Part 22

It was an animated spectacle, this frozen highway, thronged with peasants who strode beside their sledges which were bringing cotton and other goods from Orenburg to the railway. Now a smart troika would dash by us, its driver shouting as he passed, when our Jehu, stimulating his steeds by loud cries and frequent applications of the whip, would vainly strive to overtake his brother coachman. Old and young alike seemed octogenarians, their short, thick beards and moustaches being white as hoar-frost from the congealed breath.... An iron bridge was being constructed a little farther down the Volga. Here the railroad was to pass, and it was said that in two years' time there would be railway communication, not only between Samara and the capital, but even as far as Orenburg. Presently the scenery became very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuirass beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid mass. Pillars and blocks of the shining and hardened element were seen modelled into a thousand quaint and grotesque patterns. Here a fountain, perfectly formed with Ionic and Doric columns, was reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from the diamond-like stalactites which had attached themselves to its crest. There a huge obelisk, which, if of stone, might have come from ancient Thebes, lay half buried beneath a pile of fleecy snow. Farther on we came to what might have been a Roman temple or vast hall in the palace of a Cæsar, where many half-hidden pillars and monuments erected their tapering summits above the piles of the débris. The wind had done in that northern latitude what has been performed by some violent preadamite agency in the Berber desert. Take away the ebon blackness of the stony masses which have been there cast forth from the bowels of the earth, and replace them on a smaller scale by the crystal forms I have faintly attempted to describe, and the resemblance would be striking....

The road now changed its course, and our driver directed his steeds towards the bank. Suddenly we discovered that immediately in front of us the ice had broken beneath a horse and sleigh, and that the animal was struggling in the water. The river here was fortunately only about four feet deep, so there would not be much difficulty in extracting the quadruped; but what to ourselves seemed far more important was to solve the knotty problem of how to get to land, for between our sleigh and the shore was a wide gulf, and there seemed to be no possibility of driving through it without a wetting. "Pleasant," muttered my companion, "pleasant, very! Let us get out and have a good look round, to see if we cannot find a place where we can get across in safety."

"I will pull you through," observed our Jehu, with a broad grin on his lobster-colored countenance, and apparently much amused with the state of affairs.

"No, oh, son of an animal," retorted my companion; "stay here till we return."

After considerable search we found a spot where the water-channel was certainly not much more than twelve feet across, and some peasants who were fishing in the river came up and volunteered their assistance. One of them produced a pole about eight feet long, with which, he said, we could jump the chasm. My companion looked at me with a melancholy smile, in which resolution and caution struggled for the mastery. "It is very awful," he said, "very awful, but there is no other alternative, and I much fear that we must."

With these words he seized the pole, and carefully inserted one end of it in the muddy bottom. "If the ice gives way when I land on the other side!" he suddenly observed, releasing his hold of the leaping bar. "Why, if it does, you will get a ducking," was my remark: "but be quick; the longer you look at it the less you will like it; and it is very cold standing here: now, then, jump over."

[The corpulent Russian, however, could not bring himself to face the chasm, and preferred the risk of a wetting in being dragged through in the sleigh. Burnaby's turn came, and he chose the pole, piqued thereto by the chaffing remarks of the grinning peasants.]

"How fat they are!" said one. "No, it's their furs," observed another. "How awkward he is!" continued a third; "why, I could jump it myself."--"I tell you what it is, my friend," I at length observed, "if you continue this conversation, I think it very likely you will jump either over or in, for I want to find out the exact distance, and am thinking of throwing you over first, in order to satisfy my mind as to how wide it is, and how deep."

This remark, uttered in rather a sharp tone, had the desired effect, and, seizing the pole convulsively, I prepared for the leap, which, nothing to a man not clad in furs, was by no means a contemptible one in my sleigh attire. One, two, three! a bound, a sensation of flying through the air, a slip, a scramble, and I found myself on the other side, having got over with no more damage than one wet leg, the boot itself being instantly covered with a shining case of ice.

"Come along quick!" cried my friend, who by this time had been dragged through; "let us get on as quickly as possible." And without giving me time to see if my cartridges or other baggage on the bottom of the sleigh had suffered from the ducking, we rattled off once more in the direction of Samara.

[Soon after they reached a stopping-place, changed horses, and were off again, now in a howling wind and falling snow.]

Very soon that so-called "pins-and-needles" sensation, recalling some snow-balling episodes of my boyish days, began once more to make itself felt, and I found myself commencing a sort of double-shuffle against the boards of the vehicle. The snow was falling in thick flakes, and with great difficulty our driver could keep the track, his jaded horses sinking sometimes up to the traces in the rapidly forming drifts, and floundering heavily along the now thoroughly hidden road. The cracks of his whip sounded like pistol-shots against their jaded flanks, and volleys of invectives issued from his lips.

"Oh, sons of animals!" (Whack.)

"Oh, spoiled one!" (Whack.) This to a brute which looked as if he had never eaten a good feed of corn in his life. "Oh, woolly ones!" (Whack! whack! whack!)

"Oh, Lord God!" This, as we were all upset into a snowdrift, the sleigh being three parts overturned, and our Jehu precipitated in the opposite direction.

"How far are we from the next halting-place?" suddenly inquired my companion, with an ejaculation which showed that even his good temper had given way under the cold and our situation.

"Only four versts, one of noble birth," replied the struggling Jehu, who was busily engaged endeavoring to right the half-overturned sleigh. A Russian verst about nightfall, and under such conditions as I have endeavored to point out to the reader, is an unknown quantity. A Scotch mile and a bit, an Irish league, a Spanish legua, or the German stunde, are at all times calculated to call forth the wrath of the traveller, but in no way equal to the first-named division of distance. For the verst is barely two-thirds of an English mile, and when, after driving yet for an hour, we were told there were still two versts more before we could arrive at our halting-place, it began fully to dawn upon my friend that either our driver's knowledge of distance, or otherwise his veracity, was at fault.

At last we reached a long, straggling village, where our horses stopped before a detached cottage. The proprietor came out to meet us at the threshold. "Samovar, samovar!" (urn) said my companion. "Quick, quick! samovar!" and hurrying by him and hastily throwing off our furs, we endeavored to regain our lost circulation beside the walls of a well-heated stove.

In a few minutes, and when the blood had begun once more to flow in its proper channels, I began to look round and observe the other occupants of the room. These were for the most part Jews, as could easily be seen by that peculiarity of the nose which unfailingly denotes any member of the tribe of Israel. Some half-open boxes of wares in the corner also showed their trade. The men were hawkers of fancy jewelry and other finery calculated to please the wives of the farmers or better-to-do peasants in the neighborhood.

The smell was anything but agreeable, and the stench of sheep-skins, unwashed humanity, and some oily cooking going on in a very dirty frying-pan at last caused my companion to inquire if there was no other room vacant. We were shown into a small adjoining apartment, where the smell, though very pungent, was not quite so disagreeable as in the one inhabited by the family.

"This is a little better," muttered my companion, unpacking his portmanteau and taking out a teapot, with two small metal cases containing tea and sugar. "Quick, Tëtka, Aunt!" he cried (this to the old woman of the house), "quick with the samovar!" when an aged female, who might have been any age from eighty to a hundred, for she was almost bent double by decrepitude, carried in a large copper urn, the steam hissing merrily under the influence of the red-hot charcoal embers.

By this time I had unstrapped the mess tins, and was extracting their contents. "Let me be the carver," said my friend, at the same time trying to cut one of the cutlets with a knife; but he might as well have tried to pierce an ironclad with a pea-shooter, for the meat was turned into a solid lump of ice. It was as hard as a brick-bat, and when we tried the bread it was equally impenetrable; in fact, it was only after our provisions had been placed within the stove for about ten minutes that they became in any way eatable.

In the mean time my companion had concocted a most delicious brew, and with a large glass of pale or rather amber-colored tea, with a thin slice of lemon floating on the top, I was beginning to realize how pleasant it is to have been made thoroughly uncomfortable, for it is only after having arrived at this point of misery that you can thoroughly appreciate what real enjoyment is. "What is pleasure?" asked a pupil of his master. "Absence of pain," was the philosopher's answer; and let any one who doubts that a feeling of intense enjoyment can be obtained from drinking a mere glass of tea, try a sleighing journey through Russia with the thermometer at 20° Reaumur and a wind. [20° Reaumur below zero equals -13° Fahrenheit.]

In almost an hour's time we were ready to start, but not so our driver, and to the expostulations of my companion he replied, "No, little father, there is a snow-storm; we might be lost, and I might be frozen. Oh, Lord God! there are wolves; they might eat me; the ice in the river might give way and we might all be drowned. For the sake of God, let us stop here!"

"You shall have a good tea-present" [tip], I observed, "if you will drive us."

"Oh, one of noble birth," was his answer, "we will stop here to-night, and Batooshka, little father, also," pointing to my companion; "but to-morrow we will have beautiful horses, and go like birds to the next station."

It was useless attempting to persuade him. Resigning ourselves to our fate, my companion and self lay down on the planks to obtain what sleep could be found, notwithstanding the noise that was going on in the next room, the Jew peddlers being occupied in trying to sell some of their wares and drive a bargain with the antique mistress of the house.

[We cannot undertake to relate the adventures of our traveller in full, and it will suffice to say that, what with being overturned, lost, and frozen, his whole journey was the reverse of agreeable. He relates an amusing instance of his dealing with the Russians.]

Fortunately, there was a vacant room in the inn, and here I was at once supplied with the smallest of basins and a table napkin. In the mean time I despatched Nazar [his Tartar servant] to the post to desire the inspector to send me three horses immediately. There was no time to lose, and I wanted to hurry forward that afternoon.

Presently my man returned with a joyous countenance, which betokened something disagreeable. In fact, in all countries where I have hitherto travelled human nature, as typified in domestics, is much the same; they invariably look pleased when they have a piece of bad news to impart to their masters.

"What is it?" I asked. "Sleigh broken?"

"No, sir. No horses to be had; that is all. General Kauffmann went through early this morning and took them all. The inspector says you must wait till to-morrow, and that then he will have a team ready for you. It is nice and warm," continued Nazar, looking at the stove. "We will sleep here, little father; eat till we fill our clothes, and continue our journey to-morrow."

"Nazar," I replied, giving my countenance the sternest expression it could assume, "I command; you obey. We leave in an hour's time. Go and hire some horses as far as the next stage. If you find it impossible to obtain any at the station, try and get some from a private dealer; but horses I must have."

In a few minutes my servant returned with a still more joyous countenance than before. The inspector would not send any horses, and no one could be found in the town who was inclined to let his animals out on hire.

There was nothing to be done but to search myself. Nazar had evidently made up his mind to sleep at Orsk. However, I had made up mine to continue the journey.

Leaving the inn, I hailed a passing sleigh, the driver appearing to me to have a more intelligent expression than his fellows. Getting into the vehicle, I inquired if he knew of any one who had horses to hire.

"Yes," was the answer. One of his relatives had some; but the house to which I was driven was shut up, and no one was at home. I began to despair, and think that I should have as much difficulty in obtaining horses at Orsk as I had in procuring a servant at Orenburg.

I now determined to try what gold, or rather silver, would do, and said to the driver, "If you will take me to any one who has horses for hire, I will give you a ruble for yourself."

"A whole ruble!" cried the man, with a broad grin of delight; and, jumping off his seat, he ran to a little knot of Tartars, one of whom was bargaining with the others for a basket of frozen fish, and began to ply them with questions. In a minute he returned, "Let us go," he said; and with a "Burr" (the sound which is used by the Russians to urge on their horses) and a loud crack with his lash, he drove rapidly in another direction.

I had arrived at the outskirts of the town, and we stopped before a dirty-looking wooden cottage.

A tall man, dressed in a long coat reaching to his heels, bright yellow trousers, which were stuffed into a pair of red leather boots, while an enormous black sheep-skin cap covered his head, came out and asked my business. I said that I wanted three horses to go to the next stage, and asked him what he would drive me there for, the regular postal tariff being about two rubles.

"One of noble birth," replied the fellow, "the roads are bad, but my horses will gallop the whole way. They are excellent horses; all the people in the town look at them and envy me. They say, how fat they are! look, how round! The governor has not got any horses like mine in his stable. I spoil them; I cherish them; and they gallop like the wind. The people look, wonder, and admire. Come and see the dear little animals."

"I have no doubt about it. They are excellent horses," I replied; "but what will you take me for?"

"Let us say four rubles, your excellency, and give me one on account. One little whole silver ruble; for the sake of God, let me put it in my pocket, and we will bless you."

"All right," was my answer. "Send the horses to the Tzarskoe Selo Inn immediately."

Presently the fellow rushed into my room, and, bowing to the ground, took off his cap with a grandiose air; then, drawing out the money I had given him from some hidden recess in the neighborhood of his skin, he thrust the ruble into my hand, and exclaimed, "Little father, my uncle owns one of the horses; he is very angry. He says that he was not consulted in the matter, and that he loves the animal like a brother. My uncle will not let his horse leave the stable for less than five rubles. What is to be done? I told him that I had agreed to take you, and even showed him the money, but he is hard-hearted and stern."

"Very well," I said; "bring round the horses."

In a few minutes the fellow returned, and exclaimed, "One of noble birth. I am ashamed."

"Quite right," I said; "you have every reason to be so. But go on; is your uncle's horse dead?"

"No, one of noble birth, not so bad as that; but my brother is vexed. He has a share in one of the animals; he will not let me drive him to the next station for less than six rubles;" and the man, putting on an expression in which cunning, avarice, and pretended sorrow were blended, rubbed his forehead and added, "What shall we do?"

I said, "You have a grandmother?"

"Yes," he replied, much surprised. "How did you know that? I have; a very old grandmother."

"Well," I continued, "go and tell her that, fearing lest she should be annoyed if any accident were to happen during our journey,--for you know misfortunes occur sometimes; God sends them," I added, piously.

"Yes, he does," interrupted the man; "we are simple people, your excellency."

"And, not wishing to hurt the old lady's feelings, should the fore leg of your uncle's horse, or the hind leg of your brother's, suffer on the road, I have changed my mind, and shall not go with you to-day, but take post-horses to-morrow."

The man now became alarmed, thinking that he was about to lose his fare. He rubbed his forehead violently, and then exclaimed, "I will take your excellency for five rubles."

"But your brother?"

"Never mind; he is an animal; let us go."

"No," I answered. "I shall wait; the post-horses are beautiful horses. I am told that they gallop like the wind; all the people in the town look at them, and the inspector loves them."

"Let us say four rubles, your excellency."

"But your uncle might beat you. I should not like you to be hurt."

"No," was the answer; "we will go;" and the knotty point being thus settled, we drove off, much to the dissatisfaction of my little servant, Nazar, a blue-eyed siren in Orsk having, as the Orientals say, made roast meat of his heart, in spite of his being a married man.

INDEX. PAGE

Alpine Mountain Climbing EDWARD WHYMPER 121 Amsterdam, Paris OLIVER H. G. LEIGH 5 Antwerp and Its People ROSE G. KINGSLEY 140 Athens and Its Temples J. L. T. PHILLIPS 79 Austria, The Capital of JOHN RUSSELL 201

Berlin, The Streets of MATTHEW WOODS 165 BROWNE, J. ROSS The Salt-Mines of Wieliczka 183 BURNABY, FREDERICK A Russian Sleigh Journey 267

CLARKE, EDWARD D., The Seraglio on the Golden Horn 100 " " ", Moscow In 1800 257 COLERIDGE, LANGLEY The Midnight Sun 229 COX, SAMUEL S. In the Russian Capital 236 CROSSE, MRS. ANDREW From Hamburg to Stockholm 221

Day in Rome, A BAYARD TAYLOR 37 DE AMICIS, EDMONDO A Typical Dutch City 131 Dresden, Art Museums of ELIZABETH PEAKE 147 Dutch City, A Typical EDMONDO DE AMICIS 131

Echternach, The Jumping Procession at M. OGLE 193 Eszterhazy Palaces, The JOHN PAGET 210 Etna in Eruption, Mount BAYARD TAYLOR 61

FIELD, HENRY M. The Isles of Greece 89 Finland, A Visit to DAVID KER 246 Florence and Its Art Treasures LIPPINCOTT, SARAH J. 16

Golden Horn, The Seraglio on the EDWARD D. CLARKE 100 Greece, The Isles of HENRY M. FIELD 89

Hamburg to Stockholm, From MRS. ANDREW CROSSE 221 Heidelberg, The Students of BAYARD TAYLOR 158 HOPE, STANLEY Zermatt and Its Scenery 112

Isles of Greece, The HENRY M. FIELD 89 Italy, The Lake Region of ROBERT A. MCLEOD 26

Jumping Procession at Echternach, The M. OGLE 193

KER, DAVID A Visit to Finland 246 KINGSLEY, ROSE G. Antwerp and Its People 140

Lake Region of Italy ROBERT A. MCLEOD 26 LEE, ALFRED E. Pompeii and Its Destroyer 48 LEIGH, OLIVER H. G. Paris, Amsterdam 5 LIPPINCOTT, SARAH J. Florence and Its Art Treasures 16

MCLEOD, ROBERT A. The Lake Region of Italy 26 Midnight Sun, The LANGLEY COLERIDGE 229 Moscow in 1800 EDWARD D. CLARKE 257

OGLE, M. The Jumping Procession at Echternach 193

PAGET, JOHN The Eszterhazy Palaces 210 Paris, Amsterdam OLIVER H. G. LEIGH 5 PEAKE, ELIZABETH Art Museums of Dresden 147 PHILLIPS, J. L. T. Athens and Its Temples 79 Plebeian Life in Venice HORACE ST. JOHN 70 Pompeii and Its Destroyer ALFRED E. LEE 48 POWERS, STEPHEN A Ramble in Prussia 176 Prussia, A Ramble in STEPHEN POWERS 176

Rome, A Day in BAYARD TAYLOR 37 Rotterdam EDMONDO DE AMICIS 131 RUSSELL, JOHN The Capital of Austria 201 Russian Capital, In the SAMUEL S. COX 236 Russian Sleigh Journey, A FREDERICK BURNABY 267

ST. JOHN, HORACE Plebeian Life in Venice 70 Salt-Mines of Wieliczka J. ROSS BROWNE 183 Seraglio on the Golden Horn EDWARD D. CLARKE 100 Sleigh Journey, A Russian FREDERICK BURNABY 267 Stockholm, From Hamburg to MRS. ANDREW CROSSE 221

TAYLOR, BAYARD A Day in Rome 37 " " Mount Etna in Eruption 61 " " The Students of Heidelberg 158

Venice, Plebeian Life in HORACE ST. JOHN 70 Vienna, The Capital of Austria JOHN RUSSELL 201

WHYMPER, EDWARD Alpine Mountain Climbing 121 WOODS, MATTHEW The Streets of Berlin 165

Zermatt and Its Scenery STANLEY HOPE 112

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: