ing one day with a landed proprietor who lived near Ivanofka,
I accidentally discovered that in a district at some distance to the
northeast there were certain villages the inhabitants of which did not
understand Russian, and habitually used a peculiar language of their
own. With an illogical hastiness worthy of a genuine ethnologist, I at
once assumed that these must be the remnants of some aboriginal race.

"Des aborigenes!" I exclaimed, unable to recall the Russian equivalent
for the term, and knowing that my friend understood French. "Doubtless
the remains of some ancient race who formerly held the country, and are
now rapidly disappearing. Have you any Aborigines Protection Society in
this part of the world?"

My friend had evidently great difficulty in imagining what an Aborigines
Protection Society could be, and promptly assured me that there was
nothing of the kind in Russia. On being told that such a society might
render valuable services by protecting the weaker against the stronger
race, and collecting important materials for the new science of Social
Embryology, he looked thoroughly mystified. As to the new science,
he had never heard of it, and as to protection, he thought that the
inhabitants of the villages in question were quite capable of protecting
themselves. "I could invent," he added, with a malicious smile, "a
society for the protection of ALL peasants, but I am quite sure that the
authorities would not allow me to carry out my idea."

My ethnological curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and I endeavoured to
awaken a similar feeling in my friend by hinting that we had at hand a
promising field for discoveries which might immortalise the fortunate
explorers; but my efforts were in vain. The old gentleman was a portly,
indolent man, of phlegmatic temperament, who thought more of comfort
than of immortality in the terrestrial sense of the term. To my proposal
that we should start at once on an exploring expedition, he replied
calmly that the distance was considerable, that the roads were muddy,
and that there was nothing to be learned. The villages in question were
very like other villages, and their inhabitants lived, to all intents
and purposes, in the same way as their Russian neighbours. If they had
any secret peculiarities they would certainly not divulge them to
a stranger, for they were notoriously silent, gloomy, morose, and
uncommunicative. Everything that was known about them, my friend assure