ntry. And so on, and so
on. Even my journeys would prove tedious to him, as they often were to
myself, for he would have to drive with me many a score of weary miles,
where even the most zealous diary-writer would find nothing to record
beyond the names of the post-stations.

It will be well for me, then, to avoid the strictly chronological
method, and confine myself to a description of the more striking objects
and incidents that came under my notice. The knowledge which I derived
from books will help me to supply a running commentary on what I
happened to see and hear.

Instead of beginning in the usual way with St. Petersburg, I prefer for
many reasons to leave the description of the capital till some future
time, and plunge at once into the great northern forest region.

If it were possible to get a bird's-eye view of European Russia, the
spectator would perceive that the country is composed of two halves
widely differing from each other in character. The northern half is a
land of forest and morass, plentifully supplied with water in the form
of rivers, lakes, and marshes, and broken up by numerous patches of
cultivation. The southern half is, as it were, the other side of
the pattern--an immense expanse of rich, arable land, broken up by
occasional patches of sand or forest. The imaginary undulating line
separating those two regions starts from the western frontier about the
50th parallel of latitude, and runs in a northeasterly direction till it
enters the Ural range at about 56 degrees N.L.

Well do I remember my first experience of travel in the northern region,
and the weeks of voluntary exile which formed the goal of the journey.
It was in the summer of 1870. My reason for undertaking the journey was
this: a few months of life in St. Petersburg had fully convinced me that
the Russian language is one of those things which can only be acquired
by practice, and that even a person of antediluvian longevity might
spend all his life in that city without learning to express himself
fluently in the vernacular--especially if he has the misfortune of
being able to speak English, French, and German. With his friends and
associates he speaks French or English. German serves as a medium of
communication with waiters, shop keepers, and other people of that
class. It is only with isvoshtchiki--the drivers of the little open
droshkis which fulfil the function of cabs--that he is obliged to use
the native tongue, and with