village affairs the outside Government interferes scarcely at all so long as the yearly tax is paid. And it is part of the starvst's duty to see that it is paid. The Mir gives out all the contracts for village work, repairs, building, etc., and lets out any shooting or fishing there may be over the village lands or in the village waters. The Mir elects all the village officials. The chief officials are the starvst, the peesar or scribe, the tax gatherer, the pastuch or cowherd, and the voriadnik. The peesar is an underling the veriest underling; but often after the koopyets he is the most powerful, for the sole reason that, in making out official reports, receipts, etc., he can partially write what he likes, since the chances are that no one else in the village can either read or write. This makes him very much the master of the situation. The tax gatherer is a " soul " who collects from each moujik his stipulated contribution toward the tax. The combined taxes are handed by the gatherer to the starvst, who in turn passes them to the Government tax collector when he comes upon his yearly round. The pastuch or cow- herd is a useful, necessary person in the village's social economy. He calls at each door every summer morning and takes the family cow and escorts it, in company with many other family cows, to the outlying pasture. He guards and watches over the bovines all day, and at dusk returns each to its home. The voriadnik is the village policeman. He wears no uniform. The division of the communal village land and the allot- ment to each moujik of the portion which he may culti- A Russian coachman. VILLAGE LIFE. 245 vate, and upon which he must pay taxes, fall entirely upon the Mir. This is the most difficult and the most important of that assembly's many duties. Fortunately for the cause of peace, the decision of the Mir is never disputed, but is accepted as final by all. The Government assesses the village according to the number of its souls. But the Mir divides the land upon a very different and, to all concerned, a far more satisfactory plan. The moujik with three small sons gets a much smaller piece of land to cultivate, and need but pay a much smaller tax, than the moujik who has one infant son and four strong grown daughters. To be sure, the household of the first moujik comprises four souls, while the household of the second mou- jik comprises only two souls. But the practical Mir reasons thus: One man and five able-bodied women and one child need more food than do one man, one woman, and three children therefore they must have more land. More- over, they can cultivate it. And because they have and can cultivate more land, they must pay a larger tax than the moujik who has the smaller allotment and can only cultivate a smaller amount, although this second moujik's household counts as five souls and theirs only counts as two. In every case the Mir adjusts the size of the allotted land and the amount of the enforced tax according to the needs and abilities of each family. The comparative richness and poorness of the soil is also always taken into consid- eration. Of course, the most coveted plots are those lying nearest the houses. Where each moujik's allotment shall lie is determined by the drawing of lots. The re- sult is always accepted and abided by with entire good nature. The fire department of a Russian village is unique and amazingly admirable. I commend its careful study to our home fire departments. On every house, or on a board in front of each house, is painted a wonderful pic- torial sign: " One is something which might represent a round tower, or may be meant for a tub of water; an- other a ladder; here, something remotely suggestive of a hatchet; there, two more tubs, and beyond is another 246 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. ladder. The presentments are meant to indicate the particu- lar article each household is expected to provide and use in the event of an alarm of fire in the village. As the peasants have a system of mutual insurance against fire,, each moujik will assuredly do his best and quickest to bring the article for which he is responsible, and put it into immediate operation the moment he is summoned." The village well usually stands near the house of the starvst. It is, indeed, a rare specimen! The bucket is fastened to a very long rope that dangles from one end of an enormous lever. The unweighted end of the lever is many feet above the reach of the very tallest citizen, and would be even though the tallest citizen held on his shoulders the shortest citizen. A very long cord, how- ever, hangs from the lever's light end, and enables the water-seeking villager to draw up the bucketful with very great muscular exertion. Near each moujik's house you see a disorderly pile of roots. These are the staple village fuel, and are gathered by the women and children at odd times. In every Eus- sian village on any sunny day you may hear the soft cooing and gentle swirring sounds of hundreds of pigeons. They are sacred in Eussia, and not the roughest moujik would harm the gentle pretty things. The village pigeons are not only always unmolested, but they are always fat and well fed. Even in cruel times of famine, the rough, untutored moujik will spare the pigeons many a generous crumb from his last loaf of black rye bread. It is a primitive life that the Eussian village moujik lives, but it has been my observation that it is neither an unhappy nor an unwholesome one. True, I was not in Eussia long. And some one may add that I was greatly prejudiced in favour of things Eussian by the time I came to study Eussian village life. Certainly, my views on Eus- sia and things Eussian changed greatly during my stay in Tsarland; but I was, I think, no more blind to Eussian faults when I left Finland than when I entered Alexan- drovno. But be that as it may, I am not alone in my esti- VILLAGE LIFE. 247 mate of many things Russian. Here is testimony corrobo- rative of the view I take of Slavic village life. It was writ- ten by a cool, clear-headed Englishman a few years ago. Mr. Whishaw says: " The Russian moujik appears to have no ambition for a higher state of civilization; he prefers to live in the primitive and simple way in which his forefathers for hun- dreds of years have been content to exist before him. As the result of some knowledge of the villages of northern Russia, the conclusion at which I have arrived with regard to the position and prospects of the moujik of to-day is, that the latter, if only he could keep clear of the wine shops, should be one of the happiest of men. His allot- ment will support him if he works it diligently and with- out being too scrupulous as to the question of labour on holidays. If he lives near a large town there are a hun- dred ways in which he may acquire wealth: by plying with horse and tarantass as isvoschik, or trading in milk, or cutting and selling firewood, etc. The main obstacle to his prosperity is the kabak or drinking shop. If he could only keep himself away from its seductive portals Ivano- vitch should have, barring famines and the unforeseen gen- erally, as good a chance of happiness as any class of men on the face of the earth. But his share of the communal land will not keep him in vodka and idleness. As for the house he lives in, it is not much of a place; but then he would not thank you for a better. Ivan Ivanovitch is deep- ly religious, though his religion is largely tainted with su- perstition; and he cherishes a filial love for the reigning Tsar, leaving politics to his betters, or to those members of his family who are absent serving their time in the army, or making money as labourers in factory and work- shop in large towns, where the agitators can get hold of them to poison their minds. At home in his village he is quite content to live the humdrum life of his forefathers, serving in patient docility his God and his Tsar, and hav- ing little thought for anything beyond the daily routine of work and sleep, with as much vodka thrown in as he can get hold of, for Ivan is rarely an abstainer. Far better is VI 248 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. it for him when he clings thus to his ancestral Mir tilling the soil like his forefathers before him, leading the life to which alone by nature and descent he is adapted, and keeping himself far away from the dangers of town and politics, which mar his simplicity and will lead him in- evitably to ruin/ 5 CHAPTEE XXVI. SLAVIC LITEKATUKE. THE little I knew of her literature before I went to Eussia had served to whet my appetite, to make me keen to know more. I had, as it were, nibhled at a slight zakuska. I had read War and Peace, Dead Souls, The Kreutzer Sonata, and the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. In Eussia I made rather more of a meal, not by any means a square meal, but still something far more generous than a thimbleful of Chartreuse and a mouthful of pickled pretzel. And I brought away with me, when I left Eus- sia, a sharp desire and a firm intention to go on reading her books until I had gained a less fragmentary acquaintance with the Eus literature and with Eussian men of letters. There are, I know, thousands of my countrymen and women who stand where I stood less than a year ago, quite on the outer threshold of Eussian literature. There are thousands more of otherwise well-read Americans who have dipped not at all into Eussian literature. To the former some simple outline of the history of Eussian letters may be of interest, and not without value. To the latter it may not be uninteresting to go with me a few steps into Eussian book-land; and perhaps they will not be alto- gether bored I earnestly hope not to hear a little of what I, who, though in no sense a litterateur, am yet a devout devourer of books, have thought as I turned the pages of that wonderfully interesting and wonderfully peculiar volume, the Book of Slavic Literature. Let me say emphatically let me insist that this chap- ter contains merely the notes, the very primary notes, of a 250 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. beginner in Russian literature, jotted down in no little diffi- dence and solely for other beginners. Should these pages fall into the hands of any Eussia-versed scholar, or scholarly person, I entreat him to skip them. If in a wil- ful mood he persists and reads them, I charge him to re- member that they were not written for him nor for such as he. If the accomplished member of the senior class, who is studying the literature of the pre-Elizabethan period, pushes his way into the kindergarten, where they are lisping the alphabet, on his own head be it if he finds it dull! No literature owes more to other contemporaneous and nearly contemporaneous literatures, has borrowed more from them, than Russian literature. None is more in- dividual, more characteristic, more distinct, more distinc- tively national, more sharply, radically, diametrically, and unmistakably different from all other literatures, past and present. The men of letters of no other nation have been so swayed by French, German, and Byronic thought as have the writers of Russia. The litterateurs of no other nationality have been so formed, so influenced, and led by the forms and modes of expression of the French, the Ger- man, and the Byronic schools as have and are they. No school of writers is so distinct, so essentially and funda- mentally and apparently national, and so utterly unlike the writers of all other countries, as are the high-priests of Slavic letters yes, and the priestlings too! While in Russia, I was often struck forcibly and most fantastically by the fact that the Russian cuisine and the Russian literature have one very salient quality in com- mon. Both are pungently Russian; both have adopted much from the foreigner, but with a difference. The Russians have adopted French cooking en Hoc, and then have Russianized it, giving it a Russian flavour by the cautious introduction of a Russian dish or two, the use of a soupQon more cayenne than the French ever use. They do not adapt the French dinner they adopt it and naturalize it, stamp it with the imperial double-headed eagle, by the die of the prefatory zakuska of vodka and SLAVIC LITERATURE. 251 caviare. But it is a French dinner for all that, as surely as the United States citizen who exclaims, " Begorra, it's agin the Government I am, every time, sor! " is an Irish- man. But Eussian literature is far less wholesale than is the Eussian cook in the adoption of French recipes and German or English ingredients. The Eussian author adapts rather than adopts. He absorbs. He is inoculated with French feeling, German thought, and Byronic man- ner, but he is the veriest Eussian at the core and on the surface, and so are his books. Though it be bound in French vellum, yet scratch a Eussian book, and you will find a Tartar. A Eussian writer may and often does employ French methods of expression, German methods of con- struction and analysis; but he only does it when and be- cause those methods are beautifully fit for the clothing of Eussian thought, the describing of Eussian life and feel- ing. The book is a Eussian book, emphatically, uncom- promisingly, arrogantly, I might almost add, were it not both impertinent and ridiculous to call a patriotism arro- gant that never seeks to draw outside attention upon it- self. Eussian literature is for the Eussians, and if we invite ourselves to its perusal, we have no call to use even slightly critical adjectives when we dwell upon its enor- mous, insistent, and exclusive nationalism. Eussian litera- ture, for all its sometimes wearing of French cut, of Ger- man-dyed or Byronic-trimmed garb, is no more enslaved than is the European beauty who wears a kimono made in Yeddo for a robe de chambre, a Mongolian, or the Eussian Grand Duchess who orders her ball dresses from Paris, French! The Chinese element in all things Eussian impressed me daily and sharply. A friend, who has for some years studied Chinese literature and loves it, tells me that there is a distinct resemblance between the literature of the nation of the Son of Heaven and the literature of the nation of the Great White Tsar. Both are straightforward, strong, and simple. One is young, the other is very ancient. But both are vigorous, rugged at times, yet soft and sweet with sentiment. Both are often " naked and unashamed " ; 252 IN JOYFUL EUSSIA. both are often imperially sumptuous. " So far as rich- ness in expression of love is concerned/' writes Brandes, " it may be regarded as scientifically proved that, of all liv- ing and dead languages, there is none so rich in expression as the Eussian in both of its dialects." Again a parallel, for the Chinese language, both the Mandarin or classic Chinese, and the tongues of the people, are peculiarly rich in tender words, pet names, amatory nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and phrases. But to return to my theme, and to sum up this intro- duction, whatever the nationality of the chef, we must, when we dine in Russia, wash down his dinner with sweet champagne, and preface it with vodka and caviare; what- ever the semblance of any Russian book to the volumes of France or of Germany, it is in the world of books a Russian the veriest of Russians. The authors of ancient Greece and Rome made them- selves busy over the customs, the characteristics, and the doings of the countries and the peoples north of the Black % Sea. Interesting, intensely interesting as the written re- sults of that business are (most especially those of Herodotus), they form no part or parcel of Slavic litera- ture; they were written by Greek and Roman writers, who were in no way the forerunners of the Russian literati. They were written about peoples who have never been proved to be, and probably were not (with the exception of the Scythians), in any large degree ancestors of the Rus- sians. What the scholarly adventurers of Athens and Rome wrote about the countries north of the Black Sea was less absorbingly interesting than what they wrote about those countries' inhabitants, but more apropos to my theme; for it serves at least to show how much the men that have, from remote times until now, written of and in the coun- tries now called Russia, have been affected by and inspired to reflect the natural characteristics, phenomena, topog- raphy, climate, atmosphere, and flora of those countries. They all dwelt upon the cold, the ice and the snow, the dark and the frost the ancient writers who had journeyed into what is now Russia; and the writings of the modern Count Tolstoi. SLAVIC LITERATURE. 253 Kussian authors are all held in check, kept rigidly in shape, clarified, purified by the clear, cold, uncompromis- ing atmosphere of the Eussian winter the long Kussian winter. There is something calm, clean, self-controlled even ahout the turgid and turbid pens of the men who wrote The Kreutzer Sonata, The Gipsies, Who is to Blame? Senilia, and Crime and Punishment. They have all been men of turbulent passions, unchecked, exotic, and pampered sensuality. Yes; even Tolstoi the reformed, the white-haired, the gesthetic Tolstoi, whose wue youth (I might almost say adolescence) we forget, ought to forget, but which was characteristic of the man, of the man's nature, and proves how in his case, as in the case of myriads of Russians, art and the morality of art have triumphed over the potent naturalism of the man. And yet upon the relentless exposes of Derzhavin, the licen- tious-mouthed; of Pushkin, the rake, the voluptuary, of the Byron-like imagination; of Lermontoff the passionate, the demonized; Gogol the fearless; and of Tchernuishevski the soul-searching ever beats the cold, white light, the in- different snow-reflected sunshine of arctic truth, the keen, unaccusing, but unpalliating search-light of arctic fatal- ism, a philosophy whose theorem is: " Let be. Condemn nothing. Nothing is to blame, nothing can be helped. All is foreordained, and foreordained for evil." Ah, the Slavonic Calvinism of Russian literature! It is this startling contrast in the Russians, and in all things Russian, that makes them all their country and their literature so hard of analysis, so baffling of just, even-handed criticism, so unlike all others, and so fascinat- ing withal. The fires and the snows of Russia! Her pieties and her sensualities! Her blood-red rose of lust! Her " languorous, snow-born lilies of soulless sin " and of mys- ticism! What if the thorns of the red roses prick us and the cold breath of those white snow lilies chills and sickens us? We must learn to grasp and tolerate the jagged thorns and to inhale and face the blinding, choking, snow-re- flected sunshine, if we would know anything, and know it at all adequately, of Russia's literature, or if we would 254: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. at all pierce (as only sympathy, neither maudlin nor nig- gardly, can ever pierce) through the mask, sometimes stolid, sometimes fantastic, which Eussia the mocking, modern sphinx ever wears upon her lovely, laughing, pa- thetic face. To reiterate: through the almost lurid heat of modern Russian literature we may still feel the keen, clean sting of the snow, and it was the cold the intense cold of Russia (I mean, of course, of that part of the earth's surface that we now call Russia) that was always and most intentively noticed by the old Latin and Greek writers. And through the lustiest, frankest pages of mod- ern Russian letters we can but see the clear, clean, cold, crisp, sparkling sheen of glittering ice and gleaming snow. Gracious, dignified old Herodotus dwelt and dwelt again upon the cruel eight months' winters and the cold and stormy summers. And wanton, amorous Ovid wrote: " They protect themselves against the cold by skins and sewed trousers, and of the whole form only the face is to be seen. The hair often rattles from the ice which hangs upon it, and the beard shines with the frost which covers it. The wine keeps the shape of the bottle when the bottle is broken in pieces, and they do not pour it out, but divide it up. Why should I say that all the brooks are stiffened by the cold and that they dig water out of the sea that they can break in pieces? Even the Ister (Danube), which is not less broad than the Nile, and which, through its many mouths, mingles its waters with the sea, freezes when the sea hardens its waves, and steals out into the sea under a covering of ice. Where the ships went be- fore, people go on foot. The horse's hoof stamps on the frozen plain, and over these new bridges, above the flowing waves, the Sarmatian oxen drag the barbaric vehicles. You may hardly believe me, but, since I shall gain nothing by telling a falsehood, I ought to be believed, I have seen the immense Black Sea hardened into ice, which like a smooth shell lay upon the immovable waters. And I have not only seen it, but I have trodden upon the hard ocean plain, and walked with dry feet over the sea." And in the seething, fleshly pages of Shevtcheuko we SLAVIC LITERATURE. 255 may hear the jingle of the sleigh bells and smell the un- soiled breath of the virgin snow. When and where was Russian literature born? Ah! it was not. It is like Topsy it grew. The old Scythian myths of which good, trustworthy Herodotus speaks at length were its remote ancestors. They were Slavic, very Slavic, those marvellous mystic tales that the old Scythians and Sarmatians and Getians told each to his fellow as they threw their big, tired bodies down upon the broad couch of the steppes, or among the jungle-like wild-flower tangle of the sumptuous south Siberian summer. Near the beginning of the twelfth century died the monk historian Nestor, whom Brandes aptly styles the Saxo-Grammaticus of Eussia. He was born in 1050 and died in 1116. Scholars give conflicting dates. I give those given by Dean Stanley, and believe them to be authentic. He lived in a cave-cloister of Kieff. He wrote the first chronicles of Russia (I still anticipate in my use of this word), and his work still stands not only the first of Slavic classics, but a storehouse of wealth to the student of Slavic history, and a book admittedly authentic. The Slavic peoples had come into and spread over broad Russia. Posi- tive forms of government had been established, kingdoms formed, and cities built. Nestor observed and wrote down not only the myths and legends that passed from genera- tion to generation and from lip to lip, but he recorded with great exactness and careful detail all he saw. He also wrote with no mean authority of the periods preced- ing that in which he lived, for he had access to, and in- deed possessed, documents, treaties, and contracts of un- doubted genuineness and real value. When it came to the describing of battles and of warriors, he wrote somewhat erringly. He scripturalized everything. He made fire- eating, barbaric soldiers coo like sucking doves, when there is no question but that in reality they bellowed like savage bulls. Seukovski points out how ridiculous it was of the Christian monk to attribute his own holy horror of martial murder and of bloodshed to the Varing Russian soldiery of those days. And Brandes writes: "It was only cow- 256 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. ardice that was despicable in their sight. For the perfidi- ous wrong-doer they had a respect which was not denied to him even when they were in arms against him." Through the earlier Eussian literature we learn a great deal of the religion and methods of the old Slavs. They believed in God, they deified Nature, and they worshipped both. They worshipped the Heavens and called them Svarog. They worshipped Dazhbog and Ogon, sons of Heaven. They worshipped Vesna and Morana, Stribog and Perun. They worshipped the damp Mother Earth, and they called the souls of the dead Eusalki, and held them in almost Chinese veneration. Dazhbog was the god of the sun; Ogon was the god of fire, and corresponds with, or is perhaps identical with, the Indian god Agni. Vesna was the sweet-scented spring. Morana was the dread deity of death and of winter. Stribog was the god of wind, and Perun the god of thunder. There are many songs of distinctly mythical origin which are still sung in every part of Eussia on certain feast days at certain anniversary seasons. It was not until the beginning of this present century that the unique and interesting bilini were published or even collected. From the bilini we learn very much our best knowledge, perhaps, of what the old Slavs thought of the quality and quantity of their intellectual life is derived from them. The bilini are the old Slavic epic poems, epic songs. They are a splendid kind of folk-song just the kind one might expect to find in the big, vast, splendid, mighty Eussia. The history of the collection of these bilini is so deeply interesting that I venture to dwell upon it, feeling sure that they are unknown to thousands of English and American readers who are fairly familiar with modern Eussian fiction. And I shall venture to quote again from the pen of George Brandes a pen as charming as it is authoritative. I use Dr. Brandes's words here (and may perhaps again) because he says what I wish to say, and incomparably better than I could say it, and because the fact that the words I use are his, not mine, gives them a greatly added force. If I chance to turn the attention SLAVIC LITERATURE. 357 of any reader to Dr. Brandes's pages, that reader will owe me a debt of gratitude somewhat commensurate perhaps with that which I owe, and long have owed, to Dr. Brandes: " The first collection of these " (i. e., these bilini), he writes, " appeared in 1804, consisting of songs which had been collected among the iron workmen in the department of Perm. In 1818 a new edition of the collection was published, with sixty numbers in the place of twenty-five. It was then discovered that there were a large number of epic songs in circulation among the peasants in northern Russia. From 1852 to 1856, Sreznevski published bilini which were recited in these northern departments; yet it was only in 1859 that the investigations of Rybnikof, in the regions about the Onega Lake, made it plain that Rus- sia had an enormously large unknown national literature in the form of popular poems which it was simply necessary to collect from the lips of the people. The isolation caused by the severe climate about the Onega Lake, the simple manner of life and naive mode of thought of the inhabi- tants, the superstition and ignorance, the inability to read and write, have made these regions a sort of oral Ice- land for old Slavic poetry. Rybnikof was followed by Hilferding, who, in the same wild provinces, collected more than three hundred new songs or variations. Next comes a garland of poems published by Kirievski, collected from almost all parts of Great Russia and Siberia. And in all these songs the same persons appear, the same ad- ventures happen, and the same poetical expressions are found. The best of these poems, and most of them, turn upon the oldest memories of the Slavic countries, and range themselves into two principal circles, the Kieff circle and the Novgorod circle. Sometimes they point straight back to heathen Russia and the oldest Aryan mythology, which lies back of the Slavic religions. Thus they also present points. of comparison with the holy books of India, and for a Scandinavian reader even more interesting ones with the Edda and the Norse myths." And elsewhere Brandes writes: "Regular geological layers can be found in all the epic poems of Russia; we can see, more or less 258 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. plainly, how certain conceptions of Nature which are com- mon to all Aryan peoples about the eleventh century began to assume a constantly more decided Slavic stamp. The mythical heroes, who were at first like those of other countries, like those of the old North, for instance, become decidedly Eussian and decidedly Greek-orthodox. They are born in a definite Eussian village; they are slain on a definite Eussian field. The celestial mountains, streams, and seas which, in the oldest mythological language, in- dicated clouds, rain, and air, become Eussian mountains like the Ural, Eussian rivers like the Dnieper, and Eussian seas like the Caspian Sea." I may, for convenience and brevity, divide Eussian literature into three periods: the ancient, the mediaeval, and the modern. I use the three terms simply and solely as compared with each other. Eussian medieval litera- ture is young indeed compared with the other literatures of Europe. The ancient Slavic literature I have dealt with briefly. It flourished before the Tartar invasion. It comprised the bilini and the quaint historical and contemporaneous chronicles, which latter were of course written in the old ecclesiastical Slavic or church tongue. The modern Slavic literature was founded by Somousof in the eighteenth century, and is still being written by Tolstoi and his confreres. This modern literature is the real national literature of Eussia of the Eussia that we know. Eussian book life may almost be said to be less than two hundred years old. Following the ancient, and preceding the modern, was the mediaeval period of Slavic literature. This was a period of brief lyrical poems and popular ballads. They are in- finitely sweet and tender, infinitely sad and often surpris- ingly graceful. They were written in both the national tongues: Great Eussian and the now tabooed Little Eus- sian. The Little Eussian ballads tell of the lives and the deeds of the Cossack people and of nothing else. Bold adventure, wild nature, and wildest warfare are the ever- recurring themes. SLAVIC LITERATURE. 259 The Great Russian ballads may be divided, or rather sorted, into three groups, distinct as to themes, identical in treatment and form. The first and far the largest group comprises the love songs and the songs descriptive of love and of lovers. The second and archseologically the most interesting group comprises the verses sung at weddings, at Christmas, and at other festal times; verses often largely descriptive of the customs peculiar to those occasions. The third group deals exclusively with, and rather deifies, the Slavic highwaymen, the Russian Robin Hoods. These ballads of the third group are always humble, and, as a rule, mingle pathos and humour in truly Russian con- trast. It is the first of these Great Russian ballads, the songs of loves and of lovers, that are most vividly Russian, that are most enshrined in the Russian heart, most often on the lips of the Russian singer. The Russians are wholesale lovers. They are intensely and keenly interested in love. They like to suffer it. They like to study, investigate, and analyze it. Above all and beyond all, they dearly love to gossip and sing about it. Brandes says: " The Little Russian and the Great Russian popular ballads agree in two principal features: in the comparison between a display of Nature and a men- tal condition which is continually evoked by companion- ship with Nature and a poetic view thereof, and in the richness of expression for the most varied moods and shades of a love upon whose multifarious sorrows they dwell with ineffable sadness." And somewhere else, following the line of Carl Abel, he writes: " The study of languages shows that while love among the Romans in particular was love for the family, for kins- men, and regarded as a duty, that among the Hebrews love for the whole tribe, and, at the highest point, love for the whole of mankind, was regarded as a religion, the Russian sentiment, according to the derivation of the words, is caressing and full of charm, exclusively a natural in- stinct, far less conscious, circumspect, and trustworthy, always wholly involuntary. The domain of Russian love 260 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. is the tender flattery which expresses itself in numerous ingratiating diminutives. Of Liubov (love), as a woman's name, the common people make use of the names Liuba, Liubka, Liubkascha, Liubaschenka, Liubashetchka, Liu- botchka, Liubutchka, Liubushenka, Liubushetchka, Liu- benka, and even many others, each with its different shade of tenderness and caressing. And, however numerous the linguistic expressions for the sentiments and moods of love are, naturally just as numerous are the sentiments and moods themselves." With the century and the literary leadership of So- monosof came a great break in Russian literature, a com- plete change in the style of Slavic letters. Somonosof was very much of a philosopher. He was not much of a poet. He remodelled Russian as a language of letters. His verse has a rush and a swing in it not to be heard in any Russian verse previous to his. He gave Russian poetry its metre and Russian prose its style. He had a wonderful mind and a wonderful life. Born a peasant, he conquered circumstances and gained an education. He travelled. He was a scientist and a scholar. He was a chemist and an astronomer. He discovered laws of Nature. He in- vented apparatus and machinery of no mean importance. He discovered the atmosphere of Venus. He discovered that amber was of vegetable origin, and that peaty soil, under certain gaseous influences, produced coal. He out- stripped Franklin in many ways in Franklin's own special line; and yet physics was only one of the many important sciences and philosophies in which this mighty-minded Russian was greatly accomplished. He was a linguist and a linguistic essayist. He was a critic, a grammarian and stylist, a rhetorician, a poet, and an orator. He was an artist (artist, mark you, not amateur!) in mosaic work. " He is the man of genius who, for the first time since the introduction into Russia of the intellectual and in some directions material foreign ascendancy by the Tsar Peter, gave an organ to the old Russian national feeling, while he at the same time made himself its poetical ex- ponent and its practical champion the latter being car- SLAVIC LITERATURE. 261 ried out to the most infatuated chauvinism. His great reputation in this generation, when his poetry is no longer read, depends on the fact that it was he who gave the first impulse toward the liberation of the Eussian intellectual life and of Russian science, then just dawning from the foreign, and especially from the German yoke." True, all true, and much more than this is true; but he was bombastic in style. He tore the literature of Rus- sia away from its old roots. He inaugurated a school of letters as far as possible away from the simple ballads of the people. To him the dress of the poem was everything, the heart but little. Language and manner outweighed thought and feeling. The reading of his life is interesting even beyond the point where interest becomes fascination. He must al- ways be remembered as one of the world's really great men, and as the father of modern Russian literature. He was the forerunner of Turgenef, of Dostoyevski, and of Tol- stoi. Of the literature that Somonosof gathered into in- dividual shape, and to which he gave form, new and mod- ern, and into which he inoculated much of his own strange, splendid, and kinless personality, there is an al- most unlimited quantity to be said. Modern Russian lit- erature is largely at the disposal of those who read only French, German, and English. A part of it an interest- ing and not inconsiderable part- is within the reading of those who know only English. And the masterpieces of Russia's recent writers are being translated more and more every day. To those who know none of them I can only say (but I say it emphatically), " Read one and you will read all." CHAPTER XXVII. SLAVIC AET. No other two arts are so near to each other in source, so different from each other in course, so distant from each other in ultimate achievement, as are the arts of Russia and Japan. Russian art, like that of Japan, is the acme of imitation. Japanese art is superlatively and gracefully triumphant because it improves even more than it imi- tates. Russian art is supremely and regnantly triumphant in that it defies far more than it imitates. The art of Russia and the art of Japan are twin in their chief natal and lifelong characteristic, eternally divorced in their grown or half-grown course of life, and in their indelible hall-marks of national individuality. No two could be more different of development or of every-day life. They are one in principle; they are as different as they can be in technical method, though at heart they are alike in aim- ing first at national aggrandizement and only secondly at art admirability. The artists of Japan have sat very lovingly, though perhaps not quite openly at the feet of the artists of China, of Korea, of Persia, and of many other peoples. The artists of Russia have roughly seized upon the ideas and methods of the artists of almost every other nation, have bound those ideas and dragged them chained captive to the chariot wheels of their own auda- cious Slavic art. What Russia has taken from others she has seized openly, disdainfully. She takes a tower from Rome, an arch from Delhi, a minaret from Constantinople, a wall from Pekin, a bell from Mandalay, a belfry from Copenhagen, splashes them thickly with her own barbaric SLAVIC ART. 263 colors, throws them together roughly, scornfully; adds here and there some touch of her own; and lo! we have the rankest conglomeration of an edifice a building break- ing, and apparently defying, almost every architectural law, and sinning wantonly against every accepted canon of good taste and of art composition. And yet it is a building at sight of which we catch our astonished and delighted breath, and to whose unrivalled loveliness all civilization takes off its hat. I frankly believe that the daring and the bad taste of the Eussians have made their art successful. They will put a Gothic arch in a Byzan- tine wall, and a Hindu dome over both, and lo! the effect which ought to disgust is charming. I say " bad taste " advisedly. It is bad taste to make an architectural patch- work not only widely divergent, but essentially and elo- quently irreconcilable as to detail. It is bad taste, the worst of bad form, and nothing would or could justify it, except unqualified success. And it is in Eussian hands successful, splendidly, supremely successful! Let me enumerate from memory, and quite without any attempt at completeness or arrangement, some of the arts and architectures which, in part or in whole, Eussian art has appropriated and incorporated into her own Ara- bian, Byzantine, Indian, Gothic, Eenaissance, Indo-Tartar, Tartar, Persian, those of Asia Minor, Eoman, Italian, Chi- nese, Thibetan, Greco-Byzantine, Armenian. These are some (and some only) of the arts that Eussia has incorpo- rated into her own, at the same time welding them thickly together with a local Scythian element. Eussian art is not original, but it is very individual. Japanese art is not original, but it is very individual. Eussian art commands our respect. Japanese art wins our admiration. Japan borrows an idea and improves upon it, treats it with such exquisite taste, such beautiful delicacy of touch, such per- fection of detail and execution, and, above all, with such admirable self-control, that only the learned, the thought- ful, and the calmly observant recognise it; and even they lose sight of the source of the inspiration in admiration for the genius of the execution. In this great delicacy 18 264: IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. of touch, (the chief characteristic of the Japanese and of all things Japanese), this acme of good taste, lies the strongly marked individuality. The Japanese take the art of Korea, the art of China, and the art of Persia (these three countries have been the principal sources), treat them with their own peculiar grace- nay, more imbue those arts with that grace, stamp them with the chrysanthemum flower, hall-mark of Japan, and what wa's the art of China, the art of Korea, or the art of Persia, is the art of Japan: an art as graceful, as pleasing, and as unmistakably in- dividual withal as any in the world. The Eussians take the arts of every nation and throw them together scornfully, shake them into Eussian shape, flood them with Eussian colour, stamp them proudly with the double-headed eagle, and what were members of half the known nations is Eus- sian art an art as striking as eye-delighting, and as splen- didly, as proudly, and as unchallengeably individual as any national art in the world. I have said that in its great delicacy of touch, its quintessence of good taste, lies the strongly marked individ- uality of Japanese art. In its rough masterfulness of touch, its defiance and scorn of law, of order, and of the accepted canons of good taste of other nations lies the strongly marked individuality of Slavic art. Japan triumphs with one brushful of paint. She paints a swallow's wing, drawing as she washes in, as never yet a swallow's wing was painted. Because of her wonderful gift of touch and her almost equal genius of implying, we see not only the wing but the bird, not only the bird but a whole flight of swallows, the blue of the summer sky across which they fly, the glory of the warm, scent-thick June day, and the white and purple blossoms of the wistaria vines on which the birds perch as they halt to rest and prune their soft gray breasts. Eussia triumphs with the contents of all the tubes of her paint-box squeezed upon her huge palette, wrenches members from every art system that pleases her, combines them with a ruthless method of her own, and the result, the crowning result of all her architecture, of all her art, SLAVIC ART. 265 is St. Basil, a temple as unique as the Sikh's Golden Temple at Amritzir, or the most famous temple in Pekin, and second in heauty only to the Taj Mahal. I would class Russian art under three heads: I. Mod- ern Secular Art. 2. Architecture. 3. Religious Art. I have put Secular Art (meaning chiefly the art of painting) first, and will deal with it first, not because it is the most interesting of the three divisions (as a matter of fact, I think it the least interesting), but because it is the least known. Russian painting is quite the most modern of all modern art. I am not speaking of ikon painting, nor of other church painting, but of secular painting, the painting of pictures. Fifty years ago there was no school of Russian painting of this class; but now it thrives. And the wealthy Slav who wishes to hang pictures of merit upon the walls of his home is not forced to go to Paris, Dresden, or Vienna to make his purchases. There is much in common between the modern French and the modern Russian schools of painting. There is a close analogy and intimate relationship between modern Russian art and modern Russian literature. Russian art has been evolved as Russian literature has been evolved, born of the same influences, influenced by the same cir- cumstances, almost step for step. And both art and litera- ture are deeply in sympathy with, and are greatly indebted to, the art and literature of France. "Within the last thirty years the painters of Russia " have become the portraitists, the satirists, the prophets, the amusers, the consolers, and the educators of the masses; and, thanks to the Ambulant Exhibition, the influence of the genre painters in modern Russia is increasing every year." Within the last half, almost within the last quarter of a century, the first exhibition of Russian paintings was held at St. Petersburg. For years it was the only exhibition of its kind in all the Empire. Then annual exhibitions were held in three of the chief cities. A few years later regular Ambulant Exhibitions were inaugurated. And 266 !N JOYFUL RUSSIA. now the masterpieces of Russian art travel from province to province, giving the hungry-eyed dwellers in out-of-the- way places glimpses of art and beauty, as the teachers of the ambulatory schools of Norway travel from coast- line to boundary, carrying education and refinement to the eager-minded dwellers on isolated mountain farms. Far the greatest of Russia's painters is Elias Ef unovitch Repine. He is unrivalled in his colour schemes and in his management of lights. No artist has ever had a more complete gift of telling a story with brush and pencil telling it with thought, with lucidity, and in detail. There is no chord of human sentiment that he does not touch in his genre pictures, and he strikes chords the most diverse with the same masterly skill. The mortal anguish of Ivan the Terrible as he sits, a heap of raging, impotent misery and repentance, nursing the bleeding corpse of the son he has just murdered; the tempest of laughter depicted on the faces, the shoulders, the necks, of the dozen or more of mirth-convulsed spectators in his canvas At the Theatre; the anxiety and the expectancy on the faces of the man and the woman in his Return of the Exile from Siberia are all as perfect and as eloquent, each in its own way, as those ways are widely and strikingly different. He is a peasant and paints with peasant-like unction. "He is the historiographer of the ceremonies that most deeply touch the Russian heart, such as the Communion of the Tsar with his people, and the processions of the sacred images." There are many essential qualities common to all the secular painters of Russia. They are keen observers, they are shrewd and brilliant reproducers of real life and of Nature. They are vivid, and often masterly painters of what they have seen. But they lack imagination and originality; they often lack ingenuity of composition. They delight in doing figures; their figure drawing is always strong, often correct. There is very much I should like to jot down about Russian architecture, but space forbids. And there is much to be written about the fascinating subject of Rus- SLAVIC AKT. 267 sia's religious art, but I refrain with, a self-control and a fortitude that are positively Japanese, and will only speak in the briefest way of the Russian school of ikon-painting. In the seventeenth century the state of general educa- tion in Russia was deplorably low. Yet the painters of ikons and the manuscript illuminators, who were called " Good Masters/' were compelled to attain a certain amount of learning. They were especially obliged to know some- thing of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Lives of the Saints. Each of these " Good Masters " had his own special branch: one did the drawing, another painted the faces, the figures, or the arms. Each taught his pupils his own speciality, and his own speciality only. How Chi- nese! From a quaint seventeenth-century account of what principles were instilled, and how, into the minds of the ikon-makers, and indeed of all who were engaged in the painting or adorning of religious pictures, I extract the following most quotable passage: " A painter is to be godly, steady, not given to laugh- ing, not a thief, or a murderer; pure in body and soul. He must frequently visit the Fathers (the clergy), fast and pray. He may then paint the pictures of Our Lord from the model of the old painters. If he so live, the Tsar will take him and have him instructed. He will send him to the Fathers and see that he lives in purity, and if God give him the grace to be clever in his work, and if he live purely, then he shall become equal to his master. And if a disciple paint badly, then the master shall be repri- manded as a warning to others, and the pupil shall be told not to meddle any more with painting. And if any teacher shall hide his art from his disciple, he shall be tortured in hell-fire, as was done to him who hid the talent. And whoever shall paint badly, or not according to the given model, or shall live impurely, shall be expelled, there being other trades besides ikon-painting." CHAPTER XXVIII. A GLIMPSE AT FINNISH KUSSIA. IT would be easy for me to detain the reader's atten- tion in and about St. Petersburg, for that city contains so many magnificent buildings, so many objects of his- torical and national significance, and is in itself so fascinat- ing a study on account of its phenomenal creation the work of a stupendous will and a well-nigh supernatural activity and on account of its value to the future of Eussia, that it would not be difficult to fill a sizable volume with notes on what I saw and learned while in the capital of the north, the " window which looks out on Europe." I might drag the reader through the wonders of the Hermitage, the beauties of the Winter Palace; I might discuss with him the splendour of the Cathedral of St. Isaac; the dif- ferent public buildings would form the subject of an en- tire chapter, and still leave much unsaid that is well worth the saying. A discussion of the wide difference existing between this modern capital and the capital of the south, of the divergence in view of the two populations, would serve for pleasant reading to the student of the Rus; and the almost miraculous manner in which St. Petersburg was built and is maintained in the face of the constant on- slaughts of the Gulf of Finland all these themes are of interest, and supply data for extended writing. But I must cry halt to my pen and turn toward home. We left St. Petersburg on a beautiful summer evening by sea. The journey through Finland may be made by rail, but it is infinitely more interesting by water; and, as we were all good sailors, and had had by this time a 268 I A GLIMPSE AT FINNISH RUSSIA. good deal of Russian railway travel, we determined to take ship. Our vessel, the steamship Dobeln, commanded by Cap- tain Ernst Hedman, was in every way a stanch, comfortable, and satisfactory boat. The captain was a splendid big fellow of commanding appearance and most agreeable man- ners. He did everything for the comfort of his passengers, and the journey was one to be pleasantly remembered in every way. We were getting more and more into the land of continued daylight, and I recall as an incident that im- pressed me at the time that my mother wrote a letter with- out artificial light of any kind, on the deck of the Dobeln, at the hour of midnight. Our first port of call was at the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which the procla- mation of the coronation, it will be remembered, declares to be one and inseparable from the Russian Empire. Hel- singfors is situated most picturesquely on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, and is protected from ap- proach by the sea in both an artificial and natural manner that is simply impregnable. The fortress which guards the entrance to the harbour is so strongly placed that it is known as the Gibraltar of the North. It is called Sveaborg, and commands from both sides a channel that is not more than two hundred feet wide. In 1855 it was attacked by the combined fleets of France and England, but, though sorely tried, it was never taken. The entrance through this channel is very beautiful. The heights on either hand are covered with attractive foliage, and the grim face of the fortress is softened by a mantle of age that adds to its picturesqueness. In the distance the first object that strikes and holds the eye is the remarkable Greek Church, which has a large central gilt dome sur- rounded by thirteen smaller ones. Wherever the roof of this building is likely to be covered with snow in winter, the zinc has been painted a dazzling white; and the effect is that of a building continually topped with snow. Stand- ing out from the background of other buildings and the dim outline of verdure beyond, this roof serves as a land- mark which one can not miss. The buildings of Hel- 270 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. singfors are of plaster, painted yellow; its university is a fine group of buildings, and contains a library which is both extensive and well chosen. The whole place wears an aspect of thrift and prosperity. Swedish is chiefly spoken; the Duchy has its own mint and its own coinage, which is different from that of other parts of Eussia. The atmosphere here is divided between loyalty to Eussia and fondness for the ancient Swedish lineage, though Helsing- fors was made the capital to the detriment of Abo, the former seat of Government, on account of the greater at- tachment to the Eussian throne of the inhabitants of Helsingfors. All along the quay at which we landed I noticed hun- dreds of fishwives dealing in their finny wares. The fish were as various in size and kind as the women who sold them were in appearance and manner. Most of these humble fish-dealers were of uncertain age, and of very uncertain appearance and cleanliness; but I recall several that were extremely pretty in a wild rustic way that was set off charmingly by their picturesque dresses. I secured a picture of one the Queen of the Quay who had dark, laughing eyes, a smile that would have made her fortune on the stage, and a manner full of chic and bonhomie. She wore over her head a handkerchief of soft white ma- terial picked out with scarlet spots, and loosely knotted under her chin; beneath a tiny shawl of rich brown, deco- rated with spangles of gilt, she wore a tight-fitting bodice of tender pink; her skirt was a bright green, trimmed down the side with gold braid and at the bottom encir- cled with rows of black braid. On her bare feet were wooden clogs, and her bare arms and hands vcre evidently subjects of personal vanity, as she kept them constantly on the move. She made a pretty contrast to some of her neighbours, and was more constantly surrounded by cus- tomers than any of the rest, the members of the sterner sex predominating. As we had an entire day, and perhaps more, to spend in Helsingfors, we determined to make it a day of picnick- ing. We engaged two carriages for our party from the A GLIMPSE AT FINNISH RUSSIA. 271 principal hotel in the place, had several baskets gener- ously filled, and capturing a waiter to attend to the spreading of the lunch, drove merrily off to explore the rural environs of the capital of Finland. Our objective point lay several miles out; and to reach it we drove along a well-made road bordered on both sides by beau- tiful scenery, and passed several attractive villas, evidently the residences of the wealthier class. The great park in which we dined is the frequent resort of pleasure parties from the city; and, spreading our cloth upon the grass, we had as jolly a time as if we had been camping out in the Adirondacks or spending a holiday upon one of the Thousand Islands. After lunch G. and I determined that the lakes in this region were altogether too provocative of sailing to be left without an attempt on our part at amateur seamanship, so we started off in quest of a boat. G. assured me that he was an excellent yachtsman, and had noticed a place where we could no doubt secure a boat. Both averments were subsequently modified by what occurred. We went from one point to another, crossing innumerable bridges in quest of the boat which G. had seen. Like the Will-o'-the-wisp, the owner of the boat seemed to recede from us the more we hunted him. At length, however, we discovered him. He was most polite and obliging and said that of course we could have it. He could see that we were sailor men, and it would be a pleasure to him to accommodate us. So in we jumped, and started back for the rest of our party. At first all went swimmingly, and I thought we were in for a charm- ing sail. G. seemed to be verifying his boasted yachts- manship, at least so far as good-natured sang froid could justify it; and it seemed likely that in a few moments we should reach our party, and spend a pleasant afternoon upon the water. But man proposes and Boreas disposes where sail-boats are concerned. A dead calm flattened our sail and left us under the lee of one of the smaller islands, quite a distance from and out of view of our party. The situation was unattractive. A fierce sun was beating down; where we were the little breeze was quite shut off from us, 272 IN JOYFUL RUSSIA. the boat was too heavy for either of us to row, as we quickly decided, and we simply had to sit and take it. We lay there for four mortal hours, roasting and . At length G., who has a swift and ready eye for the "beautiful, dis- covered a young girl on the island opposite to us. He signalled to her and she answered. Here was our Grace Darling. She quickly rowed round to where we were, and revealed to us what a truly simple art oarsmanship is when one understands it. We abandoned our sloop and she rowed us back to where we wanted to go, and G., who is usually so gallant, absolutely declined my suggestion that such devotion called for the display of some gallantry on his part, objecting that the maiden had dissipated his hopes by appearing short of an eye, and otherwise not up to his standard of female beauty. The afternoon was now far spent, and we returned to the town. Our party had been much alarmed by our long absence and imagined that all kinds of evil had befallen us. We dined that night in the public gardens, which were prettily illuminated and in which a very good band was playing during the evening, and at 1 A. M. we left for Abo, the former capital of Finland. The approach to this delightful town is beautiful beyond all exaggera- tion. It is the great summer resort for wealthy Eussians, the numerous islands through which we passed being dotted here and there with beautiful residences. The approach to Abo by sea has been compared to a journey through the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence River. To me it was even more beautiful than that famous resort; the scenery is more varied and grander. Our boat threaded its way skilfully between the different islands, which presented constant delightful surprises. The navigation is difficult at times and requires experienced sailors. Abo itself is a quaint old town, situated about three miles from the sea, at a point where the waters of the Gulf of Bothnia are lost in the Baltic. Early in the present century Abo was wrested from Sweden by overwhelming Russian force, and has ever since been a Russian town. The popu- A Finnish fisherwoman. A GLIMPSE AT FINNISH RUSSIA. 273 lation is, however, treated with considerable latitude, as they make their own laws and, as in Helsingfors, coin their own money. The leaning of the people of Abo is distinctly Swedish, and the Russian Government recognised this fact in remov- ing the capital to Helsingfors. Abo carries on quite vigorous- ly the trade of shipbuilding, and has besides her fisheries several large sugar refineries and cotton factories. The population is very prosperous, and has those simple, pleas- ing ^manners so common among the Swedes. The sights of Abo are limited, consisting, as in most European towns, of one fine cathedral, which, by the way, is said to have been the very first Christian temple raised in this north- ern land. It is the seat of an archbishopric. Besides this there are several smaller churches and the customary public buildings. And this was our farewell to Russia. We left the land of the Great White Tsar with regret. Never have I been more royally treated; never have I more thoroughly en- joyed myself than I did during my stay in Russia. It has been the custom of writers from the West to convey only a gloomy picture of the Russian Empire. I am only able to draw a picture full of delight and of constantly varying pleasure. I am writing these closing lines with the glories of the Alps spread out before me. I look up from my desk, and before me is Pilatus, with a sprinkling of snow upon its august brow; beyond and in the distance is the mighty Jungfrau, white and ominous, yet grand withal; on my extreme left is the Rigi; and between these giants are the lesser hills spread out before the vision like a panorama of the celestial city toward which the thought of every Church Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Anglican, Buddhist, Tauist, and all others bids the sojourner on earth look forward for his final victory, rest, and joy. In the valleys before me lie the beautiful Swiss villages; on the hillsides, and hanging over the lake in picturesque carelessness, are innumerable pretty chalets; the fields are bright and bear a heavy harvest, and the population all about is as happy and as free as the population of any land upon the 274: IN JOYFUL KUSSIA. earth, for Switzerland boasts herself an ideal republic. So be it! And yet as I look back from this distance, and alto- gether removed from the influence of the immediate Eus- sian environment, in the interest of truth I am compelled to say that in all that relates to personal freedom I mean by that, untrammelled individualism and peaceful pos- sibility of life I found the Russian people quite as happy and quite as free to live their own lives in their own way; indeed, in many respects a latitude of conduct is permitted in Eussia which would not be for one moment tolerated here. It is so easy to find fault with what we only half understand. It is so difficult to read aright the inner life of peoples that are strangers to our modes of thought, and of whom we may have formed violent misconceptions. I have tried in what I have said in these unpretentious pages to speak of Eussia as I found it. If any complain that they have found it otherwise, I can merely reply that I could only look upon Eussia with my own eyes; and as I saw it, so have I written down my impressions of it: A mighty nation, with a promise of a still greater future; a simple happy people, looking with love and reverence upon their Tsar, whom they delight to affectionately call "Little Father; " a land of unbounded hospitality of cordial welcome to every stranger who comes to enjoy; a proud people withal intellectually and nationally proud con- fident of their own strength, jealous of patronage, but open to friendly suggestion. No one who has gone among the Eussians in a spirit of amity can ever say that he was received with coldness. I shall carry with me always memories happy memories of the glad time I spent in Eussia. Faces of friends and acquaintances I made there arise be- fore me now. I hear again their hearty welcomes, their cheery greetings. I sit once more at their heavy-laden tables; on every side there is cheer and pleasure and wel- come. I raise my glass and drink to the Great White Tsar, to the lovely, queenly wife beside him, and I drink as well to all the good friends I left behind in Eussia, and I A GLIMPSE AT FINNISH RUSSIA. 275 drink to the entire Eussian people. May the future of Eussia be bright with the light of truth, strong with the strength of science, and happy with the benign control of a government in which liberty is not prostituted into license, and which shall never abuse its mighty power. THE END. YC 76784 >f THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY