y of Hibernian origin; but I have often thought,
during my wanderings in Russia, that the expression, if not logically
justifiable, might for the sake of vulgar convenience be legalised by a
Permissive Bill. The truth is that, as a Frenchman might say, "there
are roads and roads"--roads made and roads unmade, roads artificial
and roads natural. Now, in Russia, roads are nearly all of the unmade,
natural kind, and are so conservative in their nature that they have at
the present day precisely the same appearance as they had many centuries
ago. They have thus for imaginative minds something of what is called
"the charm of historical association." The only perceptible change that
takes place in them during a series of generations is that the ruts
shift their position. When these become so deep that fore-wheels can no
longer fathom them, it becomes necessary to begin making a new pair of
ruts to the right or left of the old ones; and as the roads are commonly
of gigantic breadth, there is no difficulty in finding a place for the
operation. How the old ones get filled up I cannot explain; but as
I have rarely seen in any part of the country, except perhaps in the
immediate vicinity of towns, a human being engaged in road repairing,
I assume that beneficent Nature somehow accomplishes the task without
human assistance, either by means of alluvial deposits, or by some other
cosmical action only known to physical geographers.

On the roads one occasionally encounters bridges; and here, again,
I have discovered in Russia a key to the mysteries of Hibernian
phraseology. An Irish member once declared to the House of Commons that
the Church was "the bridge that separated the two great sections of the
Irish people." As bridges commonly connect rather than separate, the
metaphor was received with roars of laughter. If the honourable members
who joined in the hilarious applause had travelled much in Russia, they
would have been more moderate in their merriment; for in that
country, despite the laudable activity of the modern system of local
administration created in the sixties, bridges often act still as a
barrier rather than a connecting link, and to cross a river by a
bridge may still be what is termed in popular phrase "a tempting of
Providence." The cautious driver will generally prefer to take to the
water, if there is a ford within a reasonable distance, though both he
and his human load may be obliged, in order to avoid getting