Across Coveted Lands | Page 6

and furs one's tongue, throat and lungs for several hours after
one has emerged from the catacombs into fresh air again. Yet there are
hermit monks who spend their lives underground without ever coming
up to the light, and in doing so become bony, discoloured, ghastly

creatures, with staring, inspired eyes and hollow cheeks, half demented
to all appearance, but much revered and respected by the crowds for
their self-sacrifice.
Further on the pilgrims drink holy water out of a small cup made in the
shape of a cross, with which the liquid is served out from a larger
vessel. The expression of beatitude on their faces as they sip of the holy
water, and their amazing reverence for all they see and are told to do,
are quite extraordinary to watch, and are quite refreshing in these dying
days of idealism supplanted by fast-growing and less poetic atheistic
notions. The scowl I received from the priest when my turn came and
he lifted the tin cross to my lips, is still well impressed upon my mind. I
drew back and politely declined to drink. There was a murmur of strong
disapproval from all the people present, and the priest grumbled
something; but really, what with the fetid smell of tallow-candle smoke,
the used-up air, and the high scent of pilgrims--and religious people
ever have a pungent odour peculiar to themselves--water, whether holy
or otherwise, was about the very beverage that would have finished me
up at that particular moment.
Glad I was to be out in the open air again, driving through the pretty
gardens of Kiev, and to enjoy the extensive view from the high cliffs
overlooking the winding Dnieper River. A handsome suspension bridge
joins the two banks. The river is navigable and during the spring floods
the water has been known to rise as much as twenty feet.
The city of Kiev is situated on high undulating ground some 350 feet
above the river, and up to 1837 consisted of the old town, Podol and
Petchersk, to which forty-two years later were added Shulyavka,
Solomenka, Kurenevka and Lukyanovka, the city being divided into
eight districts. The more modern part of the town is very handsome,
with wide streets and fine stone houses of good architecture, whereas
the poorer abodes are mostly constructed of wood.
As in all the other cities of Russia there are in Kiev a great many
churches, over seventy in all, the oldest of which is the Cathedral of St.
Sophia in the centre of the town, built as early as 1037 on the spot
where the Petchenegs were defeated the previous year by Yarosloff. It

is renowned for its superb altar, its valuable mosaics and the tombs of
Russian grand-dukes. Next in importance is the Church of the
Assumption, containing the bodies of seven saints conveyed here from
Constantinople. At night the cross borne by the statue of Vladimir,
erected on a high point overlooking the Dnieper, is lighted up by
electricity. This luminous cross can be seen for miles and miles all over
the country, and the effect is most impressive and weird.
From Kiev I had to strike across country, and the trains were naturally
not quite so luxurious as the express trains on the main line, but still the
carriages were of the same type, extremely comfortable and spacious,
and all the trains corridor trains.
The next important city where I halted for a few hours was Kharkoff in
the Ukraine, an agricultural centre where beet-root was raised in huge
quantities and sugar manufactured from it; wheat was plentiful, and
good cattle, sheep and horses were bred. The population was mostly of
Cossacks of the Don and Little Russians. The industries of the place
were closely akin to farming. Agricultural implements were
manufactured; there were wool-cleaning yards, soap and candle
factories, wheat-mills, brandy distilleries, leather tanneries, cloth
manufactories, and brick kilns.
The horse fairs at Kharkoff are patronised by buyers from all parts of
Russia, but to outsiders the city is probably better known as the early
cradle of Nihilistic notions. Although quite a handsome city, with fine
streets and remarkably good shops, Kharkoff has nothing special to
attract the casual visitor, and in ordinary times a few hours are more
than sufficient to get a fair idea of the place.
With a railway ticket punched so often that there is very little left of it,
we proceed to Rostoff, where we shall strike the main line from
Moscow to the Caucasus. Here is a comparatively new city--not unlike
the shambling lesser Western cities of the United States of America,
with plenty of tumbling-down, made-anyhow fences, and empty tin
cans lying everywhere. The streets are unpaved, and the consequent
dust blinding, the drinking saloons in undue proportion to the number
of