THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
LONDON
PBINTBD BT SPOTTISWOODB AND CO.
NKW-STREET SQCAiiB
EASTERN EUROPE and WESTERN ASIA
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCHES
EUSSIA, aEEECE, AND SYRIA
1861-^-3
HENRY ARTHUR TILLEY
LONDON
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGIMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN
1864
Digitized by tine Internet Arcinive
in 2007 witin funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/easterneuropewesOOtillricli
rs7
TO
ALFRED HENEY BARFORD
B.A., F.K.aS., F.L.S.
THESE SKETCHES ABE INSCRIBED
AS
A SOTTVENIB OF MANY YEABS' FEIENDSHIP
BY
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE.
TN the following pages the author has attempted to
-■- throw some light on the character of a country and
the institutions of a people which are little understood
in the West of Europe, and, consequently, subject to
frequent misrepresentations. A residence of some years
among the Eussians has afforded him many opportu-
nities of enquiries and research into the national
character and history, and of observing the various
reforms which have lately been introduced into Russian
institutions. An account of these will be found in the
third, fourth, and fifth chapters.
One chapter is especially devoted to the considera-
tion of the much-vexed Polish question.
The three chapters on Greece treat of the state of
that country, and of the character displayed by the
Greeks, both before and during the Revolution ; while
the chapter on Syria contains the author's experience
in the Lebanon and at Damascus, at a time immediately
following the Christian massacres.
With a sense of duty towards the public he addresses,
the author has endeavoured to combine a spirit of justice
and impartiality towards those of whom he writes ; and,
if by his remarks an error be corrected or a prejudice
removed, his main object in writing will have been
attained.
London : Febriiary 18, 1864.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
ST. PETERSBURG AND MOSCOW 1
CHAPTER II.
Russia's rise and social organisation . . . .23
CHAPTER III.
revolution and reform in RUSSIA . . . . 46
CHAPTER IV.
THE MILLENNIAL BERTHDAY OF RUSSIA, 1862 ... 70
CHAPTER V.
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS 92
CHAPTER VI.
THE INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND THE FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN . 122
CHAPTER VII.
POLAND r. RUSSIA AND RUSSIA r. POLAND . . . .145
CHAPTER VIII.
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN BUSSIA
PAGE
195
CHAPTER IX.
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT
'TER X.
TER WITH THE KUSSIANS IN HRiA.
CHAPTER XI.
J GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER XII.
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862
'-- CHAPTER XIII.
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION. 1863
247
CHAPTER XIV.
THE &BB4N0N, AND THE CHRISTLAN MASSACH.
ILLUSTEATIONS.
THE king's palace AND CONSTITUTION PLACE AT
ATHENS TAKEN FROM THE ACROPOLIS . tO foce title-page
RUSSIAN COMMUNAL LIFE. AN ARTEL . . . „ page 101
A 'KABAk' OR DRAM SHOP . . . . . ^^ ^^ 113
INTERIOR OF A ' KABAK ' „ „ 117
A STREET SCENE IX CRONSTADT , . . . ,, ,126
A FAIR OF THE UKRAIN, WITH GROUP OF MOSCOW
MERCHANTS 141
EASTERN EUEOPE and WESTERN ASIA.
CHAPTEE I.
ST. PETERSBUKa AND MOSCOW.
Leave England — Copenhagen — Blo-wing-up of a Russian Man-
of-War — Miraculous Escape — Port Baltic — Reval — Cronstadt —
The Baltic Eleet — Entrance to St. Petersburg — Unhealthiness of
the City — Its Attractions to a Stranger — Society — Garibaldi and
the Russian Ladies — Popular Change during the present Reign —
Contrast between the Public Monuments of St. Petersburg and
Moscow — Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul — Story of the Princess
Tarakanov — From St. Petersburg to Moscow — Sketch of the
Kremlin and its Historical Memorials — Muscovite Illustrations of
a Future State.
ON returning in 1860 from a voyage of circumnavi-
gation on board the Eussian corvette ' Eynda,'
I received an invitation to embark on board a large
frigate then in Plymouth Harbour on its way to the
Mediterranean. Having had a glance at all those
ancient, transplanted, or nascent civilisations which
I described in my former work.* I was nothing loth to
visit the more classic shores of that sea which bounded
the great nations of antiquity. Through the kindness
of Admiral Popov, with whom I had made the last
* Japan, the Armor, and the Pacific. Smith, Elder & Co. Cornhill,
1861.
2 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
voyage, it was arranged that I should first accompany
him to St. Petersburg, and thence proceed overland by
the Black Sea to the coast of Syria, whither the frigate
had sailed in all haste on account of the massacres at
Damascus. By so doing, I should be enabled to see
something of Eussia and the Eussians at home, and as
I could^now speak their language, the arrangement was
the more agreeable to me.
^*The summer was fast fading into autumn, when the
squadron of three ships left Cherbourg on their return
to Eussia. A strong S. W. wind bore us swiftly through
the Channel and the Grerman Ocean, and on the third
day, the coast of Norway and the old town of Christian-
sand hove in sight. In another day, we were at anchor
before the city of Copenhagen, where we stayed just
long enough to examine the museum and masterpieces
of Thorvaldsen, the curious old palace, and the port
where the old wooden navy of Denmark was rotting
under its sheds.
The day after leaving Copenhagen, we were the
horror-stricken witnesses of an awful calamity. The
gunboat * Plastoon' had been four years in the Pacific,
and its officers only the day before had been rejoicing
at the prospect that a few more hours would see them
in their native land and among their kindred. All the
vessels were going merrily along under reefed top-
sails, when a puff of smoke was seen to proceed from
the * Plastoon,' which was fortunately the most leeward
of the three ships. At first we supposed she had fired
ST. PETEESBURG AND MOSCOW. 3
a gun; but as the smoke cleared away, we saw that
her foremast was gone, that the yards and sails of the
other two masts were hanging in disorder, and that
her forecastle was so inclined, that the bowsprit seemed
under water. In a moment, the dreadful truth broke
upon us ; her magazine had exploded, and the ship
was fast settling down. The excitement of the moment
was intense — my own eager attention was fixed during
the few intervening seconds with equal anxiety on the
sinking ship, and on our preparations for bearing down
on her and lowering the boats. But long before our
ship could wear, the gun-boat was no longer to be seen.
Up to the last moment, I could distinctly see with my
spyglass the scared features of those on board — some
rushing from one point to another, others on their
knees and with their arms raised to heaven. On our
own vessel meanwhile, a young midshipman was in an
agony of despair for his eldest brother, who, at that
very moment, was clinging to a ring in the side of the
sinking vessel, unconscious of the entreaties of his
messmates, who cried to him to let go his hold. He
clung on desperately, and was borne down with the
ship. In about a minute from the explosion, the
vessel, having righted herself for an instant, settled
quickly down, and the horizon was unbroken where her
tapering masts and expanded sails had just before
been seen. The corvettes and their boats were on the
spot a few minutes afterwards; but there were only
B 2
4 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
a few blackened timbers, some boats bottom upwards,
and quantities of splinters and dust floating in the
still eddying waters. About thirty officers and men
out of a crew of 120 were picked up, some dreadfully
scorched by the explosion, or wounded by nails in the
broken timbers to which they had been clinging. During
that one minute between the explosion and the foun-
dering, those who were on deck had cut away the
lashings of the boats, or thrown themselves overboard
with the first buoyant object which came to hand.
One almost miraculous escape shows how great mental
excitement may suddenly and unconsciously overcome
physical incapacity.
The doctor of the gunboat was lying disabled from
paralysis in his berth, when the sea poured in at the
gaping breach caused by the explosion. Although he
had not moved without assistance for weeks, he now
managed, unaided, to crawl up the ladder to the deck,
from which he threw himself into the sea, and, sup-
ported by the crutch which he happened to have in
his hand, remained there without motion till we picked
him up. At the same time three officers, strong young
men, went down, as they were sleeping in their cabins.
This was the second dreadful disaster which had hap-
pened during the last three years to Eussian men-of-
war in almost the same spot. In 1858, a line-of-battle
ship, called the * Lefort,' had left Eeval with a number
of officers and their families on boards the whole
ST. PETERSBURa AND MOSCOW. O
amounting to 800 persons. While tacking, a squall
caught her, and she capsized and sank immediately.
Although she was sailing in squadron, and other vessels
passed over the same spot a few minutes afterwards,
not a body or fragment of wreck was to be seen.
In the case of the ' Plastoon,' all that the surviv^ors
could tell us was, that they were cleaning out the
magazine, but that the fires had all been extinguished
and the usual precautions taken : beyond this, all was
conjecture. To forward these painful tidings to the
Government and to the friends of the drowned, the
Admiral put into Port Baltic the next morning.
This port, situated about forty miles from Eeval, is a
rather spacious bay, protected by an old and half-
finished breakwater, and is a common resort for the
Russian Baltic squadron. Thence an officer was sent to
Reval with despatches, and I accompanied him to see
something of the country ; the corvettes coming round
the next day. Reval of late years has become the
fashionable watering-place for the society of Moscow
and St. Petersburg. It is surrounded by a pretty,
undulating country ; the adjoining Catharinenthal is
dotted with the ' chalets ' of the resident nobility or
visitors, and contains the palace of the Empress
Catharine II. and a small wooden house once inha-
bited by Peter the Great, the furniture and other
articles used by him being religiously preserved in
their places as relics.
b EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
On leaving Reval, the sliips proceeded to Cronstadt.
On their arrival they were inspected by the Grrand
Duke Constantine, and in a few days afterwards were
reviewed by the Emperor. Nearly all vessels returning
from foreign stations are thus honoured by an imperial
visit, when the Emperor orders some manoeuvres, thanks
the officers and crew, and on leaving generally makes a
signal, ordering a reward in money to be distributed
among the latter. A few days afterwards the ships
were paid off, when the men either received a long
leave of absence or were housed in barracks on shore, as
is the custom, in the Eussian navy.
Cronstadt possesses no object of interest for any but
professional men. There is, indeed, a small wooden
house which Peter the Great built, now the summer
residence of the governor; and another still smaller,
the model of the house which he inhabited at Saardam.
Both are in the Summer Oarden, and beyond these
there is nothing to be seen but forts, ships, factories,
and uniforms.
The foundation and support of a fleet in the Baltic
Sea has, like every other undertaking in the north of
Russia, been a difficult matter, involving an arduous
war against nature ever since Peter, with a lead in
his hand, sounded the Channel from Petersburg to
Cronstadt. The outlet of the Neva into the Grulf of
Finland has only nine feet depth of water ; and, as even
line-of-battle ships drawing double that depth are built
ST. PETEKSBURG AND MOSCOW. 7
in St. Petersburg, they have to be transported with
immense labour in large floating iron docks to Cron-
stadt, where they are fitted out. In this manner I saw
the last new line-of-battle ship, the 'Imperator Nicholai,'
brought down the Grulf, and a large frigate carried up
to St. Petersburg for repairs. Since the Crimean war,
the Eussian fleet has undergone a thorough change.
Most of the surviving seamen of the Black Sea fleet
were transferred to the Baltic; and a new set of screw
ships has replaced those of the old system. The strength
of the steam navy in the Baltic in 1862 may be given
as follows ; three 3-deckers, seven 2-deckers, fifteen
screw or paddle frigates, between thirty and forty
large corvettes and despatch boats, besides a flotilla of
small steamers and gunboats.*. Except a few built in
England and America, all these were constructed in
the dockyards of Finland, at St. Petersburg, or at Ni-
cholaev in the Black Sea.
As St. Petersburg and Moscow have been at length
united to the west by railroads, few travellers will now
arrive at the former city by the Neva. Yet the view
* All the old line-of-battle ships were sunk in the Nprthern passage
of the Grulf during the preparations for war in the spring of 1863.
Their place has been supplied by iron-clad ships, or, rather, batteries,
one of which, the ' Pervenetz,' was built in England, the rest in Kussia.
These batteries, admirably adapted for the defence of a harbour or coast,
are totally unfit for rough sea service. The 'Pervenetz' ran some
danger of foundering on her passage from the Thames to Cronstadt.
There are, altogether, five of these to be completed in the sprmg, besides
eighteen rams of smaller size, but mounted with the largest metal.
8 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of the city, as the steamer approaches, is very pretty,
with the golden cupola of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the
slim spires of the Admiralty and fortress churches in
the distance towering above the flat on which the city
is built. But if the entrance to the Neva is pleasing
to the eye, it is not always so to the nose. The smell
of the so-called Kussian leather may be agreeable when
made into pocket-books and other useful articles, but
the stench of its preparation, which floats on the air
from the different tanneries at the mouth of the river,
is overpowering.
St. Petersburg is a city of palaces, barracks, and
sheds, which, if situated between the 40th and 50th
parallels of latitude, would be the finest of modern
European towns. As iti is, it is an anomaly which
Folly has raised at an enormous sacrifice, but which it is
now Wisdom to uphold. The time may, indeed, come
when, as many prophesy, it will sink into the morass
from which it was reared ; but that time is far distant.
In gpite of the disadvantages of its situation, St. Peters-
burg, owing to the increasing civilisation of the country,
and the facilities of intercommunication, is more and
more bound up with the interests of the Eussian people.
The foundations of this city were laid, as all know,
at an enormous cost of human life : immense sums of
money were lavished in raising its public buildings, and
every now and then the city is half swept away by floods
or consumed by fire; while anything less hard than
ST. PETERSBUEG AND MOSCOW. V
granite rots in the damps and snows of very few winters.
But all this is as nothing to the perpetual wear and
tear of human life experienced every year in this
struggle of humanity with resisting nature. During
the ten years, from 1852 to 1862, the deaths in St.
Petersburg have exceeded the births in the most favour-
able year by 3,000; in the most unhealthy (1855), by
10,000. The severity of the climate alone can scarcely
account for this. The great drawback to the health of
St. Petersburg is the absence of all drainage. The
land on which the city is built is so low and marshy,
the frost in winter so severe and prolonged, that any
system of underground drainage seems to be impossible.
A certain portion of the filth of the city might, indeed,
be carried off by the river ; but its waters, now drunk
by the whole population, would be polluted, and the
narrow passage leading into the gulf blocked up in a
very short time. Hence the accumulations of sewerage,
found in the centre of every family, are constantly
sending forth pestiferous gases. As these sinks of filth
are disturbed nearly every night throughout the year,
the atmosphere for a verst around is reeking with con-
tamination. Typhus is, therefore, an endemic, and the
cholera is every now and then fearfully active among
such an inviting congregation as the inhabitants of
St. Petersburg. One of these days it may make such
havoc among them, that some means will be taken to
provide a better system for cleansing the city.
10 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
St. Petersburg is not very attractive in autumn to
those who seek pleasure in society and amusement. All
the world is then out of town, in the islands, at Peterhov,
Oranienbaum, Tsarskoe Selo, Paulovsk, or Eeval. But
the palaces, museums, and churches, with their metallic
riches and grotesque art, are enough to excite the in-
terest if not the admiration of visitors. In October the
town assumes a little liveliness — the Nevsky Prospect,
as the Regent Street of St. Petersburg is called, be-
comes tolerably filled during the afternoon, and a fine
day will even draw out a little beauty and elegance for
a walk in the summer gardens. But to see or know
anything of St. Petersburg the stranger must be there
in the winter. Two operas, a French theatre, the best
ballet in the world, the delights of the omnibus box and
first row of stalls, splendid sledges with fur-muffled
beauties, a clear sky and the thermometer 20 degrees
below zero, will all help the tourist to pass the time
quickly. But if he has anywhere read of meetings in
the summer gardens, where rich merchants' wives bring
their daughters for exhibition and offer them with some
tens of thousands of roubles for a penniless or ruined
officer of high rank or family to pick and choose from,
let him banish such ideas from his thoughts. Some good
old woman is now the go-between, and these affairs are
arranged in private.
Thanks to the friendship of some of my late com-
panions, my time was passed very agreeably. Living
ST. PETEESBUEG AND MOSCOW. 11
for a month or two in the home of one and making
occasional visits to the houses of others, I received such
kindness as makes travelling a pleasure, and the re-
membrance of it a regret. When a stranger once
becomes thoroughly intimate in Eussian society there
is none in Europe more pleasant or more free from
absurd etiquette.
During my stay in St. Petersburg two subjects occu-
pied all minds, and were the almost exclusive topics
of conversation — the Emancipation of the Serfs and
G-aribaldi. The enthusiasm for the latter pervaded
barrack and boudoir, his name was in every mouth, his
photograph in every hand, the most exaggerated anec-
dotes were related and greedily read about him. The
ladies, as in all other countries, were his chief advocates;
for the Eussian ladies have the most exalted ideas of
patriotism and liberty, and admii*e rebellion even to
stimulating it. At a later period all this enthusiasm for
G-aribaldi and the Italian cause centred itself on home
affairs, and many of the fair sex became the most
zealous partizans of the Liberals, wearing badges dis-
tinctive of their principles — a freak which brought
some of them into trouble.
I had been accustomed to hear so much of the rigid
mode of public life prescribed by the Emperor Nicholas
that I could not but be struck by the change which
had already taken place since his death. Whereas all
public feeling was then held under strict control, it
12 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
was evident now that the Eiissian people had a will,
desires, and intelligence of its own. Nowhere was this
change more sensibly manifested than in the Imperial
theatres. Formerly no expression of applause or dis-
approbation was allowed in these places of amusement,
but now in the Grand theatre might be heard noisy
cheers, hissing, hooting, and stamping of feet, as the en-
thusiasm, party spirit, or patience of the upper audience
was touched. One incident which occurred just as I left
St Petersburg will especially show how the people were
beginning to feel their strength. At the interment of
the celebrated comic actor, Mortinov, when the people
were dragging the funeral car to the cemetery, amid
thousands of spectators with heads uncovered, the
Commander of the gens d'armerie made his appearance
on horseback, with his helmet on his head. He was
immediately mobbed and compelled to doff his helmet.
Under Nicholas it was as much as the people dared
to do to look at such a personage as the Chief of the
gens d'armerie, much less force him to bow to their
desires. A Eussian gentleman who had just returned
from a forced visit to the Caucasus asked me how long
the Emperor Nicholas had been dead —
' About five years.'
* Nonsense !' he replied, 'at least five hundred, if you
calculate by the change which has already taken place
in the country.' *
* During a second visit to St. Petersburg, in the summer of 1863, the
ST. PETEKSBUEG AKD MOSCOW. 13
One of the great privileges of travel is to read the
history of a country, illustrated in its monuments and
museums ; and there is perhaps no history so well
illustrated as that of Kussia in its capitals of Moscow
and St. Petersburg. In Moscow are the early and
thoroughly national records of the land ; in St. Peters-
burg is seen the transformation and the striking out in
a new path. The traveller should always pay a visit to
Moscow before St. Petersburg. The Oriental character
of the former city will give force to the contrast pre-
sented by the wooden isba of Peter the Great, the
splendid Hermitage of Catharine the Second, the Palace
where the foul murder of Paul was accomplished,* and
the Palace Square of 1825 celebrity. The mosque-
like and grotesque churches of Moscow will challenge
comparison with the beautiful church of Our Lady of
change, I remarked, was still more decided. People freely discussed
politics in public places of resort, the press had a bolder and more digni-
fied tone, and hardly any part of the foreign newspapers was obliterated
by the censor ; even the police intruded still less on the amusements of
the people. Altogether, there seemed to be more freedom of action,
with greater expansion of thought and boldness of sentiment, than
before.
* This palace is now a school of engineers. The room where Paul
was murdered was till lately nailed up. The Emperor Alexander, the
other day paying a visit to the school, asked why that door was closed,
and paying no attention to the confused excuses of the reply of those
around him, ordered the door to be forced, and he passed through the
room. Since this time it has been used by the students like any other
chamber of the establishment.
14 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Kazan, or the gorgeous cathedral of St. Isaac, with its
monoliths of Finland granite, its rich interior, where
gold, silver, and jewels glitter among columns of marble,
lapislazuli, and malachite ; and where huge gates in
bronze portray the deeds of Alexander Nevsky and other
heroes, who, having in a dark age exhibited talents and
virtues above their fellows, have been dubbed saints
by a too admiring posterity. Let the stranger stroll
through the picture gallery in the Hermitage. Among
the portraits which hang high on its walls there is a
series of Tsars who might well pass for Grrand Llamas
or for the first-born of the sun and moon ; close to
these is a portrait in the French costume of the end of
the 17th century, followed by another series in modern
uniforms or mde-spreading hoops.* In one glance is
seen the immediate change from Oriental stagnation
and semi-barbarism to European progress and civilisa-
tion. Whether the bounds between Europe and Asia
should be at the Ural or the Niemen was decided by
the young genius of Peter, and the city which bears his
name and the progress which his descendants have
made during two centuries are the living proofs of his
genius.f
* This is in the room called the PetroTsky Gallery.
t The character of Peter and the acts of his reign have lately been
thoroughly sifted by Eussian historians, having at their disposal all the
archives of the times. Much new matter has been brought forward, but
only to confirm what was already known, viz. that he was a man who
well understood his times; an extraordinary genius, but a passionate
and brutal despot.
ST. PETERSBURG AND MOSCOW. 15
As, in more despotic times, London had its Prison-
tower and Paris its Bastille, so, surrounded by the
waters of the Neva, St. Petersburg has its Petropau-
lovsky Krepost. In the church within its walls are the
simple tombs of its E^mperors and Empresses, with one
exception, from Peter to Nicholas. There also is re-
ligiously preserved that broad-beamed boat, built after
the fashion of the I7th century, which Peter con-
structed and navigated with his own hands, and which
has received the name of the Father of the Russian
Fleet.
From this fortress the signal for opening the naviga-
tion of the river is given in spring by firing of cannon,
when the Grovernor is the first person to cross. But it
is chiefly when the west wind drives the waters of the
Grulf of Finland into the river that all eyes are turned
towards it. The signal of red flags and the booming of
cannon from the fortress proclaims the increasing
danger of inundation. Of the many floods which have
ravaged the city the most disastrous were those of 1777
and 1825, when the waters rose respectively 10 feet
7 inches and 13 feet 7 inches. In the former, in a
low cell of the fortress, perished the young Princess
Tarakanov, whose story, as related by some writers, is
the saddest that can be found in the annals of secret
history.
The Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the
Grreat, had secretly married her favourite, Razumovsky,
16 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
after she had raised him to high rank in the army and
made him Ataman of Little Eussia. From this union
were born two sons and a daughter, who received the
name of Tarakanov. The sons died before their
mother. Just before the first partition of Poland, a
plot, of which Prince Eadzivil was the head, was formed
for the abduction of the young Princess, then about 15
years old, to make her an instrument for the dethrone-
ment of Catharine, and perhaps to satisfy some hopes
of personal ambition on the side of the Prince. The
guardians of the young Elizabeth — for so she was called,
after her mother — were bought over, and she was
removed, first to Poland and afterwards to Italy.
Catharine immediately confiscated the immense estates
of the Prince, who, reduced to poverty, promised to
abandon his projects if his property were restored.
On returning to Eussia he left the young Tarakanov
at Eome, under the guardianship of her governess.
Thither Alexis Orlov, ready for any deed at the behest
of his Sovereign, proceeded, in order, by fair means or
foul, to bring the young girl back to Eussia. With a
Neapolitan named Eivas, he arrived in Eome, where
Eivas, having introduced himself to the Princess, in-
formed her of the interest she excited in Eussia.
When better acquainted, he let her know that he was
only the messenger of Alexis Orlov, who, tired of the
tyranny of Catharine, offered to place her on the throne
of her grandfather, if she would accept him as her
ST. PETERSBUKa AND MOSCOW. 17
husband. The young girl, already somewhat schooled
in ambition by her former protector, accepted the pro-
posal with gratitude. Orlov presented himself and soon
acquired great influence over her. After strangling an
Emperor it was nothing for him to ruin a defenceless
girl. They were secretly married according to the rites
of the Grreek Church by two adventurers, one dressed
as a priest and the other as a lawyer. After this
mockery the pair removed to a palace at Pisa, in order,
as Orlov told his victim, to await the breaking out of
the Eevolution in Eussia ; in reality to be in a better
position for carrying out his atrocious scheme.
The opportunity came a short time after the naval
battle of Tschesme, where ten Eussian ships under the
flag of Orlov, but in reality commanded by the Scots in
the Eussian service, Admiral Elphinstone and Captains
Grreig and Dugdale, defeated aiid burnt fifteen Turkish
ships. . A squadron, under the command of the two
first officers, now put into Leghorn, when Orlov, pre-
tending that he must visit them, easily persuaded his
wife to accompany him to that place, where she was
received into the house of the English consul, At
Leghorn the young girl seems to have created a sen-
sation, which was destined to increase as the shameful
plot unfolded. Orlov without much difficulty persuaded
her to visit the ships. A boat decorated with flags bore
her on board ; with her were the wives of the English
consul and of Admiral Grreig, who, it is to be hoped,
c
18 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
were not privy to the plot. An arm-chair was let down
from the rigging, and the princess was hoisted on board.
But no sooner was she in the cabin, than the unfortunate
girl realised the whole truth of the shameful comedy
which had been played around her. She was confined
below ; some accounts say that she was even placed in
irons. In vain she implored the pity and invoked the
pretended love of her barbarous husband. The ship
sailed, and on her arrival in St. Petersburg she was put
in secret confinement in the fortress of St. Peter and
iPaul, where she lingered nearly six years, until, smo-
thered by the rising waters of the river, she died the
victim of a political necessity.*
Winter had already begun to whiten the housetops
when I left St. Petersburg, and took the train for
Moscow. All my acquaintances assured me that I
should steal a march on the bad weather, and find in
the South, during the month of October, sunny skies
and gentle breezes. The time occupied in passing
between the two cities is twenty hours. My journey
thither was rendered more agreeable by meeting with
a family returning from their travels* The renewal
of our acquaintance in Moscow led to an invitation to
visit their estate in the south of Eussia.
* This girl is said by some to have been an adventuress put forward
as the daughter of Elizabeth. Still, her mock marriage with Orlov and
her miserable death remain as facts. Her history must necessarily
remain a matter of dispute until it shall please the Government to open
tbe State Paper Office to the inspection and criticisms of some future
Soloviev ; — a time, it would seem, not far distant.
ST. PBTERSBURa AND MOSCOW, 19
In this remote part of the world, the hospitality of
old times has not yet taken its flight heavenward,
and letters of introduction are not indispensable for
obtaining admission into society. Unfortunately the
aspect of the country, the climate, and the complete
want of accommodation, offer little inducement to those
who travel only for pleasure or amusement* For those
who brave inconveniences for the sake of instruction a
tour in the interior of Eussia and an impartial exami-
nation of the character and habits of the people would
furnish an interest not to be surpassed elsewhere. No
country in Europe is so little known or so much misre-
presented. The railways now in construction may,
however, attract future travellers, especially if the com-
forts of Western civilisation be provided for them in
the towns through which they pass. But this is not
the case at present.
In the Kremlin, the Acropolis of Moscow, the visitors
may find all that is national in Kussian manners and
customs. There he may see the traces of all that is in-
teresting in her history^ from the time when the genius
and intrigues of one of her princes gained her a pre-
eminence over the other vassal States,* down to the
ever memorable expedition of Napoleon. Nearly every
* The Tartars were bad administrators, and, contenting themselves
with the homage and tribute of their vassals, left the administration in
the hands of the natives. The Princes of Moscow received from the
Grand Khan the right of collecting this tribute, and hence their influence
over the other States.
C2
20 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
object which there meets the eye is connected with
some episode of her history prior to the epoch of Peter
the Grreat, that is, of Muscovite history.
There is the celebrated Krasnaya Ploschad, or Red
Place, the forum, at different epochs, of popular liberty,
of anarchy, and despotism — in the midst of which are
the statues raised in honour of a prince and a butcher,
who roused up their countrymen to drive out the Poles
in 1613. There are its churches of grotesque architec-
ture, where, beneath candelabras, lamps, and censers,
jewelled crosses. Icons with frames of gilded and
curiously-wrought silver, and caskets of sacred dust and
bones, are the tombs of her most famous men. There
rests the celebrated Dimitri, surnamed the Donskoi, the
first but ineffectual conqueror of the Tartars ; there
sleeps the not less famous Ivan, who first took the title
of Grrand Prince of all the Russias after their final con-
quest. There, too, is another Ivan, whose mad barbarity
has acquired for him the name of Grosnie (the Terrible),
and who died the death of a Herod, after he had played
the farce of turning monk, in imitation of the Emperor
Charles V.* The first of the Eomanovs also lies there,
with Peter II. the last of the male line of that family
and the only one of the Emperors not buried in the
* A palace of some interest to Englishmen is still to be seen in
Moscow, built by this tzar for the reception of our Princess Elizabeth,
whose hand he had sought in paarriagp. Ivan was about as much the
uxorious despot as the Princess's father. He had, altogether, seven
wives.
ST. PETERSBURa AND MOSCOW. 21
new city. From the churches let the tourist turn to
its palaces and museums. In the Imperial Palace, from
the noble halls which are dedicated to the modern
orders of Eussian knighthood, a few steps will lead into
the vaulted and arabesqued interiors of the half Asiatic
tsars. In the museums the eye wanders in amazement
over thrones, sceptreSj derjavas (orbs ornamented by a
cross), and crowns of jewels; over endless rows of coats
of armour, swords, and grotesque weapons of almost
every Asiatic people ; from flags of conquered nations
now incorporated into the colossal empire, to other
objects more simple and time-worn, the sight of which
may provoke much more serious contemplation than
gold and silver. There may be seen the litter which
bore Charles XII. at the battle of Poltava ; the double
throne on which sat the two childish tsars, Peter and
his brother Alexis, with the recess behind it from which
their clever and wily sister Sophia prompted their
replies during important receptions; boxes containing
codes and constitutions fallen into disuse or abruptly
abrogated. One especially attracted my attention. It
was a brass box, used as a door weight, which, I was
told, contained the late Polish constitution granted by
the Emperor Alexander I. and taken away by his
brother. Lastly, there are the costly and curious
official walking-sticks of the tsars and patriarchs, none
of which are half so interesting as the stout and knotted
clubs of Peter the Great. Having examined these, let
22 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the stranger take a look at the grotesque paintings over
the portals of some of the churches. Among them he
will find one especially contrived to strike any poor
sinner with horror at the fate reserved for him. The
subject is ' The Separation of the Sheep from the Goats '
— at least, so I read it. The beatified sheep are safely
folded up in one corner quite in the background. The
Devil, sic in mundo^ has the foreground to himself.
Portrayed in the most popular manner, with erect ears,
long tail, and grinning teeth, he is seated between the
fangs of an enormous dragon, and, harpooning one after
another the awe-stricken sinners, he shoves them
down the monster's throat. Looking over the parapet
a few yards off, over one of the most curious panoramas
in the world, the half-European half-Oriental city,
dotted over with some hundreds of golden-domed or
green-roofed churches, the reader will no doubt hope,
as I hoped, that more merciful doctrines are there
taught on a future state than in this pictorial sermon
on eternity.
23
CHAPTEE IL
Russia's rise and social organisation.
Eussia and the United States contrasted — Eussia often misreprer
sented— Else and Aggrandisement of Eussia — Peter the Great —
Catharine the Second — Increase of Population — Orthodox Eussia,
■ — Social Status of the Empire — The Eussian Nobility — Eussian
Princes — The Hereditary Nobles — Nobility of the Tchin — Their
Character — The Tchin — Tchinovniks — Merchants of the Three
Guilds — Their Habits and Character — Disposition to Trade in
the Character of Eussians — Low Social Standing of Traders —
Eussian Clergy — The Black or Monastic, and the White or Secular
Clergy — Their Position and Character — Celibacy and Monogamy
— Dissent in Eussia -The Staroveri — Doukobortzi — Molokani —
The Skopsi — Begouni, or Eijssian Mormons.
NAPOLEON III. in the ' Idees Napoleoniennes,' pub-
lished in his days of exile, remarked that there
were only two well-governed peoples in the world, viz :
those of Eussia and the United States of America,.
Doubtless his later experience has led him to change
that opinion. As good working specimens of an ultra
autocracy and an ultra democracy, they did not per^
haps show the disease which was undermining them.
Both these model Grovernments, now shaken to their
very foundations, are in a degree exchanging their
characters — Eussia, while her whole society is being
transformed, advances slowly towards civil freedom ;
24 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the United States of America seem to be making
gigantic strides towards despotism. If apparently the
best-governed, they were certainly the worst-adminis-
tered of States. In America, the civil servants sold
their votes for places, which they lost on a change of
ministry, or only preserved by political apostacy ; while
in Eussia, according to all its writers, an overbearing
bureaucracy, master of its corrupt position, conspired to
preserve its privileges, and placed barriers in the way of
every good measure of the Government. What becomes
of that trite saying of the French Emperor, on pent
gouverner de loin, il faut administrer de pres, when
the administration of any country is so conducted ? This
corruption was the very excuse for the great centralising
system of the Tzar Nicholas, who mistrusted every-
body and everything not under his immediate control.
No two countries, however, merit more attention at
the present time than Eussia and America. No nation,
in proportion to its numbers and its strength, is, I
believe, so little known as the former. Any atrocity or
absurdity which is told or printed of Eussians, is re-
ceived without the slightest criticism. I remember a
year or two ago reading in a newspaper at Buenos
Ayres, that many Eussians were still cannibals. A
Frenchman j who, from his position, should have been
an educated man, asked me seriously if the Russians
were Christians. More lately at Turin, I overheard the
conversation of a group of gentlemen, who believed
eussia's kise and social organisation. 25
that the frigate on board of which I was then serving,
had proceeded to sea from the neighbouring port of Villa
Franca, in order to shoot eight men, and give the knout
to some hundred more, for the slight offence of having
out-stayed their leave.* The opinions about Russia
and the Russians generally, are founded on what may
have been their condition a century ago, when, as
Macaulay relates, princes dropped jewels and vermin
wherever they passed ; f when sensitive and delicate
* Here is another tale, taken at hazard from an English newspaper
in December 1863. Whoever believes such a tale must have a wonderful
amount of credulity or prejudice : * A correspondent informs us that
after the engagement in the Palatinate of Prasnysz, in which the Polish
leader, Lenzica, perished, several Polish prisoners were brought to
Mlawa, to the Russian commandant, Bogdanowicz. This officer, having
perceived a boy of sixteen among the prisoners, had him brought before
him, addressed him in insulting terms, and flourished his sword about
his head. The boy, meanwhile, stood unmoved, and looked boldly in
the eyes of his persecutor, who foamed at the mouth with rage. " You
Polish vagabond ! You Catholic hangdog ! So you are frightened, are
you ? " he exclaimed. To this the boy quietly answered, that he hud not
feared him on the field of battle, and did not fear him now. "You do
not fear me ! We sliall see ; " and with another flourish of his sword
the savage cut off the boy's head, which dashed against the wall. The
body stood for a moment with the hand raised, and then fell on the blood-
stained ground by the side of the head, Bogdanowicz, meanwhile, taking
a pull at his brandy flask. This terrible deed was witnessed by several
persons who were in the room at the time.' This is only one tale out of
a thousand, which have been spread abroad by Polish agents for rousing
the indignation of Eiirope. That the Russians have been merciless in
their severities on many occasions, I have not the least doubt, but at
least nine-tenths of the atrocities attributed to them have been pure
inventions, or the grossest exaggerations of facts.
t Critical and Historical Essays. Madame D'Arblay.
26 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
women were publicly flogged in the capital ; when
serfs were sold by auction like negroes ; when Eussians
drank train oil out of the street lamps ; and when a
whip, the chief article in a marriage basket, was used
to enforce conjugal obedience. In the present volume,
my wish is to place before the reader materials which
may help him to form an opinion for himself. Many
arbitrary acts of cruelty, and abuses of authority are,
no doubt, still committed, as they always will be, when
men have irresponsible power ; but from the change of
policy in the Government, and the increasing force of
public opinion, they are happily becoming more rare.
Although there is much in Eussians and in their in-
stitutions which, from difference of education, I cannot
admire, still I have no reason for not being impartial.
I am not presumptuous enough to denounce sweepingly
institutions, which wise men have considered appro-
priate to a world in which they lived ; nor unjust
enough to anathematise a whole people, because their
training has not elevated them to the same level as
our own.
I propose, therefore, to give a short sketch of the
rise of Eussia to an important place among nations;
of the organisation of Eussian society ; of the various
reforms which 'have lately taken place, or are about
to be instituted ; and of the causes and results of that
great struggle between Eussia and Poland, with one
phase of which we are contemporaries.
bussia's eise and social okganisation. 27
. The history of Eussia carries us back to several small
groups of men belonging to the Sclavonic race, who,
feeling their way into the future, became, through
mutual jealousies, a prey to invading hordes of bar-
barians, truly named the flails of Grod. We see them
receiving and bearing for generations the fatal mark
then stamped upon them; freeing themselves, after
many vain struggles, by the force of an innate and a
superior genius, aided by the natural decay of the
prestige of their oppressors — collecting their elements
of strength in one spot, and establishing a nucleus of
nationality in Moscow. This small State beginning at
length to feel its strength, and having to choose
between a worn-out and a new system, found in Peter
the Grreat a master-spirit to shape its destinies — a com-
pound of genius and rude humanity, whose ideas were
all of the former, whose actions were all of the latter.
Adopting on the one side that civilisation which was
necessary to its existence ; stretching forth the other
hand over wide wastes of barbarism : from the ice of
the pole to the warm and genial regions of the south,
the new empire soon comprised climates of which the
reindeer and the dromedary are the emblems. After
less than 200 years, the tenth part of the world's space
has been in some measure moulded into an homo-
geneous empire, and has taken its place in the great
commonwealth of European nations. The aim of its
despotic Grovernment during the last 160 years, but ^
28 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
especially under the late Emperor, has been to amalga-
mate the various elements of an incongruous mass into
an harmonious whole — and, with the exception of
Poland and the Caucasus, it has succeeded. But fol-
lowing the fate of nations, no sooner does a nationality
become firmly established, than, strong in its longings,
it aspires to self-government, and rises up against the
power which fostered it.
Peter the Great began his career with an army of
about fifty men under western discipline, a fleet con-
sisting of an open boat built by himself with the aid
of a Dutch carpenter, a people numbering less than ten
millions, and a revenue amounting to .not more than
215,000^. in English money. At the peace of Nystadt
in 1721, he had added the so-called Baltic provinces,
the frontier provinces of Persia and Turkey, and the
whole of Northern Asia as far as the peninsula of
Kamchatka, to his empire. He then possessed an army
of 220,000 men, a fleet of thirty ships of the line with
innumerable smaller vessels, a revenue increased
twelvefold, and nearly five millions more subjects.
Lastly, a beautiful city, reared from a swamp, to which
the white sails of commerce already began to crowd, was
left as a monument of his genius and of his barbarity.
From his death in 1725 to the accession of Catha-
rine II. was a period rather of consolidation than of con-
quest. Eussia was received among European nations ;
her alliance was eagerly sought, and to obtain it her
Russia's 'rise and social organisation. 29
ministers were bribed by all the chief Powers ; * foreign
potentates flattered and coaxed her self-love, and her
troops made their first excursion into central Europe.
With Catharine again came the passion for conquest
by arms or by intrigue. Poland, long torn and
weakened by internal feuds, was dismembered. The
country of the Cossacks and Tartars bordering the
Black Sea and the Crimea were added to the empire.
Immense tracts of land were taken from Persia and
even from the distant frontiers of China. Christian
Greorgia, harassed on one side by the Turks, on the
other by the Persians, ceded itself to Kussia in 1783,
and became finally embodied in the mass. Our own
century has seen her troops on the shores of the
Mediterranean and the Alantic; the present genera-
tion has witnessed her mighty struggle with allied
Europe, which, at length, put its veto on further en-
croachments. In the empire itself a war with a
handful of mountaineers, which has spent blood and
treasure for the last fifty years and is not yet finished,
together with the revolutions and continued intracta-
bility of Poland, that thorn in the side of Kussia, has
alone interrupted the internal economy. When Peter
died the population of Eussia was only fourteen mil-
* Bestujev, the Chancellor of Elizabeth, received hundreds of thousands
of pounds from the English Government to promote the English interest
in Russia, and annul that of France and Austria. — See La Cour de Bussie
il y a Cent Ans. Bk'ptches des Amba&sadeurs Anglais et Frangais.
30 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
lions; on the accession of Catharine it amounted to
nineteen millions. Her conquests, with the natural
increase of population, made the number thirty-six
millions on her death. Since that time, without any-
important conquests, it has doubled itself, and a
natural increase is going on of more than half a million
per annum.
The present population of Eussia in Europe is over
sixty-one millions,* and unlike most other parts of the
East, where religion far outweighs nationality, in
Russia for Russia, in Poland for Poland, the two are
closely allied. ^Of these the orthodox Russians present
a compact body of fifty-three millions, speaking the
same language, kneeling at the same altar^ united by
the two strongest ties which can bind men together.J
The social status of Russia Proper with the Baltic
provinces may be seen from the following table, women
and children of course included : —
The hereditary or personal nobility, the latter
including all persons having a tchin or rank in
the service — the privileged class . . . 2*36 per cent
Merchants of the three guilds ; the class called
* In 1860 the population of Eussia was 61,380,043
„ „ of Poland „ 4,840,466
of Finland „ 1,672,032
Of all these 80 per cent, are of the Orthodox Creed.
„ 11 per centi „ Roman Catholics^
„ 5 per cent. „ Protestants,
the rest Jews, Mahometans, and Bhuddists.
Russia's eise and social OEaANisATiON. 31
Meschani, being the bourgeoisie of other countries
— all paying a trade or a capitation tax . . 5*86 per cent.
The army and navy 3'78 ,,
The clergy and those connected with the churches '95 „
Peasants, workmen, &c 72-27 „
Strangers and others whose social position is un-
defined 1-21
86-43
Leaving for Poland, Finland, and the Caucasus . 13-o7 „
The reform of Pqter the Great completely crushed
the political influence of the old boyards of the tzars
by the creation of the tchin, which rendered nobility
personal to all who held one. Their material power
remained, however, immense in the provinces, as they
possessed fully half the souls, or serfs, of the empire,
and until lately many of them kept up almost a ' court
in their old city of Moscow, much like the Legitimists
in the Faubourg St. Germain, and long maintained
the bitterest animosity towards the reigning house of
Holstein-Eomanov. There is hardly a name of any
one of these old families which has not at different
times during the last 150 years been found enrolled
in some conspiracy for recovering their political privi-
leges of former days. They were emphatically called
the Muscovite party in distinction from the Petersburg or
Grerman party, in whose hands lay really all the power
of the State. The distinction is, however, now more
apparent than real. The extremes are, no doubt, at
32 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
daggers drawn ; but the moderates on either side,
more bending in their views, have become woven one
into the other by the same social and political interests.
The terms Muscovite and Grerman must now be con-
sidered as exploded names which have been replaced
by the more appropriate epithets of Conservative and
Liberal. During the last year or two the hereditary
nobility of Eussia must be classed with the latter ; for
in their district and provincial assemblies they have
been the most active in trying to effect some modifica-
tion in the government of the country — a modifica-
tion which would give their own class an increase of
political power.
The oldest families are those who can trace their
descent from the Varangian princes, Eurik, Sinav, and
Ascold, and number, if I mistake not, only thirty-nine
names. With the union of Lithuania, and of the
Tartar, the Greorgian, and other Caucasian provinces to
Eussia, their chief > men were incorporated with the
Eussian nobility, preserving their titles. It is owing to
this and to the absence of primogeniture in Eussia,
that there are such swarms of Eussian princes. The
Gargarins and Galitzins have become almost a proverb
from their numbers. Of the latter there are no less
than 120 members, bearing the title of kniaz or prince.
Descendants of many of the most ancient of Eussian
families have fallen into complete poverty, and now
belong to the lowest social status of the free population.
kussia's eise and social organisation. 33
Besides this nobility of long descent, all holders of a
tchin above the fifth class, all who have the Cross of
St. Vladimir, and, I believe, one or two other orders,
have the privilege of being considered nobles hereditary.
These titles of nobility vary much in value. Age and
purity of descent furnish a supreme criterion among the
old aristocracy.* Those nobles whose patents have been
conferred by the Emperors, or who have acquired them
from their tchin, rank according to seniority of creation;
and, in certain books, called ^ Class Books,' are registered
the dates of creation of all nobility, whether the old or
the new. All who feel any special interest in the
Eussian nobility will do well to consult the work of
Prince Peter Dolgoroukov, entitled 'Les Principales
Families de la Eussie.' I will here cite the judgment
of a Eussian on his own countrymen and class : * ' The
higher class,' says M. Gerebtzov, ' has quite departed
from the national type ; it is ruled by egotism, personal
ambition and formalism ; its sentiment of charity exists
only in high-sounding phrases. In a moral point of
view this class is in order inverse to its social standing ;
it has not preserved any bond of ideas, customs, creed,
or moral feeling with the people, but forms a distinct
race of itself. It has abjured all profound belief in
* The famous Velvet Book, containing the origin and descent of the
old Eussian nobility, was first compiled in 1682, and first published in
1787.
t Histoire de la Civilisation en Eussie, par Gerebtzov.
D
34 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
orthodox Christianity, and has tried to replace it with
the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which has
filtered through all its members.' This severe criticism
is somewhat softened by an acknowledgment that the
Russian nobility can offer a great number of w^orthy
exceptions, and that the cause of his condemnation must
be looked for in the constant influx of nobles introduced
by the tchin, and in the wide difference which is to be
found in their moral and intellectual education — which
so far is true.
The word tchin denotes the rank of all servants of
the State, whether in the army, navy, civil service, or
church. It is an institution little understood in
Western Europe. As established by Peter there were
sixteen steps, which were afterwards reduced to four-
teen, each of which decides the social standing of the
bearer in any service by a comparison with the corre-
sponding military rank. Beginning at No. 14, in which
are found ensigns, clerks and deacons, it comprises all
the intermediate ranks up to No. 2, where are found
generals and admirals — No. 1 being reserved for the
metropolitans, marshals, and chancellors of the empire.
A priest or navy lieutenant is thus equal to a captain
in the army ; an archimandrite, a privy councillor, or a
post captain, to a colonel ; an archbishop, or a rear-
admiral, to a lieutenant-general, and so on. Admission
into this hierarchy is obtained by length of service
(like rising from the ranks in our army), or by a course
Russia's rise and social organisation. 35
of study and the diploma of the university or military
school, by which the lower grades of the tchin are
avoided. This somewhat corresponds to our competi-
tive examinations. Particular titles are appropriated
to certain grades of tchin-rank. Thus, from Nos. 14
to 9, an officer or civil servant is only styled * Your
Honour ; ' from 8 to 6, ' Your High Honour.' No. 5 is
' High-born ; ' in Nos. 4 and S, it is ' Your Excel-
lence;' Nos. 2 and 1, ^Your High Excellence.'
The clerical ranks of the tchin have also their own
titles.
All these titles are strictly observed in writing, and
when an inferior addresses a superior.
The word tchinovnik, in a broad sense, means the
holder of a tchin or rank in the service, but is restricted
to civil servants only. The very word has become a
reproach in the mouths of all who are not themselves
tchinovniks, and the most celebrated Eussian writers
have striven to expose the vicious organisation of the
tchin — the venality, pride, and vanity of its members.
As the distribution of these ranks is often vested in the
higher members of the tchinal ladder, a degrading ser-
vility has been fostered, which caused Dolgoroukov to
remark that all tchinovniks, to get on in the world,
must have, if not talents, a very flexible spine.
* Who is the Devil, father ? ' asked the son of a
moujik. ^ The chief of the tchinovniks, my little son,'
D 2
36 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
was the father's reply. It will show the manner in
which the tchinovnik is regarded by the peasant. There
is hardly a merchant in Eussia who cannot illustrate
the insolence or tantalising indifference of some tchin-
ovnik, who has put forward objections, and interposed
delay to every demand of signature or service, until
propitiated by the accustomed gift. Complaint, and still
more prosecution, would be of little avail in such cases.
An offensive and defensive alliance exists throughout all
the ranks of the service, from the lowest emjploye to his
chief. This esprit de corps renders the administrative
body in Eussia the most conservative of any class, and
of course opposed to any reforms affecting their material
well-being. The more arbitrary the Government, the
better the tchinovniks thrive, more especially that class
which comes into immediate contact with the people,
as the police, law officers, &c. The great tolerance
allowed to Sectarians was a great calamity to them;
but their severest trial has been the abolition of the
otkoup, or farming of the brandy, as its abuse was one
of their richest sources of revenue. Old tchinovniks
pronounce all the intended reforms of the present reign
impracticable, and it is not to be expected that they
will be very hearty in furthering their execution. But
younger men of more liberal ideas will by degrees
replace these, and then the tchin must collapse alto-
gether. Perhaps if a ukase were to appear forbidding
all classes below the fifth to wear breeches, as is the
Russia's eise and social organisation. 37
case in Japan, it might have the effect of hastening its
disuse.
The small middle class in Eussia comprises (1) the
merchants of the three guilds, who pay a trade tax on a
stated capital, and enjoy certain privileges, such as
exemption from corporal punishment, military service,
&c. ; and (2) the meschanstvo, or petite bourgeoisie,
who, like the peasantry, pay the poll-tax to the Grovern-
ment.
The merchants, beyond the indirect influence of their
money, have no voice in the Grovernment, although they
possess certain municipal rights, conferred on them by
Catharine II. and her successors. They are the most
national part of the Eussian people. Still wearing the
national dress and beard, they live in a retired manner,
eat tschee and drink quass, dream aboiit the Devil, and
send for a priest to exorcise him, besides retaining various
other habits of former times. To see them in perfection,
the stranger should stroll about the Ketai Gorod of
Moscow, and watch them drinking their dozen cups of
tea out of a glass, which they hold between the extended
fingers of one hand, while they have in the other a piece
of sugar, which they nibble between every sip of their
favourite beverage.
A peep into the interiors of those blinded houses
which are in the outskirts of Moscow is more curious
still. The master of the house is probably a Euss of
the old school — polite, but cowed ; his wife, a fat good-
38 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
natured dame, dressed in rich furs, with a painted face,
and loaded with jewels. There is probably a son who has
just returned from the lorettes and lansquenet of Paris,
and in whom the old leaven will now and then appear
from between the cracks of his varnish ; or a daughter,
often pretty, but spoiled, whose only dream is to fall
into the arms of some offering swain, who will lead her
out into a world of which she has as yet had only a few
glimpses. Formerly all Eussian women were kept in
close seclusion, and marriages were made up by an old
woman, whose trade it became. These dames do not
play a less prominent part in such matters, even since
exhibition of the daughters of the merchants in the
Summer Garden at St. Petersburg has fallen into disuse.
Of these three guilds, only the first two can enter into
foreign trade. As a rule, the merchants of Eussia are
parsimonious, while fond of display. Active in business,
but very cautious and deficient in enterprise, they rarely
incur any risks. ' The trading class in Eussia,' says M.
Aksakov, in contrasting the merchants of Grreat and
Little Eussia, ' form a type of themselves ; their wives
may also be distinguished from other Eussian women.
The merchant of Grreat Eussia unites in a wonderful
degree the love of moving about, and of having an esta-
blished home ; a passion for money, and a proneness to
spend it. He does not shut up his capital in an ancient
chest, but puts it in circulation, either to increase his
business, or provide himself with comforts, and lead an
EUSSU'S RISE AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION. 39
easy life. He is fond of horses, loves to parade himself tod
family in fine carriages and trappings, and builds solid
stone houses, which, though not always picturesque, help,
as he believes, to beautify his native city.* Along all the
high roads which connect the different towns of the Uk-
rain, where fairs are held, the postmasters and postboys
await with impatience the arrival of the '' Moscow mer-
chants," and their grandeur and liberal drink-money re-
main a subject of conversation long after they have passed.
The Little Eussian merchant is, on the contrary, stingy,
and makes himself out to be always poor. . . . There is
the same difference in their manner of transacting busi-
ness. The Little Eussian always fixes his price, although it
may be far above the worth of the article, and, sell or not,
he sticks to it. The Great Eussian knows immediately,
by the dress, manner, and speech of his customer, if he
can ask double the price he has already set upon his
wares. Yet even then he can often sell so cheap, that
the Little Eussian, who has paid high for his goods,
thinks him a fool. In fact, the Little Eussians have no
such disposition to commerce as their northern brethren,
and thus the chief trade of all the Eussian fairs is in
the hands of the latter. The Little Euss sells only for
ready money ; the whole trade of Great Eussia is based
on an enormous and hazardous credit, which frequent
• One of the finest private houses in St. Petersburg was built by a
rich merchant, who intended it to rival the splendid new palace of the
Grand Duke Michael, which is close beside it.
40 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
bankruptcies cannot shake. The non-credit giving
merchant contents himself with a very small though
certain gain ; but it is obvious that, without a spirit of
enterprise and a little keen daring, no great results can
be expected in trade.'
Out of 180,000 registered traders, many thousands
were till lately serfs, paying the ohrok, or tribute to
their proprietors. Among all the lower classes there is,
in Eussia as in China, an extraordinary disposition to
barter, and the number of little shops and stalls in the
streets and about the dvors of the large towns reminds
one much of similar scenes in Singapore or Shanghae.
Besides the regular licensed traders, there are thousands
of petty hawkers in the villages, whom it would be im-
possible to register. As many privileges are attached
to the three guilds, one of the most important being
exemption from military service, private persons whose
yearly purchases may be very trifling, frequently take
out a patent for trading in order to share this privilege.
Hundreds of men, doing a large trade, can neither read
nor write ; but a good memory and a counting machine,
like those in general use throughout Asia, supply all
deficiencies. If Eussia considered her true interest in
the various projects of reform, she should immediately
tear down the absurd barriers which prevent men of
education from entering into the ranks of her traders,
that the merchant trading in millions, a farmer or a
manufacturer, need not feel himself below the puniest
RUSSIA'S RISE AND SOCIAL ORaANISATION. 41
podparuchik, or college secretary, in uniform, who
swaggers before him. If a constitution is to be firmly
established in Eussia, such a class must be called into
existence, with education enough to understand its posi-
tion, and dignity and energy enough to act up to it.
It is well known that the Eussian like the Grreek
clergy are divided into two orders, the black or monastic,
and the white or secular clergy — both being under the
spiritual authority of the Metropolitans of St. Petersburg,
Moscow, and Kiev. The black clergy are superior in
education and social standing to the other order — and
from these alone are chosen the dignitaries of the Church.
Some of their monasteries are exceedingly rich ; but it
must be remembered that an inexhaustible source of re-
venue is derived from their ministering to the supersti-
tions of the people. Saints' bones, wonderful virgins, and
ingenious miracles attract the faithful to their convents
as a magnet attracts steel filings. A few years ago the
finding and canonising of saints' bones became so com-
mon in many parts of Eussia, that the Emperor Nicholas
was obliged to make his voice heard, and, as Head of the
Church, to declare that there were quite enough saints
already discovered, without inventing any more.
The secular clergy, on the other hand, are extremely
poor, with the exception of a few who are attached to
churches in the large towns. The village priests are
very little above the level of the peasants, from whom
they are taken, being generally as lazy, dirty, and
42 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
drunken as they. All the clergy are paid by the Holy
Synod, except in the monasteries, which are mostly self-
supporting. A large source of Church revenue in Eussia
is from voluntary offerings, and the sale of wax candles.
Any traveller in Eussia may always see innumerable
small candles burning in the churches or the little chapels
in the streets, and the devout peasants buying them at
a stall close by. Moneys derived from these sources are
funded, and from them the clergy are paid their pittance.
This, with a little aid received from the parishioners, and,
in the provinces, by their own agricultural labour, just
enables them to live. Both orders of the clergy are
incorporated in the tchin, and for grave offences —
though such are generally hushed up among themselves
for fear of scandal — they are liable to be unfrocked and
sent to serve as soldiers in the Caucasus or on the
frontier.
The black clergy are doomed to celibacy, while the
white or secular clergy marry only once, not from any.
love of the principle of monogamy, but by the laws of
the Holy Synod. They generally take their wives from
the daughters of other priests, and inherit thereby the
living of the father ; often, on their becoming widowers,
they are forced by their superiors to become monks.
It has been remarked by Madame Doria DTstria that the
clergy are much sought after by Eussian girls from the
idea that, being unable to marry a second time, they
are more likely to take better care of their wives and
kussia's eise and social organisation. 43
keep them alive as long as possible. A great object of
ambition with them is to obtain an admission for their
sons into the monkish orders ; and until the present
time the whole clergy forms a caste, not easily to be
entered by those who are unconnected with it. But
their low social position, their scanty material ad-
vantages, and the restraint to which they are liable,
prevent any great encroachments on the part of the
higher classes.
Besides Orthodoxy (as by law established) and the
Koman Catholic and Protestant creeds, there exist
many Sectarians in Eussia, called Raskohiiki, the chief
of which are the Staroveri or old believers, who number
more than ten millions. Their origin is this : When
the Patriarch Nikon revised the Sclavonic translation
of the Holy Scriptures, his act was considered as a
sacrilege by many, who continued to follow their old
rites and to read the original translations. After a time
they became divided into two classes : some without
priests, others having their hierarchy, with a patriarch
at the head. The greater part of the merchants and
middle classes in Eussia belong to those Staroveri.
During the reign of Nicholas they were much inter-
fered with by the Grovernment, though seldom exposed
to actual persecution, for they paid the police well in
order to be left in peace. In the present reign they
are as perfectly free as the members of the regular
Church, and exemplify the truth of the political axiom
44 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
— that the most perfect tolerance produces the most
loyal of subjects.* As a secret sect the Staroveri are a
curious subject of study. They appear to have a large
written religious code peculiar to themselves, which
they preserve in secret places known only to the
initiated. If the Grovernment meddled with them, it
was not so much because they mingled politics with
religion — though persecution would surely lead them to
do so — ^but because the exercise of their customs was an
infraction of the civil laws of the empire. Among these
are some very peculiar practices relating to marriage
and the disposal of their dead ; moreover they count it
a virtue to harbour all debtors, deserters, and malefac-
tors, who are sure to find hospitable refuge and conceal-
ment among the Kaskolniki.
Besides these respectable Sectarians there are in
Eussia several sects of fanatics, some harmless, others
most mischievous to society. Among these may be
named the Doukobortsi, or those who strive with the
Spirit, who profess to renounce all the pomps and
vanities of this wicked world, and so abstain from
female society altogether. Another sect are the Molo-
hani, so called from the word Moloko, milk. These
abstain from all animal food and have their peculiar
religious rites. A more fanatical set of men and
* This was shown in the summer of 1863, when the most loyal
addresses and the largest collection of money sent to the Emperor came
from the Staroveri.
RUSSIA'S EISE AND SOCIAL OEGANISATION. 45
women are the Skopsi, or eunuchs, who are found in
small societies all over Eussia, and who make a propa-
gand among soldiers, sailors, and peasants, persuading
them to submit to a shameful mutilation. If any of
these are discovered their sentence is invariably hard
labour in the mines of Siberia for life. Lastly, there is
a sect called the Begouni, or 'Eunners,' who abjure
marriage, government, or property, and live in complete
communism ; in fact they are a kind of Eussian Mor-
mons, whose place of worship is an Agapemone.
46
CHAPTER III.
REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA.
Repression of Public Feeling under the Emperor Nicholas —
Former Popular Government in Russia — Elective Tsars — The
Zemskoe Sobor — Rise of Absolute Government — Attempts of
the Nobility to regain thoir Power, under Ann, Catharine, and
Alexander — The 25th December, 1825 — The Emperor Nicholas —
Spread of Revolution in Europe, and afterwards in Russia —
Necessity for Reform — Secret Literature and Societies in Russia
in the Reign of Alexander I. and Nicholas— The Kolokol or Bell,
and M. Herzen — Its Influence in Russia, and the Caujses of its
Decline —Prince Peter Dolgoroukov and the Pravdievie — Russian
Travellers — Forbidden Literature — The 'Velikie Russ' — How
Circulated — Saint Techon — The Editor of the 'Velikie Russ'
Exiled — The University of St. Petersburg — Admiral Putiatin'^ —
The Sunday Schools — The Provincial Assemblies of the Nobility
in 1862.
BEHIND a ponderous machinery of piles and beams,
the dammed-up waters of a river may appear calm
and unruffled, but the removal of a slight wedge — it may
be by the hand of a child — seals the fate of the whole
structure. If no channel be already formed, the
rushing waters soon form one for themselves; if the
channel be too narrow, they run wild on every side.
Eussia, and especially Poland, for a long time, re-
sembled such a reservoir. The Emperor Nicholas was
the wedge of the dam which, for thirty years, had
REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 47
arrested the wishes of the Russian and Polish peoples.
No sooner had the hand of death removed this obstacle
than the pent-up stream rushed forth. By a wise
discretion, it has been in some degree guided into a
hastily-prepared channel. The effort to gather the
waters once more within their original bounds would
be as vain as the attempt to recall the effects of the
last seven years in Eussia. The old machinery may be
reconstructed, but these seven years, with all their
faults, must be numbered as years of progress. The
wishes so long pent-up in the breasts of Russians were
for reasonable liberty of individual thought and action,
for an impartial administration of law, for equality of
civil rights, and for a more responsible Grovernment.
These are, no doubt, inestimable blessings ; but the
paramount consideration was that of a strong Grovern-
ment. The great difficulty in Russia is to reconcile
the two.
Throughout the early history of Russia, down to the
reign of Peter the Great, we cannot lose sight of the
share taken by the people in the conduct of public
affairs. Nearly every Russian writer of the present
day is especially careful to reiterate this truth, and
impress it on the public mind. The burghers of
Novgorod and Kiev long defended their privileges
against the encroachments of the descendants of Rurik,
and the name of Martha, the Posadnitza, or Mayoress
of Novgorod, who defended her city against the cen-
48 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
tralising ambition of Moscow and its tsars, is just now
in great favour with the Eussians. When Moscow,
after the final defeat of the Tartars, gathered around
her the other States, the Eussian people, as they might
then be called, bore no small part in public affairs.
The Krasnaya Ploschad in the old walled town was
the Pnyx of the people of Moscow. Here the first
Tsar of Eussia convoked an assembly from all the land.
Here Boris Groudonov was elected as the head of the
State, and here, on the death of that great man, and
after the Poles were driven from the country, a Parlia-
ment chose the first of the Eomanovs. In the charter
which he then subscribed, it was written that he
should, without introducing any change, govern ac-
cording to the old laws— that he should neither establish
new laws, nor make war or peace nor impose taxes —
nor estrange the Crown lands — nor sign the death-
warrant of any subject without the consent of a Par-
liament. ' The Tsar has commanded, and the Boyards
have consented ' is the form which headed all public
acts. This form continued only while the country had
no large standing army. When this was established,
liberty died away in Eussia, as in most other States of
Europe. We are further told that Ivan IV. convoked
the deputies of all the land from all classes, to sit with
the Boyards and higher clergy, to make laws and sift
important political questions. 'According to usage,'
says a Eussian historian, 'the consent of the people
KEVOLUTION AND KEFOEM IN RUSSIA. 49
was necessary to confirm the election of the young
Peter, on the Red Place of Moscow.' The Sclavonic
mire, or commune, was in itself the very germ of self-
government; and the guilds of the Gosti, the pro-
vincial assemblies, and lastly the Zemskoe Sohor* were
all popular meetings for the public weal. The Zemskoe
Sohor was, indeed, the Imperial Parliament of the time,
in which the Boyards and chief clergy sat in their
own right, with delegates from the communes of the
peasantry, from the guilds of the Gosti, and the cor-
porations of the towDS. In it the right and the
liberty of discussion seem to have been more or less
kept up, and its decisions, with one or two exceptions,
appear to have been carried out by the Executive.
The reforms of Peter the Q-reat, his formation of a
standing army, his conquests, the creation of the tchin,
the forcing of European, and especially of Grerman
habits on the people, obliterated all traces of former
liberty, and divided the nation into two great parties,
the oppressed, and the oppressors who, in their turn,
were submitted to many vexations. On one side, the
working classes were kept brutalised, and in a state
little better than slavery; on the other hand, the
* Zemskoe Sohor or Bouma. — Zemla, in Eussian, means the land, soil,
country ; sohor, assembly ; douma, council — Assembly or council of the
land. The word Gost means foreign merchant ; not necessarily of
foreign origin, but coming from another part of the country to the dvors,
or bazaars of the large towns, where they ulthnately settled.
E
50 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
privileged class, among whom was portioned out the
result of their labours, hustled one another in the
hurry of personal ambition up the sixteen steps of the
ladder of the tchin, each grade of which gave a greater
share in the partition. A small intermediate class
remained, the merchants and others, but these were
mostly ignorant men, absorbed in the acquirement of
wealth, or the enjoyment of it, and, though necessarily
protected by the State, destitute of all political rights,
and altogether insignificant. It was scarcely possible
that one of the people could rise from his caste to a
superior one, except by some act of despotic favour,
such as raised Menschikov, the pie-boy, or Demidov,
the blacksmith, to notice and power ; or by the still
less worthy influence of, the bed-chamber, to which
many families owe their origin in Eussia, as in other
countries. The army, indeed, sometimes brought for-
ward its intelligent members to the lower ranks of the
tchin, but they seldom mounted higher.
Meanwhile the old nobility, whose political power
had been crushed by the new German regime, and who
would not coalesce with it, lived retired and sullen, but
awed and depressed. One great attempt was, indeed,
made by them (when 'Ann, Duchess of Courland, was
invited to be Empress) to restrain the power of their
Sovereign, and regain their former influence ; but their
aim was only to govern themselves in the manner of a
Venetian or Polish oligarc^iy. They were made to pay
EETOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 51
dearly for their rashness, in the indignities heaped on
them by Biren, the favourite of Ann. The name of the
people was invoked only to favour the views of the
Empress's party, as it is now used in semi-despotic
countries to cloak some extraordinary act of absolutism.
But the old nobility, which since that time had become
accustomed to the new order of things, is now again
making its voice heard, in its provincial and district
assemblies, in favour of a new constitutional Grovemment.
Many changes, legislative and administrative, were
enacted under Catharine II. but they did not much
affect the real condition of the people. The privileged
elftss-inereased its privileges, chief among which was an
exemption from corporal punishment (i. e. they had to
be degraded first), a favour granted by Peter III. when
in a maudlin fit ( 1 7 6 2 ). The Emperor Alexander, besides
improving greatly the condition of the peasantry, during
some years even dreamed of a constitution, and an exten-
sion of civil and social liberty to his subjects; but the
spirit of revolution, which had been the nursling of his
grandmother, appalled him in the end, and he shrunk
back to become the corner-stone of the Holy Alliance.
The 25th of December 1825, was the result of his
tantalising coquetry with constitutional government, and
the confusion which existed in people's minds concerning
the succession gave the liberal party some hopes of a
favourable issue to their undertaking. Their plan was
to form a provisional government, whose duty it should
52 EASTERN EUROPE AKD WESTERN ASIA.
be to convoke a national assembly, in order to draw up
a charter of rights and select a sovereign. Through the
indecision of the conspirators and the personal courage
of the Grand Duke Nicholas the plot failed, and execu-
tions and banishments were the fate of the chief men
among them. One of them. Prince Troubetzkoi, the
admirable devotion of whose wife, in following her hus-
band to Siberia, was a noble contrast to his own pusil-
lanimity, only lately returned from exile, and at the
time of my first visit was living retired in Moscow,
where he died in 1861.
The portrait of the Emperor Nicholas has yet to be
drawn. He, at least, was consistent in his thoughts and
actions, which were to centre all power in himself. As
his fine person rose above the hosts of his Guards, the
great observed of all observers, so his spirit exercised
marvellous influence over Russia and over Europe.
Strong men trembled, weak men lost the use of their
faculties in his presence. Honest men respected while
they blamed, knaves feared while they deceived him.
Liberalism was not to be expected from such a nature.
A band of ministers imbued with his ideas, a legion of
secret police, and the red chalk of his censors, combined
to crush the appearance of it. Yet, according to his
own stem ideas and despite the arbitrary exercise of
power, the improvement of his people, and the national
aggrandisement, was the absorbing aim of his life. Some
future Eussian historian may have to tell, how, in the
REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 53
inscrutable designs of Providence, the stern training
which he gave his people were causes leading to a
happier issue.
The Eevolution, begotten in the seventeenth century,
sprung into life at the end of the eighteenth in a deluge
of blood, which soaked into every soil of Europe. It
has been constantly springing up again during the nine-
teenth, sometimes under the mild and pleasing aspect
of reform, at others in the hideous shape of riot and
destruction. As against the ogres and giants of fable
arose knights sworn to exterminate them, so in Europe
sprang up princes, who, with their ministers, con-
spired to crush the hydra of revolution. Their crusade
against it was severe; but it has been ineffectual.
Barred towers, deep and loathsome dungeons, moral
anguish, added to physical torture ; the knout and the
mines ; solitary executions, or wholesale fusillades — all
were brought to bear against it. The mystery which
often enshrouded it, the strange forms which it assumed,
the dread with which its proximity filled its antagonists,
confounded one kind of revolution with another. The
innocent and the guilty, patriotic reformers and mis-
chievous socialists, too often shared the same fate. The
result we all know. The Holy Alliance, with its secon-
dary meetings, its congresses without number as
without effect, were answered by fresh outbreaks and
reprisals. Thrones have been cast down, and their pos-
sessors forced to seek shelter elsewhere. But Eeform,
54 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the good genius of Eevolution, made good its way,
overcoming all obstacles, and even insinuating itself into
favour with its oppressors, who turned it to their own
glory and the progress of their country.
The remoteness and inertness of Eussia, aided by the
jealous watchfulness of the Government, long withstood
its influence. But the spark fell on it at last, and, after
long smouldering, broke out into a general flame. Times
were changed ; reforms became a necessity ; and the
necessity made itself felt in a manner not to be mistaken.
It was a happy instinct which led the Emperor Alexander
to put himself in time at the head of such a movement,
and impelled his ministers to help him in directing it.
Had they not done so, the people would have brought
down the whole fabric of Grovernment upon their heads,
and the horrors of revolution would have been in in-
verse proportion to the apathy and general inertness
of the rude but patient Eussian people.
There was a need not of partial, but of radical reforms,
affecting the most weighty interests of a State, the
settlement of which has hardly in any country been
accomplished without bloodshed. But in Eussia such
reforms can scarcely be followed by the same results or
success as elsewhere. A servile imitation of the insti-
tutions of another people is seldom attended with any
harmonious working. The complaint of a great part of
the Eussian people is, that they have had forced on them
a system of Grerman administration and government
I
EEYOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 55
which was not congenial to the country and could not
take root in it, which has only been kept up by the
overpowering force of circumstances, but which must
now be purged of the abuses which have crept into it.
If a constitution similar to that of Grreat Britain were
introduced into Eussia, it would be a monstrous ab-
surdity. A constitution, like the laws of a people, to
be thoroughly effective, must proceed from the people,
and must grow up with it. Whether Eussia obtain a
constitution or not, the reforms which are now on the
point of being introduced justify a hope that those
enormities which were sometimes darkly heard of from
that country can never be repeated. The long-
cherished arbitrary ideas of one class, the venality and
lax morality of another, and the general ignorance of
the people, cannot soon be eradicated or amended. But
the present is only the seed-time of better things ; the
harvest must be judged of hereafter.
Intimately bound up with the question of reform in
Eussia, is the history of its secret societies and its secret
literature. In all countries these are the forerunners of
revolution. In our own country, after the second Par-
liament of Charles I. an abundance of revolutionary
writings was scattered along the roads and streets.
Sealed and anonymous letters, addressed to the chief
men of the counties, were found hanging on bushes or
furtively dropped in shops : all giving warning that a
time was fast approaching when ' such a work was to be
56 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
wrought in England as never was the like, and which
would be for our good.' * Such, or nearly such, has
been the plan pursued in Eussia for some time past ;
and it has baffled the researches of a vigilant and expert
secret police-^an institution which England was not
blessed with.
Already in the reign of Alexander I. the movement
began". So prevalent and rampant was the liberalism
of the young officers who returned to Eussia after their
great Western campaign, that one of their old generals
was heard to remark 'it would be better for the Emperor
to have his army overwhelmed in the Baltic, than that
they should return to spread their ideas at home.' The
truth of his words soon became evident in the many
secret societies which sprang up in Eussia from 1816 to
1825. In these were enrolled the names of some of the
highest Eussian families, with those of others to whom
personal talent was then opening a career. Among them
were the well-known names of Muraviev, Troubetzkoi,
Tourguenev, Orlov, Obolenski, Naritchkin, Glinka,
Pestel and others. A great deal of sublime but im-
possible ideology was, in their plans, mixed up with
projects of assassination and changes of dynasty. The
well-known military revolt in 1825 and the partial
risings in the south were the results of all their plot-
tings. Many secret societies had formerly been allowed
* Life and Beign of Charles I. by D'Israeli.
EEVOLUTION AND KEFOBM IN EUSSIA. 57
in Eussia, but as they were naturally enough used for
political purposes, a ukase put a stop to them in 1822,
when every official was required to take an oath that he
had dropped all connection with any of them.
In spite of the repressive measures of the Emperor
Nicholas, these movements still went on, though more
secretly. The evidence of them oozed out in a hundred
different ways. Poets, the creators of history, liberty,
and progress, continued to sing — Pushkin, Grogol, Ler-
montov, Polijaiev, and many others; and though their
political poems could not be published, they were not
the less secretly passed from hand to hand, or less
eagerly read because they were prohibited. At last
some of them reached the highest personage of the
State, who, considering nearly all literature useless, if
not mischievous, was not very likely to be charmed
with effusions which satirised his august person and
the institutions which he was bent on consolidating.
Graver men, professors of science and polite learning,
took up the theme, and gave a form to what poets had
vaguely outlined. Young enthusiasts were ever ready
to carry out their theories, as they were in 1849. But
the time was ill-chosen : an unflinching head and arm
swayed the destinies of the nation, and poets, professors,
and patriots went one of two roads— to the mines of
Siberia, or the defiles of the Caucasus.
At last Nicholas died. The tight reins were a little
relaxed. Poets, professors, and patriots returned from
58 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
their exile, where their opinions had only received a
deeper tinge from restraint. Those who then could not
or would not submit to the censor's pencil, or confine
their advanced ideas among a select acquaintance,
either returned to their old abodes, or became exiles in
Western Europe. Among the latter two men deserve
particular attention, on account of the influence which
they have exercised on current affairs — M. Herzen and
Prince Peter Dolgoroukov, both literary men, both
editors of newspapers in the Eussian language, advo-
cating more or less advanced opinions.
M. Herzen, or, as he is generally known under the
pseudonym of Iskander, emigrated on his return from
exile, and established a newspaper called the ' Kolokol,'
or Bell, in London. To this he afterwards added a
yearly publication called the ' Polarnaa Svesda ' (Polar
Star), and an occasional supplement called ' Pod Sud '
(under judgment), which exposed various iniquities in
the administration of justice. M. Herzen is also the
author of some political works, or novels having a
political tendency, and has the reputation of being
a man of high intellect but of somewhat socialist
opinions. His * Kolokol ' soon created an extraordinary
sensation in all Eussian circles, as abuse after abuse
was laid bare, as acts of the Grovernment were criticised,
and numerous incidents of corrupt official life exposed.
His correspondents were found not only in every
goubernie ef Eussia, but in Irkutsk, and even that
KEVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 59
Ultima Thule of all the Eussias, Nicholaievsk at the
mouth of the Amoor river. Although, as may be
supposed, most of them were anonymous, still, from the
information they sent, many must have been men
occupying high positions either about the court or in
the administration.
Bundles of these newspapers were smuggled into
Eussia in all possible ways. Though seldom found,
they were known to pass from hand to hand, till every-
body read them. M. Herzen's influence became im-
mense ; his name spread into remote provinces of the
empire, and was whispered in a mysterious manner
from the lips of men who could hardly read. A peasant
in a remote village asked me who Iskander was. In
St. Petersburg a shoemaker begged me to give him his
address, in order that he might write a letter to the
' Kolokol,' and expose certain creditors who were
dilatory in paying their bills. In fact, writing to the
' Kolokol ' became an idea in Eussia like writing to the
' Times ' in England. There is little doubt that to its
determined exposure of abuses and its constant attacks
on many arbitrary acts of individuals Eussia owes
some of the wholesome reforms which are now taking
place. It has, however, of late somewhat lost caste,
from its having been made the vehicle of many per-
sonal and groundless attacks. As its correspondence
is anonymous, a wide field was open for the indulgence
of personal malice. One instance came under my own
60 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
notice. A letter appeared in 1861 in the ' Kolokol/
accusing Admiral Shestakov with having, on board his
flag-ship, inflicted corporal punishment on a midship-
man. Such an accusation naturally caused much
excitement in St. Petersburg among persons connected
with the navy, and no little astonishment and disgust,
when read, as it was soon afterwards, on board his
frigate. It had evidently been sent with a malicious
intention, for the writer must have been perfectly
aware that no admiral in the service dare commit such
an action now, even if he did not know that Admiral
Shestakov was just one of those men who are opposed
to corporal punishment altogether. The only colour
for such an accusation was, that the midshipman in
question had been put under an easy arrest for a few
days for some act of misconduct. One or two such
attacks, with the evident bias of the ' Kolokol ' to
doctrines which even liberal men consider highly
dangerous, has had the effect of estranging from it the
confidence of many of its former admirers. Its editor
is, however, always willing to do the amende honors
able, and to publish all communications which may be
addressed in defence.*
* At the present moment, August 1863, the Kolokol has almost
entirely lost its influence in Eussia. Nobody any longer questions his
neighbour as to the content* of the Kolokol. There are three reasons to
account for this. The first has been already given. The second is that
the Government, no longer making its existence a mystery, permits
.extracts from it, and answers to it, to appear in the Kussian press. Thd
REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 61
Prince Peter Dolgoroukov, a cousin of the Chief of
the Secret Police, successively passed through all the
phases of Eussian liberalism. He served, spoke too
freely, was exiled, and afterwards emigrated. Recalled
to Russia after the publication of his 'Verite sur la
Russie,' he refused to obey the order. He then started
a newspaper called ^ Pravdievie ' (Truth), with the inten-
tion of advocating a constitutional Grovernment. Till
lately this paper was published in Leipsic, although it
has since been replaced by another journal of somewhat
different name. The influence of the ' Pravdievie ' was
much less than that of the * Kolokol,' owing, perhaps, to
? the famous trial which lately took place in Paris between
Prince Worontzov and the editor, when evidence came
out not at all in favour of the veracity of the latter.
These two journals, with a host of other publications
forbidden in Russia, are circulated all over Europe,
wherever a few Russians are found together. Along the
frontier, at the baths of Grermany, at Nice or Athens, as
\ in Paris and Leipsic, they strike the eye of the travel-
ling Russian from the shop windows. Thousands of
revolutionary proclamations addressed to the youth of
Russia, to officers and men of the army and navy,
exciting them to sedition, also flow from the presses of
third reason, and the most fatal, is that M. Herzen is no longer con-
sidered, as before, a Russian patriot, on account of his siding, in the
present dispute, "with the Poles, whose pretensions, in the belief of the
Russians, involve a dismemberment of their country.
62 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
London and Leipsic ; and their ideas, sown in a soil of
only superficial cultivation but of hot productiveness,
have brought many a young man who offered himself as
their apostle to the casemates of a fortress or a dreary
banishment.
It is only during the last few years that Eussians of
any except the higher classes have had permission to
travel. The cost of a passport during the reign of
Nicholas was alone sufl&cient to deter many from apply-
ing for what would probably have been refused. Of
the many young men who were then sent to complete
their education in Grerman Universities fully half found
their foreign training a curse to them on their return.
Men of powerful minds became imbued with a political
ideology which they found impossible to maintain in
their own country and under their own institutions.
Many felt bitterly the sudden contrast from Western
European life to the deserts of Siberia. The names of
hundreds could be mentioned who, possessed of all the
talent and adornment which make life respectable and
glorious elsewhere, found those talents simply hurtful
in the land in which they were born. In advance of
the society in which they were called to live, they will
in a happier future be enrolled among the army of
martyrs who have suffered for the misfortune of being
half a century in advance of their fellow-countrymen.
When with the new reign greater liberty of travel
was accorded, thousands rushed towards the West. With
REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 63
the greater part this liberty would naturally be exercised
at first in running wild among the pleasures and
luxuries which more genial climes and a cheaper civili-
sation afforded, in catching up crude and extreme
ideas, and revelling in a literature which had for them
a mysterious charm because it was proscribed at home.
Some, attracted b}^ the liberal principles of other coun-
tries, but, without tracing them back to the laws and cha-
racter of a people, applied them too hastily to their own
land, and took on themselves the task of disseminating
them. Others, not content with reading alone, must
see and converse with the authors of what they read,
must have their photographs, and, in the revolutionary
atmosphere of Leicester Square, greedily snapped at
many a hook which was baited with such tempting
words as Liberty, Fraternity, Communism, Eepublic.
The year 1861 was a fruitful year for secret literature
in the interior of the empire, but chiefly at St.
Petersburg. One publication especially created an ex-
traordinary sensation. It was called the ' Velikie Euss '
(Grreat Eussian), and was edited by a young man named
Michailov. The whole police of the capital were long
puzzled to find either editor, printer, or disseminators.
Copies of it were strewn about the streets at night, or
openly left at the doors of houses : and the connivance
with which it was everywhere received must be some
evidence of the state of public feeling. Its contents
revealed the existence of revolutionary clubs all over
64 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the country, with a secret committee in the capital.
The members of these seemed to be pretty equally
divided into two parties. The one was the ubiquitous
republican party, whom nothing less would satisfy than
the overthrow of the present dynasty and a complete
change in the Grovernment. The other was the consti-
tutional party, who wished only to set bounds to the
power of the Sovereign, and to effect a reform in the
laws and administration. Thus divided in their views,
the leading liberals, in the last published number of the
' Velikie Euss,' counselled a general plan of comhiittees
throughout the country in communication with the
secret club in St. Petersburg, in order secretly to draw
up and obtain signatures for a petition to the Emperor.
A formula, setting forth grievances, was added to serve
as a model for the petition. The chief items of this
formula were complaints of the unsatisfactory manner
V^ in which the Emancipation was being carried out ; of
bureaucratic influence ; of the state of the finances, and
the constant depreciation of paper money. It urged
that the retention of Poland was the chief cause of
Russia's internal weakness, as it required an enor-
mous army to keep down the Poles, and that in a
manner which was barbarous, besides costing millions
of treasure, thus hurting the material prosperity and
national honour of the Russian people. It went on to
say that as the Emperor then stood he had to struggle
with abuses of every description, against which he was
KEYOLUTION AND KEFORM IN EUSSIA. Q5
completely powerless; The address concluded by pray-
ing the Emperor to convoke a parliament in one of the
capitals, to draw up a constitution for Kussia, and an-
other in Warsaw for Poland.
Among the divers manners in which this newspaper
and other revolutionary pamphlets were circulated,
one is highly amusing. About two centuries ago there
lived somewhere near Moscow a holy bishop called
Techon,* who literally followed the Christian injunc-
tion of giving all his goods to feed the poor. He died
and was buried ; but left a name not to be forgotten
among the simple peasantry, whose fathers had shared
his bounty. During the perplexities of the Emancipa-
tion, it became necessary, by some striking example,
to clinch the faith and rivet the religious obedience of
the peasantry. So Techon's bones were dug up, and
solemnly canonised by the Holy Synod: and, as is
every day the case in Eussia, miracles were soon
performed on the faithful.
Techon's success was immense. Pilgriioas came from
all corners of the orthodox empire to kiss his crumbling
bones, and even the Emperor, during his journey
south in 1861, did them the honour of a solemn visit.
The exemplary life of the saint was published in'
St. Petersburg. It passed, of course, in an easy
manner, the ordeal of the censor, and had an enormous
* Commonly called Techon Zadonskoi, from the name of his monas-
tery. His theological letters are well known.
6Q EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
sale. Thousands of copies, in covers illumined by a
portrait of the holy man and other sacred but gro-
tesque figures, were sold at the book-stalls in the gate-
ways of the city. A most praiseworthy inclination for
pious literature was evinced by the public of the
capital, which could not fail to be remarked with
pleasure. At last the truth came out. It was a wolf
in sheep's clothing. Under poor Techon's skin were
discovered revolutionary writings of the worst descrip-
tion, and the real saint soon ceased to attract the
public.
At last Michailov, the editor of the ' Velikie Euss,'
was caught and exiled to Siberia. His deportation,
however, only gave a further opportunity for the mani-
festation of public feeling. Thousands of his photo-
graphs were sold. Subscriptions were opened. The
ladies' secret liberal societies (for they had theirs also)
exerted themselves, as women only can. Concerts and
soirees litteraires were given for poor unfortunate
literary men, A carriage was presented to him for his
journey, with a valuable set of furs to keep him warm
in his Siberian exile. Even on his arrival in Tobolsk
he met with further demonstrations of sympathy, not
only from exiles who had preceded him, but from
public functionaries — an act which caused the Govern-
ment to send thither a commission to enquire into the
matter.
About the same time occurred those disturbances
EEVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 67
which led to the closing of the universities. As in
most other countries where the tongue and pen are
under control, these were found to be the very wasp's
nest of Liberalism. Professors were there who clothed
political axioms in the garb of fable, or dressed up
some event in earlier history as a satire on the present
time and its events. Students applauded or hissed, as
the substance of the lecture or the political bias of the
lecturer coincided with their own views. At last,
during the Emperor's visit in the south, a dispute arose
between the students and the authorities of the uni-
versity of St. Petersburg, which determined Admiral
Putiatin, the Minister of Public Instruction and Morals,
to take the wasp's nest and root out all the grubs of
infection. This was very cJumsily performed by the
troops. The dispersed professors and students went
buzzing angrily all over the country, and, of course,
propagating their opinions, which good policy might
have kept confined between the bounds of the univer-
sity. Poor Admiral Putiatin got dreadfully stung in
the action, and, no doubt, regretted that he had
changed salt water and plain sailing for the intricate
navigation and constant luffing of a ministerial bureau.
As is known, the universities remained for a long time
closed ; and a hasty act, which nearly drove the extreme
Liberal party into open rebellion, was only remedied on
the Emperor's return by the retirement of the admiral
and the appointment in his place of M. Grolovnin, who
68 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
had the reputation of being a Liberal, and whose first
act was to reopen the universities and soften the rigour
of literary censure.
The Sunday schools which had been established for
the purpose of giving instruction to artisans and others
engaged during the week, were also closed at the same
time. It was found that political doctrines and the
rights of man were taught to the scholars at the same
time as A. B. V. D. In this affair were found impli-
cated one or two personages high in favour at Court, a
fact from which we may divine the source of certain
intimate communications which appeared from time to
time in the * Kolokol.'
Early in 1862 took place in certain governments of
Kussia the usual triennial meetings of the nobility to
choose their president or marshal. These assemblies of
the nobility, which were held in every district, with a
general one for the province, were founded by Catha-
rine, but never possessed any political power. Their
business was confined to local administration, to ap-
pointing the public functionaries for the district or
government, and to arranging or deciding all disputes
between the proprietors and their peasantry. But in
this year they assumed somewhat different respon-
sibilities. At St. Petersburg, Moscow, Toula, Nov-
gorod, Smolensk, and Tver they converted their halls
into something like a parliament, in which the two
parties, Liberal and Conservative, young and old
EEVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 69
Russia, came face to face. At all these places the
members soon threw aside their usual subjects of
discussion, and broached the ticklish topic of reform.
At St. Petersburg, under the very eye of the Court,
the two parties were pretty equally divided. At-
Moscow, however, the Liberals had the upper hand,
and a petition to the Emperor was proposed, voted,
and drawn up, praying for local self-government, a
thorough reform in the administration of the laws,
liberty of the press, the immediate and final settlement
of the Emancipation question, the publication of the
budget, and a parliament of all the estates of the land.
The same petitions were sent up from the other assem-
blies; but Toula went farther than the others in
the liberal tendency of its address. To the last-named
petition alone did the Grovernment deign any notice at
the time ; and the answer to this address was a party of
gens d'armes, who carried off thirteen of its chief sub-
scribers to the fortress of St. Petersburg, where they
were confined for a short time. Yet the year did not
pass away without the appearance of some more
favourable effect to these serious and solemn demon-
strations of the feeling of the nation.*
* The Polish Insurrection, by absorbing the attention of the country,
doubtless explains the interruption of these agitations. When that
question is settled, we shall probably see them renewed, if the Govern-
ment have not fully carried out its reforming programme.
70
CHAPTER IV.
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA, 1862.*
Monument at Old Novgorod — The Six Epochs of Eussian History
• — Russia's Influence on the World in the Past — Her Aspirations
for the Future — Railways and Telegraphs, the Missionaries of
Civilisation — Reforms in Russia — Their probable Effect — The
Budgets — The OtJcoup or Brandy Panning — Statistics of Russian
Finance — Reform in the Administration of Justice — Russian Law
— Its Abuses — Immovable Judges — Advocates — A Jury — Rus-
sian Law of Habeas Corpus — Great Difficulty of Introducing
Reforms — Abolition of Barbarous Punishments — Flogging — The
Russian Army — Freedom of the Press — Laws concerning it —
Popular Education in Russia —Religious Liberty — Less Meddling
in Private Affairs of Subjects — A Constitution for Russia — Con-
stitution versus Autocracy — Reasons for and against a Constitu-
tion in Russia — Agitations of the Nobility — Difficulties in the
"Way — Programme of Russian Government — Conditions for se-
curing the Benefit of Reforms already given.
IN the month of August 1862 the Tsar celebrated the
millenmal birthday of the Eussian monarchy in
the old city of Novgorod. On the monument there
consecrated as a memorial of that day are inscribed the
names of nearly all those men of whom Eussians are
* This is, of course, a popular fiction. In 862, the Scandinavian
princes came to Novgorod, and thence spread on to Kiev and other
centres of population. But the country cannot be said to have had either
government or history before the reign of Ivan III. about a.d. 1446.
THE MILLENIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 71
proud. Its form is that of a bell, surmounted by a
Greek cross. On it are exhibited six groups of cele-
brated men, representing the six epochs of Eussian
history. The chief figure in the first group is Eurik,
the Varangian chieftain, a.d. 862.* The second cen-
tral figure is that of Wladimir, who introduced the
Christian faith from Constantinople, a.d. 988. The
third, that of Dimitri, the Donskoi, who defeated the
Tartars at the battle of Koulikouvo, on the Don,
A.D. 1380. In the fourth group is Ivan III. Prince of
Moscow. The central figure of the fifth is that of Michael
Eomanov, the first of that family elected tsar by the
Boj^ards and people, a.d. 1613. In the last is that of
Peter the Grreat. The secondary figures are those of
various heroes, martyrs, saints, poets, and generals who
have figured in Eussian history up to the present times,
' A thousand years in the eye of the Lord are but a
moment,' sang the wise King David ; but it is never-
theless a long time for the childhood and youth of a
people. It may be said that Eussia has produced no
one great national genius, who has exercised any
influence on the world at large. As is the case with all
young peoples, the real genius of the nation has been
shown in poetry. The rest of its literature may be
called exotic. What is to be the result of the next
* A curious dispute has lately been going on among learned Kussians,
many of whom maintain that he was not, as is generally supposed, a
Scandinavian, but that he came from Lithuania.
72 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
century or two, now that the body is fully grown ?
Will it play a noble part ? — or will its acts and thoughts
be only faint struggles for prolonging a diseased
existence? Till now her career has been that of a
young savage, doing all to increase his physical de-
velopment, and roaming far and wide to extend his
hunting-grounds. That object has now been gained.
Kussia has advanced to the shores of two oceans. She
has a vast network of internal waters, some of the most
fruitful lands, some of the richest and most varied
mines in the world. She possesses the means of all
prosperity, and her only need is that the people may
be trained to take proper advantage of them.
Moscow and St. Petersburg have been connected
by railways with the cities of the west, and the wires
of the telegraph have been laid down to the remote
capitals of the celestial empire. Eailways and tele-
grfiphs are the arteries and nerves which must bring
all mankind into unison. Eussia is at last joined by
them to Western Europe, and the sympathy of union
will never permit a repetition of the tyrannical and
sometimes barbarous deeds of a former age.
In judging of reforms in Eussia we must not com-
pare them too closely with the more perfect institutions
of other countries. Our duty is to measure them by
the changes for the better in Eussia itself. The chief
reforms which have received the sanction of the
Emperor up to the present time are the emancipation
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 73
of the serfs, the publication of the national receipts and
expenditure, the substitution of an excise for the
otkoup, or farming of the brandy or vodka, certain
reforms in the administration of justice, modifications
in the severity of punishments, and a greater liberty
in local administrations. Others equally important are
being considered, embracing finance, the army and
navy, the public press, &c. &c.
Throughout the year 1862 the ministers and
generals brought up in the political school of the last
reign, one after another resigned their functions,
and their places were filled by new men, who
felt that a great change was impending, and that it
behoved the Grovernment to do something to meet the
demands of the country. Despotic governments have
often before sought to quiet the hungry dogs of
Liberalism with choice and tempting morsels. But
the times were now too critical for such dealing, and
men's minds too highly excited to take promises for
facts. Though the reforms which have been granted
may appear trifling to those who live in a more
liberally organised society, for Eussia they are im-
mense ; and though they will certainly be more perfect
on paper than they can be in practice, still, flagrant
abuse of authority must be detected, and if not
punished, will be at least so stigmatised by public opinion
as to deter others from offending in like manner.
I have reserved for a special chapter the consideration
74 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of the emancipation of the serfs, and the character and
state of the Eussian peasantry.
Imperfect copies of the budgets of 1859 and 1860
were surreptitiously obtained from a correspondent of
the ' Kolokol,' and published in that paper. The
Government, yielding to strong public opinion, pub-
lished that of 1862 in its official gazette; and the
details of finance may now be examined in Russia as in
any other country. At the same time, many retrench-
ments in the expenditure of public money were ordered,
especially in all that concerned the members of the
Imperial family, their extraordinary allowances, and
the celebration of their saints' days.
One of the most beneficial of the reforms already
accomplished is the substitution of an excise for the old
system of farming the vodka, or corn brandy, to indi-
viduals. This system was a great cause of demorali-
sation both in the public officials and the common
people. Drunkenness is one of the greatest curses of
the Russians : but its encouragement became a political
necessity, for by no other means could so large a sum
be brought into the revenue. The importance of this
Government monopoly may be appreciated, when it is
said that the farming of the vodka produced 123,000,000
roubles a year to the State, or about two-fifths of its
whole income.*
* The income of the Eussian Gorernment for 1862 was as follows, in
round numbers : —
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF KUSSIA. 75
The corruption to which the otkoup gave rise (such
as the adulteration of the spirit and the bribing of
inspectors and police of all grades) has been for years
exposed in almost every work in Eussia. The new
system of excise is said to work well, and a slight
increase is perceptible in the revenue. The number
of grog shops is greater ; the vodka sold is cheaper and
of better quality ; and the tchinovnik would seem at
present the only sufferer by the change, if the chief
consumers of the vodka could be excepted. But un-
fortunately drunkenness has increased among the lower
classes in proportion to the diminution of price and the
improvement in the quality of the spirit.
The greatest need of reform lay in the administration
of justice. No country in Europe had a more perfect
The poll and other personal taxes levied on
the people, the privileged class paying no-
direct taxes 55:|^ millions of roubles.
Produce of woods and mines . . . . llj „ ,,
Excise and customs, salt tax and other in-
direct taxes, of which the vodka alone pro-
duced 123 millions 198^ „ „
Raiboads, Post-office, government lands, and
various other sources .... 80 „ „ '
Interest on Mortgages .... 14^ „ „
311
Of this sum 106^ millions were required for the army alone; 54^
millions for interest of national debt ; 20^ for the navy ; 8 millions for
the court ; 26f millions for the finance department ; and the rest for the
usual working of the other administrations.—^^. Petersburg Mcsiatseslov,
or Calendar for 1863.
76 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
written code than Russia; but nowhere perhaps has
the practice been so little in accordance with the
theory. Pinned on to every law were half a dozen
ukases or orders changing or abrogating it, so that
a decision could be given and maintained either way.
Into this code, drawn from the ancient laws and reformed
by Peter the Great, Catharine introduced other laws
from Western Europe, and the work of consolidation was
completed by the Emperor Nicholas in 1830. If its
administration has not been always pure, it was cer-
tainly not the fault of the different emperors, who,
though superior to the laws the}^ made, wished to have
them binding on all classes of their subjects. The
reason must be sought elsewhere. The members of
the Executive, often badly paid, but with expensive
habits, yielded to a system of bribery which extended
throughout every branch of the public service. The
secrecy which accompanies such transactions in other
countries is a proof of public morality. In Russia bribery
became open and shameless, and was looked on as matter
of course. Crimes could be hushed up, a lawsuit gained,
the eyes of a police inspector closed, and things
■utterly impossible quickly executed by the timely
administration of hzadld, varying according to the im-
portance of the affair or the rank of the receiver, from
a silver grivnik (ten copecks) to a bank note for a
thousand roubles.
The forms of law procedure furnished an opening for
I
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 77
all abuses. Every case, criminal or civil, was heard
with closed doors. The depositions were given in
writing. From these judgment was formed and sen-
tence pronounced, and thus the proceedings ran to an
indefinite length of time which a bribe alone could
shorten. The secret police had an unlimited power of
arrest, and, in minor cases, of punishment. They were
thus the terror of the innocent as well as of the guilty,
both of whom were only too glad to ransom themselves,
the one from a deserved punishment, the other from an
impending accusation. The new acts, by which judges
will be immovable and will receive a higher salary, the
institution of a jury, the pleading of advocates on both
sides (a new class in Eussia), oral evidence in open
courts, and its publication in the newspapers, an im-
mediate and decisive verdict of condemnation or of
acquittal in place of a verdict of not proven — all afford,
if manfully carried out, sufficient guarantees for the
greater security of the subject. Added to these is a
law in some measure resembling our habeas corpus,
whereby any person arrested on any charge must be
brought within twenty-four hours for examination
before a magistrate, and in every district a proprietor
has been appointed with powers answering to those of
our justices of the peace. The secret police are no
longer to have the power of arbitrary punishment. All
civil processes are to be public, the necessary papers are
to be furnished to the counsel on either side, and every
78 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
pretext is taken away for spinning out a trial, in order
to bleed both parties to the utmost.*
Such are the wholesome changes ordained by the
legislative section of the Imperial chancery. It will be
a more difficult task to cleanse the Augean stables of
Kussian administration, to root out the love of arbitrary
power, and purify the morality of some tens of thousands
of functionaries. New professions have to be called
into existence. To plead as an advocate requires long
and special study ; and to promote this object faculties
have been lately established in the Eussian Universities,
while the fine law library of the late Count Speransky
at St. Petersburg has been thrown open to students.
Public education must be fostered for years before an
institution like that of a jury can be properly under-
stood or appreciated. Even then, judges, pleaders, and
9- jury may be made the instruments of the worst of all
despotisms — a despotism which has the sanction of the
law to cover it. English history furnishes some melan-
choly examples. In ordinary criminal and civil cases a
Grovernment is seldom interested in tampering with jus-
tice. But in political trials public opinion is generally
favourable to the prisoner and adverse to the Govern-
ment. It would seem, therefore, of less consequence
that the reforms already mentioned are not to apply to
cases of treason, where in general they are most needed.
* These new laws are to come into force from the year 1864, unless
the Polish insurrection delays their promulgation for a short time.
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 79
Altogether, though these reforms cannot soon become
solid institutions, yet, if carried out even imperfectly
for a time, they must prove an inestimable benefit to a
people who have so long been the victims of caste and
of arbitrary power.
Barbarous and debasing modes of punishment seem
also coming to an end in Russia. That horrid instru-
ment called the knout, which, by a fiction of clemency,
was inflicted instead of the penalty of death, though a
few strokes of it properly applied generally had the
same effect, was already abolished in 1845. Corporal
punishment seems on the point of being abolished alto-
gether, in spite of the unctuous opposition of Philarete,
the patriarch of Moscow, who, a supposed Liberal under
Nicholas, drew from the New Testament an apology
for whipping and for its necessity under the present
Emperor. The following reasons for its abolition were
lately put forward in the report of the Minister of the
Interior to the Emperor : ' That corporal punishment
does not exist in other countries, and that its use is
not warranted either by the habits of the people or by
the frequency of crime in Eussia ; * that such punish-
ments offend public morality, and, instead of acting as a
warning, rouse only a feeling of pity, in which horror
of the crime is lost ; that this is especially true of the
* It is a curious coincidence, that whUe the question of abolishing
corporal punishments was being mooted in Eussia, many members of the
British legislature were desirous of re-introducing it into English law.
80 EASTEKN EUKOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
punishment of women ; and, lastly, that crime has
been lessened, since milder sentences have replaced the
more barbarous punishments formerly inflicted.'
Corporal punishment for women has therefore been
abolished altogether ; while for men its infliction has
been rendered less cruel, nor can it be inflicted at all
unless sanctioned by a legal sentence. The law no
longer justifies proprietors in beating their peasants,
masters in chastising their servants, or the police in
flogging their uncondemned prisoners. It is probable
that the severe military punishment of running the
gauntlet between two rows of soldiers armed with sticks
will also give place to some other, to act more as an
example, with less of torture. As it is, commanders in
the Eussian service are restrained from severely flogging
their men, except by sentence of a court-martial.
Eeforms in the military and naval services have long
been talked of; but of their nature or extent little is
yet known. Enough, however, has come to light dur-
ing the last few years to show that a serious disaffection
existed in the army, both among officers and men.
Revolutionary writings, circulated widely in various
regiments, found readers not only among the wild
and headstrong youth, but even among some of the
superior and more sober officers. The events which
took place in repressing certain disturbances in the
south of Russia in 1861, and a letter published in the
'Kolokol,' in October 1862, are examples of this. The
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 81
officers of the Eussian services are patriotic in the
highest degree, and, though the younger members are
sjpt to be led away by political ideas, they are not in the
least revolutionary. The soldier, doubly attached by
religion and tradition to the person of the Emperor, is
simply dissatisfied with his lot as a soldier, and listens
willingly, therefore, to any plan which he thinks can
alleviate it. But it must not be supposed, as a certain
part of the ultra-press wishes it to be believed, that he
is given to sedition and ready to take part in a revolu-
tion against his Emperor. He wants only to be better
fed, better clothed, and, more than all, to be permitted
to return soon to his village and live quietly. In most
countries, in which a conscription is in force, the term of
service varies from eight to three years. In Kussia it was
formerly 25 years, but now it is only 15. During this
time the soldier is hardly paid at all, and, if his colonel
be corrupt, he is badly fed and clothed, so that he is
only too glad to earn a few copecks by odd jobs, when
not on duty. At the end of his term of service he returns
to settle in his native village, which he had quitted as
a young recruit ; but generally he comes back only to
find his parents and connections in their graves, and to
resume among strangers a life for which he has long
lost the habit. If he is wounded or disabled, his pen-
sion barely suffices to keep life within him, even in the
cheapest part of Eussia. During the present reign his
a
82 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
condition has been mucli improved. The conscription
has made no call on the youth of the country since the
last war;* it now falls more equally on all classesi;
while, during his period of service, the comforts of
the soldier have been increased and his punishments
mollified.
/ Another subject which has occupied much attention
in Eussia for some time past, is the freedom of the
press. This freedom, however, seems still far distant.
A greater license has certainly been allowed, the
censure moderated, and liberty given to reply to radical
literature published in Grermany and England.
The necessity for granting this liberty was over-
powering. Every educated man in Russia read the
secret prints from foreign countries, but he had gene-
rally judgment enough to distinguish the wheat from
the chaff. The youth of the country, more than ever
politically inclined, also read them, and often nothing
else ; for in the public press at home, hardly any notice
was taken of the ' Kolokol ' and the ' Pravdolubievie,'
and if ever the home papers replied to any matter found
in those journals, the control which was known to be
exercised over them, neutralised any wholesome in-
fluence f which they might otherwise have exercised.
But it must be remembered that, in the matter of
* Until the late preparations for war called forth a conscription of ten
in a thousand. August 1863.
t See last chapter.
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 83
education, Eussia is unlike any other country in
Europe. Out of more than sixty millions, fifty
millions can neither read nor write ; certainly not five
millions take interest in political news, and perhaps
not more than 100,000 men have education enough to
found their judgment of things on facts, and not on
newspaper criticism. ' On an average,' says M. Grerebtzov,
in his ' History of Civilisation in Eussia,' ^ only 1 in 8
can read and write; in some goubernie, there is not
one in a hundred who can read.'* That some form
of control is necessary to prevent revolutionary and
profane ideas from becoming a source of mischief among
ignorant men, no one, who thinks sincerely, can deny.
General education must precede a freedom of the
press ; if it be the effect of it, it will receive the im-
* Till lately, the only instruction received by children of the lower
classes from their ignorant village clergy was confined to the Sclavonic
Church Liturgy and the principles of morality, with anecdotes and tra-
ditions of the Elders, which were learnt by heart. There were also a
few schools imder the direction of the different administrations, such as
the Ministry of the Imperial Domains, &c. But since 1859 the Ministry
of Public Instruction has organised a system of national schools
throughout the country. The difficulties in the way of popular educa-
tion in Russia are far greater than in any country of Western Europe,
and cannot be overcome unless the Government interferes, supplying the
buildings and teachers, and compelling the attendance of the young.
In some districts schools are already established ; but they are attended
only in winter, and then, owing to the rigorous climate and the dwellings
being scattered over so large a space, the attendance is necessarily
scanty.
G 2
84 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
pression of its teacliings ; and that such impression
may be not hurtful to the well-being of the State, some
control must be exercised.
The changes in the laws concerning the press will
make the censure partly preventive, partly penal.
Most works, the contents of which are not likely to
give umbrage to the Grovernment, may be published
without preliminary censure, the authors and publishers
being liable to prosecution for any illegal matter
which they may contain. The periodicals which fall
under this head will, like the press in France, receive
so many warnings before they are prosecuted. But for
most of the newspapers and political works the censure
will remain preventive as before, and that, by the wish
of the editors themselves, who prefer the preventive
censure to the risk of a prosecution, which may be
directed by private animosity, or which it might be
necessary to hush up by a large bribe.
Eussian orthodoxy, though not very liberal in its
dogmas or in its laws where men of other creeds are
concerned, is yet tolerant on the whole. But the
Emperor Nicholas, in his rage for centralisation and
uniformity, had also a mania for converting his sub-
jects, which has happily subsided during the present
reign. In his lifetime the various Easkolniki, as
Dissenters or Sectarians are called in Kussia, had to pay
the police well to be allowed to practise their rites in
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 85
secret. Many a good Jew was turned into a bad
Christian, or an indifferent Lutheran into a very hypo-
critical orthodox. The most cruel measures were put
in force to convert the Uniates and Catholics of the
Polish frontier to the national orthodox Church —
measures which, unhappily, were only a retaliation on
the conduct of Polish proprietors and Jesuit priests
towards members of the Grreek Church. Those un-
fortunate pariahs of Europe, and especially of Poland,
the Jews, are at length also admitted to be men, and
allowed civil rights. Looked upon as traitors, some of
them actually became so, and it was only a year or two
before the last war, that the whole Jewish population
was ejected from Sevastopol. As far as civil equality
goes, the Jews possess it throughout all the Kussias,
but their social equality is still far distant.
Altogether, that meddling in the private affairs of
subjects, which we natm-ally look for at the hands of
a so-called paternal Grovernment, is fast dying out in
Kussia. For example, the late Emperor was fond of
forcing all his youth into Grovernment schools and
colleges, to be trained in the way he thought they
ought to go. Parents were frowned at, if not repri-
manded, who preferred private or home education for
their children in tender years, although, to judge by
many examples which have come under my own notice,
persons educated under their parents' eye, while not
86 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
inferior intellectually, are certainly morally superior
to those wlio have grown up under the lax morality
and deadening routine of these public schools.
There remains the subject of a constitution, which
many educated Eussians eagerly desire, and many not
less earnestly deprecate. As theories of government,
both the autocratic and constitutional forms have each
their merits and their faults. If the latter is the
safest, an autocracy is more prompt and decisive in
its action. The traveller must remark the quickness
in diplomacy, the compactness of huge armies, the
order and regularity with which public works are
carried out ; but, though he admire, he need not envy.
A despotic Grovernment cannot, in our times, be a
lasting one. When Madame de Stael told the Emperor
Alexander I. that his character was a constitution in
itsexf, his answer was, *I am only a happy chance.'
The remark and the reply embody the good and evil
of all despotic Grovernments. The loyal and humane
character of the Emperor Alexander II. is a guarantee
for the time being. But who can answer for the
future rulers ? Where an innate sense of justice does
not exist in the mind of an absolute prince, there
remains no other check to the abuse of authority than
the fear of assassination, or the horrors of a revolution
which convulses all society.
That the Eussians are fit for a constitution few En-
glishmen probably will deny. The people are ignorant ;
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 87
the roads are bad; the principles of the leading men
waver with the circumstances which surround them;
there are abuses and corruptions of all sorts to be got
rid of. But the Eussian people are patient, loyal, and
patriotic, and under a rough and semi-barbarous appear-
ance they possess much sound common sense. The com-
munal system, under which the greater part of them are
born and bred, is the very nursery of self-government.
At present their wishes are confined to the proper
execution of their just laws, the permission to manage
their own local affairs, and protection against the
rapacity and ill-treatment of Imperial favourites, of the
official or proprietor, with whom they have to do.
They understand no more of a constitution than they
know how to fly, and would probably be quite opposed
to it, if they thought it was to weaken the power of
the Emperor, to whom they have been accustomed to
look as a last resource in their troubles. During the
revolution in St. Petersburg and the south of Eussia
in 1825, the ringleaders, to rouse the enthusiasm of their
followers, shouted ' Hurrah for Constantino and Consti-
toutsia ! ' The men did not understand, and remained
silent. ' Constitoutsia ! who 's she ? ' they said, ' is she
the Grrand Duke's wife ? '
The wish for. a constitution is confined to the million
or two of educated, ambitious, and restless Eussian and
Polish nobles and students; and there is certainly
among them enough talent, science, and principle to
88 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
carry on to the benefit and honour of the country
such a machine of government. But one insuperable
difficulty intervenes in the host of interested and
talented supporters of an established despotism, backed
by an army of three quarters of a million of men. A
forced constitution under such circumstances is scarcely
to be thought of. Even if acquired, it would probably
go the road of other famous European constitutions.
The people would neither have the time nor the chance
of any organisation in its defence, while the army, if it
interferes against one prince, becomes too often a tool in
the hands of his successor. Where a ruler has directly
or indirectly uncontrolled power of the public money to
pay or reward a standing army and talented supporters,
a so-called constitution is a farce, and it is better to
call things by their right names and say autocrat at
once.
Some hopes were, however, cherished by many
Kussians, that the present Tsar purposed to surrender
many imperial prerogatives, and * octroyer ' as the
French call it, a sort of constitution. This appeared
the more likely when certain Government newspapers
published formulas of the different constitutions of
Europe. But this was, probably, only a sop thrown
out to appease the longings of the moment. Whatever
may be the opinions and intentions of the Emperor,
it would seem to be quite against the views of the
Grand Duke Constantine, who, for his station, is
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OP RUSSIA. 89
certainly one of the most progressive men in Eussia,
and also against the convictions of very many educated
men who have studied the wants of their country.
Their idea seems to be that the country would not be
benefited at present by curtailing the prerogatives of
the Emperor, owing to the vast extent of the empire,
the variety of its nationalities, the absence of an
educated middle class, but chiefly perhaps, also, from
a fear that the class whose talents and ambitions would
then come into play, might, with their newly-acquired
power, prove intractable and turbulent ; and further, that
those prerogatives are absolutely necessary to carry out
intended reforms in a quiet manner, without •endanger-
ing the foundations of society. My own conclusion, so
far as I am able to form a judgment by personal obser-
vation and by much that has been written, is, that
while the Emperor will continue an autocrat,* with his
ministers, his chancery, and senate, as consulting and
legislative bodies, his Grovernment will take the lead
in carrying the country through a series of reforms,
some of which have been already accomplished ; that
without interference from the central power a certain
local self-government will be conceded; and that on
western models a system of national education will be
organised to pave the way for future reforms ; that the
* The Russian word is Samoderjetz, the et3anology of which is pre-
cisely the same as the Greek word ' Autocrates ' — he who governs by
himself.
90 EASTERN EUEQPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
press will enjo}^ greater liberty. At the same time, the
Grovernment seems to be averse to a parliament elected
by the country, which is naturally enough desired by
all who, from their position, would be called to take
part in such an assembly.
If all these reforms are successfully carried out, a
new era will have commenced for Eussia with the
anniversary of her thousandth birthday, and when they
have reached a stage of prescription, she will be in
a better position to obtain and to benefit by the
acquirement of a more popular government. To hasten
that happy time every patriotic Russian should strive, as
far as may be in his power, to carry out and consolidate
the reforms which have just been granted by promoting
agriculture and other forms of industry, and by residing
more among those whose labour is the wealth of a
country, instead of deeming it the summum honum of
life to pass frivolously through it in the garb of a soldier
or a tchinovnik. He must no longer look on trade and
commerce as either derogatory to a gentleman or too
mean an occupation for a man of education, but, on the
contrary, as the chief means of advancing the prosperity
of his fatherland, of promoting the liberty of its
people and a kindlier feeling towards the stranger. He
must remember that they can never have these effects
if they are abandoned to men who are at once ignorant
and despised almost as much as the traders and
mechanics of China or Japan. Lastly, it should be the
THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF EUSSIA. 91
object of all who have in any way the command over
their fellow-men, to promote their education in all
useful and practical knowledge ; in the conviction that
public opinion and the good common sense of the mass
are now more powerful weapons than sword and cannon
for effecting happy revolutions,*
* A ukase sanctioning the formation of provincial and municipal
assemblies has just been promulgated. January 1864.
92
CHAPTEE V.
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEKFS.
The Emancipation a Credit to all Classes in Eussia — Serfdom
not Ancient in Eussia — Its Origin — Slaves and Serfs — Serfdom
Abolished, and Ee-established by Godounov and Eomanov —
Peter the Great confirms it — Public Grants of Land, with
Serfs attached, under Peter, Catharine, and Paul — The Crown
Serfs and those of Private Proprietors — Three Denominations
of Serfs — Their Position and Duties — Causes of their Misery
— Duties of a Proprietor — The Land belonged to the Serfs
— The Eussian Mire, or Commune — The Artel, or Working
Men's Association — Character of the Mire — Anecdotes — Pro and
Con. of the Communal System of Labour — The Obrok^Serfs — The
Obrok System of Cultivation — The Semi-Emancipation of 1862 —
The Dvorovye, or Personal Serfs — Sufferings of the Proprietors —
Their Character and Habits — Difficulties of Emancipation — The
' 3rd March, 1863 — The Emancipation completed, except on the
Polish Frontier — The final Arrangements — How the Land is paid
for — Communal Courts — Effects of Emancipation — Character and
Habits of the Eussian Peasantry — Whipping — Eeligion and
Patriotic Feelings of the Lower Classes in Eussia — Holy Eussia
— The Peasant as a Soldier or Sailor — Anecdote — Social Traits
and prevailing Vices — Cost of Living in Eussia — Opinion of a
Eussian Landowner on the Emancipation — How the Eussian
People is judged in Western Europe.
TT7HATEVER may be the future course of tlie Em-
* * peror Alexander II. the emancipation of the serfs
must remain the chief and most glorious act of his
reign. But although he has nobly directed the move-
ment, still the self-sacrifice of the proprietors and the
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 93
patient forbearance of the people in their newly-
acquired power have been such as to win for them all
credit from those who know how great has been the
loss of money on one side, how great the provocation
to avenge old injuries on the other.
The early history of nearly all the Sclavonic peoples
of Europe is involved in no slight uncertainty. But
although the accounts of Polish and Kussian historians
are inconsistent, there is on the whole little doubt that
as early as the seventh century there were many families
of this race, living under a half-patriarchal, half-demo-
cratic polity, of which the most powerful ruled after-
wards at Novgorod in the north and Kiev in the south.
The burghers of these towns seem to have carried on an
extensive caravan trade-in furs, amber, &c. with savage
tribes on one side and with the luxurious but decaying
civilisation of the Byzantine empire on the other. Witlr
the arrival of Eurik and his followers, a.d. 862, were;
first introduced the germs of feudalism and serfdom;
Yet it would appear that, during all those dark years
of anarchy and blood which followed the great irruptions
of barbarians into Western Europe — while Charle-
magne was conquering and consolidating his vast
empire, and his descendants were parcelling it out and
making slaves of its peoples, down to the time of the
Mongol conquest of Eussia — the only slaves in that
country were either prisoners of war, debtors, or those
who voluntarily sold themselves into slavery. During
94 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
this epoch, a.d. 990, Christianity was introduced from
Constantinople, and its influence, great wherever it took
root, became singularly powerful over the mystical dis-
position of the Sclavonic races, and helped them in a
great measure to support the coming burden from the
crushing weight of which they have been only just set
free. Speaking of the Tartar dominion, Russian his-
torians are accustomed to extol their countrymen as
martyrs who saved Europe at the price of their national
existence. With more truth it might be said that the
senseless feuds and constant rivalry of their rulers well-
nigh brought Europe itself to ruin.
/ Under Mongol rule the peasant was first bound to
the soil, in order to facilitate the collection of the
tribute then levied on the whole population. When
this yoke was removed, he became again more or less
free to remove from one district to another, as desire or
necessity might prompt him. The slaves, as before,
were bought and sold apart from the land. The system
/of the Tartars was reimposed by Boris Grodounov, as
an act of policy to rally the large proprietors around
his throne. In the disorders which followed his death
it again fell into disuse, and the final establishment of
serfdom was reserved for Mickael Romanov, acting under
the advice of his father, the patriarch Philarete, for the
same State reasons which influenced Grodounov. Many
privileges and immunities were, however, still left to
the peasant, now a serf. He could not be sold away
THE EMANCIPATION OP THE SERFS. 95
from the land on which he was born, and of which he
considered himself as the proprietor, although he him-
self was the property of his landlord. He could not be
put to forced labour, but cultivated his land and paid
over a portion of the produce to his landlord, one-third
or one-half, according to circumstances. He was also
free from military service, which was considered too
noble for hinds, and reserved for a special class.* But
all these privileges vanished, one after the other. The pro-
prietor soon abused his powers ; Peter the Grreat wanted
soldiers ; and it was only in the reign of Nicholas that
the secret sale of human beings apart from land was
quite done away with.
When the Great Eeformer of Eussia re-established
the poll-tax, and numbered his people for the purposes
of recruitment, he confirmed and aggravated the con-
dition of the serf. In the lists of population then made
out, the personal slave and soil-bound serf were mixed
up together, and such confusion followed that it soon
became impossible to distinguish the two classes. As
the empire enlarged its bounds, serfdom was introduced
into all those countries (as of the Cossacks, &c.), the
rural populations of which had hitherto been free.
But a certain distinction could still be made among the
peasants and slaves thus condemned to a common
serfdom. The serfs of the Crown lands were still
* The serfdom in Japan at the present day seems to have much of
this character.
96 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
distinct from those of private owners. The former,
paying their yearly contribution to the Grovernment
for the land they occupied, were in comparison free
men ; at all events, they were not subject to the petty
tyranny of a poor but extravagant master. But from
the time of Peter the Grreat to that of the Emperor
Paul, the tsars carried out the odious system of be-
stowing Crown lands, together with the serfs attached
to them, as rewards to generals or statesmen, or as
presents to favourites. Examples of this had, indeed,
been given before, when the States-Greneral in Moscow
(1613) gave Crown lands to Minime, the butcher of
Novgorod, and to Prince Pojarsky, for their services in
di'iving out the Poles from their native city ; but these
instances were rare. Menschikov, the favourite of
Peter the Great, could travel, it was said, from Eiga
on the Baltic to Derbend on the Persian frontier, and
sleep every night on his own estates. At the age of
thirteen he was a poor boy, selling rolls in the Kremlin ;
when he died he possessed 150,000 families, or about
500,000 peasants. Catharine II. bestowed millions of
serfs on the nobility, whose favour she wished to gain,
as well as on her fortunate lovers. Of these the Orlovs
received 45,000 souls ; Potemkin no less than 37,000.
Her son Paul, following her example without her
reasons and necessities, went beyond her in counting
off lands containing upwards of 2,000,000 of souls
for the use and profit of the Imperial family. The
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 97
Emperor Alexander discontinued the system, and would
have abolished serfdom altogether throughout his em-
pire, as he had done in the Baltic provinces (1816-20),
if his firmness had been equal to his humanity.
The 42,000,000 of serfs in Eussia might be divided
in round numbers as follow: — 20,000,000 of Crown
serfs, 2,000,000 on the Imperial domains, and 20,000,000
under private proprietors. The emancipation of the
former, of course, could take place without difficulty,
the serfs being simply made tenants of the Crown until /
they could ransom their land on certain fixed conditions. ^
The emancipation of the rest involved intricate interests,./^
which required all the patience of the Government,
proprietor, and peasant to bring to a satisfactory
settlement.
When the day named for the emancipation arrived
j (March 3, 1862), the arrangements were far from com,-
plete; and, though serfdom then came nominally and
legally to an end, it was in reality retained for another
year, in order to reconcile many diversities of interest
and opinion. .
Serfs might be classed under three denominations : —
First, the agricultural serfs, who tilled their land, and
. either paid their proprietor the ohvok, or gave him their
labour ; secondly, those who pursued any other occupa-
tion away from the estate and paid the ohrok or tribute
to their masters, much as is the case with hired slaves
in South America ; and, thirdly, the dvorovye, court, or
H
98 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
domestic servants. The lot of the former varied
with the existence or the absence of the mire or
commune.
The extent and value of all estates were estimated by
the number of souls, i. e. peasants, upon them. If the
proprietor farmed his own land, his peasants were
\ obliged to work for him three days a week all the
year round. This term was established by law but
continually evaded. Some proprietors made the peasant
work four, five, or even six days a week during the
busy times of seed-sowing and harvest, so that he had
little time to cultivate his own plot ; and in winter all
field labour is impossible. Villages and estates where
this slave-driving was in force might always be dis-
tinguished by the filth and misery of the peasantry.
These were generally found on the estates of small
proprietors, of retired tchinovniks and parvenus, whose
debts or whose desire for keeping up appearances
served as an excuse for squeezing the unfortunate
peasantry to the utmost. A proprietor, who had many
times travelled the length and breadth of Eussia, told
mej^that whenever he passed through a village more
tl3,an Usually poor and dirty, with the enclosures badly
cultivated and the ishas in a state of dilapidation, the
answer to enquiries on the subject invariably was, that
''\ the pameschik or landlord made his peasants work six
• days a week, and that they had no time for attending
to their own affairs* On one or two occasions during
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 99
my journey through Eussia, I put the same questions
and received the same reply. These small proprietors of
from twenty to fifty souls have been the greatest sufferers
by the change. To many the loss of at least three-fourths
of their land has been utter ruin. Where the number
of the peasants is in too great a proportion to the
extent of their land, the money . which they receive
would be immediately swallowed up to pay off the
mortgage with which most of them were burdened. A
fund called the Emancipation Fund was established to
relieve the small proprietors of twenty-one serfs or
under, who have thus been reduced to great difficulties.
Many wise proprietors, when the subject first took a
serious aspect, voluntarily emancipated their personal
serfs and made private arrangements with those who
possessed their land* A friend of mine, an officer in
the navy, when his peasants came, according to old
custom, to congratulate him on his return from a long
voyage, addressed them seriously on the coming change,
and told them that they would soon be independent of
his control. With one voice they cried out that they
did not wish to be free. Indeed, under an easy and y/^
humane master, serfs were almost as much a burden
as a profit. They had no other cares than that of
labour ; and the jpameschik was bound to them by many
ties. He paid their taxes ; if their isha or hut was
burnt down, he gave timber to rebuild it ; if the horse,
cow, or pig died, he must replace it ; if sickness was in
100 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the family, he found doctor and medicines ; if the
harvest was bad, he had to feed them ; if they were
naked, he must clothe them. In a word, in all their
wants they looked up to their pameschik for assistance
and advice. It is true, this was all charged against
them by the proprietor ; but the serf was lazy, and was
generally deeply in debt. All such proprietors, who
behaved to their serfs with real humanity, will find in
the emancipation, when the first loss has been got
over, a release from many anxieties and much extra-
ordinary expenditure. As the arrangement between
them and their serfs has been effected with equity and
good feeling, their future relations will be those of
respect on the one side and of friendly interest on the
other. Men, whose ideas were narrower or whose
property was heavily mortgaged, had no alternative
but to submit. Few could venture openly to plead the
cause of serfdom ; for, when once the serfs heard the
word emancipation, they were not to be put off any
more, and they would not be free without land. ' God
gave our forefathers the land to till,' was the logic of
the Eussian peasant. 'We are the children, the land
is therefore ours. The Tsar is God's representative ;
him and those whom he sets over us we will serve, but
the country, the soil is ours.' Such a feeling as this
among the peasants was a powerful lever in the hands
of Government, and a sword of Damocles hanging
over the heads of repugnant proprietory.
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEEFS. 101
The mire * or commune — one of the curious institu-
tions of the Eussian people, though not peculiar to
them — still retains all its old vitality. Individuality
is completely lost in the mass. Not only in agricul-
ture but in commerce and handicraft the Eussian lower
orders exhibit the same proneness to possess in com-
mon. Mr. Mill, I believe, somewhere remarks, that as
civilisation advances, men more readily give up their
individuality, and act in masses. This disposition is
manifest through the whole history of Eussia. The
Eussian people are eminently gregarious in their in-
stincts and occupations, and soon become lost if left to
thdr own individual resources. If a Eussian peasant
leave or be banished from his village commune to seek
his fortune elsewhere; if he become a soldier or a
sailor, the same instinct of communism remains with
him. In the regiment or on board ship a sort of
commune is soon formed among those who are of the
same village, district, or goubernia. If the peasant
become a tailor, cobbler, smith, isvoschik or coach-
man, or takes to any other trade, he soon forms w^ith
others an association called, in Eussian, Artel, or enters
into one already formed ; and this society in Eussia
answers the purpose of working men's associations,
the order of Odd Fellows, Draids, &c. in England;
* Mire in Eussian means the * World.' — The Commune is, indeed, a
little "world in itself.
102 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
For the same reason the Eussian peasant seldom
emigrates willingly.
Where this Tnire or commune exists, as in Great and
i White Eussias, the mass of land is held by it and culti-
vated in common, a certain portion of the produce
beiug paid over to the proprietor or so much labour
being given as an equivalent for it. The land is mea-
sured and portioned out among the different families
which form the commune, according to its quality and
convenience of situation. There is a public granary,
where corn is stored up in case of dearth ; there is a
communal bath, a communal well, and a communal
bull. If the wealth increase, a re-division is made;
each male child receives his share on arriving at ma-
jority; and a habit of industry is kept up among its
members, although it is of course accompanied by a
spirit of narrow-minded conservatism. If a member
wishes to quit the commune he can do so, but he
cannot be re-admitted except by general consent.
Besides possessing property in the commune, he can
also hold some independently. Every village commune
is presided over by its starost or elder, who acts as a
magistrate, and from whose decision appeal is seldom
allowed. A union of several village communes forms
a superior commune, which meets to deliberate on the
general good, and occasions have not been wanting in
their history when they have protested against wrongs
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 103
and injustice, shown a firm face, and in the end
established their rights.
The following anecdote will show how this mire or
commune is woven into all the habits of Russians. A
large emigration took place a few years ago from over^
crowded districts to the waste but fertile lands which
border tl^e Volga. Every family received a large piece
of land with certain privileges. The minister of the
Imperial domains soon afterwards visited the new
settlement. He found the peasai^ts perfectly satisfied
with their lot, with one exception — they had no com^
mune, and prayed the minister to allow it to be esta-
blished. 'Without the commune,' they urged, 'the
justice and equality with which the land had been
distributed would soon be troubled. One family would
increase faster than another, and so become poorer ;
another family would remain the same or even de-
crease, and so become richer than the others : whence
would arise all sorts of dissensions and disorder,'
In another instance the lands of a certain commune
were required for Grovernment purposes, and its meni-
bers ordered away to other lands at a short notice.
The commune assembled, talked over the matter, and
the result was a protest to the Emperor Nicholas, who
admitted the justice of the demand, and ordered that
the peasants should be left where they were.
Under this institution two-thirds of the Russian
104 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
peasantry are born and live. Much has been said
and written during the last year or two on the wisdom
of continuing or abolishing it. The chief accusations
brought against it as a system are — that it is the relic
of a barbarous age, unsuited to present civilisation, and
deadening individual energy; that, as all men in the
mire are not equally capable, the progress of one is
retarded by the insufficiency of another; that time lost
in consultations, which might be more profitably spent
in action, leads to lazy and apathetic habits ; that the
commune often keeps in its body men whose capabili-
ties might find better and more useful employment
out of it ; and, lastly, that its spirit of stubborn con-
servatism is a barrier to all improvement either in the
peasants themselves or in their mode of agriculture.
On the other hand, its advocates not only deny these
charges, but insist that it is so deeply rooted in the habits
of the people as to be, in practice, indispensable, and
that, in order to carry out any good system of national
education, the commune, by keeping many families
together, is invaluable. It is a happy sign for the
welfare of Eussia, that her writers, no longer wasting
their talents in introducing an exotic literature from
France and England, give their attention to the in-
ternal condition of their own country and whatever
may lead to its improvement.
The surplus serfs on an estate hired themselves out
and paid to their proprietors a tribute called ohroh.
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 105
These ohvok serfs were generally found among the
domestic servants in the towns, as coachmen, post-
boys, vendors of small wares, and as workmen in fac-
tories. Many of the small shopkeepers about the dif-
ferent dvoTS or bazaars of St. Petersburg and Moscow
were ohroh serfs. Several had raised themselves to the
position of merchants, amassed wealth, and purchased
their freedom. One serf, it is said, ofifered a million
roubles to his proprietor for his freedom, and was re-
fused, the proud noble declaring that he would relish
the luxury of having a millionnaire serf. The same
nobleman possessed a serf who, having attracted the
attention of an Italian artist by his fine voice, was
taken by his patron to Italy^ whence he returned to
Eussia with an Italianised name. But he was still a
serf, and, though his master would not take the ohvok
from him, he was compelled to attend on certain occa-
sions, when the Prince gave a great dinner, to charm
the guests by his singing.
As a great part of the proprietors wore absentees
during many months of the year, their estates were
cultivated on the ohroh system. The peasants under
the starost or chief man^ and sometimes controlled by
an agent of the proprietor, undertook the entire manage-
ment of the estate, whether under the communal system
of Grreat Eussia or that of separate farms, as in the
Ukrain. The proprietor furnished nothing but seed.
The peasants ploughed, dunged, sowed, and gathered
106 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
in their harvest with their own implements, took the
produce to market and sold it, and paid over to the
pameschik or his agent a portion of the profits, gene-
rally from one-fourth to one-third, and kept the rest
themselves. But in these cases they had to bear all
risks from fire, tempests, or disease among themselves
or their cattle.
The new laws chiefly touched those peasants who
actually possessed land, whether held by manual or
horse labour or by paying ohroh The right to the
^xi^oil was the chief difficulty to be overcome. Every
male adult peasant had a right to his isba and a plot of
land on the estate, partly arable, partly grass, of about
eight acres, but often less in valuable districts, though
that quantity was fixed as the medium by the Grovern-
ment. For this land he paid an equivalent, either in
labour, money, or kind ; and for the future he will pay
the same, under a somewhat different arrangement.
Where the commune exists it will re-imburse the
proprietor. In other parts of the country, where the
land is divided into hereditary farms, each peasant will
receive about the same area of land, which he must ran-
som at once or by degrees from the proprietor, or from
the Government who advances the money for him. In
cases where there is no actual possession of land,
where the estate is too small for the number of serfs,
the peasant, after the two years of forced service, i. e.
after ]March 3, 1863, can pass on to Crown lands, where
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEBFS. 107
he will receive wood from the Grovernment for build-
ing an isba, and a sum of money to commence life
with.
Peasants paying the obrok could, during the two years
of probation, arrange with their landlords to capitalise
their ohrok at the rate of six per cent, or five per cent,
in some districts. Artisans, small dealers, domestic ser-
vants, and others who exercised any calling and paid
their obrok, continued to do so until 1863, but during
that time the master could neither recall him from his
employment or increase his obrok.
The dvorovye or personal servant became simply free ""
on March 3, 1863, and henceforward will get his living
as he can. Numbers of them immediately inscribed
their names as meschani, in order to exercise some
petty commerce. During the following month more
than 4,000 inscribed their names in the commune of
Cronstadt alone, not necessarily to reside there, but
because the tax of that town was trifling compared with
the tax of the capital. The emancipation of this class
will be a great relief to many masters and mistresses,
who can thus get rid of half their lazy, lounging, and
unprofitable servants. In many families these personal
serfs were a thorough and permanent nuisance. They
considered themselves as much bound to their masters
as their agricultural fellows considered themselves bound
to the land. Lounging about the mats when the master
was at home, snoring on the velvet arm-chair when he
108 EASTEEN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
was absent, the Eussian servant has been often painted
by foreigners. With all his peculiarities and dirty
habits, he was generally honest and affectionate. Feel-
ing himself one of the family, he took an interest in it
as such ; always said nasli, ^our,' when speaking of the
property of his master, and sometimes, in minor matters,
such as with the vodka bottle, hair-brush, or such
like, carried his ideas of communism into practice. I
know families who have tried to get rid of drunken^
dishonest, lazy, or dirty servants; — who have beaten
them, put them in prison, sent them miles away — in vain.
They would soon wander back, with the sagacity of
dogs in keeping to their old masters, would blubber out
their promises of amendment, and take up their old
stations again. A Eussian proprietor will now be free
from all these encumbrances, and in place of half a
dozen lazy fellows whom he only fed, he can take
one good servant to do double the work of six; only
he must pay him his due wages.
A measure like this emancipation could not of course
be carried through without great difficulty and loss both
to individuals and the nation, especially as theories of
still more important changes were mixed up with it.
Yet March 3, 1862, passed by without any disturbances,
although the delay discontented both proprietor and
peasant. The former wished to be rid at once of his
uncertain position: the peasant, nominally freed, had
to remain a forced labourer for twelve months more.'
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 109
Later in the year its effects began to be severely felt by
many. Incomes were reduced one half; thousands of
families who had lived in affluence in the capitals were ,
obliged to retire to their diminished estates or to foreign
countries. Families living abroad found themselves
suddenly without their incomes, and hastened back to
remedy the evil by their presence. On many estates
the peasants struck, and would do no work, or just what
they pleased, causing total loss or great waste to the
crops on which the incomes of the proprietors in great
part depended. Yet after all, good must come out of
the evil. The peasant and the absentee landlord had
been too long strangers to each other. The proprietor
must soon from necessity live more on his estate, and
his presence and example must lead to the improvement
of his tenantry.
At last the eventful day, March 3, 1863, arrived. It
was also the anniversary of the Emperor's accession.
The peace of the country was not in the least disturbed,
and the efforts of the revolutionary party failed before
•the obstinate good sense and immobility of the Eussian
rural classes. From that day the serfs in all the
Russias became free. And this freedom means, that he .
will have the liberty of his movements', of his labour,
and the full enjoyments of the fruit earned by the sweat
of his brow ; he can marry whom and when he pleases ;
he can no longer be beaten, banished to Siberia, or
carried off to the ranks of the army in some province
110 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
distant from his village, at the will of a cruel or capri-
cious master. Henceforth he is the master of his own
land if he can pay for it, or a tenant of the Crown or of
the proprietor according to circumstances, until he can
do so ; he cannot be punished without the sanction of a
magistrate, and is only subject to the lawful call of the
conscription.
By the end of the same month ninety-five per cent,
of all the serfs in Eussia had become free ; 8,642,909
men and their families began a new kind of life, and of
these 1,195,715 had already paid for their land and
become proprietors themselves. The only districts
where the arrangements were not completed were in
Lithuania and on the Polish frontier, where the un-
settled state of society owing to the Polish insurrection
and the intrigues of the small proprietors had retarded
their accomplishment.
Here the Grovernment intervened with a high hand.
A ukas of March 13 ordered the immediate completion
of the emancipation. If not carried out before May 1
by amicable arrangement it was to be forcibly brought
to a close by the Grovernment, which would then indem-
nify the proprietor in full, leaving the peasants to pay
the obrok to the Grovernment until they are able to re-
imburse the principal.
A few words will explain to the reader the terms of
the final arrangements. Up to March 3 the affair was
left to the proprietor and peasants to settle in a friendly
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. Ill
manner, and, as is seen, with tolerable success. Only,
in case of the obstinacy of either party, a law was passed
for every district according to its special wants, by
which the price to be paid for the land and the term of
payment were fixed. In giving the summary of this law
and the bases on which it was fixed, I take a district of
which I had the particulars ; but it must be remembered
that both the quantity of land given and the price paid
for it varied according to situation, fertility, and the
means of transport. In this district every male adult
peasant receives his isbawith its little enclosure free,
besides three dessiatins,* more or lesSj of mixed arable
and meadow land, for which at some time or another he
must pay at the rate of fifty roubles per dessiatin^ in all^
150 roubles silver, or about 241. English money. If he
pay this, he is at once a proprietor ; if he be unable to
do so (which is generally the case), he must pay rent
to the proprietor at six per cent, per annum until the
Grovernment have paid the principal for him. In this ;
case the Grovernment pays 120 out of the 150 roubles^
leaving the peasant to pay the remaining thirty roubles
himself to the proprietor, as by agreement between
them. The sum advanced by the State, with the
interest, must be repaid during a term extending over
forty-nine years. But, as the Grovernment was unable
to find so large a sum at once, bonds, bearing interest at
* 1 dessiatiii = 2.699 acres EngHsh.
112 EASTEEN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
five per cent, were issued, a series of which are to be
drawn and cancelled every month.* When the serfs
were in excess of the land on any estate, the proprietor
was required to* give up two-thirds of the land to his
peasants, and to retain the other third, the surplus
peasants being removed to Government lands.
On certain large estates cultivated on the ohrok
system, things are to remain as they are until the year
1865, when the distribution of three dessiatins, more
or less, to each peasant must take place. But during
this time the ohroh cannot be increased. This in reality
amounts simply to this, that the peasants remain tenants
until that year. In all these transactions, when the
commune existed, as it does in most villages of Eussia
Proper, neither the Grovernment on the one side, nor
the pameschik on the other, has anything to do with
the peasants themselves. The head man or starost of
the commune, after consulting his fellows, arranged
all matters with the proprietors and Government, and
will, for the future, pay the rent or instalments of the
principal. In the system of local self-government
lately granted to the communes, a court has been
established, called the Communal Court, for enforcing
* These bonds of 100 roxibles, negotiable on the Exchange at
St. Petersburg, at first fell very low, but, owing to some foreign specu-
lation, rallied, and are now quoted at about 87 roubles (September
1863). Those proprietors who were in immediate want of their money
were great losers by disposing of them on their first issue.
V <S)
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEKFS. 113
all the above stipulations, and for settling disputes
between proprietor and tenant.
The eifects of this eventful change upon the peasantry,
for whose special benefit it has been carried through,
cannot be thoroughly estimated for years to come ; and
until their whole social life shall have been reorganised
and things find their level, there must necessarily be the
greatest uncertainty. At present the people are too
excited by a change which their common sense now tells
them ought to have been accomplished years ago.
During all this time they have been deceived into the
belief that the state of serfdom was only in accordance
with Grod's providence and the order of human life upon
earth. The next few years will be the most critical
period in the history of the country. They will witness
the awakening from slumber to life — the transition
from a state of deception to the light of truth. If
these years should pass without disturbance, a wonderful
change for the better will be seen in Eussia, and many
ignoble traits in the character of its people, the result
of serfdom and social oppression, will be effaced.
Under Mongol rule the Sclave of Eussia acquired
that deep religious sentiment which is one of his
characteristics, and which, though mechanical and
superstitious, is free from bigotry. He is tolerably
patient of other creeds, while he is fanatically attached
to his own. Of a very forgiving disposition, he is rarely
guilty of acts of violence, and then only when maddened
114 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
by long tyranny or under the influence of drink. Never
except at a time when they have been exasperated by
years of brutal treatment have the peasants risen
against their proprietors ; but then their rage has been
always fearful. Although ignorant, they are acute, and
with a natural Wit and humour are ready at repartee.
Living a monotonous life in a monotonous country, they
are for ever moving round and round in the same circle,
and are by nature and habit strictly conservative.
Their docility and obedience is that of sheep, whom a
dog's bark will keep in the right path. It is true that
their obedience has been as yet too often shown as the
obedience of fear, enforced by the stick ; and it is yet
to be seen, since corporal punishment has been abo-
lished, what moral means will effectually replace it.
'During my life,' saysM. Koschelev in the 'Moscovsky
Vedomost,' ' I have hired many thousand workmen for
different purposes, and I must confess that the non-
fulfillment of the agreement on the part of the work-
men was not the rule biit the exception. Yet I
consider it my duty to add the following important
fact: — my workmen were subject to corporal punish-
ment. Twice I tried to do away with it, but was
obliged to return to it by the repeated demands of my
overseers. Certainly we had recourse to it as seldom as
possible ; yet, entirely without it, the taskmaster and
starosts could not manage their people.'
The Russians are eminently a pastoral, agricultural.
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 115
and bartering race, and not at all the warlike people
which they are sometimes supposed to be. Two power-
ful levers can alone raise in them anything like military
enthusiasm. They must feel first that their religion
or their country is in danger. Their patriotism is,
indeed, one of their striking features, as indeed it is of
all Sclavonic peoples. But for Eussians these two
sentiments have the gi-eater force, because they look
upon themselves as the only Sclavonic people who have
succeeded in founding an empire of their own. Holy
Eussia is no empty word. When their country has
been invaded, the Eussian of every class has well known
how to rise, and sacrifice self and property in its defence,
as the Poles found even in the sixteenth century, as
Charles XII. found at Poltava, as Napoleon found at
Moscow and during his retreat. In all the wars of
conquest against the Turks, stubborn religious enthu-
siasm often helped to gain the victory. This enthusiasm
was invoked during the Crimean war to little purpose.
But should the so-called reconstitution of Poland be
attempted by a force which may menace orthodox
provinces of Eussian Poland, such as Kiev, the war
would at once take the character of a crusade, and not
only the peasants of those provinces, but all classes in
Eussia, would rise as a man for their defence. Although
the Eussian peasant, less from the hardships of the
service than from the repugnance of his nature, detests
military life, still, when once he is enrolled and under
12
116 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
strict discipline, his very ignorance, stubbornness, and
blind obedience make of bis class, directed by able
officers, one of the most formidable armies in the
world.
For the same reason that he hates being a soldier or
a sailor, and dreads Siberia, the Eussian seldom or
never deserts his colours, as he knows that such a step
would banish him from his village home as inevitably
as exile to the Amoor. Deserters from the Eussian
army or navy are nearly all Jews or Poles, who find
among their fellows in foreign countries associations
ready formed, into which they can enter, with a home
and assistance until they are able to provide for them-
selves. That this seldom happens with a pure orthodox
Euss, the following ijicident will help to show : — Groing
ashore one morning a few years ago at Nangasaki, we
were startled, as we passed a Dutch vessel at anchor in the
bay, by a splash in the water, and cries for helj) from a
man who was swimming towards our boat. We took
him in, and learnt that he was one of three Eussians,
who, with several Poles, had been decoyed to desert the
year before at Hong-Kong. The Eussians soon found
themselves alone, ill-treated by their new skipper, and
without that mutual support to which they had been
accustomed. Suffering from home-sickness, they deter-
mined to risk all the terrors which they knew to be in
store for them, and took the first opportunity of giving
themselves up. A boat was immediately sent to demand
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEEFS. 117
the other two Eussians, who were confined below on
board the Dutchman, and they were immediately given
up. Fortunately they foimd in Admiral Popov a
lenient commander, who thought they had been
punished enough by the consequences of their act.
In their personal habits the Eussian peasantry are
indolent, dirty, and careless. Though a Saturday
seldom passes without the moujih seething in a steam
bath, yet, as he puts on his dirty sheep-skins imme-
diately afterwards, the beneficial effect of the bath is
not perceived. Their isbas are seldom clean in the
interior, and the heat of the large stone on which they
lie in winter attracts all the vermin of the neighbour-
hood.
Drunkenness is one of the chief vices of all the lower
orders in Eussia, though they are seldom quarrelsome
in their cups. In their social habits they are very
good-natured and hospitable, though rough; and, to
cover a multitude of faults, they show no little charitable
and kindly feeling one towards the other.
If left quite to himself, the Eussian peasant, like the
Celt in Ireland, will work just enough to supply his
wants, and no more. It is true that, hitherto^ he has
had few inducements to better his condition. He will
cultivate a little buckwheat for his kasha,* a plot of
* Kasha, the grain of buckwheat, boiled and eaten like rice in the
East, or made into cakes, forms, with tschee or cabbage soup, the
favourite food of the Russian peasantry. Not that they do not get more
118 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
cabbages for his tschee; the sale of a pig, calf, or an
odd job, will provide him with vodka and tobacco ;
sheep-skins supply his clothijag, which he makes up for
himself, and which serve his wife and children after
him. It has been feared by some that immediate
emancipation might have the effect of making the
Russian peasant too much like his fellow in the west of
Ireland. Not accustomed to have any demands made
on him except by his proprietor, he will at first be
at a loss in managing his own affairs. But this very
necessity ought 'to have the effect of rousing him from
his apathy and of calling forth all his energies.
In concluding this sketch of the Russian peasant,
I avail myself of the judgment and opinions of a large
landowner, which, grounded on the experience of
twenty years, seems truthful, and may serve to explain
many topics on which I have only lightly touched.
' My estates,' says Mr. Koschelev, ' contain several
solid food, as the following table of a peasant's monthly cost in a cheap
government will show : —
Kye-meal, 2 puds, or 80 lbs. 2, 00 roubles
Kasha, 2 measures at 35 copecks 70 „
Beef, 9 lbs. at 7 „ 63 „
Linseed-oil, 1 1 lbs. at 20 „ 30 „
Salt, 2 lbs. at 6^ „ 11 „
Cooking 25 „
3, 99 „
These figures represent the old depreciated paper roubles, worth only
one-third of a rouble silver. Paper roubles are now at about five per
cent, discount only. The 3 roubles 99 copecks equal 45. English money.
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 119
thousand souls. I inherited them from various pro-
prietors, some of whom had been careful, some careless
of the weal of their peasants. As they came under my
control, I could immediately perceive that the well-
being of the peasants was in an order inverse to the care
which had been taken of them by their former masters.
In a short time those about whom their proprietors
had never troubled themselves soon improved their
circumstances, both communal and private, when they
were made to manage their affairs themselves. On the
other hand, those who had been accustomed to look up
to their pameschik in every little matter — who could
neither buy or sell without his advice or consent — who
could not stray from their village — whose marriages must
even be arranged by him and celebrated at his own
house — were for a long time unable to order an inde-^
pendent household. I had ten times more trouble with
these than all the rest who had lived under absentee
or careless landlords. Thanks to Grod, and to my reso-
lution not to meddle in the private or communal affairs
of my people, their condition has become much im-r
proved ! Tumble-down huts afe becoming rare (I make
them pay for their wood) ; the corn magazines of the
commune are well stocked ; there are not so many
drunkards among them; in a word, I am convinced
that I am indebted for these improvements to my not
troubling myself about their private affairs.
' This care or meddling on the part of the proprietor.
120 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
now becoming more rare, was not so much from a
movement of charity or any appreciation of the duties
of a proprietor, as from a stern necessity. The rapid
spread of agriculture, the partial exhaustion of the soil,
the need of a more careful husbandry, the difficulty of
transport from the place of production to the place of
consumption or export, the extension of cattle-breeding,
the establishment of various industrial works — were
all causes which made labourers more scarce, and the
proprietor more desirous of keeping them in leading-
strings. Having seen so many examples of this, I have
come to the conclusion that the peasant, free to dispose
of his own labour, and no longer looking exclusively to
his proprietor for subsistence^ will be the best founder
of his own prosperity.'
To Western Europe the Eussian people are almost
unknown, seldom awakening any interest, and never
meeting with any confidence or sympathy. Often
judged of from absurd rumours, they are misunder-
stood, over-valued, and not unfrequently feared, when
sensation writers dwell on the probabilities of another
barbarian invasion, in which the Eussians are to play
the first part. This dread must be traced to the ambi-
tion of their Government, and to the mistrust with
which its acts are regarded by other Grovernments. But
it is unfair to estimate a people like the Eussians by
the acts of their Government. It is unjust to judge
them by a standard which may serve as a fit test under
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 121
very different circumstances. Allowance must be made
for their peculiar position, for the influence of their
climate and soil, for their previous experience and
training, first, under the Tartars, and then under de-
spotic and sometimes cruel masters. Custine was
highly unjust towards the Russian people, of whose
character and language he knew nothing, and of whom
he only saw enough to find out their bad qualities,
which lie exposed on the surface. If we choose to
write about the weaknesses of human nature, a book
may soon be filled ; but theories and prejudices are bad
guides for anyone who wishes to arrive at a just con-
clusion.
122
CHAPTER VI.
THE INTEEIOR OF EUSSIA AND THE FAIRS OF THE
UKRAIN.
ThePodoroJnaa — Modes of Travelling in Russia — The Tarantas —
The Telega — What a Poputchik is— My first Poputchik —A rich
Virgin — Incidents of the Road — Pleasure:; of travelling Periclad-
noi — Roads — Post-horses — Stations --Tea-drinking — Character of
Interior of Russia — The Corn Lands — Difficulties of Trans-
port — Cost of Living — Proposed Railroad from Moscow to
Sevastopol — Aspect of Russian Towns and Villages — Isbas of
Peasantry — Belgorod and its Churches — Kharkov — Hotel Accom-
modation in the Interior of Russia — Universities of Russia —
Fairs of the Ukrain — The Isvoschik of Great Russia — The
TchumaJci — Mode of Trading — The Jews — Karaimi — The Ped-
lars — Their Artels — The Orpheni — The Slohoshanen — Trade of
these Fairs — Contrast of the Great Russians or Muscovites and
the Little Russians or Cossacks.
BEFORE leaving St. Petersburg I had provided
myself with that important paper, called a 'podo-
rojnaa, without which it is impossible to obtain horses
or travel in the interior of Russia. As I had heard
much of the inconveniences endured by private tra-
vellers from the whims and exactions of postmasters,
who are generally as overbearing towards a merchant
or a private person as they are servile to anyone in a
uniform of high rank or with an order on his breast, I
had obtained a Grovernment pass, in order to get horses
INTERIOK OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 123
immediately at all the stations. The officer who gave
it wished me to understand that an ordinary one would
suffice, as matters were now so well arranged ; but I
had received too many warnings to take all he said for
granted, and insisted on a Grovernment pass, which
carried me without any trouble to my destination, and
saved me, besides, many little expenses on the road.
All the places in the diligence for Kharkov from
Moscow were taken for some ten days in advance ; but
for this I did not much care, as I was in no great hurry
to get over the ground. The only other available con-
veyances were a tarantas (a sort of hooded carriage,
which must be purchased or hired, slung on poles in-
stead of springs, but admirably suited to the bad roads
of Kussia) ; or the telega (an open springless cart with
two ropes and a sack of straw for a seat, but which
costs nothing at all). This mode of travelling is called
in Eussia pericladnoi or shifting, because the passenger
is turned from one telega to another at every station.
Not wishing to travel 800 miles alone, I strolled
down to the post-station to ask for a poputchiJc
or travelling companion. In Eussia, where the dis-
tances are immense between the towns, and public
conveyances so few, a travelling companion is generally
sought, and notices for such are posted up in the post-
stations. Merchants especially who are pressed for
time are always anxious to meet with a poputchik
armed with a Government prodorojnaa, as they are
124 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
thereby insured against delay, and various exactions
from the postmasters, who sometimes have not a horse
in the stable, until they have pressed the hand of the
traveller. To travel, therefore, with an officer or a
tchinovnik the merchant is sometimes willing to pay the
whole expense of the horses, besides giving the use of
his carriage. During my journey south I had poput-
chiks of divers grades — here a farmer, there a merchant,
a sore-footed soldier and sailor whom I picked up on
the road, and a Georgian returning to Tiflis.
On reaching the post-station I was told that a certain
person having his own carriage would leave Moscow in
two hours for Orel. I immediately sought out my
gentleman, whom I found to be the intendant of Prince
M , and it was soon arranged that I should share
his tarantas and the expense of the horses. As my
impedhnenta, when travelling, never gave me much
trouble, I was ready to his time^ and at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon, after a parting glass of champagne, the
yamshik cried ^ C Bogom ' to his three horses, and we
darted through the streets. At one of the gates of the
Ketai Grerod in the Kremlin, where a small chapel con-
tains a miraculous image of the Virgin, thronged day
and night by the faithful, our carriage stopped for a
few minutes, while my companion went in to kiss the
image, pay a short devotion, and burn a candle for the
prosperity of our voyage.
This little incident in the beginning of our journey
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 125
gave me some insight into the character of my fellow-
traveller. He was evidently a Euss of the most
national and orthodox type. When we got fairly out
of the city, he let me know that the Virgin to whom
he had just paid a visit was one of the holiest and
richest of all Eussia; so rich, indeed, that she had
been known to come to the assistance of the Grovernr
ment in a time of need, when a little ready cash was
very acceptable. So we travelled on together through
the night, stopping for an hour at every third station,
ordering a somovar, and making tea, my companion
drinking six glasses to my one. The next day we
arrived at Toula, the seat of the iron manufacture of
Eussia, and famous for its guns and sword blades,
somovars, and other working in metals, in imitation of
the old Damascene and Oriental arts.
Although my poputchik was a man of coarse exterior
and of the simplest education, he possessed a fund of
common sense and practical knowledge, especially in
all that concerned the agriculture of the country. He
had heard of the ^ Kolokol ' and M. Herzen, and
wanted me to give him all information about them, but
at that time I knew as little of either as he did,
During the three days we remained together, I could
not help remarking his piety or superstition, whichever
the reader m^-y judge it to be. We never passed a
church but he crossed himself; not a beggar im-
plored alms but the tarantas was stppped tp give a
126 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
few copechs. There could be no doubt about this latter
virtue. Among no other people have I remarked so
much charity and alms-giving as among the national
classes of Eussia. At Orel we parted, he proceeding by
a cross road to the estates of his employer, I continuing
my journey alone in a telega for want of some better
conveyance.
Oh ye happy travellers in first-class railway carriages !
ye learned writers in the 'Lancet' on the influence of
railroads on health, who make long phrases about the
want 'of elasticity ! make a journey in the interior of
Eussia for a few hundred versts in a telega, and then
describe its influence on the human body. He who has
mounted for the first time and ridden fifty miles on a
bad-trotting horse, and remembers the S3Txiptoms which
appeared about the second day afterwards, may form
some idea of the pleasures of travelling in the telegal
The nerves are stretched up to snapping-point, and then
become relaxed with a jerk, which seems to make every
part of the body change place, and requires the strong-
est exertions of the muscles to preserve a balance. But,
as with everything else in this world which cannot be
avoided, the traveller gets accustomed even to a
telega.
Between Moscow and Kharkov the road is macadam-
ised, a chaussee, as they call such roads in Eussia.
Other roads of the same kind start from this centre to
Poland on the one side, to Irkutsk on the other; to
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 127
Vladimir and Nijni Novgorod, &c. The cross roads and
others not made are generally well beaten tracks, even
and passable enough in fine weather, or with a sledge
when snow is on the ground, but axle-deep in mud and
almost impassable in wet weather and after a thaw. On
most of the highways the post-horses are furnished by
the peasants who live near the stansie or stations, and
as there is a little competition among them, the lines are
well served. In other districts where the- horses are
Government property, great difficulty sometimes is
found in procuring them, as the postmaster will al-
ways keep back his best horses on the chance that a
general or other great man may pass that way. The cost
of horses is very small, varying from one and a half to
five copecks each horse per verst, according to locality ;
the number of horses to be furnished is written on the
podoTojnaa, but it is varied according to season, the
kind of vehicle, and the number of passengers. Some-
times, however, the postmaster, according as his horses
have much work or not, will only give you the number
marked on the pass — these hardly sufficing to drag you
through the mud ; or he will force on you more than
your carriage requires, in order to make use of his
horses. Frequent disputes thus arise; but as the
regulations admit an interpretation, the traveller has to
submit at last. I was once witness to a scene between
an ensign and the starost of the station, who insisted on
putting three horses to a telega in which were three
128 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
persons. The poor starost, who was perfectly right, was
fearfully abused and beaten with the fist about the face,
but the wrathful officer had to give in at last. As I
was never unwilling to take an extra horse when forced
on me, although the two allowed by the post regulations
were more than enough, I got on very well. The horses
are small, strong, and hardy beasts, and a promise of a
double za vodka to the yamshik if he did the fifteen or
seventeen versts of a monotonous road within the hour,
carried me quickly on my way. Cr3dng ' C Bogom,' or
' Grod be with you,' to his horses, off they would start,
and an occasional pst, or a hour-r-r sound made by a
vibration of the lips was enough to keep them in full
gallop to the next station. At every station is a book
chained to the table, in which complaints are entered
by travellers, and I often amused myself during the
few minutes of delay in looking over them. But the
postmaster takes good care to keep out of sight the
name of anyone whose complaint would be likely to
attract notice. As these stations are often at a great
distance from towns where any inn-accommodation is
to be found, chambers are provided in which a traveller
may rest, if he be so inclined ; but with few exceptions
they are so dirty that few make a longer halt than they
are obliged. A somovar of hot water is always pro-
vided for a few copecks to make tea, of which the
traveller should carry his own supply. No one who has
not travelled in Russia can imagine the luxury and the
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 129
relief from fatigue whicli a glass of good tea can give :
it is true, it is the only luxury which he must expect in
the interior of Eussia.
The surface of European Eussia presents three dis-
tinct aspects, — the vast northern forests of larch and
pine, which extend into Lithuania and Poland; the
rich and black grounds of the interior, stretching
southward to the steppes : and, lastly, the steppes them-
selves, always woodless, often without water, and in
many places forming salt marshes. Covered from
spring to the end of summer with thick vegetation and
flowers of a hundred different hues, they are as pleasing
to the eye as they are monotonous and dreary in
autumn and winter. Although the land is exceedingly
rich, it is only on and near the rivers, which flow
sluggishly through them, that there is at all a dense
population. Every year, however, the wide space
between the rivers is becoming settled.
The following table will show the division of Eussian
and Polish soil, taken from the statistics of Tengo-
borsky : —
Arable land dessiatins 90 millions
Cultivated meadow and steppe pasture land . .110 „
"Woods and forests 180 „
Barren land 120 „
Forming a total of . . 500 „
of dessiatins, each of whieh is about 2| acres.
The great corn-growing districts are the Baltic and
Polish provinces, whose outlet is Eiga; the south-west
130 EASTEKN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
governments, whose port is Odessa ; and the country
around the Don and the Volga, whence the corn is
conveyed to Taganrog and other ports of the Sea of
Azov by coasting vessels, to be shipped to the ports of
the Mediterranean. Lastly, the country through which
I was travelling presented, mile after mile, and day after
day, one monotonous panorama of cornfields of rich
black humus, as far as the eye can reach. Unfortunately
the price of transport sometimes amounts to six times
the value of corn. Russia alone produces more than
300,000,000 of chetverks* of grain, or 27,060,000
quarters, out of which she exports about one twenty-
fifth part. Any quantity might be produced if a market
could be found for it. At present, if more be grown
above the wants of the country, the fall in the price
on an abundant harvest would be so great, that the
expenses of reaping and harvesting could hardly be
covered by the sale. In many districts where communi-
cation is especially difficult, most of the corn is bought
up by the Grovernment for distillation; or, where
private distilleries are allowed, it is made into brandy
at the remote farms to render it less bulky for transport.
When the rivers are frozen up, which is the case for five
months in the year, and when there is no snow for
sledge transport, wagon transport is impossible, as
much from the difficulties of nature as from its enor-
* A clietverk= 0-0902 quarters, EnglisL
INTERIOR OP RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 131
mous expense. One or two great trunk railroads with
good roads for cross communication can alone prevent
the enormous waste of productive forces in Eussia, and
bring about greater equality in the prices of the neces-
sities of life. Corn and other produce, which cost one
rouble on the spot of their production, have increased
to ten or twelve times that value on arriving at the
place of consumption or shipment. In some provinces
a family of three persons may be fairly fed and clothed
for about eight shillings a month ; in others that sum
will hardly suffice for tlie same family during three
days.*
All the towns in Eussia which are the capitals of
goubernia, with the exception of the most ancient, such
as Kiev, Vladimir, &c., have one monotonous character.
A triumphal arch is generally the entrance : a straggling
collection of buildings then opens to view, which on
nearer approach discovers wide and regular streets,
with sometimes a few fine public buildings and
churches. Towns and villages alike cover immense
* In tlie sninmer of 1863 a concession was given by the Kussian
Government to an English Company for the raOroad between Moscow
and Sevastopol. The capital to be subscribed is to amount to twenty -three
million pounds sterling, guaranteed at five per cent, interest by the
Government ; the line to be completed in six years. This line will pass
through the richest part of Eussia and some of the largest towns of the
interior, such as Toula, Orel, Koursk, Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav, and from
this latter city through the Perekop to Sevastopol, which is to become a
commercial port of the first class. This railroad would soon absorb all
the carrying trade of the many fairs of the Ukrain,
K 2
132 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
surfaces.* Droslikys are as necessary to get over the
space in a small town (that is, small as to the number
of its inhabitants), as they are to avoid the mud in bad
weather. The villages and hamlets are mostly a col-
lection of mud or wooden hovels, standing each in its
small enclosure, with here and there a more solid-built
house, conspicuous from its green-painted roof. In
the huts of the Eussian peasantry in some places the
traveller might fancy himself in the west of Ireland.
Grroups of listless, lazy, and dirtily-clad men, women, and
children hang about the doors in fine weather, among
beasts of burden, agricultural implements and dung-
hills, or lie promiscuously about the floor, or crowd
together on the stove in winter. The pig has a free
entry through the door, the fowls nestle on the rafters,
and there are seldom any windows to admit light or
fresh air. Som« villages, however, present a more
favourable appearance, and in a few isbas which I
entered, I found cleanliness and comfort. This was
especially the case in the steppes, where the climate and
disposition of the inhabitants incline them to a more
agreeable life. Nearly everywhere the character of the
peasantry reflected the character of the proprietor.
Every straggling lot of huts called a village has its
* This is especially the case in the south and in Little Eussia, of
which it has been remarked by some Eussian author, that the towns
resemble villages and hamlets, while the villages and hamlets ar^ like
towns.
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 133
two or three churches. In one town through which I
passed, called Belgorod, between Koursk and Kharkov,
I counted the belfries and Byzantine porches of no less
than fifteen churches, rising above the 200 huts and
houses which formed the village. Church -building is
still quite a rage in Eussia, though less so than for-
merly. Ignorant but wealthy merchants, who have
passed their lives in trickery and hard dealing, ease
their consciences of a legion of peccadillos by building
a church or presenting it with a set of bells when built.
The Empress Elizabeth especially had this passion, and
the many such monuments which she left behind her
must be looked upon as what she considered her atone-
ment for various sins which pricked her conscience, and
their number may be estimated accordingly.
After two or three days' jolting in a telega, I was not
sorry to take a short rest in the hotel at Kharkov, which
was a fairly comfortable one for Eussia ; for, with the
exception of those of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
Odessa, there are, properly speaking, no inns in Eussia.
At best they are caravanserais to receive the traveller
and provide him shelter from the elements, and even
for this he must pay dearly enough. In the towns of
the interior a miserable room costs from two to four
roubles silver (6s. to 12s.) a day. He can find something
to eat if he be an old traveller and not too nice in
appetite ; but the tourist accustomed to a comfortable
salle a manger and white-necked waiters would be
134 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
driven to despair at the hospitality of a Russian inn.
A really good dinner was in Eussia to be had only
in private houses. Among the good gastronomers of
Moscow the guests are invited, an hour or so before
dinner, to visit the kitchen and inspect the preparations.
The fish may be seen swimming lively in a tank, and
the fish picked out by any guest is placed before him
at table a short time afterwards. One useful hint I
may repeat, which applies equally to Russia or any
out-of-the-way country. Be content with the usual
meats of the country; take what is given, or, better
still, cook for yourself; but on no account order your
dinners unless you know the capabilities of the cook.
So with what you drink ; drink quass, vodka, tea, or
water, but beware of ordering foreign wine ! You will
certainly get some if you do, for all wines can be pro-
duced in Russia: but, as with Professor Anderson's
wonderful bottle, champagne, claret, port wine, or hock,
flow from a common source.
The room into which I was shown at the hotel was a
large bare space, with a bedstead, a Russian stove, and
two chairs. The traveller generally brings his own
bed-clothes with him, but in this hotel they provided
them at my desire, adding an extra charge to the bill.
As the servant-boy was making up the bed, I examined
the sheets well. My reasons for doing so arose from
an anecdote which I had heard of this very inn from an
acquaintance. He had been sent, during the Crimean
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 135
war, from Sevastopol to St. Petersburg, and, wishing
to rest after three days' successive jolting, ordered the
boy to put sheets on the bed, and to look to it that
they were clean. As their appearance did not satisfy
him, he said to the servant, ' Somebody has already
slept on those sheets.' 'No, your honour; they are
quite clean,' said the boy. ' It is a lie. Gro and fetch
thy master.' When the hotel-keeper made his entry,
the officer addressed him thus ; ^ How is this ? I order
clean sheets, and some one else has already slept in
these.' ' Yes, your honour, but he was a general, and
only slept in them once.'
This was said with such emphasis, as though the
man could not possibly understand why a mere captain
did not think it an honour to sleep between a pair of
sheets in which so great a personage as a general had
slept before him.
The interior of Eussia is not a desirable place wherein
to fall ill ; my nature happily arranged itself so well
that I could not have found a better place than Kharkov
to work off a fever which I had caught somewhere on
the road. Kharkov has a medical university, and in
its able professor I found all that aid and kindness
which are so grateful to a sick man. After I had been
blistered and leeched (for which operations the barber's
services are still called for in Eussia), the head was
relieved, and during the convalescence of a fortnight
I had time to look round the town of Kharkov.
136 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Besides being the chief town of the goubernia and
the seat of one of the five Eussian universities,* Kharkov
is the central point of an extensive trade, and holds
annually four large fairs, each lasting three weeks or a
month. One of these was being held at the time of
my visit. Nearly all the commerce of Little Eussia
and the Ukrain is carried on at these fairs, which are
peculiar to this part of the country. In western lands
fairs are fast falling into disuse before steamboats and
railways, and in Eussia they will share the same fate
when that country is blessed with better means of
transport. In the goubernia of Kharkov there are no
less than 425 fairs every year, and in the adjoining
government of Poltava 372. As the Little Eussians
are not much given to commerce, almost all the trade
is carried on by Muscovite merchants and Jews, who
pass the greater part of the year in moving from one
fair to another. It is an instructive and curious sight,
in strolling through the streets of sheds, to watch
the different types and manners of the dealers, the
various carriers and their conveyances, from the Isvos-
chik of Grreat Eussia with his horses and telega to the
Tchumaki with their droves of oxen, with which they
pass to and fro over the monotonous steppes, bringing
fish and salt, lamb-skins or foreign produce from the
* St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kazan, and Kharkov, are the
"Universities of Eussia Proper; Helsingfors is that of Finland; and
Dorpat that of the Baltic Provinces.
INTERIOR OF RFSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 137
Crimea to the different fairs of the interior. These
old types will soon pass away from among the people,
when the puffing engine rolls rapidly over the steppe,
sweeping away the last traces of their calling.
' Soon/ says a Little Eussian poet in a tone of me-
lancholy regret, * soon will the Tcliumah with his tra-
ditions and popular song become a thing of the past ; no
more, with his sun-burnt face, his tarred shirt, a short
pipe in his mouth, his bare head exposed to sun and
wind, will he be seen strolling beside his patient oxen
over the ash-coloured steppe, humming some melody
as melancholy as the steppe itself, and as monotonous
as the slow and measured tread of his beasts.'
Like all other labouring classes in Eussia, these car-
riers form themselves into Artels, choose themselves a
leader {starost in Great Eussia, ataman in the steppes),
and possess and enjoy all things in common during
their journeys.
The manner in which trade is carried on at these fairs
presents a curious picture of Eussian life and trading
habits. Nearly all transactions are by barter of native
produce against manufactures or foreign produce; or
by an extensive system of credit based on no capital or
guarantee on the side of the retailers, but simply on
the honest character of the purchaser. A merchant
with money buys of the manufacturer at twelve or even
eighteen months' credit, and immediately resells at
six months' to another trader, when he discounts his
138 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
own bills.* The Jews and hawkers next buy the wares,
also on credit, and from their hands they are soon
distributed over the country from Galicia to the Volga.
If a misfortune should happen to any of them, the
last thing a creditor does is to go to law, which would
infallibly eat up all the assets. A private arrangenfient
takes place, so much per cent, is paid, and, if the
insolvent have the character of an honest man, he can
immediately begin afresh on credit.
The regular retail shopkeepers, established in the
towns and villages, form but a trifling part of the
trading community. The wants of the country are
commonly supplied through the Jews and pedlars.
The Jew is the chief character in all petty mercantile
transactions in Russia as in Poland, especially with
imported articles. A traveller, in immediate want of
anything, will be sure to get it through a Jew, and
what is more, the Jew will surely hunt him out and
remind him of his want. His industry and activity
are greater in these countries than elsewhere, as he has
greater impediments to fight against. From some of
* Bills of Exchange could, until lately, be drawn only by merchants
of the first and second guilds : they are now becoming more common in
business. To show how little they are made use of in Eussian interior
trade, it may be mentioned that in 1854 goods were sold on credit at
these fairs to the amoimt of thirteen millions, of which only 850,000
roubles were represented by bills. Yet it would seem that bankruptcies
are rare, and the losses generally insignificant compared to what is the
case in other countries.
INTEEIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN. 139
these fairs he is excluded altogether ; credit is more
sparingly given to him, but for this he does not much
care, as he appreciates all the advantages of paying
cash himself and giving credit to others. Where a
Russian will turn over a rouble once, a Jew will turn
it over ten times. As the Jews everywhere hold to-
gether, one rich Jew generally has a hundred poorer
Jews dependent on him, who make up by their aptitude
in business for their want of means.
Besides the regular Jews or Talmudists, there is
another race of Semitic extraction, professing some-
thing like Judaism. They are called the Karaimi, and
are mostly found in the Crimea and southern govern-
ments of Eussia. They are all traders, and some of
them are very rich. They have a good character for
honesty and integrity, are dignified in their demeanour,
scrupulously clean in their persons, and stand out
in favourable contrast with the ordinary Jew in Russia,
who is just the reverse. On this account, they are
much more respected by the Russians. Their origin is
shrouded in some mystery. They pretend to be a
remnant of the Hebrew emigration after the first
Babylonish Captivity, and affirm therefore that they
had no hand in the blood of Christ. In their mode
of life, they are quite oriental ; their women are kept
secluded, and their language is a mixture of Hebrew
and Tartar.
But by far the greater part of the country trade is in
140 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the hands of the pedlars. A party of six or seven forms
an artel, elects an ataman, and then, having filled their
baskets with small wares, such as needles, finger and
ear rings, which every peasant woman or girl wears,
the members hawk them through the villages, ex-
changing them for small quantities of raw produce,
which they afterwards sell or exchange at the fairs,
their usual place of meeting. Nothing is too trifling
for them, a bunch of pig's bristles, a hank or two of
flax, a pound or two of wax or tallow, a few skins ; —
they can always give in exchange some trifle which
the peasants prize. The rag and bone merchants in
England, who' give crockery or plants to a thrifty
housewife for her waste, will give some idea of these
Eussian pedlars.
One class of these hawkers is known by the name of
Orpheni. Of these, nearly all come from the govern-
ment of Vladimir, deal in goods of a higher value,
and generally supply the proprietors with what they
require. A still more extensive body are the Slobo-
shanen or villagers, from the government of Tcherni-
gov, who visit, in their wanderings, the most remote
parts of the empire. These are more popularly known
as the basket-carriers, from their manner of carrying
their wares. Some merchants employ as many as 200
or 300, divided into small bodies ; each of which, under
an agent, travels over certain districts. At stated
times, they all meet to make up accounts with their
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE TIKRAIN. 141
employers. This trust placed in a large body of
ignorant men is a striking proof of the general honesty
of the people.
The fairs of the Ukrain are held in regular succes-
sion all the year round. No sooner is one finished,
than the agents of the great commercial houses pass on
to the next town where a fair is to be held, followed
by their carts and sledges loaded with merchandise.
The most frequented of all is that held at Kharkov
on the 18th of January, the feast of the Three Kings.
As many as 200 little wooden huts are erected in the
square, and a hundred thousand carts and sledges, with
their horses and oxen, visit the town from all parts of
Eussia, bringing gold and jewels, furs and manufac-
tures from Moscow ; knives, somovars, and other hard-
ware from Toula; caviar and dried fish from the
Volga and the Don; salt, wine, and the beautiful
black lamb-skins from the Crimea ; and the produce of
warmer climates from i Odessa and Riga. There are
also special fairs for wool at Kharkov and Poltava,
iwhich are always attended by the cloth merchants of
G-ermany. The sale of sheep skins is enormous.
More than thirty millions are annually required for
the kaphtans of the peasantry. By the beginning of
autumn, the series of fairs is over, and the carriers then
obtain loads to return to their houses. Of late years,
most of the great Moscow merchants have established
depots at Kharkov as a central position, and, instead of
142 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the migratory trade of these fairs, carry on a fixed
wholesale trade. Hence, as railways extend, they
must gradually fall into disuse, with the exception of
fairs for wool, cattle, &c. &c. It is estimated that
the business transacted at all these fairs at Kharkov,
amounts to more than twenty-two millions silver
roubles per annum.
In so extensive a country as Kussia, the character
and habits of the people must vary widely in different
parts. The gloomy forests of pine and larch in the north
produce an impression on the inhabitants, for which
we look in vain in the Little Kuss or Cossack of the
steppe, and vice versa. In my remarks I have chiefly
had in view the people of Old or Grreat Eussia, as it is
called, of which Moscow and Novgorod are the centres.
Their history as a people, has always been more com-
pact than that of the country which I was now entering
— Little Eussia or the Ukrain,* and the steppes of the
Don. Here, not only climate and locality, but popular
experience combine to give the natives a type different
from that of their brethren of the north. The Little
Euss is the Italian of Eussia ; he loves his ease, and is
* * Ukrain' is a Little Russian word, and means frontier or boundary.
The country formerly so called was the frontier between Great Eussia
and Little Eussia, and frequently shifted its limits. The government
of Kharkov now bears that name. But the term Ukrain seems to have
the signification of including all ancient Little Eussia, and as such I use
it in the pages which follow.
INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND FAIRS OF THE tJKRAIN. 143
content to gaze on his blue sky and monotonous land-
scapes in a dolce far niente, while he dreams over the
past and indulges in vain speculations for the future.
As obstinate but more lively, as poetically inclined,
but with more of melancholy, more easily excited, but
of greater mental activity, than the Sclave of the north,
he may be at once distinguished from the latter in his
occupations and likings. Unapt for business, he has
allowed the Muscovites to usurp all the commerce of
the country, and he looks with indifference and con-
tempt on their astuteness and trickery, as they buy up
his produce or sell him their wares. There is about
him much less of that patient resignation which marks
the native of Grreat Eussia. He easily fires up at a
sense of wrong ; and, when he is excited by political or
other theories, his manner changes in a moment from
his usual placid melancholy to fierce gesticulations
and fiery eloquence. The Little Euss generally enters
the public service, chooses some liberal profession,
cultivates his land or breeds stock, but seldom becomes
a trader.
The personal habits of the lower classes of Grreat and
Little Eussia also differ in many respects. The Little
Euss is perhaps the cleaner of the two. The merchant
or peasant of the north is invariably known by his
beard, which with him is as much a symbol of his rank
in life, as it was formerly of his moral and religious
144 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
character.* The Little Russ shaves all the hair off his
face, with the exception of the moustache.
* This wearing the beard dates from the fifteenth century, and was
ordered by the Holy Synod as a distinctive mark of morality, and all
who shaved were excluded from the Church. Many unnatural vices
had been introduced by the Tartars among the people, and persons
addicted to them were known by their shaven faces. This accounts for
the great opposition Peter the Great met with among the lower classes,
when he made them shave off their beards.
145
CHAPTER VII.
POLAND V. KUSSIA AND RUSSIA V. POLAND.
The Poet Pushkin on the Polish Question — The Antagonism of
Poland and Russia dates from the Tenth Century — The Religion,
Alphabet, and Almanack of Poles and Russians — First Encroach^
ments of Poland on the Sclavonic Tribes of the East— Boleslaw's
Daughter — Poland and Russia in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cen--
turies — Jadwiga i Jagiello — Lithuania has Conquered all the
Frontier Provinces of Russia — Union of Lithuania to Poland—,-
The Jesuits in Lithuania — Their Success — Congress of Brest —
Jesuit missionary zeal — The False Dimitri and Marina Mniszek
— The Poles in Moscow — James L and Gustavus Adolphus in
the Affairs of Russia — Expulsion of the Poles from Moscow —
Rebellion of the Cossacks and their Secession from Poland
— The Zaporojia — Bogdan Khmelnitsky— Peter the Great the
Arbiter of Poland — His Reforms and German Organisation the
Cause of Poland's Downfall — Germanism versus Sclavism —
Poland under Alexander I. — Under Nicholas — His Despotic
Rule — Change of Policy under Alexander II. — The Poles thereby
Encouraged — Preparations for an Outbreak — The Grand Duke
Constantine in Warsaw — The Recruitment— The National Com-
mittee—Its Agents in Russia — The Hanging Gensdarmes —
Forced Loans — Its Reign at last became one of Terror —
Its Orders for Public Dressing and Behaviour — The Polish
Women — Their Character and Influence — A Church Demon-
stration — The Roman Catholic Church and the Priesthood — The
Literary Members of the Committee and the Polish Refugees
— Character of their Writings, and Remarks on them — The Poles
are as Bad as the Russians — The Mendacity of Reports spread
abroad — The Pretensions of the Poles — The Disputed Provinces
— Are they Polish or Russian in Language, Religion, or General
146 EASTERN EUROPE AND "WESTERN ASIA.
Sympathy? — The Ukrain and Kiev — Podolla — Volhynia — Lithu-
ania — Table of Population and Eeligion — Thp Three Points of the
Great Powers — Administration of Mouraviev contrasted with that
of the Grand Duke Constantine — ^Mouraviev's System introduced
into Poland Proper — Behaviour of Europe during the Struggle —
Its Sympathy hurtful to the Poles — Peeling in England — In
France — Eeasons for greater Sympathy between Prance and
Poland — A Powerful Poland one of the Famous Idees Napo-
Uoniennes — Feeling in Russia before and during the Insurrection
— Addresses to the Emperor and Preparations for War — The
Wants of the Poles— The Feelings of the Minority— The State of
Finland — The Aspirations of the Majority of Poles — An Inde-
pendent Catholic Poland — Poland as by the Treaty of Vienna —
Chance of its Prosperity either way.
TO the foregoing chapter, which was written in 1862,
I had added a short account of the Polish element
in the west and south-west of Eussia, in anticipation of the
outbreak which was then plainly looming in the distance.
The progress of the insurrection, a deeper acquaintance
with the history of the two countries, and some later
personal experience in the insurgent provinces, have led
me to treat the whole subject at greater length in a sepa-
rate chapter. The overwhelming and contradictory mass
of material which has flooded the newspapers of Europe
for months past will not, I hope, have so thoroughly
disgusted the reader as to deter him from reading a
concise and (as I believe) correct and impartial
account of that great struggle between Eussia and
Poland, of which the present insurrection may be the
closing scene.
The Eussian poet Pushkin, during the insurrection of
POLAND r. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V, POLAND. 147
1830, wrote his famous lines, which are on the lips of
every Eussian, beginning thus :
chem shumete mi, narodnei vetie ?
"Why do you make a noise, popular bard ?
Why menace Russia with your anathemas ?
What moves you so ? Is it the strife in Lithuania ?
Be quiet ! That is a dispute among Sclaves, among ourselves —
An old, a household strife, already weighed by fate —
A question which you never can decide.
And Pushkin said truly. The Polish question is a
dispute among Sclaves, between Eussians and Poles, a
household quarrel which fate has decided in favour of
the Eussians. The causes of that dispute, and the
means by which it was decided, I shall endeavour to
explain in the following pages.
A slight knowledge of the history of either country
will show that this antagonism is not an affair of to-day.
It carries us back far into the haze of barbarism.
Poland A.D. 965 took her religion and civilisation from
the reviving West ; Eussia took hers a few years later
from the declining Byzantine empire. Each nation
adopted with equal earnestness, and retained with equal
pertinacity, its respective creed and customs. The
rivalry between Eome and Constantinople was reflected
in the rivalry between the Western and the Eastern
Sclaves. Poland, adhering in heart and soul to the
West, adopted not only its religion but its institutions,
its computation of time and its alphabet ; Eussia super-
stitiously embraced and retained all that belonged to
148 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the fatal conservatism of the East.* The effect was
soon seen. Poland in the fifteenth century was power-
ful, united, and one of the chief states of Europe ;
Eussia, split into discordant parts, had become the prey
of hordes of migrating Tartars. At length, when some-
thing like a state became established among the Sclav es
of the East, with Moscow for its capital, the struggle began
in earnest between the Oriental Eussians and the Western
Poles — between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The whole
country between Moscow and Cracow, not having any
well-defined natural frontier, became the theatre of a
series of political and religious encroachments, which
began in the twelfth century and have continued, with
very short intervals of repose, down to the nineteenth, f
* I have often asked educated Russians -why they do not assimilate
their almanack and alphabet to those of Western countries. The answer
was always the same — that such a change would be most impolitic, if
not impossible to carry out ; that such a measure would inevitably cause
riots everywhere, as the people would see in it a covert attempt to impose
on them the Roman Catholic religion, which they abhor. They have not
forgotten the wily attempts of the patriarch Nikon in the sixteenth
century, when, in alliance with the Jesuits, he tried to play traitor to his
Church, or the many attempts which have been made by the Poles to con-
vert them. These religious convictions of the Russian people form the
great strength of their nation, are a weapon of enormous power to the
Government which fosters them, and would be its ruin if tampered with.
Protestantism, never having made any attacks upon Orthodoxy, is little
understood, and never alarms the people. This is one reason why
Germans get on tolerably among the Russians. Romanism, on the
other hand, is the great bugbear of the Russian orthodox peasant.
t See Karamzine, or the more modern Russian historian, Soloviev,
Lelewel, or any other Polish histories, and compare their descriptions.
POLAND r. EUSSIA, AND RUSSIA F. POLAND. 149
In the beginning of the eleventh century, when
Boleslaw the Brave ruled the Polish Sclaves, the
descendants of the Scandinavian chieftain Eurik were
petty monarchs of those provinces, which afterwards
formed part of the Polish Kepublic, such as the
Ukrain, Eathenia, Galicia, and Lithuania. Even in
this period we begin to see the commencement of Polish
influence on the Sclavonic peoples.
' The daughter of Boleslaw,' says the Polish historian
Shainoka, ^was married to Sviatopolk, surnamed the
Okainie* or the Cursed, son of Vladimir, Grrand Prince
of Kiev, and as she was accompanied to her future
home by a Latin bishop, the seeds of Western civilisa-
tion and the Catholic religion were first introduced into
Eussia.' This influence brought on a civil war in Kiev,
and the son-in-law of Boleslaw was forced to take
refuge in Poland. After a time he was reinstated in
his power by an army of Poles, who took and sacked
Kiev. From this moment dates that influence and
superiority of Poland in the western provinces of
Eussia which she maintained down to the middle of the
seventeenth century.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Poland had
become thoroughly imbued with the culture and religion
of the West, and had become their champion in the East*
The Eastern Sclaves were meanwhile crushed under the
* Okainie, from the word Kain or Cain. This Prince murdered all
his brothers, and was cursed by his father Vladimir.
150 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
abominable rule of the Mongols. One by one the
provinces governed by the descendants of Eurik fell
to Poland. Galicia, or Red Eussia, united itself to
Poland under Casimir the Grreat. In order to extend
their power still more in the East the magnates of
Poland married Jadwiga, the daughter of Casimir, to
Jagiello, the heathen prince of Lithuania, and a few years
later that fine province, with all its Eussian conquests,
was joined, at the Union of Lublin in 1569, to Poland,*
wrhich thus extended its sway to Kiev and Smolensk,
and further yet to Novgorod the Grrand. Poland
under the rule of the Jagellons was in the height of its
glory ; while the newly-formed state of Moscow, which
had just been gathering round it the minor Sclavonic
principalities and driving out the Tartars, seemed on
the point of annihilation.
In 1562 the Jesuits first made their appearance in
Lithuania to counteract the new Lutheran heresy,
which was fast gaining ground in that province. In
the Polish diet and people they found the heartiest
helpers. Having thoroughly crushed out Protes-
tantism, they turned all their subtlety and zeal for con-
version against the Grreek Church in the newly-annexed
provinces, where the inhabitants were still Orthodox.
Success so far crowned their efforts that many of the
* Kiev, Little Russia, or the Ukrain, Volhynia, and White Russia,
had already been conquered and united to Lithuania by one of its princes
in 1320.
POLAND r. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 151
Greek bishops of Lithuania and Euthenia were brought
to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope (Congress of
Brest, 1596) ; while at the same time they were allowed
to retain all the dogmas and rites of the Grreek Church.
These took the name of Uniates, or the United Grreek
Church— a name which is still preserved, though most
of them have been re-converted into Orthodoxy or
Eomanism. When the Jesuits had accomplished this,
they extended their campaign into the Ukrain and
even into Grreat Eussia. Their progress at this moment
was vastly aided by the anarchy in Moscow, which
afforded both to the civil power and the Church the
opportunity of nearly subjugating the Muscovites.
Poland seemed for a moment on the point of treating
Eussia as Eussia has since treated Poland. And as
this period is the turning-point of the struggle between
the two peoples, I shall briefly relate the fortunes of
the Poles in Moscow.
During those mysterious years in Eussian history
which followed the death of Theodore, the last of the
house of Eurik (1598), when Moscow was governed by
the able Boris Grodounov, a pretender was set up by the
Poles, who was said to be Dimitri, the brother of
Theodore, who had been murdered when a child, if not
by the orders, at least by the partisans, of Godounov.
This young pretender had been a groom in the service
of a Polish pan, was educated and instructed in his
part by the most able of masters, the Jesuits; was
152 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
betrotlied to the beautiful and ambitious Marina, who
belonged to the powerful family of the Mniszeks, and at
last openly put forward as the brother of the late Tsar.
The Eussian people, ever moved by the word of a man
whom they consider their rightful Tsar, flocked by
thousands to his standard, so that he was accompanied
by a large army when he reached the gates of the
Kremlin. Boris died from apoplexy, caused, it is
stated, by the mortification of his position. His youth-
ful son, whom he willed to succeed him, and his wife,
whom he appointed regent, were soon afterwards
strangled by the people, who opened their gates to the
Pretender. The first false Dimitri, as he is called in
history, made his solemn entry into the walled city,
where he was rejoined by his bride. But their Polish
and Catholic education soon shocked all the supersti-
tions and prejudices of the Muscovites. They even
celebrated their marriage on the eve of St. Nicholas,
one of the most venerated of orthodox saints — a pro-
ceeding contrary to all the religious sentiments of the
Eussian people, who observe the eve of all feasts,
Sundays, and fasts, with more reverence than they do
the day itself. The consequence was a general rising
of the people, which issued in the massacre of the
Pretender and all his Poles, and the flight of his young
wife. But Marina's life had been devoted to a cause,
and not to any one instrument of that cause. Her
ambition was soon consoled by her marriage with a
POLAND V. EUSSIA, AND KUSSIA F. POLAND. 153
second pretender of the same name, a mere brigand, to
whom the confusion of the times offered some chance
of success. A large army invaded the Muscovite
territory, and the gates of the Kremlin were again
opened to them, this time by treason. The inde-
fatigable Marina, who had already got rid of her
second husband and taken to herself a third, raised
the Cossacks of the Ukrain to aid her in her schemes.
But the Eussians had been touched in the most tender
part — they had been persuaded to accept an impostor
as their lawful Tsar, and an attempt had been made to
disturb their orthodoxy. The national spirit awoke in
the person of a poor butcher of the rising town of
Nijni Novgorod, whose fanatical patriotism, combined
with a rude and powerful eloquence, brought about a
general rising of the people. In this work he was
powerfully aided by the more cultivated talents and
military genius of Prince Dimitri Pojarsky, and by
the anathemas of ten thousand ignorant but patriotic
priests. After having occupied the city of Moscow for
about five years, the Poles were driven from the sacred
city, when a general assembly of the Boyards and
people elected Michael Romanov their Tsar.*
* It is mentioned in Russian annals, that James I., of England, sent
a body of troops to Archangel, then the only port which Eussia possessed,
in order to assist the Muscovites against their Polish invaders, but when
they arrived the Poles had already been driven from Moscow. Sweden
also, at this time, aspired to make conquests in Russia. After the death
154 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
This expulsion of the Poles from Moscow was the
turning-point of the struggle between Moscow and
Cracow. Seventy years later the great revolt of the
Cossacks and the secession of the Ukrain from Poland
to Russia first portended the downfall of Poland. The
Cossacks of this time were a barbarous and heroic
people, with many of the qualities of their Scythian
predecessors. Although nominally conquered by the
Lithuanian princes, they were never thoroughly sub-
dued. Their semi-independent history extended over
250 years, and the memory of that period is kept
alive by the poetry of the people, which reminds them
how their ancestors were by turns allies of the Poles
against the Tartars, and then how in league with
these they fought against Poland for the preservation of
their civil and religious autonomy. In their great
stronghold of the Zaporojia,* into which no woman,
of GodounoT, the inhabitants of Novgorod, which must still have been a
powerful city, although greatly lowered by Ivan III., invited Philip,
the brother of GustaAnis Adolphus, to be their Tsar. After the election
of Eomanov, Gustavus avenged the apparent insult which had been
offered to his family and the failure of his plans of aggrandisement by
repeated invasions of Russia, which lasted till Peter the Great turned
the tables on him and robbed his no less celebrated successor of some of
the richest provinces of his kingdom. It is a curious subject of specu-
lation, how the map of Eastern Europe would now be constructed if such
a man as Peter had never existed.
* From za, behind, and j?oro^, cataract, from its situation behind the
falls of the Dnieper, just below the town of Ekaterinoslav. This
Zaporojia was to the Cossacks what the Isle of Anglesea was to the
Druids.
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 155
was ever admitted, their youth were trained to arms,
their old men gave their counsels, and their ataman
sent forth his orders. On the annexation of Lithuania
to Poland the Cossacks had been made to receive a
Polish political organisation, the Mecklenburg code of
laws, and an army of Jesuits. Against these they
rebelled long and stubbornly. Their guidamaks or
minstrels spread throughout the land a vast plot to get
rid of their oppressors, and on one occasion there was a
massacre of the Poles throughout the Ukrain. At last
a general rising took place under the famous Bogdan
Khmelnitsky, a cotnik or captain, who, having been
insulted by a Polish officer, fled to the Khan of the
Crimea. He returned to the Zaporojia with an army
of Tartars to deliver his country. The Poles were
everywhere beaten, and the Ukrain again became in-
dependent. Bui the Cossacks, wholly given up to war,
found themselves incapable of managing a civil govern-
ment, and were obliged to make a choice between
Moscow and Poland. Determined in their decision by
religious motives, they united themselves to Grreat
Eussia or Moscow. A war naturally followed between
this state and Poland, at the end of which, in 1686, the
boundary between the two countries in the South was
fixed at the Dnieper — a boundary which the Poles of the
present day are anxious to restore. All that part of the
Ukrain which remained on the right bank of the river,
including Kiev, was treated as a conquered province,
156 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
and portioned out among the Polish panni, whose
descendants to this day consider themselves Poles, and
who are continually agitating for a political union to
the kingdom of Poland. Little Eussia, united to
Moscow on the condition that all its privileges should
be maintained, soon found that they were violated. It re-
ceived the same organisation as Great Kassia; and against
this the Cossacks equally rebelled. Under Catherine
II. their semi-independence was completely obliterated.
They received an army of tchinovniks, and the peasants
were bound to the soil. Their religion alone remained
inviolate. Though one or two attempts to regain their
independence have been made since their annexation to
Eussia, all difference is now nearly effaced, and the
Ukrain is thoroughly Eussian.
The great arbiter of the destinies of Poland as well
as of Eussia was Peter the Great. St. Petersburg
became the capital, and thenceforth commenced a new
phase in the struggle. That far-sighted man perceived
the necessity of cutting off his people from the declin-
ing East, and adopting the progressive principles of the
West. When he had once accomplished this, the fate of
heroic but discordant Poland could no longer be doubt-
ful. The annexation of the German Baltic provinces
completely transformed Eussia. All the talent which
they afforded, and all the restless intellect which could
be collected from other parts of Europe, combined to
establish Eussia among European nations. The sue-
POLAND V. RUSSIxV, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 157
cessful campaign of Peter against Charles of Sweden
annexed a large portion of the old voyavodeship of
Kiev A.D. 1721. The increasing anarchy of Poland
soon afforded to the successors of Peter the opportunity
of interfering in his internal affairs, until Catherine
placed her old lover Poniatowski on the Polish throne,
to be her instrument in the total subjugation of the
country. The three partitions which followed are well
known (those of 1772, 1793, and 1797). The whole
of Old Poland was absorbed, with the exception of
the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, with 4,000,000 of in-
habitants, which was placed under the protection of
Prussia. This duchy, at the congress of Vienna, was
constructed into a kingdom, with the Emperor of Eussia
as king, and endowed with a constitution which it lost
after the great insurrection of 1830-31.*
The German element in Europe seems to have been
created to prey on the other elements with which it
* The following table will show at a glance the repeated dismember^
ments of the Polish State, and the share taken by Eussia of the spoil : —
Secession of the Ukrain ...,.., a.d. 1686
Part of voyavodeship of Kiev, after the Peace of Nystadt . 1721
Parts of White Russia and Lithuania, situated between the
Dnieper, the Duna, and the Drusch, with half a million of
inhabitants , 1772
Volhynia, Podolia, rest of Kiev, and part of Lithuania, with
3^ millions 1793
The rest of Lithuania, with 1 1 million .... 1795-7
Prussia, at the same time, took Posnania up to the shores of the Baltic,
with the Grand Duchy of Warsaw ; Austria took Graljci^ and Cracow.
158 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
came into contact. Its influence has been omnipotent
over Graul or Celt, Latin or Sclavon. The excitability
of the latter could never long withstand the cool, cal-
culating endurance which marks the character of the
Teutonic race. Bitter, therefore, has been the despair
and indignation of the victims. The conquest of Poland
by Eussia is, in my belief, owing entirely to the solid
German organisation and direction which the Russian
government assumed from the time of Peter the Grreat.
Long before Germanised Russia began to retaliate on the
east of Poland, the Grerman contact had been fatal to the
Sclaves on the west. These peoples formerly inhabited
all the lands east of the Oder, but they had been long
ago swept away. The Czecks, Dalmatians, and other
Sclavonic tribes have for hundreds of years been under
German domination. Poland also in due season felt
the corrosive element. The Teutonic knights of the
Baltic provinces, the Prussians in Posnania, the Aus-
trians in the South, have crushed and stamped out the
very germs of Sclavism. The whole population, lan-
guage, and institutions of those provinces have been
Germanised, and Poland there may be said to be no
longer anything but a name.*
If the Polish nationality has been anywhere unmo-
lested, it is certainly in Russian Poland, where, despite
all animosities of religion and prejudice as to Tartar-
* See Chapter VIII. — Grermans in Eussia.
POLAND V, RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 159
Sclavonic blood, there is still more kindred feeling
than there is between the Sclave and the Grerman. If
Eussia since 1772, instead of using the brute force of
armies, had acted towards Poland after the Machiavellic
fashion of Prussia and Austria, we should not be trou-
bled now with Polish insurrections.
The Emperor Alexander I., who sympathised with the
aristocratic and chivalric character of the Poles, wished
to reconstruct a large kingdom of Poland, with not
only a civil but a military autonomy. This idea was not
only condemned by the Allied Powers at the Congress
of Vienna, but brought down upon him the censures of
his own statesmen — among others, of the historian
Karamsine — who better understood the Polish feeling,
which has always been the same. This was plainly
shown in 1831. When Paskevitch was about to storm
the Praga of Warsaw, he invited the Polish commander
Krugoviecky to a conference, to arrange terms for a
capitulation, and thus avoid bloodshed. Although
pushed to extremes, the latter would listen to no terms
which did not grant the restoration of the Poland of 1772.
This tenacious clinging to an idea must be admired,
although we may see its vanity. The greater part of
those provinces for which the Poles are crying are no
longer Polish in anything but the memory of a time
long since passed away.
For nearly fifty years the kingdom of Poland and
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (for it is there that the
160 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Polish and Catholic elements are strongest) have been
governed by Russian viceroys and Russian troops.
During the reign of Nicholas the harshest means were
tried which can be tried to break the nationality of a
people. For twenty-five years, after the bloodiest of
insurrections had been put down with frightful severity
and its leaders dispersed over Europe and Siberia, the
hand of iron, which weighed heavily on Russia, crushed
out in Poland every visible spark of life. A crusade
was opened against its institutions and religion ; its
youth were taken away by thousands, and estranged
from the sympathies of their childhood. Siberia or
exile received all who opposed the things that were,
and a fortress bristling with cannon was erected in its
capital to awe those who remained. Poland was quiet
and trembling, even when the rest of the world was in
On the accession of the present Tsar, the Russian
policy in Poland was completely changed. Confisca-
tions and other harsh measures of the late reign were
rescinded; patriots were recalled from exile; Poles
were put into all good places of the administration ; the
council of the kingdom was composed of Poles ; the
Roman Catholic religion was no longer tampered with,
and liberal promises of a further extension of national
and popular government were held out, if the Poles
would only show that such could be given with safety.
In acting thus the Russian Grovernment, with all its
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 161
good intentions, committed the greatest blunder a
government can commit — that of inconsistency. It
went suddenly from an extreme of severity to the
extreme of lenity. Its fault was not in not giving, but
in giving unwisely. It gave too little or too much. It
should either have kept things as they were— i.e. ruled
Poland as a conquered province — or it should have given
the Poles their complete independence. Only in one
of these two ways can the Polish question be settled.
The Poles, when they found a little given, naturally
endeavoured to take more. At all times of their inde-
pendent history they were never famed for moderation
as rulers or for tractability as subjects, and the reign
of Nicholas had not improved them. Their national
feeling and hopes, like herbage over which the flames
have swept, sprang up more vigorous than ever. A
vast and well-organised scheme of rebellion, in con-
nection with the revolutionary and clerical clubs of
Western Europe, spread over the country, and the word
of a mysterious leader was only wanting to advance or
retard the moment of outbreak. The Grovernment
again became alarmed ; and once more reports of plots
and of repressions, arrests, banishments, assassinations,
and fusillades were heard of from Warsaw. Against
the Eussians, whether as merciless and cruel or humane
and conciliating governors, a certain party of the people
remained implacable.
The Government, however, without arresting its
M
162 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
intended reforms, still hoped to allay the spirit of
revolt. The Grrand Duke Constantine was sent to
Warsaw with the generous intention of conciliating
that unhappy country and gradually restoring to it
that autonomy which it lost in 1831. All his actions
show his desire to conciliate the Poles. He gave to his
babe born in the country the name of a Polish saint ;
he made himself master of the Polish language, sur-
rounded himself with Polish advisers ; appointed Polish
civil officers to all important posts ; and became so Polo-
nised himself as to excite the discontent of his own
G-overnment and countrjrmen; so that when, in Sep-
tember 1863, he returned to Eussia, he was the most
unpopular man in the country. Whatever may have
been his private ideas, his government was a complete
failure, while the anxiety of his position had whitened
his head, and a coat of steel mail had hardly preserved
him from assassination.
But the political crimes of the father were not so
easily redeemed by the good intentions of the son. The
conspirac}^ made head faster than he could check it. At
last, when the insurrection was on the point of break-
ing out, the Grovernment, to counteract or anticipate it,
committed another great blunder by ordering an illegal
recruitment, affecting chiefly those classes of the popu-
lation which were known to be the most revolutionary.*
* This measure, the Eussians say, was entirely decided by the Polish
Council of State, at the head of which was the Marquis Wielopolsky,
^
POLAND V, RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 163
The result only showed that the great principles of
justice ought never to be violated, under any circum-
stances, by a Government in its dealings with a people.
In Poland the measure, so far from having its intended
effect, only hastened the crisis. The revolution com-
menced by a series of cold-blooded murders on sleeping
soldiers, which naturally led to a fearful retaliation after-
wards. The worst passions were unchained, and for
months barbarities have been committed which would
rival even those of Asiatic warfare. *
The very soul of the present insurrection has been
the secret National Committee, backed, it is true, by
every class of the community with the exception of the
while the Emperor twice refused his sanction, and only consented to it
when hard pushed.
■* In a copy of the instructions issued by the National Government, I
find these words : ' In Spain children were trained to pick out the eyes of
the enemy's horses with needles. At the inns, when French soldiers came,
the mangers of the stables were rubbed with a preparation of arsenic. In
uninhabited houses, eatables and drink containing opium and arsenic
were left in the cupboards. From the pulpits priests preached such
means as these to get rid of their country's oppressors, and aU Europe
clapped with applause. "Wliy should they not be allowed now under
similar circumstances ? A national war, when it once begins, is in itself
a war of extermination. Vengeance for the injustice and insults not
only of the past, but of the present, and even of the future — vengeance
for so much blood spilt in defence of our fatherland — honour as well as
necessity, make it the duty of every Pole, without distinction of sex, age,
or position, to employ every method to exterminate the enemy. And let
every Pole remember, that the more he knows how to conceal his hatred
the more dangerous he will be ; and that in the success of every under-
taking lies its justification.'
164 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
peasantry, who were forced on with the stream. Who
were the members of this Committee, or where it held
its sittings, nobody seemed to know. Prince Gortchakov
hinted at the Palais Eoyal in Paris; many Eussians be-
lieved it to be in the very Palace of Warsaw. Be this
as it may, it is very certain that the old aristocratic
families, like the Czartoriskys — the democratic literary
men, like the Mickievicz — the men of action, like
Langievicz and Mieroslawsky — were all connected with
it in one plan against the Eussians, however much they
may have been squabbling among themselves. The
' Sclachters ' or petty nobility of Poland, the pans or
landowners of the old Polish provinces, were to a man its
supporters. Eefugees who had been in exile, earning
their bread as shopkeepers, clerks, or professors, threw
down their pens and books and returned, with unabated
patriotism, to put themselves under its orders. Pro-
fessors from their chairs, priests from their confessionals,
inculcated obedience to its orders. Fully half the Polish
servants of the Grovernment in Poland or in Eussia were
among its agents. Its emissaries carried into the most
remote parts its orders to those Poles who were in the
Eussian service. Disguised as Eussian secret police,
they made domiciliary visits in St. Petersburg and
Cronstadt, so that the most rigorous passport system
had to be enforced between those towns. The orders
they brought to every officer assigned him some special
duty. To assist the national cause, they must do the
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 165
Eussians as much injury as possible in every practicable
way. Thus, at the beginning of the insurrection, quan-
tities of arms and ammunition were smuggled through
St. Petersburg into Poland. In one factory in the Ural
mountains, where Poles were employed in great num-
bers, all the valuable machinery was one day found to
be useless. If any Polish employe refused to obey these
orders (and there were many who would not compound
with their consciences, and either remained true to their
allegiance or nobly threw up their commissions), he was
sure to receive a warning to the effect that he must not
forget he had property left in Poland, or, failing that,
parents or a sister to answer for his disobedience.*
In Poland and Lithuania the reign of this Committee
became at last a reign of terror to all who wished to be
neutral. The peasantry, it is known, kept aloof from
the insurrection ; they hated their proprietors, and saw
no chance of bettering their condition by fighting under
their orders. But the Committee appointed a leader to
such and such a district, and the peasants had no choice
but to take up a scythe or be hanged to the nearest
* Polish officers in Eussia were thus placed in a deplorable situation.
So many were found acting the traitor, that the Government mistrusted
all. Looked on with suspicion by the Government, they were treated as
renegades by their own countrymen. Many who received threatening
letters revealed their contents to the authorities. One letter, of which I
had some knowledge, informed a young Polish officer that his parents
and sister should pay the penalty of his disobedience to the orders of the
National Government.
166 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
tree. The march of a rebel band was marked by the
bodies of refractory peasants hanging from their own
doors or from the posts of the telegraph. And, besides
these, every Pole found serving the Eussians met with
the same fate if he had the misfortune to be taken
prisoner and refused to join the insurgents.* It was
this that often so exasperated the Eussian soldiers, and
led to the brutal reprisals which the Poles took care to
spread abroad over Europe. Its police, known as the
hanging gensdarmes, were spread all over the
country, encouraging the patriotism, upbraiding the
lukewarmness, or summarily punishing the disobedi-
ence of individuals. Loans, of which the independence
of their fatherland was to be the security, were raised
or extorted from the townspeople — and woe to him who
refused ! So great became its terrorism in one part of
Poland, that the peasantry actually sent a deputation to
Mouraviev to take them under his protection and free
them from the incubus which oppressed them.
Neglecting none of those means which may rouse a
people to enthusiasm, the orders of the National Com-
mittee touched even the intimacies of social life. It
prescribed to men and women where they were to walk,
and not to walk in Warsaw ; how they were to behave in
public ; to the women how they were to wear mourning
* The Government permitted all Polish officers of regiments sent to
Poland to remain behind ; but many persisted in going, to show their
loyalty and zeal.
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 167
and make political demonstrations in the churches ; at
another time, when mourning was forbidden by the
authorities, that they were to dress in red ; at anotherj
time, and hardest of all, that they were to distinguish
themselves from the Eussian women by an absence of
crinoline. But the part played by the women of Poland
has been such as to merit the special attention of the
reader.
The Polish women are distinguished by great physical
beauty, heightened by all that art of manner which is
so fascinating to the opposite sex, over whom they know
and exert their power. In their mental qualities they
are equal if not superior to the men, while their character
partakes of all that mysticism and idealism which is
common to both sexes.* High-flown in the love of their
country, fanatical in their religion, the passion of the
Polish women is in the glory of the one and the ascen-
dency of the other. Over the men of her family and
kindred her power is greater than in any country in
Europe, and there is only one man before whom she
bows her head and humbles her mind — and that man is
her priest. Throughout every page of the history of her
country the passionate and energetic nature of the Polish
woman breaks out. Her character is well typified in the
seventeenth century in the person of Marina Mniszek,
* It is an old saying, that among people of the Latin race, men and
women are equal in their mental qualities : that, in the German race, the
men are superior ; in the Sclavonic, the women.
168 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of whom I have already spoken. In 1770 the French
commissioner of Louis XV. writes home to his master,
'that all capacity and energy in Poland have passed
from the men to the women, who are occupied in action,
while the men are leading the life of women.' It is
the same in 1863. While the men are quarrelling as
to the use of power, before that power is acquired, the
woman, with all her exciting moral energy, is pushing
forward to one goal — the independence of her country
and the supremacy of her religion, for with her the two
go together.
Already the infant on his mother's knees looks up
with his extended eyes into her face, and sobs break
from his little bosom, as she relates to him the story of
the three partitions, the sufferings of his fathers, and
the horrors of Kussian domination. Weaned, so to
speak, with patriotic maxims, he is ready, at a moment's
notice, to fly to his country's call. As soon as the insur-
rection broke out, the Polish youth vanished altogether
from the universities and schools, and it is sad to think
what the fate of so many generous youths has been.
The influence of the Polish mother on her children
is scarcely greater than the influence of the Polish wife
on her husband. What man can long withstand the
tears of supplication, the bursts of irony, the persua-
sions which are backed by caresses, when his heart is
in the cause which the loved one advocates, though his
reason may be against it ? It is impossible to know how
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA F. POLAND. 169
many Poles or Eusso-Poles have been brought over to
the insurgents by women. But this is undoubted — that
wherever they brought their influence to bear, it was
never exerted in vain ; and that women have been first
and foremost in supporting the National Grovernment,
and bidding defiance to the enemy.*
While young and delicate women have been found,
mounting on horseback, handling lance and revolver,
and braving all the dangers and hardships of an ever-
changing camp ; their influence has also been immense
in private, in spurring on the young to action, in re-
warding the heroism of some, in seducing the loyalty of
others. In the depth of the forest or morass might
be found women, who had figured in the first society of
Paris or Warsaw, exciting those who were preparing for
an expedition by their eloquence, their prayers, and
their promises. The seductions of women, indeed,
have only been part of the programme of the insur-
rection. As such we must also consider their public
demonstrations in the churches.
Let the reader picture to himself a Catholic cathedral,
hung in black cloth, and, as worshippers, some thousand
women clothed in the deepest mourning, on their knees
before the altar, filling up the whole aisle. Imagine
that some solemn mass is being intoned, that the organ
* For a fuller account of the influence of the Polish women on the
Insurrection, I refer the reader to an article which I contributed to
Fraser's Magazine for December 1863.
170 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
resounds through the axches to such words as these —
Dies ircB, dies ilia ; that the vast mass of worshippers
break out into sobbing and moaning, raising their hands
and eyes to heaven ; remember that those women are
your mothers and sisters, that they are bemoaning the
captivity of your common fatherland, and supplicating
Heaven for its ultimate success and deliverance from
the hand of the oppressors — and you will have some
idea of the scenes which frequently took place in Warsaw
and Wilna. Do you think such a scene would not have
its effect on you ? Add to this, that the Grovernment
has declared its intention of stopping such proceedings
on the next occasion, and that your wives and sisters,
knowing this, persist in going. Would you not accom-
pany them ? When you see them trampled down by the
soldiers in the excitement of the emeute, should you not
be persuaded to make use of the pistol or dagger, which
you had been persuaded to put in your pocket in case of
necessity? Probably you would ; and so did the Poles,
and by so doing, the women became instruments for
dragging on the men after them into the ranks of the
insurgents.
Even the little boarding-school girls were taught to
add their demonstrations to the general confusion, and
so increase the chances of success.
The great prompter of all these actions of the women
may be imagined sitting in the confessional. In no
country in Europe has the Eoman Catholic religion
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 171
taken deeper root than in Poland. In nearly every
country of Europe, it acts hand in hand with the civil
power to curb the aspirations of the people. In Poland
it is the strongest ally of the people against the Grovern-
ment, and from the Pope down to the meanest village
priest the Catholic hierarchy has given more trouble to
the Eussians than all the pranks of the secret National
Committee. Since the First Partition the clergy have
been the most active in keeping alive — chiefly through
the women — the idea of a glorious restoration of a free
and Catholic Poland. They have supplied fuel to the
smouldering fires of discontent, whenever the sun of
tranquillity began to beam too brightly on that unhappy
country. Their power may be easily understood, if for
a moment we consider the strength which religion, com-
bined with what the Irish are still pleased to call their
oppressed nationality, even now gives to the priesthood
in Ireland and America. In the kingdom of Poland the
clergy may point at the Antichrist as well as at the
tyrant.
What the women and priests have been to the National
Grovernment at home, that the literary members of the
emigration have been abroad, from London to Constan-
tinople, from Breslau to Madrid. For years Europe has
been inundated with their pamphlets ; while their writ-
ings have found insertion in half the newspapers and
magazines of England and France. Is not the picture
of the Polish refugee familiar to us all, as in pure French,
172 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
or broken but not the less interesting English, he
awakens the sympathy of woman's heart by the despair
of his sufferings or the enthusiasm of his hopes ? It is
natural that we should sympathise with him and believe
what he tells us of his oppressors. But such writings
and narrations should be received with the greatest re-
serve as matter for history. It would be as unfair to write
the history of the English Grovernment and people from
the outpourings of Irish emigrants in America, as to
accept blindfold the character ascribed to Eussians by
the Poles. The whole burden of their doctrines may be
summed up in a few phrases — that Poland has always
represented the civilisation and liberalism of the West,
while Russia has been the incarnation of Oriental des-
potism — that the west and south-west of Russia had
been civilised and Polonised, and that there only were
the true Ruthians or Russians — that the fifty millions of
so-called Russian people are a contemptible mixture of
Tartars, Calmuks, and Finns, with very little Sclavonic
blood, and that they received the name of Russians by
an ukas of Catharine II. — that the antagonism of Russia
and Poland is one of the secrets of Divine Providence,
the destiny of Russia being to weigh on the world, that
of Poland to exterminate the oppressor.
These writings of the Polish refugees, together with
their pretensions, have had a very bad effect on their
cause, not only with the Government, but with the
Russian people. This effect has more than counter-
POLAND V, RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 173
balanced any good they may have done by exciting the
imagination or the sympathies of Western nations.
If we regard their mutual accusations, we shall find
quite as much despotism and illiberality, and more of
religious persecution, in Poland than in Russia. Quite
as many barbarous deeds have been and are committed,
and humanity has been quite as much outraged, on one
side as on the other. But when Poland in her turn is per-
secuted, her cry goes forth at once for liberty, equality,
and tolerance in belief. With the feelings of pity
towards an injured person or people we are wont to
mix up sentiments which are undeserved towards the
one, while we exaggerate the evil deeds done on the
other side. We should avoid either extreme. In all
that concerns the real welfare of either Russians or
Poles — the true aim of a government, and the bounden
duty of a noble class — both sides have been alike un-
conscientious. The Poles had greater talents, and they
abused them. Although they have been nearer to the
focus of civilisation, and more able to profit by it, yet
the condition of the Polish people is no better than
that of the Russians : perhaps it is even worse. The
peasantry have been as much oppressed by forced la-
bour and feudalism under Polish pans, as any Russian
serfs under the worst of paTneschiks. The attempts
to enforce a change of religion among the people of
Ruthenia were equally disgraceful, whether made by
wily Jesuits, or ignorant orthodox monks backed by the
174 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
will of an Autocrat. Nor was the lawlessness of their
Diet less injurious to the country than the despotism of
the Eussian Emperor or the palace revolutions of the
nobility. In all their quarrels on paper, and in their
reports of things done during the present struggle, the
greatest mendacity has been employed to mislead the
opinion of Western Europe, and no tidings could be
relied on which came through Warsaw, Cracow, or
Wilna, until the other version had been compared with
them — and then the confusion was hopeless.
It is now generally known that the pretensions of the
Poles are not confined to an independent kingdom of
Poland with five or six millions of Catholic inhabitants,
but extend to the restoration of Old Poland as before
1772. In this there is, however, nothing new. They
were avowed when Kosciusko fought, during all the wars
of Napoleon, in 1831 as in 1863. These pretensions
present the greatest hindrance to their obtaining an
independent Catholic Poland ; otherwise, I believe that
Eussia, or at least its people, would be glad to wash
their hands of Poland altogether, provided always that
Poland remain independent, and be not annexed to
Austria at any future period.
A few statements will serve to show the reader the
present condition of these provinces, viz. Euthenia,
the Ukrain, and Lithuania.
There is no doubt that, in ancient times, such towns
as Vladimir-Yolinsky, Kiev, and Wilna, were the
POLAND r. KUSSIA, AND KUSSIA V, POLAND. 175
capitals of little principalities governed by the old
Eussian princes. It is true that the dates of such pos-
sessions are remote and barbarous ; that the Tartar
occupation of two centuries intervenes, at the end of
which Poland was in possession of what had formerly
been Eussian ground. It is also true that these pro-
vinces owe their civilisation to Poland. But it is not less
true that now, after nearly a century's re-possession, the
conviction has entered into the very core of the Eussian
people, that the so-called dismemberment of Poland
was only the reunion of scattered members to its kin-
dred body, and that the people of those provinces are
of the same blood and religion as themselves — a feel-
ing shared by the people of those provinces.
In all these provinces taken together the Poles, or
Polonised Eussians, number about ten per cent, of the
population. The Polish Catholic proprietor extends far
east into Eussia ; the orthodox peasant far into Poland.
But as all the wealth and education of the country are
centred in this ten per cent., as their political and
religious sentiments are all towards Poland, their wishes
alone become current, and they are made to represent
the 9,000,000 of inferiors, who detest their persons,
their influence, and their religion. For two years prior
to the insurrection, the nobility of these provinces on
several occasions petitioned the Emperor for political
union to the kingdom of Poland.
But Polish emigrants deny that the peasantry of
176 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
these provinces are so patient under Eussian rule or
so earnest in their orthodoxy. The truth is, that their
degraded state leaves them indifferent to which party
they belong. But that they are not favourably disposed
to the Polish cause and to Catholicism is evident from
the efforts made among them by the clergy. ' Why do
you not,' it is stated in a circular to the Polish pro-
prietors — 'why do not you, who are the lords and
absolute masters of your peasantry, use the great means
you have at 3^our disposal, to Polonise the country ?
Let each of you take a few peasant children into your
houses, and in the course of a few years they become
true Poles and fervent Catholics. Afterwards give them
their liberty and a piece of land, and they are for ever
our friends and will powerfully serve our cause.' When
such means are necessary to effect a change, little need
be said of the real inclinations of the peasantry.
In the Ukrain and Kiev the people, to say the truth,
will not be considered as either Eussians or Poles.
They are Little Eussians. Their memory and legends v|
recall the time when they were independent of both ;
their language they regard as neither Eussian nor
Polish ; it is Little Eussian. They can also boast a
small literature of their own. The insurrection hardly
touched these provinces, and what disturbances there
were came from without, and were easily put down by
the peasants themselves.
In Podolia, Volhynia, formerly part of Eed Eussia or
POLAND r. EUSSIA, AND EUSSIA V. POLAND. 177
Galicia, the Polish element is rather more numerous.
During the Polish insurrection of 1831, the Poles made
every effort to raise the peasantry against the Eussians,
but without success. Greneral Dverniki penetrated far
into the provinces with a corps d^armee, but only a
few proprietors joined his standard. The peasantry
were everywhere apathetic. The same apathy is seen
in the present insurrection. When any of the lying
telegrams from Lemberg reported that Podolia or Vol-
hynia had risen, anyone who knew those countries at
all could check the information. The small proprietors
who were Poles wished to rise, but could not prevail on
their tenants to follow them ; and if insurgents came
from Gralicia or the kingdom for the purpose of causing
a rising, their attempts always failed. It would seem
that the Poles have quite estranged from themselves
the sympathy of the people who were once their
subjects.
The only one of these provinces where the insurrec-
tion was really dangerous was Lithuania.* Here the
Eussian rule in former times was most evanescent, while
the Lithuanian princes afterwards conquered half of
Eussia itself. Here, too, Poles and Catholics are far
* The reader will bear in mind that the spread of the insurrection
has been in exact ratio to the Catholicism of the inhabitants. The fol-
lowing table will therefore show the extent of the insurrection, as well
as the religious denomination of the people in the disputed provinces ;
N
178
EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
more numerous than in the other provinces.* No people
in Europe are such fanatics as the lower classes in the
northern part of Lithuania and Samogitia, but, for-
tunately for the Eussians, their fanaticism is counter-
balanced by their hatred of the Polish proprietors. In
one month from the time when Mouraviev was ap-
pointed Grovernor of Lithuania, the insurrection was all
but quelled. The means by which he effected this lead
me to make a remark on that interference of the three
Powers which ended so unsuccessfully.
Two of the six points demanded for the Poles the
full liberty of their religion, and participation in the
administration of the country. These demands were
either made in excessive ignorance of the country, or
the mistake was wilful. For the very fact that the
Poles had both these was the great cause of success to
the Protestants being strictly neutral, and the Jews serving as much one
party as the other : —
Orthodox
Romanists
Protestants
Jews
Lithuania —
Wilna . . .
188,567
610,428
897
80,123
Grodno . . .
487,009
267,560
5,351
95,434
Kovno . . .
29,596
834,863
36,892
101,337
Witerbsk . .
452,242
231,392
10,866
66,711
Minsk . . .
709,154
186,888
527
84,834
Mohilev . , .
727,743
41,736
346
114,870
E,uthenia —
Volhynia . .
1,171,356
172,264
2,202
185,833
Podolia . . .
1,319,975
210,915
1,327
191,847
Kiev ....
1,621,928
76,150
51,253
225,074
•^From the Official Calendar of St. Petersburg for 1863.
* In the kingdom of Poland nearly the whole population is Catholic.
POLAND V, EUSSIA, AND EUSSIA V. POLAND. 179
the insurrection. It is hard to say that there was not
full liberty of religion, when the priests could preach
against the Eussians from their pulpits, excite the
multitude to rebellion, hang their churches in black,
or arrange the vast demonstrations of women in mourn-
ing which were so powerful in stirring up the mass.
If all persons employed by the administration had not
been Poles, how would it have been possible to or-
ganise the movement so well, or to take away some
millions of roubles from the national bank to pay the
insurgent troops ? Not only in Poland, but throughout
the whole Eussian administration, civil and military,
the Poles were found in such numbers as to become a
cause of envy to their Eussian comrades. The very
fact that the Poles already had what their sympa-
thisers asked the Eussians to give them, accounts for
the prolongation of the insurrection in the kingdom of
Poland.
Mouraviev well knew this. As soon as he took
possession of his Grovernment, he struck at the very
root of the insurrection by turning^ out all Poles who
held official positions and replacing them by Germans
or Eussians. He imprisoned every priest who out-
stepped his duty in preaching, and would have hanged
them all, had they not immediately desisted, for they
knew his character well. He fined every woman who
wore mourning without cause, and stopped the pro-
ceeding in a week. He made the proprietors pay ten
N 2
180 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
per cent, of their incomes for the cost of putting down
the insurrection which they had raised ; hanged or shot
every insurgent chief, Polish deserter, or attempted
assassin ; and in one month Lithuania was comparatively
quiet. If the insurrection was to be put down, he
adopted the only method of doing it, and he must go
down to the grave with all the infamy which his position
has entailed. It is, however, only just to say that it
would be hard to prove any of those unnecessary bar-
barities which are imputed to him by Poles, such as
flogging women or torturing prisoners, and which in
Western Europe have put him on a par with Haynau,
of immortal memory, or New Orleans Butler.
In Wafsaw, meanwhile, the Grand Duke went to work
in quite a different way. It is, of course, almost im-
possible to get at the true policy of his actions. But
it is certain that that policy aimed at conciliating the
Poles, and putting down the insurrection in the mildest
way possible. But it was not the intention of the
National Grovernment to have it put down mildly.
Their petty little kingdom of 5,000,000 alone was not
worth fighting for : while they were in insurrection, it
was worth while going in for the whole of Old Poland.
This was the reason why the three propositions of the
Powers met with so little gratitude from them. They
had already what these asked ; they wanted something
more, and saw some chance, in the uncertainty of the
Russian Grovernment and a European war, of getting
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA V. POLAND. 181
what they wanted. Their position was still pretty good.
The Grovernment officials were all Poles, and their
willing agents ; the priests still did what they liked ;
the women went on with their demonstrations, in spite
of many deaths among them ; their friends from with-
out were as liberal as ever, and the Eussian Grovernment
not over vigorous in its measures. They could prolong
the struggle, bide their time, and wait for Fortune
or the French to come in and complete their deli-
verance.
Three months after the insurrection had been crushed
in Lithuania, the struggle was as fierce as ever in the
kingdom of Poland. But suddenly the Grrand Duke
was recalled. Greneral Berg, his locum-tenens, imme-
diately commenced the programme of Mouraviev, turned
out all Polish officials, cut down the forests on each side
of the railway, levied the accustomed contribution on
the proprietors, and fined the women who wore
mourning. That this policy will have the same effect
iu Poland as in Lithuania is not at all doubtful. The
real difficulties will only begin when the insurrection is
quelled.
Meanwhile during this painful struggle all Europe
has been looking on and judging either party. That a
universal sympathy on the side of the mass should be
shown for the cause of the weaker is happily one of the
generous attributes of civilised human nature. But
undoubtedly that sympathy and the interference of
182 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Grovernment to which it led has had an effect very
diflferent from that which the sympathisers intended.
It has led the Poles to attempt what they can never
complete, to break down barriers and dig chasms which
can never be filled up, to indulge in speculations which
cannot be realised. For the attempt of the Poles is to
restore what no longer -exists. The old provinces of
Eussian Poland are now no longer Polish except in the
feelings of their aristocra-tic pans. Prussia and Austria,
with true Machiavelian policy, have for years past been
replacing the Polish by the Grerman race in Posnania and
Gralicia. There remains the kingdom of Poland with
all the Polish partisans in the neighbouring provinces —
about 7,000,000 in all— to wage war against 53,000,000
of orthodox Eussians, as fanatic as themselves in all
that concerns religion or fatherland; to wrench from
the solid sway of Prussia Posnania and East Prussia to
the shores of the Baltic ; to get Galicia from Austria,
to whom every little bit of a heterogeneous empire
becomes doubly dear as the chance of her losing it
increases. If she has lately been acting the comedy of
liberalism towards Poland, it is only from her antago-
nism to Eussia in the south-east of Europe, and her
dread of Panslavism filtering in among the 17,000,000
of her population of Sclaves. Can Poland effect all this
by her own unaided powers ? It is almost an impossi-
bility. She has already made two heroic attempts into
which was thrown all the force of her mental and
POLAND r. KFSSIA, AND RUSSIA V, POLAND. 183
material power. The present insurrection, although
waged on a better plan, with energies more united,
with vast assistance from without from revolutionary-
clubs, from the ultramontane clerical party, and from
generous sympathisers, has once more shown the folly
of pursuing an idea which it is impossible to realise
without drenching the whole soil of Europe with
blood. To restore Poland as she was in the seventeenth
century, is practically to reduce Eussia and Prussia to
what they then were also ; and if any one supposes
that this can be done without a war of extermination,
he knows very little of human nature.
The only hope of Poland in carrying out her idea has
been from England and France. In England sympathy
for Poland has become part of the education of youth.
'That Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell' is de-
claimed by every school-boy. The charity of England
towards Polish refugees has become a chronic virtue.
Englishmen have always made their voice heard when-
ever the tidings of oppression and unjust acts committed
against a subject race have reached their shores. This is
as it should be. But while a natural sympathy is forci-
bly aroused, it is well that a selfish part remains to check
its superabundance. A war undertaken by England for
the restoration of Old Poland would no doubt be a
very chivalrous act, but she would have to pay for the
honour by the tears of thousands of widows, the wails
of thousands of orphans, the waste of millions of
184 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
treasure, the increase of power in a jealous ally, and
worse than all, the mortification of finding afterwards
that the cause she supported was a rotten and an un-
grateful one.
Fortunately the motives which govern English states-
men are the reverse of chivalrous, and though they
make a little noise in deference to public opinion, they
wisely abstain from entering upon a war of sentiment.
In the struggles of Poland there is a poetical aspect,
and there is the sober aspect of reality : the former will
always win the sympathy of all the world ; the latter
ought to prevent wise statesmen from hazarding them-
selves too far in her affairs.
With France it seemed more likely that sympathy
would lead to armed intervention. Poland had always
been an ally and friend of France. From among
French princes the Poles once chose their elective
king. A king of France had married into one of the
great Polish families. France had always been the
refuge of her dethroned kings and fugitive nobility.
Just before the first partition the French Grovernment
alone tried, although in vain, to prop up the tumbling
State. During the wars of Napoleon Polish and
French troops fought side by side from Moscow to
Madrid. The character of both peoples in many
qualities is akin. The policy of the first Napoleon, so
often expressed in his conversation at St. Helena,
was to have erected a powerful Poland, with Ponia-
POLAND r. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA F. POLAND. 185
towsky as king, to intervene between Eussia and
Grermany. It was not inconsistent therefore with the
present imperial policy, so impregnated as it is with the
ideas of that great man, that a powerful Poland should
be established in the present day with Czartorysky as
sovereign. The erection of some such State as a check
to Eussia on the west had been entertained by the
greatest of statesmen, especially by the first Napoleon.
With a powerful Poland in the east of Europe France
would acquire that supremacy in Europe which she lost by
the Congress of Vienna, and to regain which the French
Emperor has persistently striven, first in the Crimean
war, and secondly by the depression of Austria. A Polish
war would certainly have afforded him the opportunity
of treating Prussia in the same way, and of restoring
to France those frontiers which nature has given, but
which human policy denies her. In France also were
to be found elements of sympathy — elements fortunately
insignificant in England — united for one purpose from
two extremes — from the Ultramontane Catholic party,
and the Democratic and Socialist. The French Govern-
ment, uncertain of the alliance of its neighbours and un-
willing to commence action without them, managed the
French nation throughout the excitement about Poland,
as an experienced rider would guide his fiery steed. At
one moment shouts of sympathy and petitions for war
were permitted to the masses of generous Frenchmen ;
at another they were reined in by the eloquent decla-
186 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
mation of that organ of tlie imperial mind, the minister
without a portfolio, M. Billault ; then, again, the press
was uncurbed, the faubourgs excited, and the spirit of
the nation raised to glory point, just as the chances of
an armed intervention became more apparent.
It is impossible to know to what extent the French
Grovernment gave encoui-agement to the Polish insur-
gents. Prince Gortchakov was probably right in the
delicate hints which he gave in his clever despatch to
the minister in Paris. It is improbable that the Poles
would have been so noisy without some direct en-
couragement, and quite impossible that they could have
continued their struggles so long on the bare sympathy
of other people. What the real policy of the French
Grovernment is, and what it may become hereafter, it is
impossible to say. Spring may perhaps unfold it.
Though one of the famous ideas is the duty of assisting
oppressed nationalities, there is not so much Quixotism
in it as is supposed. The idea must be backed by the
prospect of some little corner of territory as a reward
for its generosity. Now though Poland is too remote
to offer such a prospect, Prussia is near to pay for her
neighbour; but, as it is probable that other powers
would not be well satisfied with the exchange, a war
beginning in Poland might not impossibly end in
Paris.
Before the breaking out of the insurrection much
was heard of the sympathies of Eussians for the Polish
POLAND V. KTJSSIA, AND EUSSIA V, POLAND. 187
cause. This was quite true. All liberal Eussians
sympathised deeply with the Poles for their harsh
treatment under the Emperor Nicholas. In 1861
and 1862 they were enthusiastic for Poland. The
whole of young Eussia was then yearning after a con-
stitution. Poland was looked upon as a champion
striving for national and civil liberty, and the idea in
Eussia was, that what was gained to Poland was gained
to Eussia also. *If Poland gets a constitution, we
shall soon get ours,' was the thought of half Eussia,
and sometimes loudly expressed. And indeed it is an
absurdity to suppose that, if her constitution be re-
stored to Poland, Eussia will long remain without
one.
Among the students in the Universities of Kiev and
Kharkov, where liberal and revolutionary ideas would
naturally form part' of their curriculum, Poland be-
came the incarnation of an idea, the emblem of pro-
gress towards the fulfilment of many a cherished
dream. While the Universities of St. Petersburg and
Moscow were being turned inside out for hatching
such ideas, it was not likely that the excitable Little
Eussians, with their vicinity to Poland, their constant
intercourse with Poles, and the remembrance of their
history so linked with that of Poland, would be un-
moved by what was taking place in Poland. That
country to them represented liberty, heroism, a con-
stitution ; but it was on the things represented
188 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
and not on the representative that they centred their
affections.
When, therefore, the pretensions of the Poles became
known among the people in Russia ; when it was seen
that the object of their struggle was the re-conquest of
the west and south-west of Eussia ; when their abuse of
Russia and the Russians was read in the newspapers ;
those two fiery passions in the sluggish nature of the Rus-
sian peasant — patriotism and religion — were aroused,
and the bitter hatred which had always existed between
the Moscals and Lakhi was renewed. Kiev was a name
that touched every Russian soul. * The Poles want to
take Kiev ! ' was sufficient to raise two millions of men
for its defence.
While it was yet uncertain whether England and
France would espouse the Polish cause by arms ; while
line of battle ships were being sunk and enormous
cannon mounted to render the entrance to Cronstadt
almost impregnable, addresses came pouring in to the
Emperor from every Government and district in
Russia, from the nobility, merchants, and the com-
munes of the peasantry. * Those of the Staroveri
* I believe all these addresses were looked upon in the West as a
sham to blind Europe. This was a great mistake. It is true no
one put much faith in the sincerity of the address which Mouraviev got
out of the Polish nobility of Lithuania. But in most parts of Eussia
the people took the initiative, and the Government and the press did no
more than tickle the patriotism and fanaticism of the masses in order to
prepare for coming events. Indeed, it needed only to listen for a moment
POLAND V. RUSSIA, AND EUSSIA V. POLAND. 189
and the Molokani, sectarians lately persecuted by the
Grovernment, were among the most fervent. All offered
their money and their persons for the defence of their
country. The Cossacks of the Don and Ural, the most
fanatic of orthodox, even the Calmucks and Tartars
of the Asiatic Steppe were ready to set out on a word
from the Emperor. Thus was furnished half a million of
excellent light cavalry, armed, and costing the Grovern-
ment not a kopek. The Grovernment had not had a
conscription since the Crimean war. A levy "of ten
men per thousand was ordered, which would have
raised the Eussian regular army to a million and a
half of men. And that army is at the present day one
of the finest in Europe, both as regards the feelings of
the troops and the perfectness of the weapons with
which they are armed. I fully believe that, had a
European war arisen for the restoration of Poland,
that unhappy country would by this time have been
totally annihilated, and that when with peace the work
of reconstruction came, there would have been little
to the conversations of the lower classes, to see that even this was un-
necessary. It was against the Poles first, and then against the French,
that all their imprecations were levelled. Among the better classes there
was a sober resolution, apart from all bravado, to meet the worst. Their
feeling was — ' Let England and France mind their own business ; why-
should they do to us what they would not permit another power to do to
them ? If they attempt to force us, we will at least preserve our reputa-
tion as a great power, and resist to the last.' But I do not think that
anyone anticipated that England would ever make the PoKsh question
a casus belli.
190 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
left to reconstruct, so bitter would have been the rage
and fanaticism of the Eussian troops.
The serious question is, what to do with the King-
dom of Poland, as constituted by the Treaty of Vienna,
when once the insurrection is put down ? That Treaty
affirmed to Eussia all the provinces of the first par-
tition ; and, by being made the excuse for foreign,
intervention, their cession has been confirmed. Let
these, therefore, be out of the question. As affairs now
remain, Poland is an incubus to Eussia which she
cannot throw off without danger, or- preserve without
exhaustion, while it is a smouldering brand in the
midst of Europe. What is to be done with it ?
What is wanted by a very respectable minority of
Poles, who know that they can expect no more from
Eussia, is a semi-independence, in which they may be
governed by their own statesmen, and by laws made in
a Polish Parliament, and in which the Eoman Catholic
Church shall be inviolate. They wish to see their
banner with the white eagle unfurled above the citadel
of Warsaw ; to have their coin stamped with a national
motto ; in a word, to have their constitution restored to
them, or such another given as would put Poland on
an equality with the Grrand Duchy of Finland. * But
* The Grand Duchy of Finland has now a constitution of its own,
and the people are, on the whole, contented. Since their annexation to
Eussia, in 1809, we have been continually hearing of the desires of the
Finns to be reunited to Sweden. A tour in Finland in the summer
POLAND r. RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA T. POLAND. 191
to have such a constitution Poland must also have its
own army, and it is vain to suppose that the Eussian
of 1863 soon conyinced me that this is not the case. Out of a
population of 1,630,000 there are, perhaps, about 80,000 or 100,000
Swedish proprietors, who entertain the same desires with Polish pro-
prietors in the Ukrain or Volhynia, and would naturally be glad to have
Finland reunited to their mother country. On the other hand, the
Finnish proprietors will all say to you, what one of the late deputies to
the Landtag said to me : ' Finland is a very small country, and as it is
impossible for us to be quite independent, we get the nearest approach
to it from the Eussian Government, which allows us to manage our own
affairs as we please. We have our Landtag in our capital of Helsingfors,
where the four Estates, the nobles, clergy, merchants, and peasants,
meet to make our laws and impose taxes ; we have our little army and
fleet ; our language and our religion are inviolate ; the Eussian service
is open to our youth ; and, what is more, as we are a very poor country,
we have a rich protector to fall back upon for our corn supply in case of
dearth. If we were reunited to Sweden, we should lose our individuality
directly, and be what we were before, a province of Sweden sending our
deputation to Stockholm; and, as Sweden is as poor a country as ours,
we could get very little aid from her if we wanted any. We prefer the
Emperor of Eussia as our Grand Duke as long as he allows us to govern
ourselves, and we must put up with having our fortunes linked with those
of Eussia. It is true we do not like to have the English fleet ravaging
our shores and destroying our commerce ; but the chance of that is not
so great as the danger of having the Eussians walking over the ice, if we
were a Swedish province. We are a peaceable people, quite contented as
we are, and do not want to be dragged into the quarrel.' Such, the
tourist would find, is at present the general sentiment among the Finns ;
a conversation with Swedes would, of course, give him another impres-
sion. The Finns are in character the very opposite of the Poles, Their
heavy phlegmatic good sense and superior civilisation attract the con-
sideration of the Eussian Government and the respect of the Eussian
people ; and, altogether, the million and a half of Finns are as happy as
Dutchmen.
A still greater mistake is made by those who lead the Western public
192 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Grovernment would ever allow this. For years Eussia
has worried the Porte to admit Christian Grreeks into
his army. If the Sultan were to comply, he would not
remain six months in Europe. So, if Eussia practised
what she advises her neighbours to do, Poland would
certainly soon use her force against Eussia to carry out
her grand idea of 1772.
But the great majority of Poles desire a complete
severance from Eussia. With the remembrance of their
past greatness rankling in their minds, the desire is
natural, and it might be gratified (if their aspirations
did not extend from the Baltic to the Black Sea)
by the formation of a small Catholic Poland of
5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of inhabitants, placed like
Greece under the guarantee of all Europe, which would
coalesce to resist all attacks made on it as to repress all
attacks made by it. "\ATiether this would be to the
interest or happiness of the Poles is quite another affair.
Many Poles think that it would not ; for there are some
peoples in Europe who have shown themselves quite
to suppose that the so-called Baltic Provinces of Eussia, Liefland, Cour-
land, Esthland, are only waiting a fit occasion to drop away from Russia.
These provinces produce the most valued public servants of the Eussian
Government ; they are, as I said before, the hotbed of Eussian statesmen
and generals, and their interests, pecuniary and social, are entirely bound
up with those of Eussia. There are, no doubt, elements of discontent,
as there are everywhere else, but they are insignificant. Generally,
Europe is persuaded that Eussia is an empire of patchwork, ready to fall
to pieces at the first great movement : my opinion is just the contrary,
the greater the danger, the stronger Eussia will become as a nation.
POLAND r. RUSSIA, AND ETTSSIA V. POLAND. 193
incapable of self-government, among which the Irish,
the Greeks, and the Poles stand foremost. Their
national character is too petulant, impulsive, and tur-
bulent. Besides, Poland does not possess that well-
regulated proportion of forces which is necessary to the
well-being of a popular government. There are a few
old aristocratic families jealous of each other ; a talented
democratic literary party opposed to the former ; a
horde of petty nobility with wishes beyond their means ;
a middle class, of whom the greater part are Grermans
or else Jews — the latter socially hors la loi; and the
kholopi, a peasantry the most ignorant and abject in
Europe. Such a state would contain all the s^eds of
turbulence and disorder, very few of order and happi-
ness. Past experience, it would appear, has failed to
teach even her most influential men the beauty of
concord in a nation which is striving, by moral as by
physical means, to obtain its autonomy. Already
during the present insurrection the jealousies of the
leading men are apparent, and the enmity of Czar-
torysky and Mickievicz in the civil, of Langievicz and
Mieroslawsky in the military department of the national
government, give a warning of the confusion which
may be caused by an independent Poland. Even if all
the parties were united, the threat to carry on the great
crusade against Eussia for the favourite idea of 1772
still remains.
Still, by one of these two methods only is it possible
194 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
to patch up a peace for the present — an independent
kingdom of Poland, which would probably be for years
in a state of semi-anarchy, or only united for the sake
of crusading against its neighbom's, — or Poland con-
stitutionally governed by Eussia. In the latter case
— and it is vain to expect anything else, however con-
stitutionally the Eussians may govern the Poles — the
history of Poland and Eussia will be a repetition of
the history of Ireland and England, and the last we
shall hear of the Polish question will only be when
there remains not one single Catholic priest or one
single Polish woman in Poland.
195
CHAPTER VIII.
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA.
Introduction to my Second Fo^iitchik — A Georgian Merchant —
Leave Kharkov — Uninteresting Journey — Conversations with my
Companion — Incidents on the Eoad —His Manners and Habits —
Invitation to TifLis - Eostov, on the Don — The Country of the
Don Cossacks — Novotcherkask — Mineral Kiehes of the Country
Modern Ataman of Cossacks— Sports of the Steppes— Country
Life in Eussia— Its Monotony — Amusements — Gambling —
Character of the Cossacks — Foreigners in Eussia — the Nemetg
or German — Foreign Influence on Eussia — Adventurers — Cele-
brated Germans — Germanism and Gallicism — ^Wisdom of Cathe-
rine II. — Germanism under the Emperor Nicholas — Antipathy '
of German and Eussian Character — The Germans without
Tact in their Dealings with other People — Opinion of Ger-
mans by a Eussian — Eussia Fifty Years behind Western
Europe.
A S I had no great wish to continue my journey to
■^-^ the Don in a telega, I caused a notice to be stuck
up in the post office that I wanted a poputchik who
had a good carriage and was journeying my way. But
day after day passed, and, as I was afraid of losing the
fine weather which then prevailed in the steppe, I at
last became impatient, and ordered horses and the old
telega for the next morning, packed my traps, and
went to bed. About 12 o'clock I was awakened by
the servant of the inn, a dirty, dull, but good-natured
196 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
fellow, who had during my illness slept on the mat of my
door like a watch-dog, ready to start up at the slightest
call. He had without ceremony introduced three
strangers into the room. When candles were lighted,
I saw three tall figures in Circassian costume standing
before my bed in a st^te of perplexity and uneasiness,
as though they did not exactly understand in whose
presence they were. As in Russia every man is judged
by his uniform, epaulettes, or orders, it is somewhat
puzzling when anyone is seen for the first time in his
nightshirt or a bath. When they were seated around
my bedside and had each lit a paper os, the speaker,
a man about forty, told me he was a Greorgian mer-
chant returning from Moscow to his home near Tiflis,
where he had a wife and family. Would I con-
sent to have him for a poputchik ? He had a com-
fortable carriage, and would arrange his time to suit my
plans. We soon agreed (as usual in such cases) to share
the expense of the post-horses. He would make all the
arrangements, and would lay in a stock of provisions,
as nothing was to be had on the road except eggs,
cabbage soup, and kasha. Not being quite recovered,
and fearing a relapse of fever, I stipulated that we
should halt for a few hours now and then at any station
where there was a tolerably clean sofa to lie down upon.
To this he willingly consented, and then, with his two
brother-merchants, took his departure, promising to
call for me with the tarantas the next morning.
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN EUSSIA. 197
Punctually at 11 o'clock we started — myself, the
Greorgian, and his servant ; and, rattling down and then
up the steep of the ravine in which Kharkov is built,
we were soon out on the naked steppe. A few miles
beyond we quitted the chaussee which goes on to
Odessa, continuing our journey over the common road,
which is nothing more than a track over the rolling
steppe, with piles and posts planted at intervals on
either side to guide the traveller when the snow lies
deep on the waste. Woe betide him who swerves from
these landmarks in the bitter colds of winter, when the
keen north wind and snow-dust are sweeping over the
shelterless plain ! Many are the unfortunate tchumaki,
or pedlars, whose well-preserved but stiffened bodies
are uncovered by the thaws of spring !
The description of a journey over the steppes of
Eussia at the end of autumn would be as dull to the
reader as the journey itself is to the traveller. Little
is to be seen of the peasantry. They are huddled
together in their reeking hovels, and the few who are
encountered on the road, with boots half way up their
bodies and sheep-skins muffling the other half, are
neither picturesque nor otherwise attractive. The
country, the weather, the sky, and the aspect of the
people are all alike gloomy and monotonous.
My poputchik and 1 were soon on very good terms.
He was a very fervent Christian, had a mass-book with
him which he read every now and then aloud, and took
198 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
great trouble in explaining to me the dogmas of his
Armenian creed. His simplicity, good nature, and
ignorance of the world made his conversation ver}'-
amusing. He had heard that England was a very
great and rich country, and wished much to go there.
Did all the English understand Eussian ? We talked
about the Circassians, who were dreadful robbers and
heathens ; about the Turks, towards whom he naturally
had a most inveterate hatred ; and about the tchinov-
niks, whom he hated and feared still more as he came
into rather closer relations with them. He was evi-
dently a man of the simplest character, passing through
life in a comfortable though monotonous manner,
making his periodical journeys between Tiflis and Mos-
cow, pocketing his roubles, fearing Grod, and doing his
duty to his neighbour and himself. A perfect man of
peace, he had a great abhorrence of fire-arms; and,
having the curiosity to examine a tiny revolver which I
carried loaded in my pocket, he sent a bullet within a
few inches of my head, nearly fainted at what he had
done, fell on his knees in a fit of horror, and then,
starting up, embraced me in another paroxysm of
affection and joy at his deliverance from homicide.
From that moment he treated me with redoubled at-
tention, begging me only to draw the charges out of
the revolver, which, he said, might go off by itself while
we were in the carriage.
Before starting he had told me not to trouble myself
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 199
about provisions, as he had a large stock with him.
But as, in travelling, I prefer a dry biscuit to the con-
tents of another man's wallet about which there is the
least suspicion, I had, of course, taken with me my own
stores. When the servant spread the meal in the little
room at one of the post-stations, I found that it consisted
of wine, pressed, he said, from the grapes of his own
vineyard, and cheese, made from the milk of his own
goats, both of which his thrifty wife had packed up for
him when he left his home a few weeks before. I need
hardly say that the wine was undrinkable, owing to the
careless way in which it had been made, and from the
taste of the skins in which it had lain, while the stench
of the goat's-milk cheese was nauseating. Nevertheless
my friend ate and drank with considerable gusto ; the
viands reminded him, he said, of his home. The rest
of his stores consisted of roasted fowls, sausages, and
bread, wrapped up in old newspapers ; besides a supply
of tea and sugar, the only part of his wallet acceptable
to me. Fortunately I was ill enough not to be able to
eat, which was sufficient excuse for refusing without
giving him pain. His manners at table were perfectly
natural and unaffected. He mostly made use of his
fingers to feed himself, while his knife was now and
then called into requisition to clean his nails, and his
fork to pick his teeth. Notwithstanding these and a
few other little peculiarities, my Greorgian companion
showed much kind and generous feeling. He stopped
200 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
wherever and as long as I pleased on the road, and more
than once, when the fever returned, nursed me almost
as tenderly as a woman could, humoured all my whims,
and would have half killed me with Greorgian household
remedies if I had let him. When we parted at Rostov
on the Don, he pressed me to continue my journey with
him to Tiflis, where he would introduce me to the
society of his countrymen and women, that I might see
and judge of their private life for myself. Such an oppor-
tunity of seeing something of the very secluded society
of that country was one seldom offered to a traveller ;
but the lateness of the season compelled me, with much
regret, to decline it. On parting he embraced me with
much fervour, prayed that God would accompany me,
and proceeded on his journey.
Rostov on the right bank of the Don, a few miles
from its sand-choked mouth, was one of the kreposts
or forts, with a few surrounding houses, in the most
ancient Russian times. It is now a town of about 12,000
inhabitants, rambling, unpaved, of a very nondescript
appearance, but with a highly increasing trade. In the
neighbourhood are many extensive slaughter-houses,
where the cattle of the surrounding steppes are killed,
and the flesh and skins salted and dried for export, much
in the same manner as on the banks of the La Plata.
Having remained a day or two at Rostov, I passed
over to Novotcherkask, the capital of the country of
the Don Cossacks. Hundreds of wagons drawn by a
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA, 201
couple of oxen, and containing not more than half a ton of
coals each, were toiling along the muddy and seamed road
towards Eostov. Such is the inefficient mode of trans-
port still used in this country ! This anthracite coal, of
which there are enormous fields around the Don, is
hardly worked at all, and when brought to the ports
cannot compete in price with English coal, which has
been brought as ballast by ships coming to load with
hides, tallow, and corn stuffs. The working of these
coal mines ought to be a source of wealth to a country
whose chief drawback is a want of wood. Besides coal,
other valuable minerals are known in these parts, but
the land-owners keep the existence of the mines as
secret as possible. The reason is to be found in the con-
stant interference of persons in authority, which would
make them a source of much more vexation than profit.
The formerly famous position of ataman of the
Cossacks has subsided into that of an ordinary governor-
general of a province, who, however, still bears the old
name.* When I paid him a visit I found him in full-
dress uniform, stars, crosses, and orders ; in which dress
all ministers, governors, and high officials transact busi-
ness during the hours of office. Among the many
amiable things he said, the kindest was the expression
of a wish to get rid of me as soon as possible. He ad-
vised me, if I did not wish to lose the last boat that
* The heir-apparent of Eussia, Nicholai Alexandroviteh, is now
ataman of the Don Cossacks.
202 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
left Taganrog for Odessa, not to accept the hospitality
which he would be so happy to offer me, and which
others would press on me more closely. The advice was
too good to be neglected, so after a couple of days among
the Cossacks, I returned to Eostov, and thence journeyed
on to Taganrog.
An abundance of sport in hunting and fishing was
offered to me if I would wait until the snow fell or the
frost set in. Two kinds of hunting are peculiar to the
eteppe. At the dawn of an early winter's day, the
bustards or wild turkeys are roused from among the
tall grass by the steed of the Cossack. As their wings
are glued and numbed by the hoar frost, they trust to
fleetness of foot to escape from their pursuers. Another
amusement is to hunt the wolf of the steppe. The
snow must be fresh fallen and a few inches deep. The
huntsman is armed only with a whip, having a leaden
bullet at the end of the thong. An exciting chase is
afforded, but the wolfs shorter legs get fatigued in the
snow and he cannot escape. A whirl of the bullet at
last strikes him down.
Russia is by nature the dullest and most monoto-
nous country in Europe. Even in St. Petersburg and
Moscow half the world pass their time in a profound
ennui, which can scarcely be chased away by rounds
of convivial and boisterous excitement. In the interior
it is worse, and it needs no little effort of mind in a
rich proprietor to remain there many weeks together.
THE STEPPES OF SOUTIIEEN RUSSIA. 203
If he have intellect and occupation enough to make the
hours pass swiftly, in the fulfilment of duty or in study,
it is otherwise with the females of his family. Dis-
tances are so great that there can be little interchange
of social visits ; newspapers are stale before they reach
remote country houses. ' We are obliged,' says a Eussian
writer, ' to have recourse to strong and frequent ex-
citement, such as gambling, dancing, uproarious society,
the pleasures of the table, furious sledge-driving, to the
passionate language of the theatre, to constant locomo-
tion, and changes of scene. Anything which can break
the monotony of a prisoner's existence is an imperious
necessity in Eussia, and must be satisfied at any price,
to avoid the alternative of perishing from dulness,
weariness, and an indescribable consuming longing.'
I found this to be thoroughly the case at Novotcher-
kask. Most of the officers had served their youth in
the capitals, and, now on the reserve, had but nominal
or occasional emplo^^ment. An hour or two sufficed
for the necessary business of the day ; and then came
the cards. Grambling is a passion which begins timidly
at the Atlantic, increases in force as it proceeds east-
ward, and reaches its climax in Shanghae or Pekin.
In Europe, a man will gamble away his movables and
immovables, and his reputation into the bargain ; in
China a man's concubines and daughters go to pay a
gambling debt. It is a marked passion among the
Cossacks. These honorary members of the Eussian
204 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
army have made one or two well-known excursions
into the West during the wars of 1813-15 and the
Hungarian campaign of 1849. In all, they were always
very successful in paying themselves, so that a vast
amount of treasure, gold and silver, jewels and rarities
found its way to the villages of the Don and Volga.
But such things seldom remain as heirlooms in the
family of the fortunate warrior. The gambling pro-
pensities of the country cause a frequent change of
possession, so that when there is no more r^ady cash,
there is generally some silver goblet from an Alsacian
church, or a set of jewels which formerly decked the
person of an Hungarian dame, to be staked against
an equivalent of roubles silver.
But, after all, the Cossacks are not half so black as
their enemies have painted them. Though their very
name has in France become a byword to express acts
of ruthless violence, the visitor will find among their
men and women some of the most generous and best
educated in Eussia.
In England, in the good old days of stage-coaches,
wlfen a smooth upper lip and chin were almost em-
blems of a person's respectability, any foreigner or
stranger who was unfortunate enough to appear in a
secluded district with much hair about his face, was
immediately put down as a Frenchman. In the in-
terior of Russia, every foreigner is a Nemetz or
German. Of all the strangers who have sought their
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 205
fortune in Eussia the Grerman has played the chief
part, and excited the greatest antipathy. Around
the Volga and Don are several colonies of agricultural
Grermans, some dating from the time of Catherine ;
yet until now there has been hardly any amalgamation
among the two peoples. A few words on this foreign
element in Eussia, which for more than two hundred
years has made its influence felt among the people,
may, perhaps, be not without interest.
Long before the time of Peter the Grreat, a host of
foreign adventurcT-s found in the Eussia of the tsars a
field for their talents and ambition. Peter invited
thousands to enter his service to help him in forcing
his reforms on the Eussian people. During his reign
and that of his successors, not only Germans, but
British, Dutch, Italian, Swiss, and Grreek adventurers
flocked to Eussia. The British and Dutch were uti-
lised in establishing a Eussian navy; the Grermans in
forming the civil and military administrations, and
training up a race of tchinovniks i the French, fleeing
from persecution, became either milliners or diplomats ;
the Swiss, teachers of language and polite literature ;
while Italians and Greeks, with their usual elasticity,
insinuated themselves into any service, from that of
a valet de chambre to that of chancellor of the empire.
In the Eussian history of the last two centuries the
names of at least one-third of the chief actors are of
foreign extraction. Many of these names have been
206 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Eussified, by some affixed syllable, without destroying
the trace of the original. Thus, when we read of
Brunov and Cankrine, it must not be forgotten that
their forefathers were Herrn Braun and Krebs.
When the Baltic and Finnish provinces were incor-
porated with Eussia, an enormous field was at once
opened to their nobility. The army, navy, and civil
service soon became flooded with young Grermans. The
university of Dorpat sent forth its physicians, sur-
geons, and professors, who have ever since occupied
the chief places in the public services and universities.
Among the celebrated foreigners who have played a
prominent part during the last 150 years may be men-
tioned the famous Biren, the favourite of the Empress
Anne, who, with the celebrated Miinnich and Osterman,
formed a triumvirate, against which all the national
Eussian party strove in vain. Bestujev, the famous
minister of Elizabeth, is said to have belonged to a
Scotch family, whose name was Best. The father of
Count Panin, the minister of Catherine, was an Italian.
Nesselrode was a Bavarian. Besides these, there are
hundreds more of subordinate station, whose lives and
actions have largely affected the national history.
In Eussia, Grermans found themselves under the
powerful aegis of absolute sovereigns, whose slaves they
became, while they made their masters their instru-
ments. German discipline, Grerman administration,
Grerman dress, periwigs, and powder, Grerman minis-
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 207
ters, generals, Serjeants, kammerherrn, cooks, and
lackeys, were all received and turned to good use
The high-sounding titles of Grerman etiquette — Wohl-
geborner, Hochgeborner, Hofrath, Greheimrath, &c., —
were translated into Russian, and became distinctive
titles of the tchin. So rooted became Grermanism as a
system during the early days of the empire, that all the
French innovations of Elizabeth and Catherine could
not check or change its stolid routine. That the
omnipotence of foreigners of another religion and un-
congenial habits was regarded with fierce jealousy by
the proud nobility of Eussia is not to be wondered at.
They writhed and struggled and made vain attempts to
regain what had once been theirs. The people were
then, as they are now, ignorant and much-enduring,
true to their traditions, their love towards their tsar,
their religion, and their country. They naturally hated
the Germans, and their hatred could now and then be
made subservient to the purposes of personal ambi-
tion. While Peter III. was frivolously parading his
Grermanism, half worshipping Frederick of Prussia,
reviewing his Holstein Guards, or rudely toying with
Mademoiselle Woronzov, his unfaithful but talented
spouse was on her knees before the altar of an orthodox
church, kissing the dirty hand of some pope, or plotting
between the caresses of Gregory Orlov or some other
thoroughly Russian lover. The whole revolution
which overthrew Peter III., and elevated a German
208 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
princess to the throne of Eussia, was half brought
about by the pretended Eussian feeling of Catherine,
pitted against the Germanism of her husband.
Under the Emperor Nicholas, Grermanism fell appa-
rently into disgrace. The Emperor was in the hottest
stage of his centralising fever, bent on Eussifying and
amalgamating into an orthodox whole the different
breeds and ' creeds of his vast empire. Philoslavism
was then also rampant in its Utopian theories. The
national feeling, already half smothered under foreign
encumbrances, was summoned from its recesses, and
the Eussian language, Eussian dress, and Eussian
cooking were paraded as emblems of the revival.
Grermanism was at its lowest ebb. Only four men with
Grerman names were found near the Court. Hundreds
in hot haste changed their names into eff and cheff and
sky. Their very names barred the advancement of
men whose fathers came from the Baltic or the petty
states of Germany. The cloud soon passed by, and
Germanism regained its influence. But at the same
time the Eussian national character had passed into a
more seemly phase. Its rich language was no longer
considered good only for hinds ; a spirit of enquiry was
searching into the past, and extracting materials for
imparting a greater impulse to the national feeling.
The Eussian element, left to itself, has during the last
eight years made more progress than during the thirty
which preceded them.
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 209
The antagonism between the Grerman and Sclavonic
character must always exist. The destiny of the Ger-
man race has ever been to encroach on and subdue the
Sclavonic. Long ago it overpowered, though it never
could assimilate, the Czechs, the Hungarians, and the
Poles. In Eussia the contrary took place. The Eus-
sians have subjugated a portion of the German materi-
ally ; the German has subjugated the Eussian morally
and mentally. The German is compensated for his
defeat in the one by his victory in the other. All the
antipathy of the two characters remains the same, and
added to this antipathy is a jealousy which is not un-
natural when two races of people are formed into one
nation. The Eussians are jealous because Germans and
Poles monopolise the best places in the public service —
for the Germans from their capabilities, the Poles from
policy, are more often put forward than the Eussians, who
naturally abuse the Government for what they call its
partiality, and feel a more intense dislike of the intruders.
In spite of all their sterling qualities the Germans
find themselves disliked, whether in America, Greece,
or Eussia. The reason is a want of tact, which leads
them to do all they can to increase the feeling of
antagonism. In America, whole villages and towns
are German, and only German ; in Eussia the German
colonists of the South are now just what they were when
they immigrated. The Germans who have sought their
fortune in Eussia have generally belonged to the better-
p
210 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
informed class. Called for the avowed purpose of train-
ing the people into a new life, they have been more or
less successful. Besides the mortification of feeling that
they owe much to foreigners, the Eussians are con-
tinually reminded of it by phrases which tell them with
sufficient bluntness that their character is incapable of
the higher phases of civilisation and art, and that
foreigners are needed to supply the deficiency ! How-
ever much Russians may despise the wholesale abuse of
Custine and his school, the Grermans, from their familiar
acquaintance with Russia, know how to touch the most
sensitive nerves, and awaken the bitterest feelings of
dislike, which a difference of habits and character in the
two people tends only to strengthen. The Russian is
all giving, the Grerman all receiving. The one is
generous and impulsive, the other reserved and parsi-
monious. The Russian character is aspiring, reforming,
and liberal ; the German is the most conservative by
habit, and from selfish motives averse to any change in
the Government, by which their influence would be en-
dangered. ' The Germans are capital fellows, while they
are young,' said an angry Russian to me one day, ' but
no sooner do they become generals, than they far surpass
us in absolutism and tyranny. They are the cause of
half the obloquy which is cast on Russian character
abroad.' That a foreigner, after residing some time in
Russia, would find much to condemn in Russian cha-
racter and Russian institutions, I have already admitted ;
THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 211
but he would also find that they do not deserve those
wholesale detractions which travellers copy out of one
another's books, or which the Polish press is interested
in diffusing among the people of Western Europe. The
reason is that they are now passing through stages
which the nations of Western Europe traversed half a
century ago. In another fifty years that country may
be as far advanced as England or Germany is now, while
these countries, continuing' their path of progress and
well-being, may still have to reproach Russia for being
behind their age.
212
CHAPTER IX.
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT.
Taganrog — Kertch — Emigration of Crimean Tartars — Southern
Coast of the Crimea — Sevastopol — A Storm — Black Sea Storms —
Catastrophe — A pretty Captain— 'Where Ignorance is Bliss, 'tis
Folly to be Wise ' — Odessa — Its Backwardness— Constantinople
— An Adventure of Travel — How to get a Divorce — A Marriage
— Scenes on Board a Kussian Steamer in the Levant — Eussian ,
Pilgrims — The Mussulman Passengers — Ehodes — Anglomania of
a Russian Gentleman — Latakia and its Tobacco — Gulf of Scan-
deroon — Alexandrette — The Eussian Frigate ' General Admiral.'
THE last boat of the season generally leaves Taganrog
about the end of October, before the closing of the
shallow sea of Azof by ice. Between that town and
Kertch the voyage lasts two days, many hours being
lost by touching at the corn ports of Mariopol, Bordi-
ansk, and Eisk, the inhabitants of which consist of
Eussians, Tartars, G-ermans, G-reeks, Armenians, Jews,
and even Maronites from Lebanon.
At Kertch, the junction for the traffic of the line of
the Caucasus, we remained another two days, during
which I was much interested by witnessing the em-
barkation of about 2,000 Tartars, emigrating to the
opposite coast in Asia Minor, where land had been
allotted them by the Turkish Grovernment. The
Crimea had by this time become half emptied of its
THE ELACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 213
Tartar population. Turkish missionaries had long
exerted their influence to promote this emigration.
Families sold off their cattle, land, and effects at the
lowest prices, and hastened to get away. During the
years 1860-1 land could be bought for a trifle, and was
eagerly taken up by Eussian speculators. Attempts
were afterwards made to bring in colonies of Bul-
garians and Little Eussians, but they did not remain
long, and much of the best land in the Crimea is con-
sequently waste. As to the Tartars, the Eussians were
very glad to get rid of them. Though generally
peaceable, their hostile behaviour during the occupation
of the Crimea by the Allies, their well-known sympathy
with Turks in religion and political desires, were suffi-
cient reasons why the Eussians were not sorry that the
Tartars should no longer be in the Crimea, in the event
of another war with Turkey and the Grreat Powers.
I had intended to go overland from Kertch 1^
Sevastopol, to view the magnificent scenery of the
south coast of the Crimea ; but a return of fever and
the commencement of winter compelled me to continue
my voyage in the steamer. The mountain summits,
already covered with snow, afforded, in the intervals of
sunshine, a few glimpses of their grandeur. At Sevas-
topol, where the steamer remained only a few hours, I
had just time to take a rapid glance at the ruined forts,
the roofless and windowless barracks, and the battered
buildings, most of which were in the same condition as
214 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
at the close of the war. Hundreds of people were still
daily employed in those situations where the battle had
been thickest, in picking up the shot and fragments of
bombs. Many bombs, found unexploded, sometimes
burst in being rolled along, more than once causing loss
of life. It was with the greatest regret that I was
prevented from visiting the scenes of memorable battles
in the grandest siege of human experience.
The passage from Sevastopol to Odessa, generally
occupying only a few hours, took us two days, as we
encountered one of those famous storms which are so
frequent in the Black Sea. The worst of these blow
from the NE. to the NW. On the coast of the Cau-
casus the wind called the Bora resembles, in a fiercer
form, the Mistral of the Grulf of Lyons, or the famous
Pampero of the South American coast. With an un-
clouded sky, the wind rushes down with terrific force
from the summits of the lofty range of mountains, and,
lashing up the waves in a few minutes, carries the spray
of their crests along with it in one continued mist. If
a ship is in the way, its lower rigging, decks, and
anchors are soon covered with ice, which grows steadily
thicker. It becomes almost impossible to work the
ship ; the hawse-holes are choked with ice ; the cables
are immovable ; the men, bleeding from the nose and
nails, are incapable of action, and the only escape is to
run before the wind southward, where, according to
Russian navigators, on passing a certain line the tern-
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 215
perature suddenly changes, and the wind abates. A
few years ago, a large man-of-war schooner, at anchor
in one of the bays on the coast, was caught by a Bora,
and sank beneath the mass of water which congealed
on its upper works. The officer, who was afterwards
charged to raise her, told me that they found a gun
loaded and pointed against the cable, as if the crew
had vainly tried this device for breaking away the
anchor in order to run ashore. The captain was found
sitting in his arm-chair ; the officers, wrapped in fur
cloaks, were lying in their berths in the same position
as when they fell asleep. This terrible catastrophe
took place within a short distance of the shore, in full
view of the crews of some vessels which had succeeded
in running ashore, but who were prevented from giving
any help. As we were in another part of the Black
Sea, the storm which we encountered was of a different
character. The air was darkened with snow-drift, and,
although there was not much danger to a ship properly
handled, the condition of our captain rendered the
position anything but agreeable.
Fortunately there were few passengers, one only being
a lady, and she possessed of much fortitude, or the con-
fusion would have been unbearable. The captain, a
Greek, as the barometer fell, had raised his courage with
Hollands. When the storm increased, he sat down on
cushions on the floor of the cabin, and, served by a
ready attendant, tossed off glass after glass, until he had
216 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
only just enough recollection to be mischievous. His
second, a master in the navy, was fortunately a sober
man ; and the engineer, an Englishman, re-assured me
by saying that there was still coal enough on board, by
burning the dust, to last forty-eight hours. The worst,
therefore, which could have happened, if the coal had
all been spent, would have been to drive across the
Black Sea to the Asiatic coast, for there was not a rag
of canvas which would not have been blown to tatters
in a moment. We could only guess at our speed, for
there was not a serviceable log on board. But this did
not so much matter, as the ship was going backwards a
great part of the time. On the second midnight, the
weather having cleared up a little, we had just found
our whereabouts on the chart by comparisons of the
lead, when our drunken captain woke up from a snooze,
and, planting his finger on another point of the chart,
ordered his second to set a course from that point.
Luckily he was still too stupid to see his orders executed,
or we should have made the land some fifty miles to the
west of Odessa. As the wind continued to abate, we
reached our destination some eighteen hours afterwards.
On sighting the light-house the ridiculous almost ban-
ished the recollection of the terrific. Two colonels of
infantry who during the passage had been groaning in
their berths, came up on deck, and in their joy on near-
ing land threw their arms round the neck of our pretty
captain, embraced him with tears in their eyes, and
THE ELACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 217
blessed him for having saved their lives and the lives of
all on board. Surely if ignorance be ever bliss, it must
have been so in this instance. It must, however, be ad-
mitted in fairness that this steamboat with its captain
was an exception to what is generally found among the
packets of the Eussian Navigation Company. Most of
them are well-found vessels, commanded by experienced
officers of the Imperial navy, and as well furnished as
the ships of the French or Austrian Companies.
When I landed in Odessa I was dropping with fever,
and in that state fell among thieves, i. e. certain custom
house officials, who, although we were from a Eussian
port, required us to go through formalities which occu-
pied an hour or more before permitting our luggage to
be landed. Despairing of ever getting to bed, I aban-
doned bag and baggage, and afterwards requested the
master of the hotel to do what was necessary. Without
this I believe I should never have got into Odessa nor
out of it. For some thirty francs he released my baggage
and got me permits &c. My personal experience of
Odessa was from my bed-room window. After a week's
unsuccessful torture by the doctors, I took the first op-
portunity of a few hours clear-headedness to run away
from them, had myself carried on board a steamer going
South, and was quite well before we arrived at Smyrna.
I recommend this sudden change of climate as the surest
remedy for getting rid of an obstinate remittent fever.
Odessa, the third city of the empire, is a disgrace to
218 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
it. In 1861 it was unlighted by gas, unpaved, and un-
drained. If it be wet weather, there is mud enough in
the streets to drown a dvoshhy. But this neglect must
not be laid to the charge of the inhabitants: it is the
fault of a government which until lately was constantly
interfering with local administration. Many proposals
had been made, and companies formed for lighting the
city by gas, and for general improvements, but all had
been rendered abortive by the intrigues of the higher
authorities. Now that greater liberty in local adminis-
trations has been allowed in Kussia, Odessa, it is to be
hoped, will assume an -appearance more befitting the
chief commercial city of a large empire.*
In Constantinople I had just time and strength suffi-
cient for a stroll through the bazaar. I shall spare the
reader a description of our sail through the straits of the
Golden Horn, of the plain of Troas, or of Sappho's isle.
At Smyrna a romantic event which had long been pre-
paring was brought to the usual finale of a marriage.
As the episode is not an unusual one of Levantine society,
I will hastily sketch the particulars.
Our cabin passengers on board the *Chersonesus'
were, a Eussian prince, — one of a family swarm — who
filled the modest post of agent to the Steamboat Com-
pany, two other Eussian gentlemen, who were brothers,
and myself. The younger of the two brothers was
* Many improvements have since been carried out. The city is
already lighted with gas, and the streets are beginning to be paved.
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 219
afflicted with Anglomania, the greatest symptom of
which was a hideous bulldog, which he took on shore
at all the ports at which we touched to try him against
the canine canaille which abound there. The elder
brother, who was the hero of the history, attracted our
attention by his deep despondency and restless de-
meanour. Having convinced myself that he was not
mad, I could account for his behaviour only by assum-
ing that he was in love. This was in truth the secret.
The evening we arrived at Smyrna, a veiled lady came
on board and took possession of the empty ladies' cabin.
I questioned the brother, who only repeated ' que c'etait
un ange,' and bade me wait and see the result. The next
morning the other brother, taking me aside, confessed
ia a delightful confusion of words that he was going to
marry the angel that day, and begged me to join the
prince above-mentioned as witness of his marriage.
Half an hour afterwards the Bishop of Smyrna, with his
archimandrite, attended by six of his inferior clergy
bearing their superior's robes and pipes, came on
board, and was conducted into the cabin, where their
attendants got ready the pipes, and the two dignitaries
sat down to smoke their chibouks. Shortly afterwards
two or three guests arrived, with one young lady to
act as bridesmaid. ^The veiled bride, a pretty dark-eyed
woman of about twenty, came forth from her cabin,
when we all took our places around the table, and the
ceremony began. As soon as the knot was tied, the
220 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Bishop and clergy, followed by the husband and wife,
and they by the rest of the guests, paraded round and
round the table, while we pelted the happy couple with
bonbons, of which a good supply stood on the table.
This done, the bride's and bridegroom's health was
drunk by all the company, the clergy smoked a few
more pipes, and an hour afterwards we were steaming
along the coast, with the bridal pair still on board.
Their previous history I only heard afterwards. The
lady was a Jewess, the wife of a consul of one of the
Great Powers at a large port of the Archipelago. Dis-
satisfied with her husband, she had made the acquaint-
ance of the Eussian commercial agent at the same
place. Arrangements were made for a separate
elopement, for a rendezvous at Smyrna, a forced
divorce, and a new marriage. The gentleman was de-
tained in Eussia beyond the day named for the
meeting, and thus his uncommon sadness during the
passage was explained. The lady, followed, as it
seemed, by her husband and his emissaries, arrived
at Smyrna at the appointed time, and was kept in
concealment for more than a week. The divorce had
been a very short matter. Declaring herself a
Christian, she was baptized into the holy orthodox
Greek Church — a ceremony which cancelled her former
marriage, as that Church does not recognise marriage
between a Christian and a Jew. The saddest part of
the business was that the woman, in abandoning her
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 221
husband, had at the same time abandoned two little
children. Nevertheless the Greek clergy, many of
whom will do anything for money, gave their sanction,
in the person of their bishop, to an act which they
ought to have used all their influence to prevent. On
meeting with the chief actors in this adventure a year
afterwards, I had reason to fancy that they had already
repented their folly. The most curious part of the
story remains to be told. The first husband was look-
ing down through the skylight into the cabin, and
actually witnessed the marriage of his own wife to
another man, and had not the power to interfere and
stop the ceremon}^
A trip on board a Russian steamer in Levantine
waters presents a curious picture of mixed European
life and Asiatic habits. The whole fore part of the
* Chersonesus ' was occupied by Russian and other Scla-
vonic peasants, dressed in their accustomed sheepskins,
and accompanied by their village popes — all pilgrims to
the Holy City. Thousands of the Russian peasantrj^
perform the pilgrimage to Jerusalem every year, as the
steamboat company is bound by its contract with the
Government to carry such passengers at a very cheap
rate. The cost from Odessa to Jerusalem and back
again is less than 51. , a sum which every pilgrim easily
regains, by laying out his little stock of money in
Jerusalem in the purchase of beads, crosses, and other
sanctified trifles cut in olive wood or agate, and re-
222 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
selling them on his return to his fellow-villagers, who
were unable to make the journey. Before leaving
Odessa these poor pilgrims are obliged to convince the
authorities that they have enough money for their
journey ; and again, on landing at Jaffa, they are required
to deposit a sufficient sum for their return in the hands
of the Consul, lest they should spend all their money in
Jerusalem. If these measures were not enforced, the
Holy Land would soon be filled with devout paupers.
The poor, long-bearded, pious, but very dirty moujiks,
with their popes, who are in no wise superior in de-
meanour or cleanliness, make any shift and support any
trial, in order to make the pilgrimage. At different
hours of the day they might be seen gathered around
their priest or some grey-bearded pilgrim, listening
to a chapter of the Bible or to the relation of some
wonderful miracles enacted on previous pilgrims.
In all their habits and ways these Eussian peasants
form a remarkable contrast to the Mussulman folk, to
whom the after part of the deck is generally set apart
for an abode. Here both sexes, scrupulously clean in
their persons and dress, have with them all the com-
forts of their homes — soft mattresses and pillows, thick
coverlets of cotton, and well-stored baskets of provi-
sions. The women, half unveiled from negligence, look
around, with their large eyes wild with surprise, on the
novel scene in their monotonous lives — now peeping
curiously down into the engine-room, pointing at the
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 223
froth of waters in the vessel's wake, or clapping their
little hands at the sight of some approaching vessel.
At suprise and sunset the most pious of the men would
be seen prostrate on the deck, performing their devo-
tion. Altogether the variety of figure, costume, and
colour on board, the charm of the picturesque moun-
tain shore on one side and the islands on the other,
with the smooth azure sea and an unclouded sky, must
render a run down this coast quite a treat to anyone
accustomed only to the more sombre scenes of northern
lands.
A halt of a few hours at Eh odes gave us time for a
ramble on shore, during which a mortal combat took
place between the Eussian's bulldog and half the curs
of the place, who attacked him in a body. The bull-
dog gallantly beat them off, nearly killing one and
driving two others over the quay into the water, to the
great astonishment of the Turkish spectators.
A stroll up the street of the famous knights, now
nearly deserted and falling into ruins, a hasty visit to
the citadel, which was destroyed a few years back by
the explosion of an undiscovered magazine by lightning,
occupied our time until the bell rang for the departure
of the boat. The ports of Messina, Alexandrette,
Latakia, Beyrout, and Jaffa are the remaining stations
touched at before arriving at Alexandria. Of Latakia
and its tobacco I may here say a few words, which may
be not uninteresting to smokers.
224 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
The Syrian tobacco, known as djebel or tobacco of
the mountain, is of excellent quality, which might, if
the cultivation were more extended, compete with the
production of American plantations in the European
market. At present the great market for it is Egypt,
where it is much preferred to the Turkish tobacco of
Cavalla or Salonika, especially that sort of djebel known
in Europe under the name of Latakia, but which in the
country has its particular name of Ahou Rika. Its
peculiarity and celebrity are said to have arisen in the
following manner.
In the year 1742 the mountain tribes around Latakia
were in one of their periodical insurrections. The crops
of tobacco that season had been very abundant, and the
farmers, being unable to dispose of it to the merchants
of the coast, stowed the leaves away among the rafters
of their huts, where it remained the whole winter.
When order was re-established, this tobacco, blackened
by the smoke, was sold at a low price, and exported to
Egypt, its usual market. A difference between the
aroma and flavour of this tobacco and that of former
imports so pleased the amateurs, that extensive orders
were sent for more of the same quality. Inquiries hav-
ing been made among the mountaineers, it was found
that the tobacco had acquired its dark colour and pe-
culiar flavour from having been exposed so long to the
smoke of a particular wood, a species of mountain oak,
called by the natives Ezer, and extensively used by them
THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT. 225
as fuel during the winter. Experience afterwards
showed that the best tobacco came from the dampest
districts, that in a damp atmosphere the leaf became
more thoroughly impregnated with the smoky flavour ;
and also that the higher the elevation of its growth, the
better was the quality of the tobacco. Tobacco thus
prepared now forms the chief item in the commerce of
the port of Latakia, and brings in to the country a
revenue of more than four millions of piastres. People
once accustomed to smoke it always prefer it to every
other ; although at first trial the taste is repugnant to
palates accustomed to Turkish or American tobacco.
Very little of that tobacco sold as Latakia in London,
is really such ; the true sort may be easily recognised,
from the quantity of nitre which it contains, and which
constantly fizzes during the smoking.
The gulf of Alexandretta, or Scanderoon, extending
far inland to the * Gates of Syria ' and the famous plain
of Issus, separates Asia Minor from Syria. At the
northern point, just beyond the spit of mud thrown out
by the waters of the Grighoon, is the bay and now ruined
settlement of Ayas, formerly a post of the Grenoese.
Here were assembled for winter quarters in 1860-1 the
Eussian fleet, forming, with several English and
French men-of-war, the Syrian squadron drawn together
by the late massacres in Lebanon. On arriving at the
little town of Alexandretta on the southern or Syrian
side of the gulf, I was fortunate enough to meet a party
Q
226 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of Kussian officers returning from Jerusalem, many of
whom had been my companions during my former voyage
round the world. The captain of the Chersonesus kindly
offered to take us over the gulf, although it was at least
forty miles out of his course ; so that at two o'clock one
morning in November 1860, 1 stepped for the first time
on board the Russian frigate General Admiral.
227
CHAPTEE X.
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA.
The Russian Squadron — Names now given to Russian Ships —
Interpretation of them — Ol5. Acquaintances — Russian Naval
Officers — Life on Board a Russian Man-of-War — Sympathies of
the Russian Navy towards England — Admiral Shestakov and
his "Wife — Russian Sailors — Their Character and Dispositions —
Their Piety— Religious Creed — Burial of a Mahometan Sailor —
Education of Sailors — Their Pay and Rations — The Scale fixed
by Peter the Great — Naval Punishments — Relaxed Discipline —
Celebration of Saints' Days on Board — Easter among Russians
— Theatrical Performances — Jonka — Customs of Russian Sailors
— The Bay of Ay as — Shooting — Excursions — Occupation of the
Turkomans — Cultivation of Cotton in Syria and Asia Minor
— EvU System of Taxation — The Circassian and Tartar Immi-
grants — Their Condition in Asia Minor.
THE small Kussian squadron which had been sent in all
haste to the coast ofSyria, as soon as the massacres
of the Christians in the Lebanon became known, con-
sisted of four frigates and two or three smaller vessels un-
der the command of Captain, afterwards Admiral, S ,
whose broad pennant was hoisted on board the Greneral
Admiral. This large frigate of 70 guns had been built un-
der his superintendence at New York as an experiment,
and had been named after the Grand Duke Constantino,
then High Admiral of Eussia. Her armament and in-
terior fittings had been arranged with all that art or
Q2
228 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
money could supply, and altogether she was a very
noble vessel. The other frigates, whose names I give in
order to explain their meanings, were the Grromoboi,
Ilia Mourometz, Oleg, aod Osliab. The Grromoboi,
during the frequent intercourse between the English
and Eussian men-of-war at this time, had been changed
by the seamen of the former — whose custom of turning
all foreign words into some English word of similar
sound is well known — into the Drummer Boy, which
name the ship long afterwards preserved among the
Kussians themselves. The ^ Gromoboi ' was a legendary
hero of North Russia, a kind of Eussian Eobin Hood.
Ilia Mourometz, one of the old heroes of half fabulous
times, was, according to the story, the son of a Bogatyr
or knight of Kiev, and was carefully kept at home
and educated by his mother until the age of thirty, when
she sent him forth to seek for adventures. He was a
man of extraordinary strength. During his journeys he
came one day into a large wood, called Mourometz after
a famous brigand, who was the terror of the surrounding
country. He was generally known as the Solovye, or
Nightingale, because he whistled like that bird, only
his voice was so powerful that it stunned and knocked
down all who heard it. On seeing Ilia coming, the
Solovye fled for refuge into a large tree ; but the Boga-
tyr tore up the tree by the roots and captured him alive.
He afterwards brought him to Kiev and presented him
to Knias Vladimir, who was anxious to hear the voice
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA. 229
of the brigand, although Ilia warned him that he would
be stunned by its vibration. Finding his Prince deter-
mined. Ilia commanded his prisoner to whistle only half
voice ; but the brigand, disobeying, began to sing with
full power, and the knight knocked out his brains with
his club. From this adventure Ilia received the affix
of Mourometz. Ballads about him are still familiar
among the Eussian peasantry. The name of Oleg is
better known as that of the brother-in-law of Eurik, and
regent of his empire during the minority of his son. In
that capacity he marched with a band of his warriors
against Constantinople, which he put to ransom, besides
leaving the shield of his nephew nailed to one of its
gates in sign of conquest. Osliab is the name of one of
those sturdy monks, who, by order of the famous saint
Sergius, formed a select band to fight against the Tartars.
By these Osliab, along with his brother monk Perisvet,
was killed at the battle of Koulikovo on the Don in
1380. In the present day, and as a sign of the revival
of Eussian national feeling, the names of their ancient
heroes may be read on the sterns of their men-of-war,
as on the commemoration monument lately set up at
Novgorod.
With many of the officers of these ships I had already
become acquainted during my previous voyage to
Japan or at the Amoor Eiver. Among them were
many young men whose fathers had made themselves a
name in the history of their country, either as navi-
230 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
gators or naval commanders, and who were following
the same career thus auspiciously opened to them. For
in Eussia, owing to the direction given by Peter the
Grreat to the whole administration, there still exists a
sort of caste, by which the son in almost all professions
follows the steps of his father, who after a term of
service obtains many privileges, such as a gratuitous
education for his sons in government colleges, with
appointments for them afterwards. The sons of the
white or secular clergy almost invariably become either
priests or monks themselves. So in » the navy, though
in a less degree, a name perpetuates itself in the service
through generations. During my voyages on board of
Kussian ships, I became acquainted with bearers of many
such names — Lazarev, the organiser of the Black Sea
fleet before the war, and a Pacific explorer ; Kovnilov
and Nachimov, of Sinope, who commanded and were
killed at Sevastopol ; Krusenstern, Liitke, Lisiansky,
Kotzebue, Bellingshausen, and others who are well known
among all nations for their maritime discoveries. This
descent of profession from father to son is not to
be commended. The son too often follows it with-
out ambition as he entered it without desire. But
many of the liberal professions are shut off, owing to
the lowness of their social standing, from the youth of
Russia. Trade, if not considered exactly ignoble, does
not confer the privilege and honour of a uniform or a
pair of epaulettes. The Church is left for the peasants ;
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA. 231
the medical profession is not popular, while the law is
only just now calling into requisition private lawyers
and advocates. The educated youth of Eussia in the
present day have to raise all these professions to the
status which they deserve.
A short account of life on board a Eussian man-of-
war, during our wintering in the Bay of Ayas, may not
be uninteresting to many English readers. In all that
concerns the duties of the ship the same regulations exist
as in the British or Dutch services, which were taken as
models when Peter the Grreat and his successors invited
over Englishmen and Dutchmen to organise their fleets.
Although the executive or fleet officers, masters, sur-
geons, and engineers live and mess together, there
exists, in spite of their apparent equality, the same
real distinction which is perceived in other services.
The members of the Eussian naval service are in
general as well-informed as any other class in Eussia,
and certainly more so than those of the military or
civil service, if we except the diplomatic. For this they
must thank their opportunity for travel, their knowledge
of foreign languages, and literature ; but chiefly their
necessary contact with the natives of other lands. Most
of the professional articles and works of hydrography
which appear each month in the ' Morskoi Sbornik,'
or Naval Magazine, are written by officers serving at
home or abroad. Many make translations from Eng-
lish and French books relating to their professions;
232 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
while of late years, in nearly every ship on a foreign
station, an Englishman instructs the young officers in the
language and professional literature of the great sea-
going people of the day.
It has often heen said that the sympathies of edu-
cated Eussians are on the side of France. The remark
may apply to the generality of untravelled Eussians,
but it is not the case with the officers of the navy,
whose sympathies, always decidedly English, some-
times assume the form of Anglomania. Experience has
taught them to put confidence in Englishmen and in
the work of English hands. During the time I was on
board Eussian ships I remarked that although they
seldom lost an opportunity of exchanging civilities with
English ships, such friendly visits seldom took place
between French and Eussians, either on board or ashore.
Whether the restraint was on one side or the other, or
mutual, their characters did not harmonise. Perhaps
the Eussians thought the French supercilious, or the
French looked upon the Eussians, in their favourite
phrase, as thin-skinned Tartars ; but one thing is
certain, that no great cordiality existed between them.
Admiral Shestakov, who commanded the squadron,
was an aide-de-camp of the Emperor, had spent some
time in England, and afterwards in America, where he
had superintended the building of some ships. One of
the first men of his profession in Eussia, he was
admirably adapted to occupy a post, in which, during
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA. 233
peace, diplomatic abilities are as much needed as
nautical strategy. He had studied the naval systems
of different nations, and his knowledge, directed by a
liberal mind, had already introduced many reforms into
the Eussian naval service, and will no doubt be the
means of introducing many more. Eussian literature
is indebted to him for a translation of James's ' Naval
History of Grreat Britain ; ' as also for an interesting
work on America and the Americans, called ' Mejdu
Delom,' i.e. leisure hours. His wife was at this time
living with him on board, there being no habitation on
shore, except a few huts of the Turkomans. But after-
wards at Athens, Smyrna, and Beyrout, her hospitable
house and unfailing kindness rendered a stay in those
places very agreeable; while, as a lady, she could
introduce those who wished it to the society of those
places.
The hardy mariners on the shores of the Baltic or
the Black Sea may feel at home on the ocean, and make
the sea their profession by choice, or remain on it after-
wards for a living. But the Sclavonic peasant, taken
from his isba in the forest or the steppe, may remain
twenty years at sea without becoming a sailer at heart.
He submits to his fate with the resignation peculiar to
the Eussian character. In his passive obedience he will
face the raging wind on the vibrating yards or rigging
of his ship, or follow his officer against a battery. But
as soon as he is free to return to his pine forests or
234 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
flowering steppe, no inducement of money or rank can
keep him in a life which he abhors. On foreign stations,
where he has the means of purchasing enjoyments which
he never had in his own country, his exclamation, ac-
companied with a sigh, is, * Ach ! kogda mui paideom
domoi ? ' ' Ah ! when shall we get home ? ' Yet even his
apathetic nature becomes brightened in his travels ; he
leaves his village and his country as he had lived in it,
loutish, dirty, and apparently stupid. In two years he
acquires somewhat of that cleanliness, smartness, and
peculiar gait which generally marks good seamen. One
quality, however, a Kussian sailor never loses, and that
is his piety and veneration for sacred things. On rising
from his hammock, before going to sleep, before and
after each meal, he crosses himself many times and
prostrates himself before the holy image which is to be
found on the main deck of every Russian vessel. Each
man has also his cross or the effigy of his saint suspended
round his neck, placed there by his mother or by some
other cherished hand. In every officer's cabin may be
found a grotesque painting of the Virgin or patron saint
of the occupier, with other pictures of a more mundane
character, towards which his eye is perhaps more often
turned. The poor sailor, less exposed to such tempta-
tion, preserves his piety in all its simplicity, and the
image of the Virgin on the main deck receives many a
hard-earned kopek, offered by horny hands but thank-
ful hearts. After receiving their pay at the end of four
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA. 235
months a collection is always made among the sailors,
first for the Virgin, and afterwards for the barbers who
shave them.
Among the crew of 700 men were many Catholics and
Protestants, and a few Mahometans. The Catholics
always attended church, confession, &c., when the ship
was in port; the Protestants would also attend the
service of their church, if convenient, or form a little
assembly on Sunday for reading their Bible. The few
Tartars on board were among the best of the crew.
They went to Mosque, when the frigate was in the East.
One of these died while we were at Beyrout, and his
body, placed in a neat shell, was taken on shore and
delivered over to the Mahometan priests. They im-
mediately took the body from the coffin, stripped and
washed it from all the abomination which it had con-
tracted at the hands of the giaour. The grave-clothes
were divided among the crowd, while the coffin was used
by the little Arab urchins to paddle about the bay in.
Compared with the soldiers and sailors of other na-
tions, few knew how to read, and still fewer how to write.
Classes were formed, under the direction of the chaplain,
for those who wished to learn. Books concerning their
religion, on geography, and other subjects, mostly filled
with heroic anecdotes from Russian story, and inculcat-
ing an obedient reverence to those in authority, were
such as were chiefly seen in the hands of the sailors.
The different Bible Societies of England and America
236 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
either give or sell at a low price books in the Russian
and Polish languages, which are eagerly sought for, when
Eussian men-of-war enter a British or American port-
When on shore the Russian sailor, like those of other
nations, considers it his duty to get drunk as soon as
possible, only he goes to the greatest possible extreme,
and becomes completely insensible. Total abstainers were,
however, not uncommon ; and these, though not always
the best sailors, were generally the cleanest and smartest
men, as they took in money the value of their daily
allowance of grog.
Although the pay of a Russian sailor is next to no-
thing, yet the dietary scale on foreign stations is so
liberal that he may, if he pleases, save much money
during a voyage. It is said that Peter the Grreat him-
self established the scale of diet for his newly-formed
fleet. Taking a sturdy beggar who had just reached St.
Petersburg after a long journey, the tsar caused to be set
before him kasha^ peas, butter, salt beef, biscuits and
vodka, and bade him eat his fill. The quantity consumed
by the beggar was taken as a standard for the navy, and
is still followed, with the exception of the quantity of
vodka, for the beggar probably drank himself drunk.
People who still think that Russians drink train oil
by the pint and masticate tallow by the pound, would
be surprised at the quantity of good butter served out
to Russian sailors in all parts of the world, without re-
gard to price. Another idea, which many people have.
A WINTEK WITH THE RUSSIANS IN STRIA. 237
is that the knout is indiscriminately used in Eussia.
That dreadful instrument of punishment was never used
except in cases where capital punishment or the galleys
for life would be inflicted in other countries. The
severest mode of military punishment, the running the
gauntlet between two rows of soldiers armed with sticks,
is still employed in the Austrian service, but has lately
been abolished in the Eussian. Within the last year
(1863), the severity of military floggings has been much
modified. Good-conduct men cannot be flogged at all —
an officer can only inflict one dozen lashes with a rope's
end, the captain four dozen, but for any greater number
there must be the sentence of a courtmartial. As far
as my own experience goes, during five years of travel-
ling in Eussian ships, I remember only five or six cases
where more than fifty lashes were inflicted, and they
were given for very grave offences against discipline and
morals. Many Eussian commanders complain that this
diminution of corporal punishment is subversive of dis-
cipline ; that no other efficient means can be substituted
for it ; that drunkenness, disobedience, theft, and bad
morals increase as the use of the cord becomes more
rare.
Feasts and anniversaries helped to while away the
monotony of our stay. Saints' days in the Eussian
calendar are more numerous than the days of the year,
though only the most important are observed. Then
there were the fetes of all the Imperial family; but
238 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
these, by a recent order, are only to be observed for the
chief members. The names' days of both officers and
men were also feasted, and where it was possible, some
little extra indulgence was allowed to the latter. The
day celebrated by each person is not his own birthday,
but the day of the patron saint whose name is taken.
Thus on the feasts of SS. Alexander, Nicholas, Peter,
or Paul, all who bear any one of those names keep
festival. A huge cake, or rather loaf of sweet bread,
filled with plums, graces the tea-table early in the morn-
ing. A njonster pwog is a necessary part of the dinner.
This pirog, or pie, stuffed with fish, rice, eggs, cabbage,
carrots, and various other ingredients, is one of the
really national dishes in Eussia — much as plum pudding
or mince pies in England. Easter, a great season for
feasting, after the fast of the preceding week, is the best
time to see a complete Eussian spread. No sooner is
the midnight mass finished on the eve of the Easter,
and the ' Ki'istos voskres ' * with the accompanying kiss
exchanged all round, than the company sits down, and
for three days afterwards the viands remain on the table
for the benefit of all visitors.
* KJristos voskres, 'Christ is risen.' A general kissing, with the
above greeting, takes place immediately after the mass on Easter eve,
when the clock strikes twelve. Friends salute one another in the same
manner the first time they meet after Easter. A peasant meeting the
Emperor would ' Kristos voskres ' him, and kiss him on the shoulder. The
captain, first lieutenant, and other ofiicers had to give and receive some
hundreds of kisses on that day, according to the number of the crew.
A WINTEE WITH THE RUSSIANS IN STRIA. 239
During the winter, theatrical representations some-
times took place on board the ships. In these we were
assisted by the officers of the English ships lying with
us. One piece, *The Eevisor,' the masterpiece of Grogol,
was given twice. The intention of the author in this
play was to expose the bribery and peculation common
among all classes of Eussian officials, from the governor
of the province down to the porter. Its unparalleled
success has, doubtless, done something to induce a
stricter probity among public servants. After the play
was finished, supper followed, and after this came the
jonka. For the information of amateurs I may men-
tion that jonka, or Eussian punch, is made in the
following manner. A loaf of sugar, q. s., placed across
the top of a large punch-bowl (or soup-tureen, if no
better vessel is to be had), well saturated with a bottle
or two of brandy, is set on fire, and allowed to drop
into the bowl below. A few lembns, a little spice, and
one bottle of rum, are put into the tureen, which, when
the sugar is melted, must be filled up with equal pro-
portions of champagne and Bordeaux, as fast as the
bottles can be uncorked. Not a drop of water enters
into the composition, and his must be a strong nature
who can venture beyond one tumbler. In all these
convivial meetings there is the utmost freedom and
equality, for the time, among all ranks of officers — more
so, I fancy, than would be allowed in other services.
Should the admiral, captain, or any superior officer, be
240 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
popular, as they were in the General Admiral, they
were certain to become victims of the enthusiasm of
the juniors, and receive from their arms three lusty
tosses in the air. Once or twice the English captains,
our guests, were treated to this honour, much, no
doubt, to the delight of their middies present, as they
saw their doughty superiors' heads making near ac-
quaintance with the beams above. For many days, at
Christmas and the New Year, the sailors made merry in
their turn. Appropriately dressed up, they would act
some impromptu comedy or drama from low Eussian
life. Some would recite long popular ballads about a
brigand or fresh-water pirate of old times ; and their
powers of memory sometimes astonished me. In some
of their exhibitions a bear and his keeper were some-
times the chief actors, and the aptitude of both in
their respective parts excited roars of laughter in the
bystanders. On New Year's day they also took advan-
tage of the license of the season to chair or toss all
their officers, an honour from which the latter could
only escape by giving a dram of rum all round, or a
donation in money.
The shores of the Bay of Ayas are formed by low
alluvial lands, covered by a thick undergrowth of
myrtle, wild thyme, and other odoriferous or flowering
shrubs. At the distance of one mile from the sea is a
low range of mountains, beyond which lies the large
and fertile plain of Adana. The village of Ayas con-
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA. 241
sista of only a few miserable mud huts, crowded
together within the ruined walls of the old Grenoese
fortress, and inhabited by a dozen families of Turko-
mans, whose riches consist in flocks of sheep and goats,
and coarse carpets woven from their fleeces. A wily
Grreek had pitched his tents at the landing-place, and
opened shop for the supply of provisions to the ships.
A dozen women and girls, refugees from the massacres
of Damascus, had been brought over by another en-
terprising Grreek, and found constant occupation in
washing and ironing. The place was not altogether
tempting for any long sojourn ; but the climate was
healthy in winter, the sky clear, the water wholesome,
while the bay, sheltered from dangerous winds, had
good holding-ground. For the sportsman there was
unfailing amusement in fishing or shooting, and espe-
cially coursing, if he had the dogs. The low coast
swarmed with partridges and hares ; the streams had duck
and other water-fowl in abundance ; while in the little
groves of gnarled and stunted oak and fir trees, along
the swampy beds of the streams, were plenty of wild boar.
The bounding roe or the startled gazelle often presented
a full mark for the rifle bullet, but seldom got one — at
least from our crack guns. The fantastic and unwieldy
smooth-bore of the half-wild native chiefly supplied us
with venison or wild pig.
As a horse is always and everywhere to be had in the
East, we had opportunities of exploring the country in
R
242 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
all directions. Two or three times I crossed the moun-
tains to Adana, the largest town of the province.
Although, or, perhaps, because this part of Asia Minor
is little frequented by Europeans, we were everywhere
received with kindness by the uncouth Turkomans or
the more civilised proprietor, with one or other of
whom we seldom failed to smoke msmy pipes during
the day's ride. The inhabitants were chiefly occupied
in weaving a coarse kind of carpet and in the manu-
facture of cotton, which, growing extensively about
Adana, would, if its cultivation were encouraged, yield
no inconsiderable supply for the European market. At
present more is not grown than is wanted for actual
consumption in the neighbourhood. Thousands of
acres lie waste, not only here, but in all the best places
of Asia Minor and Syria, offering a magnificent induce-
ment for its cultivation, which ought, indeed, to become
a source of future wealth to the country. The cotton
produced, to judge from the soft cloth made from it,
is of excellent quality. But in these countries, un-
happily, all agricultural enterprise is crushed by bad
administration. The peasant and farmer are borne
down with taxes, which are always levied in kind, with
the exactness and proverbial hardness of a publican.
Sometimes three-fourths of their produce passes with-
out recompense into other hands, or perishes from
delay in the harvesting, for the husbandman cannot
reap and gather in his harvest until the value of the
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN SYRIA. 243
standing crops has been estimated by the receiver of
taxes. It is not wonderful that, with such a system,
thousands upon thousands of acres, which show traces
of former careful cultivation, should now lie utterly
waste. If the remedy be not applied in time, it will be
found, when there are no longer virgin forests and
boundless prairies to be possessed by our overcrowded
populations, that these fine plains and well-watered
valleys in Asia Minor and Syria will offer to emigrants
all that they can desire in return for the sweat of their
brow.
During these rambles we often met Circassians or
Tartars from the Crimea, retaining still their national
costume in the land of their adoption. They had
received land, but did not trouble themselves much
with its cultivation ; at least the Circassians did not.
I soon learnt by speaking with them that they were
thoroughly disgusted at the change they had made.
Two Circassians especially, who had been chiefs in their
own country, and officers in the Circassian guard at
St. Petersburg, entreated Admiral Shestakov to obtain
them permission to return to Russia. This the admiral
did, and they soon afterwards went back. It was not at
this place only that the immigrants were disappointed.
The fact was still more manifest at Smyrna a month or
two afterwards.
During a long journey made in the following spring
through the classic valleys of the Hermus, Cayster, and
244 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Mieander, I met with some hundreds, and talked with
many of these noble but thoroughly barbarous men. I
shall never forget how, one evening, after a long day's
ride, our solitude was broken into by four pretty Circas-
sian boys, who, hearing there were some Russians in our
party, came to enquire about Schamyl, who they had
heard was dead. In a mixture of Tartar and Russian
they abused some of our company, saying that they would
have the head of every Russian they met, if Schamyl
was illtreated. When we told them that their hero was
alive and well, they clapped their little hands, and ran
off, to return soon afterward with some of their elders.
After the capture of Schamyl, a stream of emigration
poured from the Caucasus into Asia Minor, chiefly of
those tribes called Chechentsi and Tcherkessi. I was
told there were more than two thousand in the province
of Anatolia alone. They were to be met with in every
part of the country, and could immediately be recognised
by their national costume. Numbers had attached them-
selves to the households of the pashas and other great
men. Plots of land had been given to many, but unlike
the Tartars of the Crimea, who are industrious agricul-
turists, it was against their habits to cultivate it. They
were now, it seemed, in bad plight, and wished to return
to their native country. Seated one day on the stall of
a pipe-cleaner in the little town of Odemisch, I was
surrounded by a group of these men who spoke Russian.
They said that they were in great distress. The Turkish
A WINTER WITH THE RUSSIANS IN STRIA. 245
authorities, having promised land and assistance, had
given neither. The few who possessed any land were
regarded as intruders by the Turkish peasantry, al-
though they were their co-religionists, and one or two
fatal conflicts had taken place between them. All were
eager to hear about Schamyl, and listened with grave
faces as I related what I knew. The veneration felt
towards him by these men had been that of a family
towards a father, of a flock towards a pastor, of an army
towards a popular and fortunate general ; and their grief
was that of men who had lost all at one blow. ' Ah,
nash bednie Schamyl!' *0h, our poor Scham}^!'
groaned one old man, when I finished, and turned away
to hide or brush .away a tear. During this trip, I had
many proofs of the deplorable state to which these men
were reduced. Many offered us for sale their silver-
mounted daggers, and, when we returned to Smyrna,
the bazaars were filled with these and other weapons,
bought at a nominal price from their needy owners —
a proof, indeed, of their want, for to a Circassian his
arms are dearer than her wedding ring to a matron, and
more highly prized than their wives and daughters,
whom they still sell to the Turks for powder and lead.
A few days after our return whole caravans came hasten-
ing into Smyrna, the women with their few chattels
being packed on camels. Among them were many of
the chief families of their tribes, while some had held
the rank of officers in the Eussian service. One man
246 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
had been a colonel in the Circassian Gruard at St.
Petersburg. Some hundreds, all badly off, many starv-
ing, were waiting to embark. They had applied to the
Grovernor, who had received no orders about them from
head-quarters. Crowding the doors of the Eussian
Consulate, they received the same answer. In their
despair they threatened violence, and strong patrols of
troops were sent to control their movements. At last
they were all shipped off to Constantinople, from which
city they afterwards returned, as I heard, the Eussian
Grovernment having refused to allow them to re-enter
Eussia.
During the last five years more than 300,000 Tartars
and Circassians have emigrated to different parts of the
Turkish empire. The Crimea, from a population of
upwards of 300,000 Tartars on its cession to Catharine
IL, had in 1861 little over 80,000. These men, la-
borious agriculturists, seem ever3rwhere to have been
absorbed among the populations amongst whom they
came. The Circassians, on the other hand, a brave and
marauding race, who, in their native mountains, when
not engaged in any expedition, pass their time listlessly
on a mat, whittling a stick, while their women or slaves,
when they have any, cultivate the ground, nowhere
succeeded in establishing themselves as husbandmen ;
and all who could not find more genial employment in
the households of the pashas wished to return to their
own country.
247
CHAPTER XL
GKEECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.
Island of Mytilene — Bay of Hi^ro — Kuins — Town and Fortress
of Mytilene — Complaints of Greeks — Ponies of Lesbos — The
Plain of Marathon— The Petali Isles— Port Rafti— Piraeus— De-
scriptions — Excursions — Railroads in Greece — Approach to Athens
— Remains of former Grandeur — Volcanoes and Fountains —
Callirrhoe — Temple of Bacchus — Society in Athens — The Royal
Family — Ball— A Comedy in a Hotel— Phftraoh's Frog and
Minerva's Owl — Lepsina, the ancient Eleusis— Photographing —
Trip to the North of Greece — Bay of Lamia — Thermopylae —
Excursion — Kastro, or old Chalcis — The Euripos — Island of
Eubcea — A Greek Proprietor — Brigandage in Greece — Opinions
of a Greek about the Ionian Islands — Present State of Greece-
Population, Trade, Agriculture — Taxation — Insecurity of Pro-
perty — Radical Reforms a Necessity.
AFTEE a couple of montlis' stay in tlie Bay of Smyrna,
we proceeded to the Island of Lesbos, or Mytilene,
and anchored in the beautiful port Hiero or Olivetta,
one of the finest harbours in the east of the Medi-
terranean. The narrow and winding entrance rendered
access somewhat difficult for a vessel so long as ours.
From within, the port looks like a mountain lake. The
hills around are covered with thick groves of olive trees,
from among which peep small and miserable villages
perched in difficult positions, which in former times
248 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
secured them against the attacks of the Turkish or
Fraukish pirate. Around the shores of the bay are
still to be found remains of Grreek and Eoman art,
especially some marble baths in excellent preservation,
built over hot mineral sources, but now seldom used
except by the poor villagers or by travellers like our-
selves. In an adjoining valley are the grand ruins of a
Eoman aqueduct on a double row of arches.
The morning after our arrival a party of us rode over
the mountains to the town of Mytilene. After listening
to many complaints from the Eussian consul, of the bad
treatment of certain villages by the Turks, who had
desecrated the churches under pretence of searching
for concealed arms — which were probably found there
— we went up to the citadel to pay our respects to the
Grovernor. This fortress, which we saw by order of the
commanding officer, a negro, was evidently prepared to
sustain a siege of any length. It had abundant muni-
tions, an inexhaustible well, and large stores of food ; but
against modern artillery it could hardly stand twenty-
four hours. Its chief use is to overawe the town below,
and afford a refuge to a ruling minority in the midst of
a native and secretly hostile population. The only
object of interest in the fortress itself is the tomb of a
former Pasha of Smyrna, who, having long braved the
authorities of Constantinople, was decoyed on board a
man-of-war under pretence of a friendly dinner. The
credulous Pasha was decapitated, and his body after-
GKEECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 249
wards buried witli the greatest respect in the fortress at
Mytilene.
During this visit a pair of tiny mountain ponies were
brought for our inspection. These little animals, not
much larger than a Newfoundland dog, are found wild
in the remote parts of the island, and when tamed and
well groomed, are very pretty creatures, and fetch a
high price. Those which I saw were remarkably strong
for their size, could trot with a light man on their backs,
were full of spirit, and very intelligent. Admiral Shes-
takov wished to present a pair to the little son of the
Grrand Duke Constantino, but our stay. was too short to
await the return of hunters sent out to capture them.
It was on a glorious Sunday morning in the month of
April that we anchored in the Bay of Marathon, where
we passed the day rambling over the plain. It is a sad
waste, and only interesting from its historical recol-
lections. One or two wretched hovels, a few patches of
barley, and a solitary peasant here and there, were the
only visible signs of human life. A ragged shepherd
offered his services as a guide, but his ignorance of the
locality was only equalled by his stupidity. A quantity
of bones had lately been dug up from the ground where
the battle is supposed to have been fought. They were
in good preservation although soft as chalk, the marrow
bones being filled with white crystal. Before we returned
a strong wind and heavy surf had arisen, so that it was
necessary to swim off to the boats. When we came on
250 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
board the frigate steamed over to a group of islands off
the south coast of Euboea, called the Petali Isles, where
the frigate remained for some time for the sake of artil-
lery practice. A day or two afterwards, having looked
into Port Eafti, the ancient Prasise, we doubled Cape
Sunium or Colonna, and the same evening were moored
in Porto Leone, or the Piraeus.
The sun setting behind Salamis was throwing its
last rays over the plain, and lighting up the mellow
ruins of the Acropolis, to which, as seen from a distance,
ages and weather have given the warm ochre-like tint
of the surrounding soil. The view of the Acropolis from
the sea is always attractive, whether seen with the rising
or the setting sun, when the hills which form the back-
ground are bathed in hues from the faintest yellow to the
deepest purple, or in the calm repose of noonday, or, when,
as I have sometimes seen it, the columns of the Parthenon
stand out from the red disk of the rising moon, which
they half obscure. During a prolonged stay in the
Piraeus, we had many opportunities of rambling over the
still solid foundations of the walls and towers surround-
ing the old arsenal of Athens, and of making excursions
to the most interesting places which are to be found in
the islands or on the shores of the Saronic Grulf.
The railroad and the navvy have not as yet profaned
the soil of Attica. A terminus is, indeed, to be seen at
Athens, which bears the inscription of Chemin de fer,
but there is no sign of a locomotive or a rail. Whether
GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 251
no one has been found venturesome enough to under-
take the speculation, or whether the noble army of
Greek coachmen resisted the proposed change, the
reader may decide. Both reasons were given to me.
A coach or an omnibus still carries the pilgrim to
Athens.
The Temple of Theseus opens first to view on entering
Athens. On one side is an English garden, on the other
a parade-ground, where the modern soldier still exercises,
as did the old Athenian Hoplite. Here, too, every Tues-
day in Easter week, the young Athenians meet to per-
form the Labyrinth dance, which Theseus and the
youths of Delos danced in commemoration of the Cretan
expedition. Here, too, on the same day, nearly the
whole population assembles to start on the one accus-
tomed pilgrimage to the Acropolis, the Areopagus, the
Pnyx, and other memorable spots ; but except on that
day, hardly a Greek, I believe, ever pays them a visit.
Bounding the Acropolis to the lately uncovered Theatre
of Dionysus (or Bacchus), and passing under the Arch
of Hadrian, the pilgrim stands beneath the gigantic
columns of the Temple of the Olympian Jupiter. Pass-
ing the street of the Tripods, and skirting the north
walls of the Acropolis, he enters the Propylaea, passing
through which, he may survey all that Athens has still
to show of the temples of her tutelary goddess.
Many days were spent in photographing these ruins
from different points of view, but to give any description
252 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of them here would be an impertinence. Yet every
traveller has generally some favourite objects in nature
or art, which, more than others, he delights to contem-
plate, and sometimes to rant and rave about; so my
special favourites among the beauties of nature are vol-
canoes and fountains. Of the former, I had already seen
the most remarkable — Fusiyama in Japan and Hawaii
in the Pacific, the latter in an active state. After these
Stromboli and Vesuvius were molehills, and even Etna
could not excite surprise. The beautiful fountains I
had fallen upon in my travels were innumerable, but
although as much the theme of song to the children of
nature among whom they are to be found, they are
little known elsewhere. The Fountain of Arethusa, in
the island of Negropont, though long ago ruined by an
earthquake, still preserves its celebrity. With the fa-
mous fountain at Athens, Callirrhoe or Enneakrounos,
neither time nor man have wrought much change since
the days of Pisistratus. Here, lying on a smooth-worn
rock in the bed of the waterless Ilissus, the tourist, as
he watches the well-known movements, and listens to
the hoarse chatter of the ragged and bare-legged washer-
women of modern Grreece, may make comparisons be-
tween them and the damsels of old Athens coming
with their pitchers on their heads to the well, when
the Pelasgians rushed down on them from Hymettus.*
* Herodotus, lib. ^-i. cap. 137.
GKEECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 253
• One object may, however, be new, even to those to
whom Athens is familiar. During the years 1861-3 the
Theatre of Bacchus, on the east side of the Acropolis,
was laid bare from the many feet of dirt and rubbish
which had hidden it for centuries, and the vast space
where the sublime dramas of the Grreek poets were per-
formed before 30,000 enraptured listeners can now be
examined in every part. A few statues were discovered.
The proscenium was almost intact, though most of
the friezes which adorned it were either broken or de-
faced by remaining so long underground. The sedilia
of white marble set apart for the magnates of Athens,
and dating from the earliest times, were in good preser-
vation. On the chairs could be seen inscribed the
names of different priests — an addition of the Roman
period. Of the higher rows of seats, cut into the rock
of the Acropolis, which were occupied by the citizens,
many stones had been displaced by the pick and the
crowbar while digging. Around the pit was a marble
parapet about three feet high, also dating from Eoman
times, when gladiator fights w^ere more to the taste of
the Athenian people and of their still less refined rulers
than the tragedies of ^schylus or the comedies of Aris-
tophanes.
Athens is the dullest town in Europe for a long stay.
Once having examined the ruins, a visitor soon gets tired
of the place. It is impossible to be always in ecstasies
before mutilated marbles, even though a ' Victory with-
25-4 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
out wings ' be among them. Beyond these, Athens con^
tains little that is interesting. Grreek society is not very
pleasant for strangers. The men are always up to their
ears in politics, practising eloquence in the discussion of
ideas for the good of their little country. The women,
still retaining in some degree the exclusiveness of all
Eastern countries, only come forth in the splendour of
satin, jewels, and paint. Even then they have little to
say for themselves ; and this is perhaps their least fault.
Once or twice we had the chief society of the place on
board the Eussian ships to witness theatricals and to
dance. One ball was given for the King and Queen.
The King came dressed as a Palikari, was affable
enough to speak to every officer on board, asking his
name, putting to him some common question, then
giving a smile, a hum, and passing on to the next. The
Queen was most amiable in her haughtiness, and
honoured nearly every officer with a dance, which quite
eclipsed him in glory and crinoline. I believe they
were quite satisfied with their reception on board — it was
a break in the dull monotony of their lives — and when
they left the ship at midnight, the illumination and
glare of blue lights called forth from the Queen an ex-
clamation of ' Seh ! Othon, wie wunder schdn I '
Many travellers were passing through Athens on their
return from the Eastern tour. They were chiefly Eng-
lish and Americans, who had done the Nile, the Holy
Land, Asia Minor, and Greece in a couple of months.
GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 255
At the table d^hdte of the Hotel des Etrangers, 1 found,
one day, two masculine but kind-hearted spinsters who
had by themselves braved all the inconveniences of the
Eastern tour ; a couple just married; several Grreeks ;
and a Frenchman, who was writing his ^ Impressions de
Voyage,^ and who, if he understood English, might have
secured the following anecdote to work up as an example
of the eccentricities of les belles Anglaises. The con-
versation was between the two spinsters and the young
bride. Supposing themselves the only persons present
who understood English, they acted accordingly. The
acquaintance had begun only that morning, when the
bride in great distress had rushed into the room of the
spinsters, and demanded her Pharaoh's frog. When the
astonishment caused by this strange demand had a little
subsided, a search was made, and the run- away frog
was found under the ladies' bed, having hopped through
the passage from the adjoining room. The conversation
at dinner was explanatory. The young lady had brought
with her from the Nile several frogs, the descendants
(as she affirmed) of those which were the plague of
Egypt, in order to propagate the species in Leicester-
shire, where she had a park and a lake where they could
breed. All had died except one ; and she had been in
agony at losing this last hope of her future race. The
condolence of the two ladies was touching. They also
had a loss to mourn, and could sympathise with the
despair of their friend for her frog. The calamity had
256 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
befallen them only the night before. Their more classic
affections had been set on one of those wise little birds
which flit by night round the ruins of the Acropolis ; and
this bird they called their Minerva's owl. In the middle
of the night they had been roused from their dreams by
a horrid rustling of the curtains, a crash of toilet-bottles,
and thumps against the windows of their room. Fright-
ened out of their wits they ran and opened the window,
when the knowing little bird flew away to his old haunts
in the Parthenon.
In the miserable village of Lepsina, on the site of the
ancient Eleusis, I passed many hours one day in photo-
graphing the villagers among the ruins of the old Temple
of Ceres (Demeter). Excavations had lately been made
by the Society of Antiquarians, and several sections of
columns, arches, cisterns, and subterraneous passages
brought to light. We found great difficulty in arranging
a group. The women would not pose at all ; the men
were so fanatical that they would not stand with two
fine-bearded Jews ; mothers would not let us have their
children unless we paid for them. After a long parley
and the bribe of a few drachmai, we overcame the
bigotry of the men and the hesitations of the women,
and made some tolerable impressions.
After a month's stay in the Pirseus, M. Oserov, the
Kussian Ambassador, came on board to accompany us in
a tour to the north of Grreece. Steaming against a light
Etesian wind, we coasted the round-topped mountain
GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 257
range of Euboea, and the next evening anchored in the
Bay of Lamia, opposite Thermopylae, with Mount (Eta
standing boldly forth at the bottom of the bay, and
Parnassus, its sides still ribbed with snow, visible through
a cleft in the irregular mountain outline. Before us
was the plain of Trachis, and on our left that narrow
path where a few resolute men opposed the onward
march of the Persians.
Long before daybreak our Greek pilot had been de-
spatched to look up all the horses in the neighbourhood,
so that by six o'clock we were able to start upon our
excursion. We found great difficulty in landing from
boats, as the receding of the waters has left the south
shore of the gulf shallow and marshy, and there was
some chance of being half smothered in mud before
reaching terra firma. Among the few clay huts of
the village, the pilot had collected some stout horses
with wooden pack-saddles, but without bridles. After
an hour lost in dispute with their uncouth owners, and
in arranging rope bridles, we succeeded in making a
start. Striking inland, we soon came upon the ancient
path which, skirting the base of the mountains, leads
into Thessaly. This path is easily followed for miles,
and, indeed, its traces must remain for thousands of
years more, as in many parts it is cut out in the solid
rock some six feet in width, here stretching in a straight
line towards the defile, there curving round some little
valley or watercourse. Following this road we sooa
s
258 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
came to those remarkable pools of reddish stagnant
water, which are sure to attract the visitor's eye, and a
little farther on, to the Thermae themselves. Beyond
these hot springs we quite lost all traces of the road,
buried as it was in the rank vegetation and thickets of
oak, oleander, and flowering brooms. Although the
aspect of nature has here been so changed that rivers
have been removed from their former courses, still thfe
scene, as Pausanias and Herodotus describe it, may
easily be identified. On the spot where so many
Persians were drowned in the sea, which then washed
the base of the defile, are now fertile corn-fields, over
which, at the time of our visit, the heavy ears were
drooping from their stems. In the midst of this wild
but beautiful scenery, we picnicked by the ruins of an
old wall. As soon as we returned on board, anchor
was weighed, and late the same evening we were riding
in the celebrated Euripus before the ancient town of
Chalcis.
Kastro (the modern name of Chalcis) is a miserable
place in spite of its admii-able position, and has little
or nothing left to remind the traveller of what it was
when Aristotle inhabited it. Writers of his time
describe the city as being eight miles in circumference,
filled with temples, baths, and theatres, besides being
one of the most important military ports in Grreece. It
is now a fortified town of about 7,000 inhabitants, the
seat of a small coasting trade, and contains a central
GREECE BEFORE THE EEYOLUTION. 259
prison for the malefactors of Grreece. The bridges
which connect the island to the mainland are the most
interesting objects for a visit.
The acts of a capricious man were by the ancients
likened to the irregular flux and reflux of the tides in
the Euripus. Tradition makes Aristotle find a volun-
tary death in its waters from despair at not finding out
the mystery of their changes. Other ancient writers
represent this narrow channel as subject to continual
storms, and tormented with currents as strong as
torrents and whirlpools. Modern science easily accounts
for these effects. A narrow channel between mountain-
ous and broken coasts is especially subject to sudden
changes of wind and tide, as well as to their continued
and concentrated force ; and both the Euripus and the
Straits of Messina owe their celebrity only to this cir-
cumstance. During the only day of our stay a gale was
blowing from the NE., the hardest, the natives said,
which had been known for years; but we had no
difiiculty in getting on shore, for the wind and current
were both in one direction.
Euboea was one of the most fertile territories of old
Greece. Now it is half a desert, and a disgrace to the
people who inhabit it. A few miles from the town of
Chalcis is a little oasis, which shows what the country is
capable of. It is the property of Mr. B , formerly
the deputy for Chalcis, and a minister, who had now
retired, disgusted, he said, with the manner in which
s 2
260 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
public affairs were managed, to cultivate his little farm
in peace. Having lost the rest of the party with whom
I had started for a ride, I found frank hospitality and
an agreeable afternoon's chat with him. Having shown
me his well-ordered plantations of citrons and oranges,
in the midst of which was the marble tomb of his
father, he entered into an interesting description of
the state of the country. Speaking of its unsettled
state from bands of lawless men, he related to me an
atrocious instance of brigandage, of which his own
family were the victims. Two years before, a band of
sixty-four armed men had, in broad daylight, entered
the town of Chalcis, and carried off his son, daughter,
and son-in-law to the mountains, where they were kept
six weeks in suspense. The brigands demanded the sum
of 30,000 drachmai for their release. But Mr. B ,
acting with uncommon energy for a Greek, followed
the band with a party of his friends and some troops,
released his family, and took some fifty of the robbers
prisoners, who were shortly afterwards executed. Bri-
gandage is no common affair in Grreece. The old, half-
barbarous warriors of the war of independence are the
chiefs of bands; disappointed officials (and their name
is legion) fill up the ranks. Politics are conveniently
combined with plunder, and a freebooting excursion
does not much affect a man's position in society. He is
only a patriot, whom the injustice of the laws and the
ino^ratitude of Grovernment have forced to extreme
GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 261
measures for a livelihood. A few of the robber-exter-
minating heroes of former times would be of the
greatest use in Grreece at the present day, though I
much doubt whether Theseus himself would not be
perverted and turn robber, if he had the misfortune to
be contemporary with the modern Palikari.
Just at this time there was a louder clamour than usual
for the union of the Ionian Isles to Greece, and our
conversation naturally glided into that topic. My host
was utterly averse to it, as the time had not yet arrived ;
and most of the influential men of Grreece, he said, were
of his opinion. He explained that as the inhabitants of
the Isles were more civilised, better educated, and accus-
tomed to a firm Grovernment which understood its duties,
the chief lonians, if the union were carried out, would
naturally find their level above the statesmen of Greece,
to the disgust and envy of the latter, and that a suc-
cession of plots and insurrections would be the conse-
quence. According to hLs ideas the union was a matter
for time to bring about, when his countrymen should
show themselves capable of being not only good go-
vernors, but good subjects, neither of which he seemed
to think they were at present. In fact Greece and the
Greeks have everywhere become words of contempt,
even among those nations whose political and religious
instincts are the most inclined to them. This is as much
the fault of the restlessness and unstable character of
the people, as it is of a weak, vexatious, and incapable
262 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Government. During the last ten years the only pro-
gress which has taken place in the country has been in
those seaport towns which have a foreign trade, where a
few enterprising men have given an impetus to the sea-
going qualities of the people. In the interior all is
blank and gloomy. Ancient Grreece contained within
the bounds of the present kingdom at least thrice its
..present population; yet from land much of which is
proverbially barren, industry drew forth the means of
sustenance, while scanty mines became sources of
luxury.* Now, however, all but the most fertile land
lies waste. In Messinia and in the alluvial plains and
valleys of the north, where abundant harvests of the
finest grain reward the careless labour of the husband-
man, not half the available land is under tillage, and
the method of cultivation is of the most primeval
kind. So heedless are the Grreeks and the Grovernment
to agriculture as a source of wealth, so averse is the
peasant to the use of the plough and harrow, that every
year hordes of Turks from Thessaly and Macedonia
come into Grreece for seed-time and harvest, and carry
off their wages from under the very noses of the native
peasEints. The land of Mr. B , of whom I just
spoke, was entirely cultivated by these migrating la-
bourers, as he found it impossible, he told me, to employ
Grreeks. This apathy seems the more strange because
* The population of Grreece in 1862 was 1,067,216, about one-seventh
part of what the country could well support.
GREECE BEFOEE THE REVOLUTION. 263
the Grreeks in Asia Minor are everywhere acquiring and
cultivating all lands bordering the sea coasts, thus
gradually forcing the Turkish population farther and
farther into the interior.
One cause of the present condition of the Grreeks may
be accounted for by their past experience. For centuries
they were subjected to the ignominious Haratch, a poll-
tax levied on Christians only under Mussulman rule.
This tax was a brand on their nationality, their re-
ligion, and their persons : while its collection was
accompanied by the most abominable abuses. Such
degradation has it left, that even now that they are
free, they cannot appreciate their position as freemen.
All direct taxation becomes a loophole of abuse to the
official, and a fair thing to be resisted by the subject.
Another cause must be looked for in the land-tax in-
herited from the Turkish administration, which, in all
countries where it is in force, paralyses the energies of
the cultivator. This tax is levied in harvest-time, in
kind and not in money, according to the value of the
crops.* The harvest is, therefore, at the mercy of the
* The Greeks themselyes, after their revolution, did not wish to com-
mute this tax into a fixed sum of money. The produce was always ready,
they said, but the money would not be ; it would have, perhaps, to be
borrowed at usurious interest, which would make their condition stiU
worse. It may seem easy, in the retirement of a study, to find a remedy
for this evil, but those best acquainted with the country have hitherto
failed in finding one. Dr. Finlay's Greece under Othoman and Venetimi
Dominations and his History of the Greek devolution, best trace the
causes leading to the present condition of the Greeks.
264 EASTEHN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
tax-gatherer, and in order that he may not vexatiously
delay the reaping and threshing, the poor farmer must
pay another large portion of his produce as a bribe.*
Against the extortions or dishonesty of officials he can
have no redress. A G-reek farmer's position, therefore,
may be easily imagined. He cannot dispose of his
crops until the land-tax is paid, bearing meanwhile all
the risks of storm and waste ; his proprietor then comes
in for a large share ; and often, when the man's barns and
purse are three parts emptied, the official or the brigand
appears to appropriate the remainder. He must con-
sider himself fortunate if he can support himself and
* * The farmer of the tax commands every agricultural operation : he
fixes the time for reaping the fields, for cleaning the crop and preparing
it for market. He compels the peasant to transport his share to market
at the season when labour is most in demand The farmer becomes
the managing partner of the peasant, and the condition of the nine-tenths
is subordinated to the profits to be derived from one-tenth The
peasant cannot put a sickle to the crop without a permission from the
farmer. He cannot thresh out his grain without a second permission.
.... When the reaping is finished over the whole area hired by the
farmer, he finds time to turn his attention to the threshing-floors. The
operations of threshing and winnowing are conducted with primitive sim-
plicity, and the ox that treadeth out the com is not muzzled .... The
object of the farmer is to get his share of the crop to market before the
peasant can compete with him .... The peasant and every member of
his family carry on a perpetual contest of deceit with the farmer, whom
they consider they may defraud without dishonesty ; and the farmers of
the revenue, knowing that the law gives them every advantage in any
contest with the cultivator of the soil, generally carry their exactions
beyond the limits of strict justice.' — Dr. Finlay, in the Daily News,
January 7, 1863.
GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 265
family on coarse bread and olives during the year, and
afford to spare a lamb or two at Easter for the pascal feast.
A third cause is the insecurity of property. The
right in land is very indefinitely guaranteed by law,
and a proprietor neglecting to till his land for two or
three years would at the end of that time probably find
his field occupied by squatters and his title disputed.
This insecurity is the greatest bane to Grreece, as it pre-
vents Grreek capitalists from investing their money in
the soil of Greece. If they were enabled to do this
without risk, the prosperity of their country would be
far more advanced than by all their contributions in
money. With this insecurity of landed property is the
still greater insecurity of movable property. The
present Grovernment scarcely understands the A B C of
its duty. Instead of waging, in the name of society and
civilisation, a stern war against the lawless men who
infest the country and rob the hard-working man of his
earnings, its system seems to be to debase the one and
exalt the others. The farmer may be dying from
ill-treatment and want among his marshes ; the robber
is parading his booty in the halls of the palace.
In considering, therefore, the condition of the Grreek
agriculturists, the member of a more civilised commu-
nity ought not to be too harsh in his judgment. When
a man finds the whole produce of the sweat of his brow
fall into the coffers of others ; when he sees no hope of
ultimately extricating himself from his liabilities, or of
266 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
bettering his position, all inducement to labour is at an
end, and the most energetic nature sinks disheartened
and crushed. Grreat reforms in the systems of taxation
and justice are an absolute necessity. If such are not
carried out, Greece will present the same aspect thirty
years hence as she does now, and as she did thirty years
ago.
Another drawback to the progress of Grreece is the
want of roads. Not one-fourth part of that projected
between Athens and Corinth has been finished. A few
roads cross the chief plains, but they are never extended
further. Between the Piraeus and the capital, little
over four miles, the ground is perfectly level, yet
travellers must waste an hour on the journey, besides
being either smothered in dust or drowned in mud,
whereas a railroad might be made in two months, with
little expense. Many beneficial schemes for irrigating
lands now barren from want of water have at various
times been proposed, but the matter always ended in
talk. The cause of all this neglect lies patent in the
miserable incapacity and dishonesty of the Grovernment.
Public moneys which ought to have been expended in
public works have been grossly misappropriated. Its
behaviour towards foreign creditors has been such that
Greece is now financially outlawed by the rest of
Europe, and it will only be by some years of rigid
honesty that she can ever hope to restore her credit.
No foreign speculator will ever be found willing to risk
GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 267
bis capital in public works with no better security than
the protection and promises of the Government of King
Otho.
Throughout the country there are everywhere traces
of the incapacity of Grovemment, of an indolent con-
servatism and lack of energy in the mass, and it has
been the opinion of all intelligent Grreeks with whom I
conversed that only a thorough change in the Govern-
ment and administration could give an impetus towards
reform and a general improvement in the country.
After leaving Chalcis, we continued our cruise for a
few days, and then sailed to the Cyclades.
I
268
CHAPTER XII.
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862.
Passage to the Piraeus — Causes of the Greek Eevolution — Political
Parties — The Grrand Idea — The Conspiracy of February 1862 —
At Athens — At Nauplia — At Syra — How the Insurrection was
subdued— Compromise — State of Greece between February and
October — The Hetairia — Whispers about Prince Alfred as King of
Greece — Dinner at Argos — Stupidity and Dishonesty of the
King's Government — Patriotism of Greeks of Foreign States —
Their Aid to the Government — How recompensed — Departure
of the King and Queen — The Revolution — The King's Return —
The 22nd and 23rd October, 1862, in Athens — Chiefs of the Move-
ment — Behaviour of the Troops and People — The Gensdarmes
— Loss of Life — ^Provisional Government — Grivas — His Death —
Enthusiasm of the People — Generosity of Greek Merchants — The
Elections — Alfridos — Reasons for an English Alliance — Demon-
strations in Athens and the Piraeus — Obstinacy of the Greeks for
Prince Alfred — Behaviour of the Townspeople and Peasants —
Demonstration to the Three Protecting Powers — Opinions of the
Press — Voting Lists — Russian Sympathies in Greece — Popular
Logic on Alliances — Propositions of other Candidates — How
received by the Greeks — Conceitedness of the Greek Character —
A Republic for Greece — A King found at last — Ztjtw Feopylos —
His probable Career — Applications for a Kingship — A Descendant
of the Comneni — Proposal of a modest Englishman — Letter of a
Mr. Paget — The Palace at Athens -Revenue of the King and
Queen— Apathy of the Greeks in Arts, Science, or Taste — Disposal
of the King's Property — The Correspondence of Foreign Princes
with Otho.
N the autumn of 1862 the frigate was lying in
the beautiful harbour of Villa Franca, near Nice,
{GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 269
whW tl e news of the outbreak of the Greek revolution
reac^ec us. Almost at the same moment came the
order mat we were to proceed at once to the Piraeus.
Instead of the anticipated charms of a cloudless winter
and the pleasant society of Nice, we were once more
to look on the barren hills and face the keen NE. wind
of Attica. Fate seemed as adverse to our going thither
as were the desires of those on board. After our
departure it was as though the King of the Winds had
centred on us his whole power from the mountain
islands,* his fabled throne, towards which our prow was
turned. The forces of uncontrolled nature, and of
nature controlled by art, strove for the mastery ; — and
art won the battle, though hardly. As we passed
Stromboli at early morn on the fourth day after leaving
France, the air and sea were again calm, and the smoke
was hanging around and lazily curling up from the
crater on the north-west side of the island. A few
hours later, on entering the Faro of Messina, hardly a
ripple lapped the rocks of Scylla, and but a slight
gurgle marked the spot of the whirlpool of Charybdis.
After leaving Malta, where we stopped for two days, the
fierce scirocco and our 3,000 horse-power had another
combat, which so delayed us that we did not arrive in
Grreece till about three weeks after the breaking out of
the revolution. I soon heard from different eye-
* The Lipari Islands. '
270 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
witnesses the particulars of what had already occurred ;
of what happened subsequently I had opportunities of
judging for myself.
A large and powerful part of the Opposition had for
the last year been conspiring to upset the established
Grovernment. To this party was attached the whole of
young Grreece, consisting of some hundreds of talented,
poor, ambitious, and therefore dissatisfied men. Their
ruling star was the * Grrand Idea,' the overthrow of the
Turkish power in Europe, and the establishment of a
State which should include true Grreek and orthodox,
whether on the continent or among the islands. In
league with the revolutionary party in Europe, and
especially with the Italians and Graribaldi, who were
only awaiting a fitting occasion to extend a helping
hand to their mourning sister, as they styled Grreece, a
plot was already formed in January 1862, which should
have had the intended effect of upsetting the Govern-
ment. It was arranged that an outbreak should take
place in the capital, and in two or three other places at
the same time ; and the fated day was named.
On the 6th February, the twenty-ninth anniversary
of King Otho's landing in Greece was celebrated by
official demonstrations and also by a certain manifesta-
tion of public enthusiasm. On the morning of the 13th
the plot, which was to have been carried out in Athens
that same evening, was discovered. A large ball was to
be given in the palace, and the conspirators intended to
. GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 271
surround the building at midnight, and to seize the per-
sons of the King and Queen. Measures were imme-
diately taken to counteract the plot, and the revolution
was cut short, so far as the capital was concerned.
Nauplia or Napoli di Eomania, an excellent port on
the gulf of the same name, contains about 6,000 inhabi-
tants, and is the naval station of Grreece. From the
natural strength of its position, it has, though somewhat
inappropriately, been styled the Gribraltar of the Archi-
pelago. Situated only a few miles from the ancient
Argos, it was always an important place under both the
Grreeks and Eomans, as under their successors the Ve-
netians and Turks. Walled and fortified by the Vene-
tians, besieged and taken by Bayezid II. in 1495, retaken
by the Venetians under Morosini in 1686, and again
by the Turks in 1715, it finally became the chief town
of the pachalik of the Morea. After the war of inde-
pendence, Nauplia was the seat of the provisional Go-
vernment of Capo d'Istria, and here the President was
assassinated by the famous brothers Mavromichaeles.
Here also Otho, accompanied by his Bavarian troops,
landed for the first time in Grreece in 1833, to commence
that reign which has been so abruptly and ingloriously
ended. In 1862 the three forts which command the
place were garrisoned by about 1,000 troops, a great
part of which had been bought over by the conspirators.
On the 13th February, at a given signal, this party,
headed by Colonel Artemis and young Grrivas, then a
272 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
lieutenant, secured all who were not privy to their
designs, released the prisoners, and appointed a pro-
visional Grovernment. As soon as these invents became
known in Athens, the Grerman Grener^al /Hahn was sent
with a force to beseige the town by ./land, and a few
steamers were despatched to blockade it by sea.
At Syra a somewhat similar but less serious move-
ment took place. This town, the capital of the no-
marchy of the Cyclades, is built, terrace upon terrace,
on the steep side of the island. Of its 7,000 inhabitants
three-quarters are Eoman Catholics, and among these
French influence preponderates more than in any other
part of Grreece. The chief place of trade in the little
kingdom, its geographical position makes it a central
depot for the commerce of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The various steamboats of the companies which work
the traffic of the Mediterranean keep up a constant
stream of intelligence between its inhabitants and the
rest of Europe. Here, with a few private soldiers, three
lieutenants, Leotsakos, Moraitini, and Canaris, gave the
signal for insurrection. Having plundered the Custom-
house and established a provisional Grovernment, the
ringleaders betook themselves to the neighbouring Isle
of Tinos to continue the good work. But on their way
thither the steamboat fell in with the corvette Amalia,
and the chiefs of the insurgents were either killed or
made prisoners. Order was restored in Syra immedi-
ately after their departure. At Chalcis in Euboea a like
GREECE DURING THE RETOLUTION, 1862. 273
attempt was made, but beyond letting loose the 150
convicts confined in its prisons, order was not troubled.
Meanwhile Nauplia held out for two months, and its
surrender on the eve of its bombardment is still shrouded
in some mystery. The besieged when they capitulated
were, it is said, in a better position for prolonging their
resistance than ever they were. The truth seems to be
that a compromise was made between Otho's Grovem-
ment and the revolutionary party in Europe. However
strange such a statement may appear, its probability is
well warranted. Emissaries of Garibaldi had been seen
continually moving between Athens, Nauplia, and Italy,
where the Greneral w^as then making his preparations for
invading the Austrian frontier. His aid seems to have
been invoked and a compromise effected. An amnesty,
with a few necessary exceptions, was offered to the de-
fenders of Nauplia and accepted. The king promised
to reconstruct his ministry more in accordance with
popular feeling, to allow the organisation of the national
guard, to which he had for many weighty reasons been
averse ; and to observe the articles of the Constitution
better for the future. Behind all this was the promise
that, when peace and order were once more restored,
the grand idea of the holy crusade should at length be
carried out. Young Grreece was advised to harvest its
energies and strength for the great conflict. At the
same time many who had been obnoxious to the Grovern-
ment were released from prison, where they had been
T
274 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
detained in defiance of all law or right. One gentleman,
well-known in Greece and to foreigners who have
visited Grreece, M. Dimitrius Boudouris, who at the time
I write is a member of the provisional Government,
told me, that on his release from prison, when he
desired to know the cause of his arrest, and demanded a
public trial, the answer was, ' Hush ! let the past be
forgotten : we are just going to begin the great work- -
let us be united and strong.'
From the surrender of Nauplia until October 22,
the little kingdom relapsed into its usual state of half
order, half anarchy, which has marked its new existence.
During this time a vague rumour was spread abroad
that a prince of the royal family of Great Britain
might be hoped for as the future king of Greece.*
The king and queen were henceforth looked upon in
that contemptuous manner in which mankind are wont
to regard objects about to be changed for better ones.
The unanimity with which the revolution of October,
in every way a military revolt, was seconded by the
people, is more to be ascribed to this report than to
any other cause ; and as soon as it was accomplished
* ' On the 12tli April 1862, just after the surrender of Nauplia, a ban-
quet was held at Ai-gos, at which some thirty of the conspirators were
present. After all had taken a solemn oath to effect a change in the
Government, the portrait of a foreign prince was presented and kissed
by all present, as that of the future King of Greece.' — History of the
Insurrection at Nauplia, by Sjdros Kydonakis. This portrait is said by
some to have been that of Prince Napoleon ; by others, and with much
more probability, that of Prince Alfred of England,
GREECE DURINa THE REYOLUTION, 1862. 275
the eyes of all men naturally turned towards England,
and Alfridos became the centre of the hopes of the
statesman, the soldier, and the peasant.
An act of supreme stupidity on the part of the king's
G-overnment hastened the impending crisis. Grreece is
a small and insignificant country, but the Grreeks are a
widely spread and highly intelligent people. While
at Athens political speculations and intrigue occup}'-
the little world, thousands of Grreeks living under
foreign rule are honourably engaged in the pursuit of
wealth. In all the seaport towns of the Mediterranean
and Black Seas they are as numerous as the Jews, of
whom in mercantile instinct they are worthy rivals.
While the pious Jew may turn a sorrowful eye to the
stony land of his forefathers, and rely with more or less
faith on the fulfilment of prophecy, the Grreek looks
towards his fatherland with the conviction that its
restoration to pristine vigour lies more within the scope
of human means. His offerings have never been want-
ing ; a tithe of his wealth was never held to be misspent
if it could advance the day of Grreek regeneration. The
sum of money which Otho's Government had received
in this manner was immense ; and fresh sums were
every now and then solicited. This money, designed
by the donors to be spent in improving the country,
in organising a national soldiery, and in hastening the
triumph of the national cause, was applied to the support
of courtiers and ministers, who must have chuckled
T 2
276 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
among themselves at the success of their duplicity.
The king had doubtless a hard course to steer between
the observance of treaties and the wishes of his subjects.
In reality he has been made to bear the shame of his
ministry. That he had not sufficient knowledge or a
will strong enough to control his corrupt and turbulent
ministers is a misfortune, but not a fault. But that he
should wink at the deception practised in using this
money, and beg for further supplies under such false
pretences, was degrading kingly honour to what in a sub-
ject would be considered a misdemeanour and punished
by picking oakum.
Such double dealing could not long remain a secret.
The Greeks of Galatz and other towns on the Danube
called the attention of the Senate to the fact. The
Senate refused to entertain their petition as coming
from Greeks who were not citizens of Greece, and who
paid no taxes. The indignation roused by this conduct
among the Greeks of foreign countries, who had long
been giving their money, can well be imagined ; in a
moment the liberality, support, and sympathy of the
most enlightened men of the Greek race were alienated
from Otho's Government.
The petition was presented and refused at a time
when a more serious conspiracy than the former one was
impending. This time the conspirators were aiming
not at a change of ministry, but a change of dynasty.
So openly was it conducted that the party in power
GREECE DUEING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 277
must have allowed it to come to maturity from sheer
despair of finding means to crush it, or from an apathy-
akin to treason. Coming events had cast their shadows
far before. The political clubs had been busy in their
deliberations ; officers, who had never had half a dozen
drachmai at one time, boasted of the comparatively large
sums which they had received as the price of their own
treason and for corrupting others. It was well known
that contributions had been received from the Grreeks
of England and the towns on the Danube for revo-
lutionary purposes. The king was informed of his
imminent danger. He was warned against making that
tour to the Morea, to which his ministry had urged him
in order to conciliate the chief men of the army and
civil service in districts which he intended to visit.
But he had so often heard the cry of 'wolf that he
either disbelieved the rumours or rashly braved the
warning. On October 13 (the very day on which, thirty
years before at Munich, a deputation offered to him the
crown of the newly-formed State) he embarked with his
queen on the corvette Amalia, called after Her Majesty,
and steamed from the Piraeus, to which he was destined
never to return. During his tour he was received with
every appearance of popular enthusiasm. But on the
17th the revolution broke out in Patras and Missolonghi.
Old Grivas had roused his wild mountaineers of Acar-
nania. On the 22nd the work was accomplished in the
capital, and on the king's return the next day he found
278 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the gates of his kingdom and the hearts of his subjects
alike closed against him.
When the royal vessel anchored in the bay of
Phalerum, and the ambassadors hastened on board to
inform the king of the events of the preceding night,
he was for a moment stunned by the tidings, and
unwilling to believe that the Greek people had turned
against him. But the open rebellion of the crew of his
frigate, the excited crowds on the shore running wildly
about, shouting insulting cries and firing their guns in
the air, convinced him that his own person and that of
the queen were no longer in safety on board the
Amalia. On the 24th, therefore, he passed on board the
Scylla, a British man-of-war, and in the more retired
Bay of Salamis, two miles distant, dictated a procla-
mation to the Grreek people. Almost the only one of
his subjects, and the only one of his officers who ac-
companied him was the captain of the Amalia. His
conduct throughout the whole business did him honour.
While he remained on board, his resolute demeanour
awed his rebellious officers and crew; and another
officer sent by the provisional Grovernment to supersede
him was met on the gangway by a loaded revolver, and
forced to depart again as he came. But no sooner had
the king left the frigate, than the royal arms were torn
from the national flag; the red colours were hoisted;
officers and men pinned red cockades to their jackets;
three shouts were given for Eleutheria (liberty), and a
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 279
salute of fifty guns was fired in honour of the new
Grovernment. Shortly afterwards the name of the frigate
was changed to Hellas, while that of a steamer bearing
the king's name was also changed to Patris. The figure-
heads, consisting of the superb bust of Qneen Amalia
and the king in Palikari costume, needed no alteration
to represent Mother Grreece and Fatherland.
Bulgaris, the chief of the Opposition, was the real
head of this revolution, while an artillery officer, named
Papadiamantopoulos, managed the troops, for which
service he was made military Grovernor of Athens. Tne
revolution was in reality a military revolt. Most of the
young officers aud non-commissioned officers had been
previously bought over ; and an eye-witness described to
me the approach of the cavalry and infantry to the spot
where a few drachmai were distributed to each for
breaking their oath of fidelity to 0th o. Those officers
who set a value on their dignity and military honour
retired to their homes on finding it impossible to stem
the tide, and thus j^oung sub-lieutenants, the produce of
political clubs, found themselves in command of regi-
ments — a command they were afterwards very loth to
resign.* I shall have to speak hereafter of the sad dis-
* One infantry battalion seemed disposed to make head against the
insurgents. They were ordered to fire, and they did fire— but in the
air. Their commander called out to them, 'You're a pack of scoundrels,'
and then, turning to his officers with the words, ' And you, gentlemen,
are little better,' he stuck his sword in its scabbard, and went home.
The next day the soldiers hunted him out to kUl him, but he contrived
to escape from Athens.
280 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
orders resulting from this, as also of the rotten organi-
sation of the Grreek army in general. Only one brigade,
the gendarmes, the choicest of the Greek army, held
aloof from the sedition, and, retreating to the marble
entrance-hall of the palace, were soon besieged by the
soldiery and mob. Greneral Hahn, who was with them,
seeing that resistance would be of no avail, and that the
soldiers were going to storm the palace, agreed to
evacuate it, and the faithful gendarmes, fifty in
number, retired unarmed to their barracks. The mob
and troops were then free to roam the streets, shouting
their mottoes, singing revolutionary hymns to the
motive of Viva Graribaldi, exacting contributions from
citizens and even strangers, and exhibiting a wild and
childish joy which could only/be equalled in Port-au-
Prince or any otheXiiegro state. A few houses, es-
pecially those of Gernik|is, against whom the bitterest
hatred was manifested, wet'e mundered, or ransomed for
a sum of money. Few lives were, however, lost, during
either the revolution or the succeeding troubles, for the
Greeks are not a cruel or a blood-loving people. Only
two gendarmes were killed during the night of the
22nd and 23rd. One or two obnoxious men were after-
wards shot, among these was the Governor of the Piraeus,
who wished to telegraph to Athens for aid to support
the king. No doubt many more political murders
would have been committed during the heat of popular
rage, but the objects wisely barricaded themselves in
GEEECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 281
their houses till the fury of the moment passed. And
the rage of the Grreek populace is like the white squall
of the tropics ; it ceases as suddenly as it begins.
Meanwhile a provisional* Grovernment had been
formed, comprising Bulgaris, Koufos, and the celebrated
Admiral Canaris, who on the same evening issued a
proclamation, exposing the backslidings of the past,
flattering the national and military pride, and promising -
a golden age for the future. The next few days were
occupied in administering the oaths to the army, navy,
ministry, and clergy, and in ordering a levy of the
National Guard. Adhesions to the new Government came
pouring in by telegraph and steamer from all the nom-
archies of the kingdom ; so that the first act of as com-
plete and curious a revolution as any recorded in history
was wrought out with little bloodshed and in compara-
tive order. During the few days which followed, an
alarm was, indeed, raised of a grave impending danger.
Old Theodore Grivas, the chief of the democratic party,
whom some considered a patriot, while others called him
a brigand, but who in reality happily combined the two
characters, was said to be marching towards Athens at
the head of some thousands of wild Acarnanian moun-
taineers, in order to upset the new triumvirate. The
old man had, no longer ago than in the preceding spring,
been prevented from joining the insurrection atNauplia
by a present amounting to 20,000 drachmai. Eoufos
was immediately sent to gratify his predominant vice.
282 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
and to announce to the old Palikari that he was ap-
pointed Commander-in-chief of the Greek army, with a
yearly pay of 40,000 drachmai. But death at this time
put an end to the old man's ambition. He died from
eating too much lobster, according to one account ; or,
as others said, from having made too long a march ; and
the Government, in gratitude or sorrow, ordered a state
mourning during five days. In the meantime the
persons implicated in the late troubles returned from
banishment, and were received on their landing with
rapturous welcome by their fellow-citizens. Most of
them were immediately installed into good places.
While the enthusiasm of the people was chiefly shown
by parading the streets, shouting Zito Eleutheria, firing
muskets in the air, or disputing at the street corners, the
more sensible part of the community manifested theirs
in a more useful manner. Measures were taken for the
security of property and the maintenance of public order
by the rapid embodiment and training of a National
Guard ; and it was no uninteresting sight to watch the
motley groups of men, grave professors, gay students,
palikari, shopkeepers, clerks, peasants, and here and
there a negro, learning the goose-step in front of the
Temple of Theseus, or in any of the other open spaces
of Athens. Hundreds of merchants sent in sums of
money to the Government ; many paid their taxes for
years in advance ; patriotic officials, in the enthusiasm
of the moment, gave up half their salaries ; while from
GEEECE DURING THE EEYOLUTION, 1862. 283
all the towns of the Mediterranean and Black Seas
contributions came pouring into the almost empty
treasury. The Grreeks of Constantinople alone sent
2^ millions of drachmai in the form of a loan at two
per cent. Alexandria, Smyrna, Trieste, and other towns
did the same in proportion to their wealth and popula-
tion. But all this money was spent much as patriotic
contributions had been spent before ; it went into the
pockets of men in power and of their supporters.
From October until the National Assembly met towards
the close of the year, tolerable order prevailed through-
out the little kingdom, with the exception of some paltry
squabbles at the elections. The whole Grreek people were
on their best behaviour. They were courting Alfridos,
That name had now become noised abroad, and the
Greek imagination soared high in its dream of a golden
age to come. Alfridos meant to them freedom under a
strong Government, with the sympathies and assistance
of a people kindred to them in many qualities; it meant
a flourishing trade, a full exchequer, an iron navy, a
happy and united Greece, with the old city of Constan-
tino for its capital. ' Our geographical position, our
traditions of liberty and glory, our commercial relations
by land and sea, our pretensions to the east and to the
civilisation of this part of the world, and especially our
firm resolution to be governed constitutionally and to
become a great people — all plead in favour of Alfridos.'
These words of a Greek writer represent the general
284 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
tone of the Grreek press. So impatient were they to
have their darling, that they would not wait for the
meeting of the National Assembly, but demanded a
universal suffrage, while the ministry and all classes
of the people seemed so sure of their success, that the
voting throughout the kingdom was but a matter of
form.
Some of the demonstrations which took place in
Athens were very curious. On entering Athens from
the Piraeus, the narrow street of Hermes leads up to the
large open place where the palace stands, and which
received after the revolution the name of the Constitu-
tion Place. The middle of this street is intersected at
right angles by that of ^olus, which reaches from the
celebrated Tower of the Winds under the Acropolis to
the village of Patisia at the other end of the town. At
one of the corners of these two streets is a coffee-house,
called 'flpala 'EXXay, where the motley groups of Athen-
ians commonly assemble to talk over the affairs of their
country. Here Saturday after Saturday, and Sunday
after Sunday, the mixed mob of professors and palikari,
soldiers and peasants, would join the processions which
carried their hot homage to Mr. Scarlett, and, after his
arrival, to Mr. Elliot. At one time it would be a
carriage containing a horrid caricature of the prince,
surrounded by G-reek and English flags, and escorted by
the mob of soldiers, civilians and priests, all carrying
lighted candles, and headed by a band of music. There
GREECE DURINa THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 285
was at this moment no portrait of the prince to be had,
but the occasion soon produced artists, and Prince
Alfred was portrayed to the Greeks as an interesting
little sailor boy, about ten years old, leaning on a
cannon and looking very miserable. But in matters
political, as in matters religious, it was necessary to speak
to the mass pictorially. After a short time better por-
traits of him made their appearance, and then nobody
was without his carte-de-visite ; even the poorest
peasant could have his portrait printed on the cover of
his cigarette-paper for five lepta, or a half-penny. On
another occasion the heart of the procession was an
omnibus, containing a symbolical female figure, with
the motto, ^vvrayfjua 'EXXaSos (Greek Constitution).
As these processions passed through the streets, the
gaily dressed women of the balconies clapped their little
hands, showered down bouquets on the portrait, and
strained their throats with screaming ' Zito Alfridos.'
Even the guarded official replies received at the British
embassy could not damp the ardour of the devotees,
whose orators had employed their most touching elo-
quence in speaking of the prince and the hopes of the
Greek people. Similar manifestations at the Piraeus had
the same serio-comic effect on a bystander. The English
Consul had to receive divers deputations and listen to
pretty speeches, wherein mention was made of Byron,
Hastings, and other Philhellenes,and the amiable Consul
returned the compliment with quotations in their own
286 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
language from the ' Eepublic of Plato.' Many provincial
towns, too impatient to follow the example of the
capital, proclaimed Alfridos without any delay at all.
Everywhere the elections went on with the most perfect
confidence of ultimate success ; and at length Alfridos I.
was solemnly proclaimed second King of Greece by the
almost unanimous suffrage of the nation. In Athens on
the day of his proclamation a solemn Te Deum was sung
in one of the public places, and at the opera the same
evening a portrait of the prince was put in the royal
box, and the same honours paid as though he himself
were present as King of Grreece.
Long after the Provisional Grovernment had received
official information that the protecting Powers felt them-
selves bound by the protocol of 1832, the enthusiasm con-
tinued unabated among the mass. Though the educated
part of the community now saw that the encourage-
ment given to the desire of an English prince was but
a ruse de politique, and complained that they had been
unfairly trifled with, the faith of the common people
did not waver. Even when they began to doubt, an
unguarded word in the translation of one of Mr. Elliot's
speeches was sufficient to revive hope. 'You cannot
have Alfridos for the present' {sirl rov irapovros), and
those words were enough for them. The sanguine
youth who, overlooking the consent of father, mother,
or guardians, hastens to noise abroad his future union
with his beloved among all his connections and friends,
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 287
could never be more dismayed at the irrevocable veto
of papa, than Grreece was when her darling Alfridos
was denied her. In her young passion she had over-
looked parents, ministers, and treaties. She had been
on her best behaviour, she had cunningly concealed her
imperfections for a time, and sought with the glances of
a siren to attract the young mariner to her bosom.
It was not only in Athens, but among the peasantry
in all parts of the country that this strange enthusiasm
prevailed. Wherever an Englishmen went, whether for
a walk a short distance from the town, or for a shooting
excursion in the interior, he was almost sure to be made
the object of a demonstration in favour of Alfridos. In
making an excursion with an officer of H.M.S. Queen,
whose stay in the Piraeus afforded an agreeable society
to us, I had constant opportunity of observing this.
The presence of two Englishmen in a village soon
brought together all the population. The frequenters
of the wine-shops by the roadside would press us to
drink with them, would dance around us to some un-
earthly music, and shout Zito Alfridos, till we thought
them either drunk or mad.
Before the elections were completed in the provinces,
the last reasonable hope of having Alfridos had been
taken away by the proposition of King Ferdinand of
Portugal, and afterwards of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg.
Still many people would not be convinced. They thought
that obstinacy and a deputation to London, with a
288 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
little manoeuvering on their part, such as the threat of
setting up a Eepublic, would result in annulling the
treaties of 1831-2. * We '11 set all Europe in flames,'
were the words of one young patriot in petticoats;
* We'll set all Europe in flames, if the Great Powers
don't let us have what we want.' Even the press used
such phrases as these : ' Palmerston only wants us to
force him a little. What are treaties? Only like
private promises made to be broken, as interest dic-
tates.' The private feelings of the Queen of England,
the political dispositions of the English Government,
never entered their minds. Their interests were alone
to be considered, even at the expense of a European
war.
So exclusively were the Greeks taken up with their
idea of Alfred, that they quite forgot that there were
two other Powers besides England to which the country
had been under some obligation. After a time, how-
ever, they remembered the fact, and made an honour-
able apology by dedicating one of their demonstrations
to the three protecting Powers. Caricatures of Queen
Victoria, the Emperors Alexander and Napoleon were
paraded in a carriage through the streets, and homage
was paid at the three embassies. Some of the news-
papers also, fearful that all these demonstrations for
Alfridos might injure them with the Eussians and
French, devoted many articles to recalling the benefits
which Greece had received from all three Powers during
GKEECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 289
the war of independence. ' You accuse us of ingra-
titude,' said one of them, ' in thus giving all our suf-
frages to an English prince. But we have not therefore
forgotten that Eussia in the days of our bondage was
our best friend ; that her hearths, her army, navy, and
diplomatic service were ever open to our talented
children, who had to flee from the land of their birth.
Can we forget that Ypsilanti and Capo d'Istria were
among their number ? Do we not remember that she
gave the signal of our war of independence, and
supported us through it? Can we also forget the
good offices of France, and the chivalrous aid received
from French Philhellenes ? But of England, what shall
we say of her ? She has lately abused us much, and laid
bare the shortcomings of our nature ; but the interest
of Englishmen in our welfare can be read in the names
of Byron, Canning, Hastings, Hamilton, Codrington,
and others. Greece may be selfish in her demands for
an English prince, because she is convinced that the
policy and institutions of England are necessary to her
progress, and most congenial to her people. And, more-
over, she needs the material aid of England to work out
her prosperity.' But while they paid their homage to
the three Powers, the populace manifested their anti-
pathy to the Austrians on every possible occasion, and
it was a favourite recreation to row round the Austrian
Commodore's ship in the Piraeus and gratify those on
u
290 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
board with a lusty chorus of * Viva Graribaldi ! La Santa
Liberta ! '
That the political interests of Europe clashed with
the wishes of the Grreek people, is probably a happy
thing for Prince Alfred. His occupation of the Grreek
throne could only have been useful to Grreece, if Great
Britain had maintained for some years a land and
sea force to preserve order while certain indispensable
reforms were being carried out. The Grreek army,
thoroughly and disgracefully demoralised, was a snare
to the prince and a terror to the people. With a small
force to back his executive, and supported as he would
have been by the whole of the mercantile class, the most
orderly though not the most honest in Greece, the
rule of our young prince would undoubtedly have im-
proved the country. But when he exercised his con-
stitutional prerogatives against his turbulent estates ;
when he showed the most unprincipled of his leading
subjects that popular liberty must not merge into treason;
when he rooted out the robber clans of the Peloponnesus
and hanged their leaders, he would probably have become
for a time the most unpopular sovereign in Europe. If
Otho had been for a time more inflexible and less
merciful, he would have been reigning still. As it was,
he was so bandied about from one set of ministers to
another, that Athens contains at the present moment
more ex-ministers than all the States of Europe put
together. Alone and unaided from without. Prince
GKEECE DURING THE EEVOLUTION, 1862. 293
at a discount. For the same reason, a king, who is not
of the national creed, can never hope for any length of
time to retain the sympathy of the people in Greece.*
The educated and governing classes seem, it is true, to
have abjured by their late acts all political tutorship by
Kussia ; but the priests and common people are more
conservative in their ideas. The inhabitants of the
towns and seaports will never permit a religious interest
to clash with self-interest ; and therefore all their ideas
will always be more or less in accordance with the
desires of those powerful nations whose fleets visit
their shores. ' We like the Eussians very much,' said a
tradesman to me, ' to kneel side by side with them at
our common altar and perform our oraisons ; — but
the policy of their Grovemment does not suit us — our
political and private interests bind us to England and
France.'
After the hopes which the prospect of Alfridos had
invoked, and the subsequent disappointment, the can-
didates successively proposed were not looked upon with
any great enthusiasm. The name of King Ferdinand
of Portugal was received with the greatest apathy by
all classes. That of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg had
scarcely a better reception. The newspapers tried,
indeed, to impress on the public the difference between
Austrianism and Germanism ; that the duke was nearly
* Georgios I. seems to have been very wisely advised to become
Orthodox before his arrival in Greece.
294 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
allied to the Royal House of Grreat Britain ; that their
darling Alfridos was his next heir, and inflight come to
Grreece after all ; and that the duke's reputation as a
man and a sovereign was such as gave hopes of finding
in him all those virtues which they had not found in
Otho. It would not do. They would not be ruled by
a Grerman, rule he ever so wisely. The Greeks had by
this time arrived at such self-conceit that they thought
half the younger sons of royalty were ready to devour
each other for the honour of being king over such noble
and classic subjects. Greed sua tantum mirantur,
wrote Tacitus some 1 700 years ago, and the vice is as
bad as ever, only there are no opposing virtues to be
lit up by it. The undeserved praise which they re-
ceived from some of the English newspapers and even
from British Legislators, roused their spirit of self-
sufficiency to an unbearable point. The refusal of
Ferdinand, followed by that of Dnke Ernest, somewhat
cooled their conceit ; and as their revolution tended more
and more to anarchy ; when sensible men saw the min-
isters one after another giving proof of their incapacity
and want of principle ; when the army had trampled
down all discipline ; when the treasury was empty and
brigandage approached the Acropolis; they began to
whisper that even a bad king was better than no king at
all. It also gave them some idea of what they might
hope from a Republic.
Before we left the Piraeus a king was at last found.
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 295
though not such a one as sensible men desired. The
same demonstrations took place; high masses were
celebrated in the open places ; volleys of musketry shook
the air ; smdZito Georgios replaced Zito Alfridos as the
popular cry, with a weaker enthusiasm. What his fate
will be if he have not a body of foreign troops, is very
doubtful. Not much dependence is to be placed on the
affections of so fickle a people. Yet it will be better to
trust in these, rather than in such an army as Greece
has at the present moment. Perhaps the brother of a
Queen of England, and it may be of an Emperor of
Eussia, may inspire the Grreeks with a little more awe
than the prince of a State buried in the midst of Grer-
many. But that he is not the sort of ruler wanted by
the Greeks at this crisis is certain. Just before leaving
Athens, one of the leading men made the following
remark in my hearing : * We asked them (the three
Powers) for a man of intellect, strong will, and political
education ; and they send us a beardless and inex-
perienced youth. Otho reigned thirty years, but with-
out a body of foreign troops that boy will not stop in
the country thirty weeks.' Whether this remark be
fulfilled or not, time will show; meanwhile Prince
Wilhelm will not find the throne of Greece padded with
rose-leaves.
The vacancy of the throne called forth some amusing
incidents. Many persons, some in joke, others in earnest,
or rather as a satire, made applications for the post in
296 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
much the same manner as they would have answered an
ordinary advertisement in the public papers. One letter,
written in French, came from a Comnenus, a pretended
descendant of the Byzantine Emperors of that name.
An Englishman, who wished for the present to re-
main unknown, also offered his services to the Grreek
nation. He was twenty years old, was a good mathe-
matical scholar, had studied the language and literature
of ancient Grreece, was convinced of the superiority of
the constitutional over other forms of government, and
promised that if the Grreeks would give him a trial, they
should not be disappointed in him. He begged to
inclose half his photographic carte de visits, divided
lengthways ; adding, that if the Grreeks accepted him,
he would present the other half, by which they would
see that they had the right man.
But the most curious of these applications, apparently
made in perfect sincerity, came from an obscure village
of West Canada. The writer, who signed his name
Paget, began his letter by insisting on the improbability
that an English prince could ever reign in Greece. Griving
first a compressed account of the history, policy, finances,
and general resources of the country, as they had been,
and as they should be, he unfolded his plan of bene-
fiting the country. ' His knowledge of our country, its
history, and the character of the people was such as
hardly one of the members and few of the ministers
could show,' said a deputy who had read the letter. The
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 297
remuneration required by Mr. Paget was only half a
million drachmai a year, with the stipulation that his
salary should be increased in proportion to the improve-
ment of the country — so many thousands for every
million increase of revenue. All these letters were laid
before the representatives of the nation, and naturally
caused roars of merriment. They were solemnly ordered
to be preserved, along with many other as futile docu-
ments in the archives of the National Assembly.
On the night of the revolution a guard had been
placed in the palace, and the property of the royal
house was tolerably respected. A small farm belonging
to the queen, a few miles from Athens, was completely
sacked, the trees destroyed, and the cattle, even the
fowls, stolen. But in the town itself there had been but
little robbery or wilful destruction of property. The
gentlemen and ladies of the court were permitted to take
away with them whatever might be needed for the
personal wants of theii* master and mistress. Seals were
placed on all the doors, in order that the rest of the
property might be intact when it should please the late
king to give orders for its final disposal. The stud of
horses was, however, taken for the use of the new
Government, and about half its value paid to the
king's agent. The. only exceptions made with regard to
the property were the king's correspondence and the
various curiosities of ancient art, of which Otho had made
a considerable collection. The former was sealed up
298 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
and placed under proper guardian ship for subsequent
examination; the marbles and other antiques were
claimed as national property, and placed in one of the
museums. After a time orders arrived from Munich to
forward thither all the furniture and nicknacks which
had immediately surrounded the persons of the king and
queen, and all the pictures and works of art ; but to
dispose of all the other articles in the palace, with the ex-
ception of the furniture and fittings of the state-rooms,
which it was thought advisable to leave until the arrival
of the future sovereign, who would probably occupy the
palace.
The palace is a large unpretending square building,
having a public garden and place on one side, and on
the other a spacious terraced garden, filled with groves
of oranges, tufts of palm-trees and shady walks, making
it the most agreeable retreat in Athens, to the inhabi-
tants of which it was always thrown open. The interior
contains a handsome and well-arranged suite of state
and other rooms, where pillars and slabs of marble from
Pentelicus intervene between bright-coloured frescoes
of the Bavarian school. In the entrance-hall and vast
antechamber are painted scenes taken from the war
of independence, with portraits of all the heroes of
modern Greece and celebrated Philhellenes. Admiral
Canaris and his fire-boats in the midst of the Turkish
fleet are alone not represented there. A petty feeling
of personal hatred had suppressed one of the most glow-
GREECE DURINa THE REYOLUTION, 1862. 299
ing tableaux which could have adorned the walls. This
palace was the private property of the king, and, as I was
informed, the whole of the fortune of his queen, about
five millions of francs, had been spent in its construction
and decoration. It has been unjustly urged against
Otho that he did nothing to improve the city. This is
not quite true. When Athens was made the capital,
the city was in dust and ashes, and had for centuries
been nothing better than a dirty Turkish town of the
fourth rank. It can now boast of a few streets ajid
buildings which would vie with those of the capital of
any little Grerman principality. Grreater improvement
might certainly have been made, but what has been
done was mostly done by the king and queen. The
king's income was small, consisting of one million
drachmai from the state, and a private fortune of 80,000
gulden, in all about 43,000L a year, and he seems to
have done for the city as much as his means allowed.
If there is any spot in Athens where the least taste has
been displayed, the Grreeks have to thank Otho and
Amalia. Left to themselves they are singularly devoid
of all that we consider taste. Unlike that celebrated
people from which they derive their name, their bas-
tardised language, and their pretensions, they seem
entirely to neglect all that is graceful in art or in the
common things that surround them. Instead of profit-
ing by the presence and lessons of the many artists and
artisans whom Otho called from Germany to decorate
300 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
his palace, and, as he thought, to instruct his new sub-
jects in useful and lucrative industry, the Greeks con-
temptuously spurned both the art and the artist. The
consequence is that wherever art or a display of taste is
needed, it must be sent for from Grermany, France, or
Italy.
I went m.ore than once to the palace to see the private
sale of the king's property, consisting of the carriages,
wines, and utensils of his establishment. Only the light
carriages found a purchaser, and they were soon after-
wards seen, with all their royal bearings, on the hackney-
coach stands of the town. In one of the lower rooms of
the palace I found kitchen utensils, wines, large jars of
pickles and sweetmeats, and divers other odds and ends
for sale, with an old Grerman servant of the king pre-
siding. Some old port wines had been packed off to
Munich, and the stock of other sorts was but very
limited. ' Foreign wines,' said the old man to me, ' were
by Her Majesty's orders only put before her foreign
guests; the Grreeks had only Grreek wine. For when Their
Majesties first came, and fine old Bordeaux or Johanis-
berger cabmet were put before them, the old Palikari
turned up their noses, and called it vinegar. So Her
Majesty said they should get no more, and gave them
only Grreek wines to which they were accustomed. Few
of the things there,' he continued, ' suited the Grreeks,
who were too poor and abstemious; and purchasers
could only be found among foreign residents and hotel
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862. 301
keepers.' Nearly all the property, therefore, was for-
warded to Munich.
The king's correspondence became the subject of
diplomatic intervention. When the seals were broken
in the presence of a commission, of which the ambas-
sadors formed part, the contents were investigated, and
the G-reek Grovernment declared itself willing to deliver
up all that were strictly private or family letters. But
with many which contained political matter from royal
personages it refused to part, declaring them to be
state papers. Against this Count Bludov, the Kussian
minister, protested, for, as it seemed, the most important
of these letters were part of a correspondence between
the Emperor Nicholas and King Otho. The affair was
ultimately remanded until the throne should be again
filled and the Government established. Even if they
are finally kept, it is not probable that their contents
will ever be published, although they were at the time
pretty well known in Athens.
302
CHAPTER XIIL
GREECE DURING THE REYOLUTION, 1863.
Anarchy in Greece — Acts of the Provisional Government —
Universal Suffrage — Greek political Men — Abuses — The National
Assembly — National Guards — Greek Empire — Parliament of the
Greeks — Its Character — Disproportion of the Institutions and
Ideas of the Greeks to the Size of the Country — Pay of Members
— ^Visits to the Assembly — Its Appearance — Behaviour of the
Members — Character of the Modern Greeks — Imitation of the
French — Cause of the Anarchy of the Country — Complete Dis-
organisation of the Army — Opinions of a Prussian Of&cer about
the Greek Army — Incidents showing the prevalent Anarchy —
Lieutenant Leotsakos and his Mainiots — The Government
powerless against him — Brigandage triumphant — Incapable
Government — An Example — Rivalry of the Soldiers and National
Guard — Murders and other Crimes unpunished — Coup d'Etdt of
February — Overthrow of the Ministry of Bulgaris — Aspect of
Athens during the Three Days of February — The Carnival —
Balbis President — Conspiracy for the Recall of Otho — The Ces-
sion of the Ionian Islands — Their History — Character of the
Greeks displayed during the Revolution — Progress made since
the War of Independence — Revenue— Army out of Proportion to
the Wants of Country — Aspirations of the Greeks — Downfall of
Mussulman Rule — Duty of the Greeks to be prepared for such an
Event — A strong Government necessary — Extract from the ' Clio.'
WITH the new year, when the National Assembly
assumed the sovereign power, a new phase of the
revolution commences. Thus far the fixed idea of
having Prince Alfred for their king had acted as a
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 303
restraint, and been the means of preserving order.
When that hope was finally taken away, the popular
feeling threw off all disguise, and the country made
rapid strides towards anarchy. In one short month the
spread of brigandage made it unsafe to move out of the
villages, while in the towns and the capital the ambition
of individual citizens had divided the civilians and sol-
diers into adverse factions, which produced all the dis-
orders of the middle ages.
One of the first acts of the Provisional Grovernment
had been to remove the mayors of towns, who were said
to have been the easy agents of Otho, in order that the
coming elections might be conducted in a more legal
manner.* Yet the first act of the Assembly, when it
met, was to revise the list of members, when it was
found that nearly half of them had been brought in
illegally. What could the Assembly do in the critical
state of the country ? It rejected a few of the worst and
condoned the rest. In one commune, of which the whole
* In Greece the members of the Legislature are elected by universal
suffrage; most of the local magistrates, on the contrary, are appointed by
the executive, and are removable at. pleasure. It is not necessary to point
out the fatal eifects of such an arrangement. The/m\micipalities are thus
under the thumb of the Government, and^ade/use of by the executive
of the moment in such a manner as to rendi^^ i|iiiversal suffrage a farce.
This latter ought to be abolished, and the po^iession of property made
the sine qua non of voting. The municipalities ought to be reformed, and
in local matters rendered independent of any control from the Central
Government. The physical character of Greece is sufficient to show the
necessity for this.
304 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
population does not exceed 6,500 souls, 7,500 votes
were found in the urn. In another commune 216
electors placed 1,166 votes. The nomarchj of Sparta
has from 6,000 to 7,000 voters, while no less than
36,000 votes were found in the box, the greater part,
of course, for the Government candidate. In some
places votes had been changed ; in others, voters were
prevented from voting at all. The worst case occurred
in the Island of Hydra, where Dimitrius Boudouris was
elected. Well educated and well informed, speaking
many languages, of pleasing manners, and with the
most elastic of principles, Mr. Boudouris would have
been one of the leading men, if his countrymen could
only have thought as highly of his moral as of his intel-
lectual character. In contesting the election of his
native isle, fifty of his partisans, dressed in the uniform
of the National Guard, under the pretence of protecting
the independent voters, kept out of the church all who
were opposed to their patron. Yet his election not only
passed muster, but when the coup d'etat took place a
few weeks afterwards, he became Minister of Marine, a
post which he had the talent to retain for a fortnight.
The new Assembly, which met in December 1862, was
made up of new men without the least idea of business;
some of them being mere youths, in the teeth of the law
which made twenty-five years the Jegal age for sitting
in the National Assembly. A few had filled the Oppo-
sition benches during the latter Parliaments of Otho's
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 305
reign. Into the hands of this Assembly the Provisional
G-overnment resigned its powers, although for a time it
retained the executive.
It would be tedious to mention all the complete or
partial changes of ministry which followed during the
next six months. The first ministry of Bulgaris was
soon upset, and those which succeeded it sometimes
contrived, by good management, to keep their ground for
a month, and sometimes even more. With every change
of ministry came new alarms. A fresh oath had to be
taken by the military ; men appointed to office during
the former ministry lived in constant dread ; the friends
of the new men became boisterous in their expectations,
and besieged the doors of their patrons ; while the quiet
people of Athens shrugged their shoulders, cursed all
their rulers for a set of rascals, and prayed for Greorgios,
Ernest, Otho, anyone, in short, who might bring them
peace and security.
The Provisional Grovernment of Bulgaris kept up all
the abuses with which it reproached the reign of Otho.
Its only merit, certainly not a small one, was that it
preserved tolerable order in the towns^ thanks to the
name of Alfridos at first, and afterwards to the National
Guard. But there was, at the least, as much corruption
as before. Arbitrary imprisonment and banishment be-
came the fate of all who opposed its measures. Whether
writers in the press, officers in the army, or friends of
the late king, they were hurried off between gendarmes
306 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
to the Piraeus, and placed in confinement on board
the steamers until the Austrian or French packets
sailed. ' No Grreek can be expatriated,' said an article
of the Constitution ; but they could be baited by
a mob, put in fear of their lives, and then sent out of
the country by the Government, in order to protect
them. The long lists of pensions, gratifications, and
promotions which appeared in the official papers, re-
vealed the way in which the Grovernment rewarded its
friends, or rallied round it men whose opposition would
have been dangerous. On the breaking out of the
revolution, there were still two or three millions in the
treasury; a few millions had been received during
the Provisional Government. When Bulgaris and his
ministry fell, there remained, I was told, a few hundred
drachmai.
The National Assembly met in a low wooden building
which had formerly been a store-place for lumber. Near
it were the foundations of a more solid marble building,
the completion of which had been retarded for want of
funds. At the gates of the inclosure which contained both
was a mixed force of the army and civic guard ; on one side,
the dirty, lounging foot-soldier; on the other a national
guard, a student perhaps, proud of his showy uniform,
blue coat, red trowsers and cap, or a Greek in Albanian
kilt, or a tradesman en bourgeois^ all of whom tried to
look soldierlike, and performed their duty con amore.
It was a knotty point to determine which force should
have the honour of guarding the turbulent Assembly.
GREECE DURING THE KEVOLIJTION, 1863. 307
It was decided at last that both should enjoy the honour
at the same time. But as disputes among the deputies
might end in violence^, it was the duty of the guard to
see that all arms were given up at the gates, and to
search suspected or unknown persons for concealed
weapons. The interior of the building was of the
simplest description. >^n one side was the president's
desk, immediatejy^elow it the tribune, and in front,
reaching to Jme opposite wall, rows of benches rising
one abovQ^lie other for the members. Two boxes were
reserved for the diplomatic corps, and there were two
s^smaUr galleries for the public.
L accordance with ancient political traditions, it was
determined that the National Assembly should receive
delegates from bodies of Greeks in foreign countries.
Whether in Manchester or Odessa, wherever from 100
to 1,000 Greeks could record their votes, one member
was returned; from 1,000 to 10,000 two members, and
so on. The Grand Idea took thereby a wider meaning,
and ' Parliament of the Greeks ' was substituted for the
Parliament of Greece.* The Assembly numbered over
300 members, of whom 240 were for the kingdom,
and the rest for Greeks living under foreign rule. This
may seem an enormous number for so petty and poor a
country as Greece, but it is only on a par with, their
* This idea lias been further carried out by the title assumed by King
George — King of the Greeks, subsequently changed to that of King of
the Hellenes.
X2
308 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
other institutions, whose numbers far exceed the wants
and means of the country. Greece contains little more
than a million of people, and yet requires half as many
law makers as Grreat Britain, which has twenty times its
population. In fact many wish to be governors, while
few submit to be governed. There is no lack of men to
make laws, but there is nobody to obey them ; fifty want
to speak for one who cares to listen ; and a superabun-
dance of theory is accompanied by little or no practice.
Again, Greece, though protected by the strongest powers
in the world, must have an army of 10,000 men to play
at soldiers with, instead of having half that number
employed as police to enforce order and protect property.
In the civil service there are three men to do the work
of one, and that work is badly done. Every man who
has received any book education looks to the state to
employ him ; and turns rebel and even brigand if it will
not do so soon enough. Soldiers, lawyers, doctors,
tailors, cobblers, and students, all neglect their imme-
diate duties to provide for the good of the state. The
soldiers are, therefore, a rabble, the doctors kill their
patients, lawyers ruin their few forced clients, tailors
make bad coats, cobblers bad ^hoes, while students get
a superficial education, which is at bottom the real
cause of the disgraceful state of the country. Mean-
while there are no roads, much less are there any rail-
roads. There is no agriculture, and all the means of
wealth and prosperity ai-e neglected. Brigands are
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 309
plentiful, and there is a universal discontent which at
last ends in revolution. Thus, though they sent away
their king laden with the burden of their own short-
comings, the Grreeks naturally find themselves in a
worse state than before. Otho used to complain, ^ For
all that goes well the ministry takes credit ; all that
goes wrong is shoved on to my shoulders.'
During the late reign the members of the Assembly
were paid 10 drachmai a day during its session ; and
this increased the annual expenses of the country by
600,000 drachmai. For some time the new Assembly
received no pay, but in the beginning of April a motion
was made that the members should receive their 10
drachmai a day as before, and this at a time when the
treasury was absolutely empty. When this became
known out of doors, the people, roused to fury, mobbed
the Assembly and the houses of the ministers. After
much hot talking, it was decided, that in a democracy
like that of Grreece, all members of its Legislature ought
to be paid ; but that rich members might be generous
enough to refuse their salary. A voting list was, there-
fore, laid by the President before the Assembly, that
those members who wished to receive pay and those
who did not might subscribe their names. But it was
thought too hazardous to persist, in the excited state of
the public mind, and the matter dropped for a time.
Half the members were, in fact, too poor to live like
gentlemen in the capital without an allowance^ in spite
310 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of their abstemious habits : indeed many of them,
(lawyers, doctors, and proprietors) would have done
more service to their country by attending to their own
business, than by playing at legislators for seven
shillings a day. Many were officers and civil servants,
with the pittance of pay derived from their place ; while
not a few were clever adventurers, who had no income
but that which they made by their wits. One of these
Bohemian members had for years regularly dined at
one of the hotels in Athens, where he charmed the
foreign society of the table d^hote by his conversatioo,
his amusing anecdotes, and his patriotic effusions against
the despotism of Otho. He always promised to pay for
his dinners when he became a minister. He became
one at last after the revolution, and the hotel-keeper's
hopes revived. But the minister had fallen upon hard
times. There was no money to pass through his hands ;
the treasury was empty ; he was himself soon shoul-
dered out by another ; and the trusting host must wait
till his guest becomes a minister in the golden age of
Georgios.
During our long stay at Athens I was frequently
present at the sittings of the National Assembly, and
though unable to follow the debates, always had a more
or less faithful translation of them from one of the
amiable secretaries of the Turkish embassy.* The
* "Why do they not teach us Greek with the modern pronunciation at
our schools and universities ? It might then be of some little use in
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 311
greater part consisted of young or new men, quite un-
used to serious political discussion. It was at best a
good school for the practice of eloquence, and a few of
its members showed, by their modulation of voice and
attractive gesture, that their speech was likely to exer-
cise some influence on their auditors. But the majority
indulged simply in violent gesticulations, wild waving of
hands, shaking of fists, and screaming defiance to adverse
orators. The sight of the group below from the gallery
was highly interesting. About one-fifth part of the
members were in the nationalised Albanian costume,
that is, in short white petticoats, red, blue, or crimson
vest embroidered with gold or silk on the back and hang-
ing sleeves, red or blue gaiters, and the ordinary red fez or
skull-cap with flowing blue tassel. The rest were either
in military uniform or en bourgeois. Any old Nestor
ascending the tribune was sure to be listened to with
silence and respect, and a murmur of applause would
follow his words of wisdom. When old Greneral Maccry-
janni, for example, entered the Assembly, every sound
suddenly ceased. He rose to beg that the few words which
he had written on paper might be read by some younger
voice, as his own was too feeble from age and weakness
listening to an Athenian debate. The learned in Grreece do their utmost
to assimilate the written language to that of the ancients. The same
remark applies to the Latin language. "With oxir way of pronouncing
the vowels, a man fresh from England, who quotes Horace or Cicero to a
German or Frenchman, is about as much understood as if he were talking
Sanscrit.
312 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
to make itself heard. This was allowed, although con-
trary to the rules of the house. He begged the assembly
to confine itself exclusively to measures tending to pre-
serve order in the country, and, without entering into
stormy discussions, to maintain union and self-restraint
until the new king should arrive to control and give
validity to their deliberations. His words failed to im-
press them for a quarter of an hour. The greatest
trifles were brought forward which could excite the
venom of party spirit. Every motion that was made
led to at least a dozen risings for a personal matter.
The voice of the member occupying the tribune was
often drowned by a dozen voices in screaming chorus
from the benches. Insults were added to intimidations.
* You are a liar,' roared one member ; ' Do you not know
that you are a cuckold ? ' retorted his opponent. Such
is a sample of the language heard in the Grreek National
Assembly in the month of February 1863. More than
once was presented the undignified sight of two honour-
able members coming to blows. It was not for nothing
that all arms were given up at the gates. Mr. Balbis,
the President, an aged gentleman, was continually
getting on his legs to enforce order, or vigorously ring-
ing his bells, of which he had two beside him, the louder
one to be tolled when the tumult became too uproarious.
Even this had only a momentary effect, so that the poor
President's time seemed to be wholly spent in getting
up and sitting down again disheartened, ringing his two
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 313
bells, and shaking his head in despair at his uncontroll-
able charge. Sometimes the turbulence of the Assembly
went so far, that the President found himself forced to
prorogue the sitting.
The character of the ancient Athenians, as we read it
in the pages of their most celebrated writers, exactly fits
the present generation of Grreeks. The satirical poets
represented their countrymen as having all the qualities
of an old man and of a child, the proneness to be
deceived without danger as the former, the wish to be
constantly amused as the latter. By turns showing
great and noble qualities, and then the meanest in
human nature ; adoring liberty without knowing how to
appreciate it; quick to seize any project, but impatient
of details; passing from hope to despair and from
despair back again to hope on the slightest cause ;
rebellious to all authority ; meek and insolent by turns ;
furious without being cruel; frivolous and fickle in the
extreme — as their fathers were, so have the Grreeks
shown themselves during the late revolution.
In their feelings and habits the Grreek people are as
democratic as ever their ancestors were in the days of
Pericles and Cleon, and the insidious speech of a
demagogue as easily leads them by the nose. Here and
there may be found an oligarchic faction of some large
landowner, surrounded by clients and clansmen, striving
to obtain the mastery in the state. The Grreek
character is indeed such a mixtmre of noble and
314 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
frivolous qualities, that sometimes we scarcely know
whether to admire or despise it. ' The French have
had their revolutions ; the English have hunted away
their king — why should not we ? ' was a remark often
heard. ' Look at our glorious revolution, what a model
for other people ! In Paris there would have been
fusillades, barricades, bloodshed, and pillage : we hardly
took away a life, and what revolution could be more
complete ? ' But such expressions ignore the difference
between Paris with its hundreds of thousands unknown
to each other, and a little democratic city of a few thou-
sands where everybody knew more or less of his neigh-
bour. While boasting that English institutions alone
were suited to their character, the Greeks aped every-
thing French. They wore French uniforms, had a
7nountain in their National Assembly, and tried a little
coup d'etat now and then. In all public demonstrations
there was a constant exploding of fire-arms, shouting,
boisterous laughter — the antics, in short, of school-boys
set free for a holiday. In the streets, young patricians,
lawyers, professors, and sergeants vainly tried to deceive
thenaselves and others that they were sprouting Alci-
biades, Cleons, and Demosthenes. And to crown all, the
chosen three hundred of the nation were playing such
pranks in their Assembly as brought it to the level of a
pot-house club ; while out of the House many were in-
triguing, bribing, or fomenting sedition at the corners
of the streets or, having been bribed themselves, were
GREECE DUEING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 315
conspiring for a certain number of zwanzigers to bring
back the very man whom they had just ignominiously
expelled. If a few had talent and good intentions, they
lacked political education ; while those who had the
latter were mostly excluded from office by the late
elections, and could only shake their heads in mistrust
of the future.
And when that future became present, bad had
become worse. The anarchy of the country un-
doubtedly dates from the refusal of Prince Alfred. As
candidate after candidate was proposed, Greece sank
deeper and deeper in the mire. The national jealousies
of the three protecting Powers must have been exceed-
ingly virulent, if this little country could not be suited
with a king in less time than nine months. The blame
lies with them for keeping up a state of uncertainty, by
feasting the people with hopes which went no further
than promises and flatteries, till the national character
cast off all restraint. In the first few months of the
year the fruits of the acts which effected the revolution
began to ripen. The peasants could not or would not
pay their taxes, and their levy could no longer be en-
forced by the soldiery. The army, bribed to perjury,
became a lawless and tyrannical mob. Soldiers began
to deliberate and discuss the orders of their superiors ;
non-commissioned officers petitioned for their promotion,
and seconded their petition with threats. They besieged
the members on their way to the House, and threatened
316 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
to burn the town if their desires were not granted. The
Government, instead of shooting half a dozen, promoted
them, and sent forth a proclamation extolling the fidelity
of the army to the principles of the revolution. After
a time the army broke up into two or three parties,
some for, some against, the actual Grovernment. One
example will show the state of insubordination into
which it had fallen. The few batteries of artillery pre-
tended the utmost loyalty towards the National Assembly,
to which they had just taken the oath of fidelity. The
latter appointed a commander who did not please them,
and what did this faithful body of troops then do ? They
appointed a commander of their own, and, in bravado,
harnessed their pieces and marched round the town with
their new leader at their head. The Government again
flattered their military honour, and there was nothing
else to be done. It tried indeed to disband the army
altogether, but the army would not be disbanded. It
gave the soldiers unlimited leave of absence, but they
received their drachma a day, and would not go. To
give them their due, they did less harm than soldiers
in other countries would have done under similar cir-
cumstances.
A few facts will show that the organisation of the
Greek army was thoroughly rotten, if indeed it had
ever possessed any stability. A Prussian officer at-
tached to his embassy in Athens, who has made the
Greek army a subject of special study, says, with truth,
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 317
that this army, of only thirty years' standing, lacks that
prestige of former heroism which serves in other
countries to bind soldiers to the path of honour or
duty, and to create an attachment to their colours ;
that being born and brought up in the most democratic
of societies, the Greek soldier never separates himself
from the rest of the people, never acquires a thorough
esp7'it-de-corps, and would never act against the people
in case of revolution ; that equality, which is no-
where so strong as in Grreece, is hurtful to discipline,
as the officers often live on terms of intimacy with their
men ; that there are too great facilities for rising
from the ranks ; that the officers themselves find in
intrigue the best mode of advancement in their career ;
that even their education in the public schools is
often interrupted by political demonstrations, which
they afterwards continue in their clubs and coffee-
houses ; that as, in their many plots and conspiracies,
officers and privates are privy to the same secret,
insubordination and neglect of duty are naturally in-
duced in the inferior ; and, lastly, that the king, so far
from taking pains to conciliate his army, showed his
dislike and contempt for it. He further adds, that the
regiments were split up into small detachments scat-
tered over the country under hardly any control ; that
soldiers were used as police or tax-gatherers to bully
the voters at an election, or sent, dressed in plain
clothes, to vote for some ministerial candidate. Thus,
318 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
concludes Lieutenant Kundstedt, had the Government,
by using the army as an instrument for deceiving
others, thoroughly demoralised it long before the revo-
lution.*
A few instances, some of them hardly credible, of
the behaviour of the Grreek soldiery, will confirm these
remarks. A week after the revolution, the troops
were paraded to take the oath of fidelity to the Pro-
visional Government. The greater part refused to
swear. The officers vainly waved their sabres ; the men
remained stubborn. ' What is the use of swearing ? '
said they, with some wit ; * the Government will not
last a week, and we shall have to swear again. We
will swear when the new king comes.' Not knowing
what to do in such a dilemma, the commander sent for
Mavromichaelis, the minister of war. When that
majestic personage arrived, he made a fine speech,
called the soldiers his children, and promised them a
good dinner after the swearing was over. This promise
had the intended effect, and the refractory regiments
took the oath. But the farce did not end here. The
men waited two or three hours, but no dinner was
forthcoming. Getting impatient, a party of them
marched to the place where their officers were dining,
and threatened to drive them away from table. The
minister of war was again sent for, and told them that
* Die Griechische Annee und die Kevolution, ron E. von Eundstedt
GKEECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 319
the cook had forgotten the dinner. This did not
assuage them. They threatened to kill the cook and
burn his house. Finding that they began to cock
their muskets, the officers retired ; and the soldiers,
taking their places, began feasting, and finished the
evening by roaming drunk through the streets, scream-
ing Zitos, and firing their muskets in the air.
Another scene, in which officers were the actors, fol-
lowed some time afterwards. A young sub-lieutenant
of cavalry, who had just returned from Constantinople
with his pockets well furnished, gave a breakfast to his
comrades. In the heat of their wine, the thought struck
them that such a generous host would make a good
colonel for their regiment. So they promoted him to
that post at once, set themselves in carriages, and
mobbed the President of the Provisional Grovernment
to confirm their choice. Mr. Bulgaris made his ap-
pearance on the balcony, and actually promised that,
if the rest of the officers agreed to it, he would confirm
their wish. This was not enough. He must be made
commander immediately. Superior officers tried in
vain to reason with them, and it was only when some
troops were sent for that they were arrested — but never
punished.
A battalion of the line, consisting chiefly of Mainiots,
and commanded by a certain Lieutenant Leotsakos, was
for months the astonishment if not the terror of all the
quiet people of Athens. Leotsakos first fortified him-
320 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
self in the lower apartments of the palace, and after-
wards in the barracks behind it. When superseded by
the Assembly, he refused to quit his command.* The
minister of war then demanded full powers from the
Assembly to turn him out, but the panic-stricken as-
sembly refused. The minister resigned ; the assembly
would not accept his resignation. The minister ap-
pointed another colonel, but the soldiers would not
have him. He next ordered the battalion to embark
for Calamata, but it refused to move. Meanwhile, a
conspiracy was discovered in the regiment itself. Some
sergeants, envying the position of their commanding
officer, seduced two companies to favour their interests,
and these fortified themselves in a large room of the
barracks. Thus was seen the curious sight of a regi-
ment fortifying itself against the Government, and two
companies in revolt against the regiment in the same
barracks. Leotsakos, however, soon starved them to
submission, and then expelled them. When we left
Athens, he was still in command of the remaining
eight companies, and was likely to remain so until the
new king arrived. The Government had either not the
means or the power to treat him as he had treated his
rebellious companies. To give him also his due, he
* This was after the coup dJetat of February. Leotsakos kept his
position and command till just before the arrival of King Georgios.
At the present time (January 1864) one or two garrisons are in open
rebellion against the King's Government.
GREECE DUEING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 321
kept his men under better authority than the other
troops in the town.*
Any Grovernment worthy of the name would have
considered the preservation of order and the protection
of property its first duty. I am not aware that the
Provisional Grovernment exercised one single act of
authority, by punishing the brigands and murderers
who chanced to fall into its hands. Brigandage was
common throughout the land. I do not speak of those
turbulent clans in the mountains of the Morea. They
were never better than freebooters, yet even these of
late years had seldom ventured to the sea-shore. Now,
however, they came boldly down from their hills,
whither they carried whatever they could lay their
hands on — and nothing was too worthless for them.
Bands of marauders from one province made forays
among their neighbours, and drove ofif their cattle*
* The outbreak of July 1 was only to be expected. The two parties
had become more and more embittered one against the other. On that
day Leotsakos was arrested by the Minister of War, but his soldiers
seized two of the ministers as hostages, and Leotsakos was released.
This officer and his soldiers still held out for Bulgaris; the opposite, or
mountain party, of which young G-rivas and Canaris were the leaders',
had also become strengthened. For three days the two parties of troops
and partisans, with the addition of. a few brigands, fought in the streets
and places of Athens, and about seventy lives were lost, young Canaris
being amongst the slain. A compromise was at last made by forming a
ministry of both the parties. During the tumult a party of English,
Eussian, and French sailors marched up to Athens to keep guard at the
Bank.
322 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
In another part of the country a general's son, disap-
pointed in his hopes, gathered around him a dozen men
and became a chief of brigands. The Greeks, as much
fitted for piracy as for brigandage, plundered not only
Turkish but Greek ships among the Cyclades. But
here they were within reach of the gun-boats of the
power, who acted as the police of the blue waters.
On shore, brigandage reigned supreme. Even the
towns did not escape. One night the iron chest of the
custom-house at the PiraBus was cleared out. On another
evening, within a stone's throw of Athens, a youth, the
son of rich parents, was carried off by a band, who left
a notice posted on the walls of the palace garden, that
70,000 drachmai were required for his ransom. Soldiers
were immediately sent in pursuit, but the brigands had
already concealed themselves in the marble quarries of
Mount Pentelicus. Edmond About's * Old Man of the
Mountains' is no fiction. Of course the soldiers did
not find the young man. The father paid 50,000
drachmai, and the Grovernment promoted the leader
of the band to sub-officer's rank in the army ; and
brigandage was not greatly discouraged. The National
Assembly, to remedy the evil, offered to pardon all
bands who should surrender before a certain day. A
few old hands, tired of their trade, or disgusted at the
rapid influx of new members, gave themselves up. At
the same time, considering that the expectation of a
general amnesty on the new king's arrival was an induce-
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 323
ment to crime, the Assembly gave notice that from a
certain date, all criminals should be excluded from
such amnesty — a pretty state of affairs, where an
amnesty is expected by gentlemen who follow the trade
of highwaymen or pirates! Although the ordinary
courts of law were suspended, surely the Grovernment
would have been justified in appointing extraordinary
tribunals, and after due process, in hanging a few of
these brigands on the tallest tree in the neighbour-
hood. But it was necessary first to catch them, and no
reliance could be placed on the troops.
The capital meanwhile was kept in constant alarm
by wild rumours, and every now and then by some
terrible act of brigandage or murder. Fortunately, by
this time, a patriotic National Gruard had been formed,
and to it was added a certain number of the more re-
spectable soldiers, and these acted together as the police
of the city. Yet between the National Gruard and the
mass of the soldiery, there soon arose a jealousy which
more than once nearly brought about a conflict. As the
discipline of the regulars became more and more lax,
that of the civic guard became stronger. Like all
volunteers, they took heartily to their work, chose a
showy uniform, and generally turned out clean and
smart. They even dressed their children in the same
uniform, and it was a common sight to see little fellows
armed and equipped like their fathers, toddling after
them through the streets. On the other hand, the troops
324 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
became every day more slovenly in their dress, dirty in
their persons, and lawless in their actions. If the civic
sentry sometimes called forth a smile by his anxiety to
salute all passing epaulettes and by his minute ob-
servance of orders, the soldier on guard aroused a feeling
of disgust as he was seen lounging or talking to his
comrades, neglecting to salute passing officers, and
sometimes even smoking, singing, or dancing in front
of his box.
When, therefore, the capital saw itself threatened by
the disorders which prevailed in the provinces, and after
two or three barefaced robberies had been committed,
strong patrols of soldiers and civic guards paraded the
streets, visited all the drinking-houses and other low
places of resort, and led off all suspicious characters in
chains to the Piraeus, where they were detained on board
the ships-of-war in the harbour. Yet, in spite of these
measures, the streets of Athens sometimes witnessed
scenes of violence, the authors of which were allowed to
escape. Eeturning one afternoon from Athens to the
Piraeus with Captain Stoffregen, of the Eussian frigate
General Admiral, we saw a soldier struggling with a
national guard. The soldier had just run a man
through with his bayonet. As he was a young and
vigorous man he threw off the national guard, and
casting away his musket, fled over the rocky ground of
the ancient Pnyx. The citizen, a corpulent man, ham-
pered with his musket, followed him till he was out of
GREECE DURING THE REYOLUTION, 1863. 325
breath, while several people to whom he shouted to stop
the soldier only stared after him. Presently two
mounted soldiers came up, and hearing the story, set off
with tremendous energy, and rode to the top of the
ridge, where they stopped. Then, although we pointed
the man out to them running a few hundred yards
ahead, they coolly turned round and rode back to the
town. For fully ten minutes after they had retreated,
we could see the soldier running along the slope of the
hill, before he disappeared in the broken ground where
Hymettus slopes down to the Bay of Phalerum.
The only two incidents of importance which marked
the further progress of the revolution during our stay in
Grreece, were the cowp d'etat which overthrew the mi-
nistry of Bulgaris, and that mysterious conspiracy whose
purpose seemed to be the recall of Otho. Against the
ministry of Bulgaris there were, in truth, sufficient
grounds of grievance. He was, therefore, invited to form
another; but as he hesitated in doing so, the rumour
that he was aiming at the dictatorship and the recall of
Otho gained ground. The crisis was hastened by Ad-
miral Canaris. This old man seems never to have been
a conscientious member of the triumvirate, and his
ambitious son was one of the chiefs of the plot about to
be carried out. A few restless sub-officers, who received
orders from their clubs rather than from their supe-
riors, bought over the greater part of the infantry in the
town to the plot. The younger Grrivas was similarly
326 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
employed. The battalion of Leotsakos which occupied
the palace, and which was said to belong body and soul
to Mavromichaelis, the minister of war, declared for
Bulgaris and took measures to defend its position. The
gendarmes, who from the first moment were always
on the side of the Grovernraent then existing, loopholed
their barracks. The artillery declared against the
President, but devoted itself to the National Assembly
and the preservation of order. In other words, it did
not interfere at all. At midnight of the 20th and 21st
of February the coup d'etat commenced. All the officers
of the army who were not privy to it were locked up by
their men in stables and other temporary strongholds.
Canaris, with the troops devoted to him, occupied the
open places, the Palace Square, the place before the
Tower of the Winds, and that extensive ground near
which was situated the old Academia. A detachment
sent to seize Bulgaris found his house occupied by fifty
or sixty resolute clients, and returned disappointed to the
main body. In the Palace Square the troops mistook
a party of their own for the force of Leotsakos, and a
skirmish ensued, in which only one man was killed,
though the upper windows and walls of the Hotel des
Etrangers, and the British consulate adjoining, were
riddled with bullets. The soldiers had by this time be-
come so accustomed to fire in the air for wantonness, that
they continued to do the same even in a serious fight.
During the three following days the excitement was
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 327
as great as on the 23rd of October, and the town presented
a curious though bewildering sight to a stranger not con-
versant with the Greek character. On the 21st all the
shops were closed ; and those in the market which were
opened for the sale of provisions were pillaged. Some
few resolute shopkeepers were national guards, in
whose shops might generally be seen three or four
loaded carbines, which somewhat awed the cowardly
soldiers. Some of these plundered the national stores ; *
others took forcible possession of the public carriages,
and might be seen driving at a furious pace through
the town, firing their muskets in the air, brandishing
their naked bayonets and sabres, and shouting 'Zito
Grivas ! Zito Canaris ! Down with Bulgaris ! ' &c. &c.
The Assembly, meanwhile, was wrangling. Bulgaris
still delayed his resignation, although his colleagues had
already given theirs. He remained closely guarded in
his house ; and the houses of all the other chief actors
in the movement were also little camps, between
which mounted emissaries were continually moving to
and fro.
No one looking at the palace would have thought
that it was holding out against the town. The front
doors were wide open, although videttes were placed
all around in the gardens to prevent a surprise. Crowds
* Several chests with Mini^ rifles for arming the National Guard
were forced open, and their contents, which had cost the country ninety
francs apiece, were afterwards offered for sale for ten francs each.
328 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
of soldiers and palikari were continually passing to and
fro, and even a stranger met with no interference when
it was seen that he was a foreigner. I passed several
times through the gardens and palace to see what was
going on, and was everywhere received with civility.
On the second evening Leotsakos sent a messenger to
Canaris, who lived a short distance off, to know if it was
his intention to attack the palace that evening. Cana-
ris replied courteously that he must be prepared for any
event. But no attack took place this time. The whole
affair gave one the idea of schoolboys playing at govern-
ment, revolution, and coups d'etat.
And as such, the state of Athens was regarded by not
a few of its light-minded folk. The people celebrated
the last three days of the Carnival as usual. Around
the few columns, and on that enormous basement where
once stood the Temple of the Olympian Jupiter, groups
of soldiers, peasants, men, women, and children were
dancing, singing, and making merry. The greatest
public anxiety, the uncertainty of what a few hom's
might bring forth, a country without a Grovernment, a
complete state of anarchy, could not damp their light-
heartedness. While two of the triumvirate and all the
late ministers, except one, scarcely dared show their
faces, that one, Mavromichaelis, rode proudly round the
town, stopped under the old temple, encouraged the
people in their amusements, picked out an olive or
two from their messes, and flattered them with all those
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 329
little attentions which sometimes gain or recall popu-
larity to a great man.
After three days the usual order was restored. The
executive was vested in the Assembly, which commanded
the troops to retire to their quarters. A day or two
afterwards the army took its third oath of allegiance.
An executive of seven ministers, with Balbis as President,
was chosen, into whose hands the Assembly resigned the
powers it had assumed on the emergency. During the
whole of these days strong patrols of national guards
and picked soldiers moved about the streets, and though
unable to preserve order, at least protected property.
Putting aside all political feeling, these men showed
that there were, at all events, a few left who understood
what their duties were as members of their little
commonwealth.
Scarcely had the emotions of these three days sub-
sided, when Athens was again alarmed by the pretended
discovery of a plot to which many of the chief officers
of the army were privy, whose intention was the recall
of Otho. This was only a symptom of reaction natu-
rally to be expected from a disappointed people. That
Otho, after a twenty-nine years' residence in Grreece, had
many friends, no one can doubt; that many, seeing the
state of anarchy which everywhere prevailed, and the
difficulty in finding a sovereign from some powerful
reigning house, would have welcomed his return, is
equally certain. 'Otho,' it began to be said, 'was not so
330 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
bad, after all ; he was too weak and indulgent ; at all
events, what followed his depositioD had been ten times
worse than the worst part of his reign. His return
would be far better than a military despotism, and
the national bankruptcy to which the country was fast
hastening.'
When, therefore, intelligence was received that an
extensive plot was on foot to pave the way for his
return, and that the Bavarian Consul had distributed
some thousands of Maria Theresa thalers and zwan-
zigers to oil the machinery of the counter-revolution,
the Grovernment was in dismay. The consul was imme-
diately arrested ; some dozens of suspected officers were
exiled to the neighbouring island of ^gina ; many more
were imprisoned among malefactors on board the vessels
of war lying in the Pirgeus ; domiciliary visits were made
to all suspected persons, and all the carriages and
passengers between Athens and the Piraeus were searched
for the Austrian silver, or for papers which would expose
something further. But I could never hear that any-
thing was brought home to any of the persons suspected
or arrested.
In sketching the events of this revolution, I have
not spoken of one event which, though it caused great
sensation and astonishment throughout Europe, raised
but a slight excitement in the country whose interests
it most touched. I mean the cession of the Ionian
Islands to Grreece. Though the offer of the British
GREECE DURINa THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 331
Government took everyone by surprise, the disappoint-
ment by which it was accompanied, viz. the refusal of
Prince Alfred, counterbalanced any enthusiasm which
might have been aroused under more favourable cir-
cumstances. The usual demonstration of thanks was
made through Mr. Elliot to the British Grovernment ;
Te Deums were chanted in the public places (rather in
too much of a hurry, many people thought) ; but more
important events banished the subject for a time from
people's minds. The little success of the candidates
proposed by England, the opposition of one of the
great Powers, the cautious wording of the Queen's
speech from the throne, and the adverse expression of
feeling in the Imperial Parliament, for a long while
made the Greeks doubt if the annexation would be
accomplished after all.
To a prosperous and well-governed kingdom, their
cession would have been both honourable and advan-
tageous, as the geographical position, race, and religion
of the people make them naturally dependent on the
•adjoining continent. England would at the same time
have got rid of a troublesome and ungrateful burden.
But it seems, at the least, unfortunate that their cession
should be proposed at a time when Greece was in such
a state of anarchy as in the year 1863.
The supposition that these islands formed part of
Greece under the modern constitution of Europe, is
quite an error. One must go back to the Peloponnesian
332 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
war and the Eoman Empire to prove their political
union with Grreece. Like most of the favourable spots
in the East, the Ionian Islands during the middle
ages fell under Venetian rule. On the fall of that
republic, they passed by the Treaty of Campo Formio
to the French, who, two years afterwards in 1799,
were driven out by the Eussians, when the Ionian
Eepublic was formed. The treaty of Tilsit restored them
again to the French, who kept Corfu until the peace
of 1814. The other islands had been conquered by
Great Britain, under whose protection the whole Ee-
public was eventually placed by the treaty of Vienna.
Although most of the inhabitants are Grreek in lan-
guage and religion, many belong to the Latin race,
being chiefly descendants of the Venetian settlers.
Under British protection, a large military force has
put a rein on the national turbulence, and the energies
of the people have been more directed towards their
little country. The contrast, therefore, between the
Seven Islands and Continental G-reece is as evident as
it is favourable to the former.* The administration
remained in native hands, and so sure were the lonians
of the inviolability of their institutions, that they could
sometimes afford to be insolent to their protectors. It
* Dr. Finlay writes that ' the lonians have not availed themselves of
the liberty they have so long enjoyed for improving their moral condition,
and for attaining a moral and intellectual superiority over the other Greeks
who were subject to the Sultan.' Fifty years of British rule has, at all
events, had the effect of making the lonians far superior in wealth and
political training to their countrymen on the mainland.
GREECE DURING THE REYOLUTION, 1863. 333
is true that for years cries have been heard for an-
nexation with their brethren in Grreece. Year after
year came that inevitable petition to the Lord High
Commissioner, who as often refused to receive it as
contrary to the constitution. The offer of the British
Government brought everybody to look on the an-
nexation in an interested point of view, and to make
a choice one way or another. As a rule, the merchants
and moneyed class desired the continuance of the Pro-
tectorate. Proprietors and professional men of poli-
tical inclinations, with the clergy and all under their
influence, were for the annexation. This annexation
is now being carried out ; and the result can only be a
great falling off in the prosperity of the country, leading
to discontent, if not to something worse.
In these pages I have endeavoured to describe the
state of Grreece, and the behaviour of the people during
their revolution. All who were in the country at the
time will, I believe, allow that my account is not ex-
aggerated. The time was undoubtedly an exceptional
one ; but these exceptional periods show most clearly
the true character of a people. In fact, the revolution
only exposed the condensed form of what had been
going on for the thirty preceding yeai-s — a fearful
laxity of political morality among the rulers, and an
unbridled lawlessness among the mass.* For years,
nothing has been heard from Grreece but accusations
* Dr. Finlay well sums up tlie state of Greece under its new existence:-
* The administrative organisation of civil and financial business remained
334 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
and recrimiDations ; conspiracies on one side, and illegal
imprisonments on the other ; one series of disputes on
the most futile of subjects leading to another, while the
real interests of the country have been neglected. A
few acts of constitutional authority by the sovereign
might long ago have set all this straight; and un-
questionably the country must be regulated before
it can ever hope to realise its great idea. Another
fault is universal corruption in the administration.
The highest briber in money or promises gets his man ;
and everyone has his price. With this must be taken the
lax notions prevalent concerning the sanctity of pro-
perty and the little severity exercised in the punishment
of evil doers. The neglect by the peasantry of labour
as a source of wealth, added to an unjust and vexatious
system of taxation ; the proneness of the educated classes
to attach themselves to liberal professions, and especially
practically the same in free Greece as in Turkey. No improvement was
made in financial arrangements, nor in the system of taxation; no
measures were adopted for rendering property more secure ; no attempt
was made to create an equitable administration of justice ; no courts of
law were established; and no financial accounts were published. Govern-
ments were formed, constitutions were drawn up, national assemblies
met, orators debated, and laws were passed according to the political
fashion patronised by the liberals of the day. But no eiFort was made
to prevent the Government being virtually absolute, unless it was by
rendering it absolutely powerless. The constitutions were framed to
remain a dead letter. The National Assemblies were nothing but con-
ferences of parties, and the laws passed were intended to fascinate
Western Europe, not to operate with effect in Greece,' — History of the
Greek Bevolution, by George Finlay, i. 281,
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 335
politics, as a means of living, causing a supply greater
than the demand, are further causes of the backward-
ness of the country, and the instability of its moral
prosperity.
It must not, however, be supposed that Greece has
not improved during the past generation. In spite of
bad government and worse administration, she has
marched on with Europe, though with shorter strides.
A few statistics will prove this. The population has
been increasing during thirty years at the rate of 2*16
per cent, per annum, thanks to a healthy climate and
the absence of war. This increase is four times greater
than that of France, and sixteen times greater than that
of Portugal, two countries from which there is little
emigration.* Her revenue in 1833 was only seven
millions of drachmai; in 1847 it had doubled; in I860
it was twenty-two millions. At first this revenue was
derived from land and direct taxes, the customs and
other indirect taxation being trifling. Now the customs
far exceed the land-tax, and supply one-fourth of the
net revenue. It is true Grreece has incurred a debt of
112 millions,! which she is not willing to pay, but of
which she might easily pay the interest, if her finances
* Block's Puissances Comparees.
t In this is included the debt of 1824, for 800,000^., which produced
300,000/. This, as has been satirically observed, 'was a small pay-
ment of the debt due by civilised society to the country that produced
Homer and Plato.' As such, I fear, it must be considered.
1
336 EASTEHN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
were properly administered. In 1860 there was a
balance of a million and a half in her favour, and it
might have been much larger if she had had a smaller
army. A Grreek army of 10,000 men is an absurdity,
and the cost of supporting it has consumed one-third of
the revenue. England and France — states requiring
large armies — spend on them respectively one-fourth
and one-fifth of their revenues. Grreece, placed as she
is under powerful protection, might advantageously
replace the army, which is only a nuisance to the country
itself and a vain threat to its neighbour, by a national
force, as in Switzerland, where the expenses of training
a militia are only one-ninth of the revenue. The dis-
position of the Grreek people would be admirably suited to
such an arrangement, for the national guards of Athens
and other towns behaved on the whole admirably during
the most critical phases of the Eevolution.* Two or
three thousand of the most orderly troops might be re-
tained as a royal guard and as gendarmes. The other
seven thousand would become available for the industry
of the country. The few millions of drachmai thus
saved might be most appropriately applied in paying
the interest of its foreign debts, and founding a national
* Under Venetian rule the Greeks were allowed to form local
militia for the preservation of order and the protection of property, and
the system seems to have answered admirably. The country was tran-
quil, and very few crimes were committed. See Finlay's Greece under
Othoman and Venetian Domination, p. 250.
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 337
credit; in augmenting the little navy, which, from the
geographical position of the country, is really wanted ;
in making common roads and railroads ; in cutting
through the isthmus of Corinth ; in irrigating the land,
much of which is barren only from long drought ; and,
generally, in giving encouragement towards the working
out of the productive forces and manufacturing industries
of the country.
The Grreeks complain that their country is too small
for them. It is not easy to see how, if a small house or
a small state cannot be well administered, a larger one
would be better. If the goveruing classes in Grreece
have not been able to maintain order, and regulate their
money matters in so small a territory, would they ma-
nage better if they had half of European Turkey to
govern in addition ? We have not to look far for the
reason why the rule of the Sultan in Europe is so upheld
by foreign Powers. If the Sclaves of the north are not
more advanced in political and popular education than
their brethren in the south, the downfall of the Crescent
is yet far distant. Were either of the two states in
the Eastern peninsula in the position of Piedmont, the
Turks would not remain a year in Europe. That the
break up must come sooner or later, in the natural
course of things, is evident. The Mahommedan rule in
Europe would fall at once if the support of foreign
Powers were withdrawn. Its glory is with the past, and
its revival seems almost an impossibility. The course
z
338 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
to be followed by the Greeks is plain enough. Their
wisdom is to remain quiet, and employ all their talent
and energies in improving their country, in organising
its society on a firm basis, and calmly to await the issue.
The heritage is theirs. A large part of Turkey and the
adjacent islands must fall to their lot. Without an
effort, the fruit, ready and ripe, will tumble into their
hands; and if they be prepared to receive it, Europe
will hail with joy the solution of a question which has
perplexed it for generations. But woe to Grreece if the
breaking up of the Turkish power come at a time when
she can give no better guarantees than at present ! The
Christians of Constantinople and the islands would pro-
bably prefer to found a sovereignty of their own, rather
than to unite their destinies with men who had learned
no lessons of political wisdom from three centuries of
servitude, and the freedom of the thirty years which
followed it.
The more I consider the present state of Grreece
and the character of the Grreeks, the more is my opinion
confirmed that an intelligent absolutism, under popu-
lar forms, would be the best thing for Grreece during
the next generation. This opinion is also common to
thousands of Grreeks.* Exercised with all due feeling
* The Clio, a Greek newspaper published at Trieste, having a wide
circulation among the Greeks of foreign countries, contains the following
address to the King, in January 1864 : ' Sire, the august Frederick, on
your departure for Greece, gave you the wise counsel to '* reign and not
GREECE DURING THE REYOLUTION, 1863. 339
for the national character, and especially allowing the
freest local self-government, such a system would pro-
bably cure the country of many of the evils under which
to govern." Yet this country, Sire, wants a governing prince, because
it does not possess any politicians capable of governing for him. Greece
does not resemble either Denmark or Belgium ; her people are good, but
untrained — her soil is fertile, but cultivation is backward. Your mission,
Sire, is to instruct the Greeks in soupd public morality, to perfect the
productions of the soil to the same degree as the intelligence of the
people, so as to make Greece the model kingdom of the East. Never-
theless, however constitutionally you may reign, the country will never
justify your efforts and purpose, unless you put an. inflexible hand on the
very centre of the evil..
' You found Greece plunged in anarchy,, completely disorganised, and
bent under a yoke of terrorism. An unbridled license had begotten a
universal disorder ; an unprincipled press had annihilated all morality,
and provoked massacres among citizens and brothers. Save our country,
Sire, by restricting its liberties until such a day when those who now
abuse them return to a proper sentiment of' their duties towards society.
Put a curb on the intemperance of the press, and prevent honest con-
sciences being led astray by those which are corrupted,
' Such men as are the refuse of our society will probably reproach you
with violating the constitution ; all who are honestly devoted to their
country will bless you. For who would dare to say that there is any law
superior to the safety of one's coimtry ?
' Eemember, Sire, how, after the horrors of June- 1848, when the streets
of Paris were dyed with the blood of its citizens. General Cavaignae
boldly repressed the sanguinary feud, and imprisoned or banished the
most uncontrollable journalists and turbulent members of the Assembly.
General Cavaignae saved his country. Turn your eyes to the most con-
stitutional state of Europe, and see what took place there in April 1848.
Ambitious partisans tried to assatdt the Acropolis of the Parliament; the
Government did not then hesitate to propose to the Parliament the
restriction of the liberties of the subject.
' So do you, Sire, not hesitate to strike down those who outrage the
Z 2
340 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
it is groaning. A strong central power is absolutely
necessary to fix the civil and military administrations
on a pure and firm basis ; to introduce a good system
of legislation, and especially of taxation ; to restore the
national credit ; and, in general, to put the institutions
of the country in such a channel that the progress and
welfare of the people might be their result. If Otho
had only been an intelligent despot, he might have
accomplished this in the early years of his reign. The
constitution which succeeded would then have included
all the elements necessary for the prosperity of a people.
The misfortune of Greece is, as the eminent historian of
purity of Greek honour, and prevent the moral and material progress of
the nation. Put a strong bridle on selfish and ambitious passions; repulse
from you that ignoble sloth, which causes the very soil to protest against
the unproductiveness which is imposed on it. Restore harmony to the
strings of society. Temper our disorderly liberty by a legal rigour.
' Two centuries ago Fra Paolo Sarpi wished to teach the Venetians
the surest manner of maintaining their sovereignty over Greece, and
recommended, Pane c hastonate ! The demagogues of Athens, Sire, are
worthy of being controlled by like means.
' Postpone then, Sire, until a happier time, your benevolent intentions.
Crush under your feet the vermin who are devouring the public wealth.
Imitate Cavaignac. Do not hesitate at imprisonment ; apply a remedy
to the cancrous sores of the country; purify her political atmosphere from
its miasma of corrupted incense. Demagogues and adventurers will loudly
cry against you, but they are only the tail, and not the head, of the
nation.'
This article was read by the democratic factions in Athens with the
fiercest rage, and several copies containing it were publicly burned in the
clubs and cafes. Some such policy, however, as the writer recommends
must be put in force before social order can ever be restored in Greece.
GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1863. 341
that country remarked, ' that the Grreek revolution pro-
duced no man of real greatness, no statesman of unble-
mished honour, no general of commanding talent.'* The
present revolution has afforded the same barren result,
and Grreece must abide her time until it shall please
Providence to send her such a man to command and
guide her destinies.
* Dr. Fiiilay.
342
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES.
Beyrout in June 1861 — Departiire of tlie French — The Effects of
their Occupation — Reasons for a Tour in the Interior — Cause of
Disorders in Syria — Religion and Nationality — Orthodox and
Schismatic Greeks — Maronites — Druses — Sketch of the Maronites
— Their Country — A happy Valley — Nessaris— Metoualis — Isma-
liens — Their Pagan Rites — Religion of the Druses — Their Fa-
naticism- Start on a Tour — Zachle — It is sacked by Druses
and Turks — An Orthodox Village of Anti-Libanus — We cross
the Anti-Libanus — Character of Syria — The Ard Zebdani — The
Valley of the Barada, or ancient Abana — Its Charms — The Khan
of Damar — Arrival in Damascus — Strolls and Visits — The Chris-
tian Quarter — History of the Massacres — Loss of Life and Pro-
perty — Visits to the Seraskier and Pasha Governor — His Conversa-
tion — The Hadj — The Minister of Police — Citadel of Damascus
— The Grand Mosque, or ancient Church of St. John the Baptist
— Interior of the Mosque — Fanatic Arabs — Tombs of St. John
and of Ali, Grandson of Mahomet — The Pilgrimages of our Guide
• — The Minaret — The Tower — Visit to an Arab Gentleman — His
House — The Bedouin Chaik, Mohammed Duki — The rival
'Chiefs — Policy of Turkish Government — Mohammed Duki in his
real Character — Pilgrimages — Deceptions on Pilgrims ~ Return —
The Ain Fidji — Baalbec — Ruins — The modern Village — Our
Visitors — Interest of the Valley of Ccele-Syria — We recross the
Lebanon — The Cedars — Maronite Valley —Tripoli — Return to
Beyrout.
PHE town and roadstead of Beyrout on June 5, 1861,
L presented a very animated appearance. A large
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 343
French fleet of transports and men-of-war was waiting
to take on board the army of occupation. Six English
line-of-battle ships and frigates, five Russian vessels of
war, and a Turkish squadron were there to witness the
embarkation. The old town had been completely
transformed by its visitors. Notices in the French
language directed the stranger to the different bureaux
cV administration, and French names pointed out innu-
merable cafes, restaurants, and cabarets. Eagged,
half-naked Arab gamins clung to the skirts of the
stranger's coat as he landed, screaming bon jour and
bakshish in a breath. From the ' Grrande Place,' the
omnibusses of a French company were conveying
passengers every few minutes to a wood of cedars, which
had been planted a century ago by the Emir Fakr-el-din
to prevent the sand of the downs from choking the
green mulberry plantations. In this wood, which had
been their camp, the few remaining troops were pack-
ing up their chattels. The larger camp in the moun-
tains had been abandoned some days before, and its
men were now crowding the jetties in the order of
embarkation. On June 17, the date of General
Beaufort's departure, the only French soldiers remaining
were the few unfortunate inmates of the military
hospital.
The departure of the French troops took place,
according to French newspapers, amid the tears of a
mourning population : let me add also, amid the exe-
344 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
crations of the Mussulmans, and the wailings of many-
hundred women who had amused the leisure of the
red-breeched sons of Mars. Yet the occupation by the
French was one of order and humanity, and their
influence should have broken down many of those pre-
judices which blind Orientals to the civilisation of the
West. But so stubborn, so unimpressionable are the
people of these lands, that as soon as the external
stimulus is removed, they return, like the sea after
a storm, to their old insensibility and apathy. No
sooner had the last company departed, than the Turkish
authorities began to sweep away all traces of their
presence — many of which, indeed, were no great honour
to our civilisation. The low grog and wine shops were
closed ; the police rooted out the dens of abandoned
men and women who had only been tolerated as long as
the troops remained. Beyrout soon reassumed the look
of former days ; and the Frank in Syria was once more
a page in history.
No time seemed fitter than the present for making a
tour through those districts which had lately been the
scenes of so many political and sectarian murders. It
was said, indeed, that the departure of the French
would be the signal for fresh atrocities ; that skilful
agents were ready to excite them in order to render a
second occupation necessary, and to raise a howl of in-
dignation throughout Europe against that Grovernment
which had been instrumental in putting an end to the
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 345
first. But in the moral as in the physical world there
is generally a lull after an outburst of passion ; besides,
Fuad Pasha was there, and he knew too well the
hazards of a second occupation not to do all in his
power to prevent it.
^ Our nation,' said an Arab gentleman to me in
conversation —
' Your nation ! ' I replied with some surprise ; ' what
nation is that ? '
* Orthodox,' he replied ; and his answer is the clue to
all the disturbances and fermentations in the country.
Putting aside the Druses and other Mahometan sects,
the Christians of the same blood and language, who
live in the same village and observe the same traditions,
make their religion their nationality. The three sects
are the Maronites, the Orthodox, and the Schismatic
Greeks.* Each of them, and with apparent cause, con-
siders itself and its interests under the protection of
some European potentate — the Maronites, or Eoman
Catholics, and the Schismatic Greeks becoming almost
* Orthodox Greek, looking up to the Patriarch of Constantinople as
chief of the Church ; Schismatic Greek, having the same liturgy as the
others, but acknowledging the supremacy of the Eoman Pontiff. Many
of the Greek Schismatic bishops took part in the famous canonisation of
the Japanese martyrs at Eome. If the French clerical journals are to
be believed, Roman proselytism is everwhere crowned with success in the
East. The Bulgarians, en masse, became Schismatics in 1861-2, owing
to the vexations of the Byzantine clergy. In 1862, among the Islands,
several thousand Orthodox, with their priests, went over to the Church
of Eome. — Journal des Debats, July 1862.
346 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
the partisans of the French Emperor; the Orthodox,
those of the Eussian Tsar. Even the Druses are fully-
persuaded that they are protected by the British Grovern-
ment, and so become its partisans.* Unfortunately,
travellers, both official and private, do much to strengthen
these ideas in the native mind, forgetting that such sec-
tarian favour has a most debasing influence in fostering
prejudices which it should be the duty of every Eux'o-
pean, if possible, to remove.
The Maronites derive their name from one of those
Syrian monks who, in the sixth century, buried their
austerity in the holes and caverns of their mountains.
At a later period, another monk, who assumed the name
and dogmas of the former, was consecrated a bishop by
the Eoman Patriarch of Antioch, and became the chief
of a military schism against Constantinople. He and
his followers settled themselves in the gorges of the
Lebanon, whence for some time they opposed the inroads
of the Arab conquerors. Of the Crusaders they were
alternately the allies and enemies. When Selim II,
conquered Syria, the Maronites and Druses were the
best of friends ; thus united, they long preserved their
independence. But the Turkish policy long ago severed
those bonds of union, and has now nearly subdued both
peoples.
* See reports of Messrs. Eobson and Grraham, missionaries, in Govern-
mtnt despatches. To both these gentlemen the Druses declared that
they looked on themselves as doing a pleasing act to their friends, the
English, in extirpating the Christians, i. e. French influence.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 347
The Maronites inhabit chiefly the slopes of the Leba-
non between Tripoli and Beyrout. South of Beyrout to
St. Jean d'Acre, and in the interior from Mount Hermon
to the once-fruitful Haouran, are to be found the strong-
holds of the Druses. Between the two the villages are
composed of mixed Druses and Christian sectarians.
But the chief home of the Maronites is in that large
and remarkable valley which extends like a funnel from
the sea-shore at Tripoli to the snow above the cedars of
Lebanon. Many -villages are here seen in spots which
seem wholly inaccessible. Perched on the borders of
ravines, and within pistol-shot of one another, they are
separated by hours of toilsome march. Monasteries
overhang frightful chasms. The stony mountain sides
and gorges are built up into narrow terraces, where
vines, with rich crops of grain and inviting fruit trees,
everywhere refresh the eye. Eude aqueducts bring
down from unfailing sources the water which, regularly
distributed in every direction, keeps up the appearance
of perpetual spring. Nowhere except in Japan, where
the mountains are terraced to their summits, have I seen
such a picture of cultivation under difficulties as among
these valleys of the Lebanon. Monks may be seen
working in their common possessions. The small pro-
prietor, surrounded by his sons and daughters, is hoeing
his patrimony of mulberry trees or vines ; or, reclining
beneath the shade of a sycamore tree, is enjoying with
them their frugal meal. Such is a poetical glimpse of
348 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
life in this most beautiful of valleys. But, side by side
with their praiseworthy industry, the Maronites have
vices which, though only the necessary effects of oppres-
sion, leave the worst impression on the stranger. They
are mean, cowardly, cunning, avaricious, and besotted
with bigotry. Their hospitality is a niggardly calculation
on the generosity of their guest, and they are the most
confirmed beggars in the world. From the cedars to the
sea-shore the tourist is pestered for alms by people who
are ten thousand times better off than the peasants of
his own country. His presence is a signal to everybody —
monk, man, woman, and child — to throw down their im-
plements of husbandry, and hold out a hand for charity.
A handful of green barley for your horse, the first flower
that comes to hand, or, as was once offered to me, a
sprig of hemlock, afford an excuse and an apology for
their importunate demands. Even the very dogs seem
to howl bakshish at your horse's heels. Wherever the
Druses and Maronites came into contact, the latter threw
down their guns and fled to the fastnesses or the sea-
shore. In fact, they suffered much less than the other
sects of Christians, who sometimes endeavoured to de-
fend themselves and their property.
The tribes which profess, or pretend to profess, the
Moslem faith, are the Druses, the Nessaris, and the
Metoualis, who are sectarians of Ali. Among all these,
there is mixed up with Islamism much of the ancient
paganism of the country. A sect of the Nessaris, called
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 349
the Ismaliens, still practise the rites of the old Phoeni-
cian adoration of Priapus or Astarte. 'The Druses,'
says Volney, who saw much of them at the end of the
last century, ' exhibit a wonderful facility of belief in
religious matters. Some of them believe in Metem-
psychosis ; others adore the sun, moon, and stars ; every
one follows his own religious ideas, which, from their
manner of life, are of the greatest simplicity. So little
bigotry have they, that among the Turks they act like
Mussulmans, prostrate themselves in the mosques, and
perform ablutions. If among the Maronites, they follow
them to church, and cross themselves with the conse-
crated water. Some, importuned by missionaries, have
allowed themselves to be baptized ; then, requested by
the Turk, have submitted to the rite of circumcision,
and have died at last neither Christians nor Moslems.'
The Metoualis, who formerly inhabited the great valley
of Lebanon, are the most fanatic of all Mussulmans ;
but they number now only a few tribes, having been
almost exterminated by Djezzar Pasha in 1790.
The Druses, and some of the Grreek Christians, are
undoubtedly among the noblest races of the mountain.
Even their vices seem more amiable, because free from
the low taint of meanness and cowardice. Their pride
is the fitting dignity of independence, and their simple
hospitality is given without a second thought. A Druse
may plunder you, but he will never implore your cha-
rity. When once he has given you his word, his life is
350 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
guarantee for yours. The worst crimes with which they
are reproached arise from that deep resentment of inju-
ries, which, however repugnant to Christian ethics, has
descended to them from their forefathers, and which
many people regard as meritorious when they read of it
in the Books of Moses or of the Kings. Chief actors in
the late atrocious deeds, the Druses were but tools in
the hands of the Turkish authorities,* and would have
been their victims ako if a just hand had not intervened
to save them from indiscriminate slaughter. By these
acts they have done much to rivet their fetters. Their
strongholds have been occupied by Turkish troops, and
their character has been vilified over all Europe. As to
the Christian tribes, they have now obtained from the
Porte a sort of autonomy; and perhaps, for the future the
Government will understand that its first duty is to
protect the persons and property of all classes of its
subjects, of whatever race or creed. It is, however, a
slender hope, for Islam i^i knows nothing of tolerance,
which can only exist in Turkey under a sort of hydraulic
pressure from without. The Mussulman Arabs are
fearful fanatics, and so are the Christian sects. The
duty of the Government is to subdue the fanaticism of
both. A strong body of police is needed every Easter
at Jerusalem to prevent Christian fanatics of different
sects from dyeing the stones of the Holy Sepulchre with
* Such was the verdict of the Commissioners of the Powers, assembled
at Beyrout.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 351
each other's blood ; the same police might be usefully
employed in towns where Mussulmans and Christians
are found living together. Tolerance among these fa-
natics can be sincere only when steam, the railroad, and
the printing-press become common among them, or
when the whole country shall have fallen under some
European and Christian domination.
Our proposed tour lay over the beaten track of a
thousand preceding travellers. But the circumstances
of the time may render a sketch of it not uninstructive
to the reader. It was a half-official journey and a plea-
sure tour combined. Our party consisted of Admiral
Shestakov, the Eussian consul, and a few other gentle-
men, with the usual train of servants, moukres^ horses,
mules, and donkeys bearing tents, hampers, &c. A
small guard of dragoons had been added by the Grovernor
of Beyrout. As the new French road from Beyrout to
Damascus over the Lebanon was only completed for
about fifteen miles from Beyrout, we drove over this
distance to the station where our horses were awaiting us.
Six hours' riding brought us to Zahle Zachle, situ-
ated on the eastern slo|)e of the Lebanon. It is one
of the largest of the Christian villages, and was among
the greatest sufferers in the late disturbaUiCes.* This
village was always noted for the turbulence of its
inhabitants, and Volney relates that a hundred years
* Damascus, Zachle, Sidon, Dair el Kamar, Easheya, and Hasbeya,
were the chief centres of the massacres.
352 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
ago it was the head-quarters of a large gang of coiners.
Before the massacres it numbered 15,000 souls, and
could bring 3,000 guns (i.e. all the able-bodied male
population) to bear against an enemy. When the
Druses first attacked it, they were driven back with
some loss, and it was only on* their second attempt,
when the inhabitants had given up their arms under
promise of protection from the Turks, and when they
saw the uniforms of soldiers and a piece of artillery
among their assailants, that the two bishops with their
flocks fled to the mountain. The place was then
pillaged, and the roofless and gutted houses were still
much as the Druses had left them.
On the green sward of a hillock overhanging the
village we found our tents pitched and dinner ready ;
after which, in the cool and mellow twilight, under the
soothing charm of chibouks and navguiUs, audience
was given to the Orthodox and Schismatic bishops and
the ancients of the village. The next morning, ac-
companied by the two bishops, who brothered each
other in every phrase (and it is to be hoped acted up to
their language), we rambled among the broken-down
hovels, watching the inhabitants making their sun-
dried bricks of mud and chopped straw, much in the
same manner, probably, as the children of Israel made
theirs for Egyptian masters. The rest of the day was
spent on the carpets of the Orthodox bishop's dwelling
(which consisted of only one room), partly in solemn
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 353
conclave with the clergy and chief men, listening to the
lamentable but somewhat exaggerated tale of their
sufferings, and making arrangements that the money
we brought should be distributed in the most equitable
manner. When business was over, we partook of the
cheer, good for the time and place, of our host. For
the benefit of those who have never dined in an Arab
family in Syria, I may mention that our dinner con-
sisted of tiny pieces of mutton or goat's flesh roasted on
a skewer, from which we gnawed it, pilafs of rice
prepared with fat from the enormous tails of the Syrian
sheep, sour clotted milk, and stinking goat's milk
cheese. The bread, as eaten in the East, consists of
large unleavened pancakes of meal, which at the same
time serve as table-cloths, plates, and napkins. But the
limpid water, the aromatic moka, and the white com-
pressed snow from the summits of Lebanon floating in
bowls of delicious sherbet, were real luxuries.
Having crossed the plains of Bequaa to a miserable
orthodox village on the slope of the Anti-Libanus, we sat
down beneath its only shady tree on a few ragged carpets,
spread for us by their still more ragged owners. There
were only a few wretched hovels, the roofs of which
were covered with the dried dung fuel burnt in this
country. Scarcely a fruit tree was left; and a few
half-starved and moping goats and fowls seemed the
only riches of the inhabitants, who had fled on the
approach of^the Druses. Having left them suitable
354 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
assistance, we went on our way over the Anti-Libanus,
through a singular scene of natural desolation. The
limestone rocks on either side of the pass had been torn
and split into a thousand fantastic figures, here shape-
less or deformed, there resembling castellated towers,
gothic decorations, or fine-pointed minarets. One
enormous fragment of rock, detached from the moun-
tain, looked like the figure of a woman, with drooping
head and hand raised to her cheek, weeping over the
desolation around. On the top of the ridge the view
changed, and the eye looked down on that beautiful
Alpine valley, the Ard Zebdani, lying surrounded by hot
and tawny rocks, like a huge emerald in a setting of fire.
Syria is, indeed, a land of sudden and remarkable
contrasts. In the morning the pilgrim may be gasping
among sandy plains in a haze of heat, and gazing at the
mirage and wonderful phenomena of refraction among
the surrounding mountains ; and at noon, he may be
inhaling the cool air on the summit of that range on
whose beauties the great lawgiver of the Jews sighed in
vain to look before he closed his eyes.* As his horse's
hoofs crunch the crisp snow, he may look down on one
side on the grey hazy space of the desert of sand, while
on the other the eye ranges over the blue ' desert of
waters,' f where ocean and firmament are imperceptibly
* Deuteronomy iii. 25.
t When the Bedouins first came in sight of the Mediterranean at Gaza,
they called the sea the desert of waters. ♦
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 355
blended together. Again, struggling through some
dreary gorge amid the terrible monuments of volcanic
strife, he suddenly emerges on the green oasis of a
mountain spring, round which is a tiny Eden. Here
the eye grows dazzled and dim, and the head weary
from the glare of the precipices which bound the
valley; a little farther, and the eye reposes on the
refreshing verdure of fruit trees, luxuriantly thriving
amid the cool waters of torrents, fountains, and cascades.
The wild and hournoused Arab of the plain, the still
wilder kerchiefed mountaineer, ride proudly by on their
prouder steeds ; a few more minutes bring the sober
merchant or the patient husbandman on the beloved
mare, the sharer of his caresses with his wife and family.
From a village threshold the white close- muffled figure
of a Mussulman female will flee to the dark interior at
his approach; while the half-naked Christian maiden
will smile as he stops at her parent's door, and present
him her offering of cool water or of fruit. In no other
country that I can mention is there such a sublime
contrast in nature, such a degrading contrast in man.
The inhabitants of the village of Zebdani are chiefly
Mussulman Arabs ; the Christians numbered only eighty
'guns,' who were decoyed to Damascus, and on their
return found that their houses had been sacked by their
neighbours or the Druses.
Owing to its elevation, fertility, and distribution of
waters, the Ard Zebdani is one of the pleasantest spots
356 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
in all Syria. The village itself is completely lost in
gardens of fruit trees, while at each end of the valley
are open cornfields or well-irrigated pastures. Between
the two we pitched our tents for the night.
From this valley to Damascus the path follows the
winding course of the Barada or ancient Abana, which,
leaping down from the high land in a series of cascades,
passes by many branches through the city, and is
absorbed in the desert beyond. The ride is one of the
finest that can be imagined. At the entrance of the
Suk Barada, or defile, are the remains of two Koman
bridges, spanning a cascade, with some traces of the old
Roman road. A little farther, and high up in the
rocks, are some remarkable holes, which, having first
served as sepulchres, became afterwards the abodes of
hermits, and are now the home of bats and birds
unclean. Just below these the broken columns of a
temple are scattered about the defile. From this pass
the traveller emerges into a lovely valley, winding along
between the grey and yellow, the steep and naked
precipices, which, whether sun-lit or overshadowed, are
for ever varying their tints. Tall poplars and larch, the
drooping willow and the sycamore, gardens of orange-
trees, mulberries, and pomegranates, and, still more
conspicuous, the golden mishmush* mark the course of
the torrent. Beyond these on either side is a fringe of
* The apricot. There are twenty species of this fruit known in Syria,
the stone of one of which is much esteemed for its flavour and perfume.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 357
vineyards. The tumbling water sparkles through the
green foliage at every step, and where it is not seen, its
presence is felt by its never-failing music. Art has
everywhere assisted nature in beautifying this valley,
and a whole network of aqueducts robs the volume of
every waterfall. To a mind never insensible to the
fixed or fleeting charms of nature in every clime, a ride
through this valley on a cool day in June was invigo-
rating and refreshing ; and though not given to ecstasy,
I must confess that the reality here presented far ex-
ceeded any poetical description. It seems the more
beautiful, perhaps, from its contrasts with surrounding
objects.
On reaching the Khan of Damar, an hour's ride from
Damascus, we found a troop of cavalry, sent by the
pasha, awaiting our arrival. Preceded by this guard
of honour, we mounted the last hill, from which is
obtained that remarkable bird's-eye view of the oasis of
El Cham, its city, and the surrounding desert, which,
although described already a thousand times in a thou-
sand ways, it is hard to refrain from describing yet again.
As we entered the city, a salute was fired from the
citadel; but the welcome offered by a Turkish bath,
with a comfortable bed in the only Frankish hotel of the
place, was much more grateful, and of these luxuries
we availed ourselves without delay.
Damascus is, par excellence, the country of fruits and roses, quantities of
which are exported thence for Constantinople.
358 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
Our stay in the capital of Syria was short — only four
days. Yet in that short time we saw all that strangers
with the best introductions could see. Old Abraham
Abou, whom many tourists will probably remember,
showed us a few Jewish interiors, where Oriental luxury
was seen in all its soft splendour, and led us one or two
strolls through the interminable bazaars and narrow
lanes of the Moslem city. But of course it was the
Christian quarter which chiefly attracted our attention.
Acres of ground, where a few months before had stood
the dwellings of a peaceful population, were covered
now with naked walls and heaps of rubbish. The scared
inhabitants had fled to the sea-coast, and there only
remained in Damascus the dregs of the Christian popu-
lation. Between the gutted walls of churches and
richer houses, broken fountains, columns, and arabesques
were protruding from masses of plaster and dust. On the
walls of the church the grotesque pictures of virgin and
saint bore marks of insult from mud and bullets. In a
hundred different places about this quarter some rude
artist had drawn something which was meant for a steam-
ship on four wheels, from the yard-arms of which hung
figures with drooping heads, wearing the Turkish fez.
The drawing probably intimated the punishment which
the murderers were likely to receive from their Christian
friends beyond sea. The solid cavern-like shops of the
smaller tradespeople had resisted the fury of the assail-
ants. The fountains were all choked up and dry. To
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 359
heighten the desolation still more by the contrast, some
trees which had been spared were blooming, and a few
flowers had sprung up on the ruins.
The manner in which the massacre began was described
to me by an eye-witness. Long before, there had been
rumours of the rapine and murder perpetrated in the
mountain, and the timid Christian population felt very
much as sheep would do who were herding with wolves.
Oval figures, with a cross in the middle, were found
chalked on the doors of many of the Christians. The
traders in the bazaar had amused themselves by inciting
their children to draw on the pavement crosses, which
they spat on and effaced with their feet on the approach
of any Christian. On the 8th July, 1860, two children
amusing themselves in this manner were suddenly ar-
rested by the Turkish police, roughly handled, and put
in prison. This, it is confidently asserted, was done
only to excite the fanatical mob. At all events, it
had that effect, for the mob easily released the children,
and then immediately bore away with shouts of rage to
the Christian quarter, situated about three minutes from
the bazaar. The Turkish guard not only failed to pre-
vent the massacre and pillage which immediately began,
but even encouraged, aided, and abetted the murderers.
The superior authorities, it is known, took no steps for
several days to stop the fearful tragedy, but even pre-
vented the approach of those who would have done so.
For this negligence or connivance the governor after-
360 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
wards paid the penalty with his life, being condemned
and shot in the citadel. On the fourth day, Ismael
Atrash, with his Druses of the Haouran, entered the
place, and completed the destruction and plunder.
When Abd-el-Kader arrived with his Arabs, he saved
all he could ; among others the French Sisters of Cha-
rity. About 3,000 men were killed. One English
missionary received eleven wounds before he died. The
Eussian . dragoman, the brother of our guide, was mis-
taken for the consul, and killed. No women or children
perished in Damascus from actual violence ; their por-
tion of grief, want, and suffering was reserved for the
future. Twelve hundred houses were destroyed, one of
which, with its contents, was valued at two millions of
piastres. The whole loss of the Christians in the city
and mountain, estimated by themselves, amounted to no
less than 400 millions of piastres, or about 3,200,000^.*
Two Arab merchants, who had been spectators only of
the massacre, assured me of what is now well known,
that the mob would never have proceeded to such extre-
mities, if they had not been convinced that they were
forwarding the views of the Turkish authorities.
* An amusing incident of the valuation of losses was told me. Fuad
Pasha, on referring to the lists of taxation, found that the whole value of
the Christians' property, as declared by themselves, amounted to little
more than half the sum which they professed to have lost. He declared
tliat having so long made false returns to cheat the Government, he
would keep them to their first valuation. It seems, however, that thirty
millions of francs was decided on by the commission, and accepted by
Fuad Pasha, as the indemnity ; but not half this sum was ever paid.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHEISTIAN MASSACRES. 361
One day was set apart for our visits to the Pasha
Governor, the Seraskier, and bishops. The Seraskier,
whom we visited first, was an old soldier, who had
commanded a division on the Danube during the late
war. All the troops which had been in Damascus at
the time of the massacres had been changed, he said,
and more disciplined regiments had taken their place.
At that time there were three battalions in the city, and
6,000 men camped in various parts of the mountain.
Amin Pasha, the governor, we found to be a young
Turk, educated in Paris, who had made the round of
European Courts, and whose Oriental nature had received
a good coating of European civilisation. As he spoke
French fluently, we had a conversation of more than two
hours over our pipes and coffee, chiefly on the state of
the country, and, to judge from his remarks, his mind
was everything that was liberal and reforming. ' Under
his rule,' he said, ^ it would be dangerous to attempt any
such horrors as stained that of his unfortunate prede-
cessor.' He had that day been despatching a detachment
of troops, with stores of biscuit, oil, and fruits, to meet
the Had] or sacred caravan on its return from the Holy
City, where the pilgrims had been celebrating the feast
of Bairam. ' The expense which attended these Hadj,'
said the pasha, ' was enormous. The one for that year
had cost twenty millions of piastres. Few pilgrims now
joined it, except those who combined commerce with
their devotional visit ; the great body of pilgrims pre-
362 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
ferring the easier route by sea and through Egypt.
Although the pilgrimage had fallen into comparative
disuse, it was impossible for the Grovernment either to
stop or diminish the grant, which might be much more
usefully spent in paying the arrears due to the troops
and the civil authorities.' *
We were very anxious to visit the interior of the
Grand Mosque. After some hesitation, the pasha
consented and ordered the Police Minister, who was
present, to accompany us. This person, an old man of
a remarkably astute and cunning countenance, who by
his familiarity might have been the favourite, by his
fawning the slave, of his master, rose up immediately,
said something in Turkish, which I suppose was, ' To
hear is to obey,' kissed the hand or robe of the pasha,
and signified to us that he was at our service. ' Allez,'
said the pasha with a smile to the admiral, who was
seated next him, * Allez, ce garpon-la a de I'ambition.'
Whatever may have been his ambition, he was certainly
a shrewd and cunning rascal, who, had he lived a century
ago, might have played with some success the part of
slave, flatterer, spy, betrayer, executioner, and successor
of his master. ' Beware of thy neighbour,' says the Arab
* A comparison will show how this Hadj is changing its route to Mecca.
In 1757 the Bedouins plundered the caravan, when 6,000 pilgrims were
slain or dispersed, the women being carried into captivity. In 1860 only
twenty pilgrims from Syria joined the Hadj. In 1861 there were none
at all.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 363
proverb, ' who has made one Hadj ; if he has made two,
leave all thou hast and get thee away from near him.'
Now our guide prided himself on having made three
Hadj, and must have been a dangerous companion if
there is any truth in the maxim.
From the residence of the pasha he led us into the
citadel through a gateway which had been walled up
for more than eight hundred years, and only just re-
opened. In the courtyard of this fortress some hundreds
of destitute Christian families had found a refuge during
the massacres. The ancient Christian Church of St.
John, now the Grreat Mosque, is so completely sur-
rounded with buildings that it is impossible to obtain
any complete view of its external architecture. So
jealous were the Arabs of the admission of any Giaour,
that a firman from Constantinople was necessary to
obtain an entrance. In 1856 a Frenchman was nearly
killed for attempting to enter it. At the present mo-
ment there is less difficulty, and a large bribe will over-
come any opposition either here or at Jerusalem and
other holy places, which are interesting alike to Chris-
tian and Mahometan pilgrims. As we shuffled about
the interior, with the yellow Turkish slippers put on
over our boots, we had a few sullen looks from some of
the most fanatical worshippers, who, however, stood
aloof and greeted us with only a growl or two. Some
younger fanatics were much bolder. They kept close
to our sides, and now and then, when none of our guides
364 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
were looking, favoured us with a few significant grimaces,
until one of them, caught in the act, received such a
whack from one of the police as sent him howling away.
This example had the effect of keeping his mischievous
companions at a distance during the rest of our visit.
In the interior of the mosque there still remain, in
spite of long neglect, many vestiges of its ancient splen-
dour, especially the fragments of pictorial mosaic along
the walls of the courtyard, and the marbles and tesse-
lated pavement of the body of the mosque. But the
edifice is chiefly interesting as containing the supposed
tombs of St. John the Baptist and the unhappy Ali, son
of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet. The tomb of the
former is in the body of the mosque, standing out from
the wall, and covered over with a monument; that of
Ali is in a small apartment at one end of the building.
In the corridor outside is a marble slab, embedded in
the wall, with the name and qualities of the dead in-
scribed on it. Just inside the adjoining door is the
stone sarcophagus containing the body. The only other
things in the cell are two small and coarsely-coloured
drawings, one representing the sacred place at Mecca,
the other the Prophet's Tomb at Medina. Here our
guide related to us how he had made his difficult pil-
grimages, and pointed out in the pictures the spots where
he had adored. After this he led us up the winding
staircase of the Great Minaret, from which there is a
magnificent view of the city, with the surrounding desert
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 365
and mountains. On descending he called our attention
to the walls of the tower, covered from top to bottom
with names in Arabic characters, and explained the
popular belief that the Prophet Jesus Christ will one
day pass down from heaven through that minaret, when
all whose names are found written on the wall will be
transferred to Paradise. How they whose names become
effaced would fare, he did not say ; for the scribblings
of many a generation have been effaced by the scribbling
of those which have followed them. After spending
about an hour in this interesting building, we proceeded
to pay our visit to the bishops.
Two or three of the most instructive hours of our
stay in Damascus were passed on the carpets of Mo-
hammed Aga Nouri. His dwelling was situated in the
most ill-famed part of the city, where, as the Arab
proverb declares, the inhabitants also bear the worst of
characters. Yet in this district, though thickly settled
with Christians, not a single murder took place. The
Mussulmans there seemed to have spared their immediate
neighbours, while massacring the Christians in other
parts of the city. Our host had justly rendered himself
an object of esteem to all Europeans, by having saved,
concealed, and succoured more than one hundred Chris-
tians. The large saloon of his house, whose ^ beams
were of cedar and its rafters of fir wood,' was hung with
the rich tapestry and brocade, for the manufacture of
which the city was once so famous. On these hangings
366 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
were suspended curious groups of guns and pistols,
richly wrought sabres and daggers. Low divans were
fixed around the walls, and on the floor in the centre
were soft cushions of silk, among which we reclined,
inhaling through rich amber and jessamine the fumes
of the best of Latakia, and listening to another account
of the fatal days of July. Presently a personage still
more interesting joined our party. This was Moham-
med Duki, a Bedouin Chaik, the lord of a district of
vilages around Damascus, who, it was said, could bring
5,000 guns into the field. He, too, had been a great
protector of the Christians : indeed, many hundreds of
his tribe, he said, were Christians themselves. He was
already approaching the city with a body of his followers
to protect them, when he was met by a battalion of in-
fantry, the commander of which ordered him back to
bis village. His only alternative would have been to
have forced his way through them ; but, not knowing
how matters really were, he dared not resist the order,
and so retired.
Like most of the chiefs of his race, Mohammed Duki
was frail in person, of swarthy face, with small, sparkling,
unsteady black eyes peering out from the folds of his
kerchief; his one hand (the other had been cleanly
amputated by a sabre-cut) and naked feet were small
and delicate, and although well tanned were exquisitely
clean, with the nails neatly cut and trimmed ; his de-
meanour was full of vivacity ; his arms graceful in action
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 367
while speaking, and his speech calm and well accentu-
ated, sometimes quickening into a tremor as he related
some of the wrongs he had suifered from a rival or from
the Turkish Grovernment. His object in coming to
Damascus, he told us, was to make terms with and pro-
pitiate the pasha, who had been incensed against him
by his old foe, Ismael Atrash, the Druse chief of the
Haouran. The chaik and Ismael were the two most
powerful men in the pashalic, and continually in feud
one against the other. Ismael Atrash had been per-
suading the pasha and seraskier that the power of
Mohammed Duki was too great, and that it was the
interest of the Turkish Government to lower his in-
fluence by dividing the villages and tribes under his
command, or by dispossessing him altogether of his
chaikship, which had been inherited in his family for
more than 300 years. Mohammed Duki, who had
brought 3,000 Arabs with him into the city, had that
day had an interview with the pasha, to whom he
offered his services to annihilate the Druses altogether.
What the result of such extraordinary proposals was,
does not appear ; it is probable that the wily pasha left
each party to meditate on his reputed wrongs ; receiv-
ing with many thanks their presents and offers of service,
and secretly resolving to lower the pride and the power
of both. It has always been the policy of the Tiu-kish
Grovernment, in its remote pashalics, to untie the bundle
of sticks by sowing and fostering discord, and then to
368 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
crush them one after another when they have suffici-
ently weakened themselves. In doing this it is very
patient, but the result is infallible. The Osmanli catch
hares in carts is an Arab proverb, which well explains
the Turkish policy.
Mohammed Duki had seen much of Europeans, and
seemed to seek their society, for he fully understood the
influence exercised by them on the Turkish authorities.
He had lately been on board the great ships of the
English at Beyrout, and longed to pay a visit to the land
from which they came ; but he could not face the risk
of leaving his country exposed to the intrigues of his
enemies. Yet he would come to Beyrout once more to
see his friend, the admiral ; and, as he said this, he took
off his head-dress and presented it to Admiral Shestakov,
as a token of the sincerity with which he would perform
the promise. Four thousand years ago a patriarch
would have taken off his sandal, and presented it as a
pledge under similar circumstances. The naked-footed
Bedouin chief offered his head-dress instead. Moham-
med Duki was the first and only specimen of those
interesting men that we had the good fortune to see ;
for our tour ended on the borders of the desert, where
they dwell, as their fathers did before them, in all the
simplicity and insecurity of primaeval times,beneath their
camel-hair tents beside the scanty stream of the oasis.*
* Such was the Bedouin chief in contact with cirilisation, and on his
best behaviour. Let us look at him in his native desert and natural
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 369
El Cham, or Damascus, was the terminus of our
journey. Before leaving, we, like good Christians,
made a sort of pilgrimage to certain places of historical
repute in the early days of our religion, such as the
street called Straight, the Via Eecta of the Romans, the
spot where St. Paul is said to have been let down from
the walls in a basket, and the house where he tarried
while awaiting his Divine commission. There is, of
course, nothing remarkable in any of these, beyond the
memories that are associated with them. The Straight
street, like all other streets in oriental towns, is narrow,
filthy, and full of little shops : the other places it would
be much more satisfactory to visit if the topography
could be more relied on. Tradition and the intense
reverence of orientals for the great men of old time,
together with priestly cupidity, have found many a local
habitation for the names which they love to recall.
Travellers in Syria may have pointed out to them
tivo exact spots, where Jonas was cast out from a fish's
character. In the report of Mr. Skene (August 1860), H.B.M. Consul at
Aleppo, we read that Mohammed Duki, at the head of 2,000 horsemen of
the tribe of Beni-Sachar, had just before devastated and unpeopled
twenty-five villages in one incursion alone. He goes on to say, that in a
large fertile district near Aleppo, which twenty years ago possessed 100
villages, there are now only a few fellahs to be seen ; that he had passed
over towns in the desert, having well paved streets and houses stiU in
good repair, but totally uninhabited ; that thousands of acres of land,
showing signs of former irrigation and extensive culture, now hardly
afford a scanty bite to the Bedouin's sheep or camels. So much for the
civilisation of Mohammed Duki and his fellows.
B B
370 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
belly ; * they may walk over the arena of the terrible con-
flict between St. Greorge and the dragon ; may stand on
several spots where the ark rested ; behold the actual
tomb of the patriarch Noah ; bathe in the very part of
the Jordan where Christ was baptized. It is the same,
though in a less degree, with places where events of a
less spiritual character have occurred, as every visitor of
' show places ' may have remarked, where exact localities
are assigned to events with the most consummate im-
pudence and the smallest possible probability. The
lion-doing tourist should, however, be thankful that
there is a place assigned to them at all.
We retraced our steps along the green banks of the
Abana to its source in the Anti-Libanus, turning a little
aside to visit the Ain Fidji (eye or fountain of Fidji),
with the ruined temple which overhangs it. Baalbec is
one-and-a-half day's easy journey from Damascus. On
our arrival there we found our tents pitched under the
Acropolis, on which are the noble ruins of the Temples
of the Sun and Jupiter. The only other objects of in-
terest are, the circular temple among the hovels of the
modern village, and the Mosque of Saladin, in one corner
of which is shown a tomb, said to be that of the Emir.
The governor of the place, hearing of our arrival, des-
patched the greater part of his garrison to sweep away
the dust and dirt, and to water the space around our
* One near a large stone, a few furlongs from Alexandretta; the other
near Sidon, where a moscjue has been erected oyer the spot.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 371
tents. One of his officers also brought a present of two
sheep. Soon afterwards the governor himself paid us
a visit, as we were lunching under the magnificent
columns of the Temple of Jupiter.
The period during which the mighty foundations of
Baalbec were laid, has, I believe, never been decided by-
antiquarians. That he who built the great Temple at
Jerusalem, * whose foundations were of costly stones,
even of great stones, stones of ten cubits and of eight,
sawed with saws,' may also have laid the foundations
of the Temple of the Sun, whose largest stone measures
in length 69 ft. 2 in., in breadth 12 ft. 10 in., and in
thickness 13 ft. 3 in. — is not at all improbable. The
traditions of the country affirm that he did ; and that
the building he erected was a strong vault for concealing
his gold and precious stones, to find which all the caverns
under the building have been ransacked in vain. Certain
it is that long ages intervened between the laying of those
huge foundations and the erection of the superstructure,
the walls and columns of which excite as much admira-
tion as the former excite surprise. The Mussulman
quarrying material for his mosque, the Christian for his
church ; the Bedouin rudely pulling down whole columns
for the few pounds of lead which cemented their sections;
the bigot destroying for the sake of destruction ; the anti-
quarian disturbing in his pursuit of knowledge; and
lastly, repeated shocks of earthquake have strewn the
area with fragments of the stately temples which once
372 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
rose proudly to the sky. The Cyclopean blocks which
supported them in their splendour are still as they pro-
bably were 3,000 years ago.
The modern village is a miserable collection of hovels,
built like all places in similarly classic positions, with
fragments from the adjoining ruins. In 1861 it contained
about 3,000 inhabitants, partly Metoualis, partly Chris-
tians, besides a garrison of two companies of troops.
During the last century it was a place of much greater
importance, having a population of more than 5,000;
but the terrible earthquake of 1759, and the ensuing
wars between Yousef and the notorious Pasha Djezzar,
left in 1780 only 1,200. During the late massacres the
Turkish garrison acted like the other troops, and its
commander, who was afterwards a member of the
Commission, was expelled from it, as having been an
accomplice of those whom he was called upon to judge.
Our encampment attracted the greater part of the vil-
lage around us. Even the two Mahometan schoolmasters
brought their pupils ; and, seated near us on the banks
of the neighbouring rivulet, with their feet dangling in
the water, they smoked their chibouks; while their
pupils, naked in the stream, jabbered verses of the
Koran between their splashings. A beautiful moon-lit
evening spent in wandering among the ruins, and the next
day occupied in photographing them from their best
points of view, served to fix on our memory the scenes
of the ancient capital of Coele-Syria.
THE LEBANON, AND THE CHRISTIAN MASSACRES. 373
The great interest to a thinking tourist in this ancient
land is, that it was the chief scene of the combat of
Judaism against idolatry. Throughout the earlier books
of Jewish history, this plain of Coele-Syria, or, as it is
there called, the valley of Lebanon, is constantly coupled
with the name of Baal.* There that great dogma of
faith and reason, the sublime ' I am,' stern, unrelenting,
even cruel, but accompanied by law, order, and morality,
came into contact, and struggled through ages with the
fascinating polytheism of Persia and India, which,
despite its poetry, was bloody, corrupt, and frightfully
obscene. How seductive these religions were to the
Jewish people, worn out with toil and hope deferred,
every reader of the Bible well knows. So insinuating
and tenacious must these old religions have been, that
when Deism came forth victorious from the struggle, it
had received from their mysteries a taint which only
another great reform could remove. In like manner
Christianity, in its fight with other forms of the same
polytheism, took an impression from them which fifteen
centuries have not sufficed to wipe out.
From Baalbec we again passed the plain of Bequaa
in a straight line for the Lebanon, to that group of trees
which still represent those ancient cedars out of which
the Phoenician fleets were hewn. Passing a solitary
* 'Baalgad, in the valley of Lebanon' (Josh. xii. 7). 'Baalgad, under
Mount Hermon' (Josh. xiii. 5). 'The Hivites that dwell in mount Le-
banon from Baal Hermon ' (Judges iii. 3).
374 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA.
pillar still erect in the midst of the plain, we soon,
entered the spurs of the mountain. Droves of camels,
on their way to Damascus, laden with ice packed in reeds,
were descending from the summits, where snow still lay-
in abundance. One or two villages of the Metoualis
and Maronites lay on our road, and our noonday halt on
the banks of the pretty mountain lake of Ain Attar was
passed in a long conversation with a Maronite priest,
whose knowledge of the Italian language rendered him
more successful than the rest of his fellows in the art of
begging. On reaching the cedars our tents were already
pitched beside them, and a ragged boy and girl were
waiting, in the hopes of gaining a few piastres, to offer
cones to any enthusiastic traveller who might wish to
reproduce the exact species in his native land. A day's
ride from the cedars down that remarkable valley
inhabited by the Maronites, which I have already
described, brought us to Tripoli, where, having spent
some hours with the bishop and in visiting the female
refugees from Damascus, we embarked on board a gun-
boat and retm-ned to Beyrout, having made one of the
most interesting of tours — a tour which I would
recommend the reader to try when he makes his visit to
these parts.
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