lized, while a large share of the people inhabiting
the cities assume the highest outward appearance of refinement and
culture. This diversity of character spreads over a country extending
from the Great Wall of China on one side to the borders of Germany on
the other; from the Crimea in the south to the Polar Ocean in the far
north.

The distance from St. Petersburg to Moscow is about four hundred miles;
the cars upon this route take us directly towards the heart of Russia.
Thirty years ago there were but about eight hundred miles of railroad in
the country; to-day there are twenty thousand and more. On this trip one
passes through scenery of the most monotonous and melancholy character,
flat and featureless, made up of forests of fir-trees, interspersed with
the white birch, and long reaches of wide, deserted plains.

The forest forms a very 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 country; the largest forest in Europe is that of
Volskoniki, which commences near the source of the Volga. But to the
south of Moscow the vast plains, or steppes, are quite free from wood,
consisting merely of sandy deserts, unfit for habitation. No country is
more thinly inhabited or more wearisomely tame. Now and again a few
sheep are seen cropping the thin brown moss and straggling verdure,
tended by a boy clad in a fur cap and skin jacket, forming a strong
contrast to his bare legs and feet.

Though sparsely inhabited by fierce and active races for centuries, the
appearance is that of primitiveness; the log-cabins seem to be only
temporary expedients,--wooden tents, as it were. The men and women who
are seen at the railroad stations are of the Tartar type, the ugliest of
all humanity, with high cheekbones, 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, makes a soup upon which he lives.
Add to this soup a porridge made of meal, and we have about the entire
substance of his regular food. If they produce some pork and corn,
butter and cheese, they are seldom indulged in for their own
subsistence, but are sold at the nearest market, as a certain amount of
ready money must be had when the tax-gatherer makes his annual vis