vent the successor of
Alexander the Second from restoring the system of serfage, with all
its concomitant horrors. It will not be difficult to find a
predominating influence among the nobles to accomplish that object;
for this has been a long and severe struggle against their influence,
and owes its success entirely to the unremitting labors of the
sovereign. The next autocrat may labor with equal earnestness to undo
this good work; but it matters little, save in name. Despotism and
freedom are antipodes, and can not be brought together. It may be said
that it would be difficult to enslave a people who had once even
partially tasted the sweets of liberty, but the history of Russia does
not furnish testimony to that effect.

Since the publication of the ukase abolishing serfdom, there has been
a great deal of trouble in the more remote districts between the serfs
and their masters, arising chiefly from ignorance on the one side, and
discontent and disaffection on the other. Every possible obstacle has
been thrown in the way of a fair understanding of its terms. Some idea
may be formed of the extreme ignorance and debased condition of the
serfs when I mention that in many parts of the country, where the
influence of the court is not so immediately felt by the proprietors,
they have assumed such despotic powers over their dependents, and
exercise to this day such an inexorable command over their lives,
liberties, and persons, that the poor creatures have almost learned to
regard them as demigods. When a nobleman of high position, owning
large tracts of land and many serfs, visits his estates, it is not an
uncommon thing to see the enslaved peasantry, who are taught to
believe that they exist by his sufferance, cast themselves prostrate
before him and kiss the ground, in the Oriental fashion, as he passes.
It is a species of idolatry highly soothing to men in official
position, who are themselves subjected to almost similar debasement
before their imperial master. In some instances, especially at a
distance from the capital, the acts of cruelty perpetrated by these
cringing and venal nobles, as an offset to the arbitrary rule under
which they themselves exist, are enough to make the blood curdle. The
knout, a terrible instrument made of thick, heavy leather, and
sometimes loaded with leaden balls, is freely used to punish the most
trifling offense. Men and women, indiscriminately, are whipped at the
pleasure of their maste