Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar | Page 6

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CHAPTER L.
Among the Votiaks--Malmouish--Advice to a traveler--Dress and
habits of the Tartars--Tartar villages and mosques--A long
night--Overturned and stopped--Arrival at Kazan--New Year's
festivities--Russian soldiers on parade--Military spirit of the Romanoff
family--Anecdote of the Grand Duke Michel--The conquest of
Kazan--An evening in a ball-room--Enterprise of Tartar
peddlers--Manufactures and schools--A police secret--The police in
Russia


CHAPTER LI.

Leaving Kazan--A Russian companion--Conversation with a phrase
book--A sloshy street--Steamboats frozen in the ice--Navigation of the
Volga--The Cheramess--Pity the unfortunate--A road on the
ice--Merchandise going Westward--Villages along the Volga--A
baptism through the ice--Religion in Russia--Toleration and
tyranny--The Catholics in Poland--The Old Believers--The Skoptsi, or
mutilators--Devotional character of the Russian
peasantry--Diminishing the priestly power--Church and state--End of a
long sleigh ride--Nijne Novgorod--At the wrong hotel--Historical
monuments--Entertained by the police


CHAPTER LII.
Starting for Moscow--Jackdaws and pigeons--At a Russian railway
station--The group in waiting--The luxurious ride--A French governess
and a box of _bon-bons_--Cigarettes and tea--Halting at
Vladimir--Moscow through the frost--Trakteers--The Kremlin of
Moscow--Objects of interest--The great bell--The memorial
cannon--Treasures of the Kremlin--Wonderful churches of
Moscow--The Kitai Gorod--The public market--Imperial Theatre and
Foundling Hospital--By rail to St. Petersburg--Encountering an old
friend


CHAPTER I.
It is said that an old sailor looking at the first ocean steamer, exclaimed,
"There's an end to seamanship." More correctly he might have
predicted the end of the romance of ocean travel. Steam abridges time
and space to such a degree that the world grows rapidly prosaic.
Countries once distant and little known are at this day near and familiar.

Railways on land and steamships on the ocean, will transport us, at
frequent and regular intervals, around the entire globe. From New York
to San Francisco and thence to our antipodes in Japan and China, one
may travel in defiance of propitious breezes formerly so essential to an
ocean voyage. The same untiring power that bears us thither will bring
us home again by way of Suez and Gibraltar to any desired port on the
Atlantic coast. Scarcely more than a hundred days will be required for
such a voyage, a dozen changes of conveyance and a land travel of less
than a single week.
The tour of the world thus performed might be found monotonous. Its
most salient features beyond the overland journey from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, would be the study of the ocean in breeze or gale or storm,
a knowledge of steamship life, and a revelation of the peculiarities of
men and women when cribbed, cabined, and confined in a floating
prison. Next to matrimony there is nothing better than a few months at
sea for developing the realities of human character in either sex. I have
sometimes fancied that the Greek temple over whose door "Know
thyself" was written, was really the passage office of some Black Ball
clipper line of ancient days. Man is generally desirous of the company
of his fellow man or woman, but on a long sea voyage he is in danger
of having too much of it. He has the alternative of shutting himself in
his room and appearing only at meal times, but as solitude has few
charms, and cabins are badly ventilated, seclusion is accompanied by
ennui and headache in about equal proportions.
[Illustration: CHARACTER DEVELOPED.]
Wishing to make a journey round the world, I did not look favorably
upon the ocean route. The proportions of water and land were much
like the relative quantities of sack and bread in Falstaff's hotel bill.
Whether on the Atlantic or the Pacific, the Indian, or the Arctic, the
appearance of Ocean's blue expanse is very much the same. It is water
and sky in one place, and sky and water in another. You may vary the
monotony by seeing ships or shipping seas, but such occurrences are
not peculiar to any one ocean. Desiring a reasonable amount of land
travel, I selected the route that included Asiatic and European Russia.

My passport properly endorsed at the Russian embassy, authorized me
to enter the empire by the way of the Amoor river.
A few days before the time fixed for my departure, I visited a Wall
street banking house, and asked if I could obtain a letter of credit to be
used in foreign travel.
"Certainly sir," was the response.
"Will it be available in Asia?"
"Yes, sir. You can use it in China, India, or Australia, at your pleasure."
"Can I use it in Irkutsk?"
"Where, sir?"
"In Irkutsk."
"Really, I can't say; what is Irkutsk?"
"It is the capital of Eastern Siberia."
The person with whom I conversed, changed from gay to grave, and
from lively to severe. With calm dignity he remarked, "I am unable to
say, if our letters can be used at the place you mention. They are good
all over the