holas I. possessed the means of moving large bodies of
troops with promptness from one part of his extended domain to
another which now exist, England and France would have found their
dearly-bought and but partially-achieved victory in the Crimea an
impossibility. While her enemies possessed rapid transit from all
points, and open communication with their base of supplies both by
steamboat and railroad, Russia's soldiers had hundreds of miles to
march on foot, over nearly impassable roads, in order to reach the
seat of war. Now the Emperor can concentrate troops at any desired
point as promptly as any other European power.

On the trip from St. Petersburg to Moscow one proceeds through
scenery of the most monotonous and, we must add, of the most
melancholy character,--flat and featureless, made up of forests of
fir-trees, interspersed with the white birch and long reaches of
wide, cheerless, deserted plains. The dense forest forms a prominent
feature of Russia north of the line of travel between the two great
cities, covering in that region fully a third part of the surface of
the country; indeed, the largest forest in Europe is that of
Yolskoniki, near the source of the Volga. On the contrary, to the
south of Moscow the vast plains or steppes are quite free from wood,
in fact only too often consisting of mere sandy deserts, unfit for
habitation. It seemed as though no country could be more thinly
inhabited or more wearisomely tame. Now and again a few sheep were
seen cropping the thin brown moss and straggling verdure, tended by a
boy clad in a fur cap and skin capote, forming a strong contrast to
his bare legs and feet. Few people are seen and no considerable
communities, though occasional sections exhibit fair cultivation.
This is partly explained by the fact that the road was built simply
to connect Moscow and St. Petersburg, as already explained. Though
inhabited for centuries by fierce and active races, the appearance
here is that of primitiveness; the log-cabins seem like temporary
expedients,--wooden tents, as it were. The men and women who are seen
at the stations are of the Calmuck type, the ugliest of all humanity,
with high cheek-bones, flattened noses, dull gray eyes,
copper-colored hair, and bronzed complexions. Their food is not of a
character to develop much physical comeliness. The one vegetable
which the Russian peasant cultivates is cabbage; this mixed with
dried mushrooms, and rarely anything else,