you, it was gratifying in the extreme; for the
peasants knelt as he passed, just as if it were
the Almighty himself." And who shall contradict
this deity? Our countrywoman was
once at the opera when the emperor was
graciously disposed to applaud Madame
Castellan by the clapping of his hands. Immediately
some one hissed. He repeated his
applause;- the hiss was repeated. His
majesty stood up- looked round the house
with dignity- and, for the third time,
solemnly clapped his hands. The hiss followed
again. Then a tremendous scuffle
over-head. The police had caught the impious
offender.- An example of another kind
was made by a young lady whose brother was
killed at Kalafat, and who, on receiving news
of his death, smiled, and said, "She was rejoiced
to hear it, as he had died for the
emperor." Imperial munificence rewarded
her with a splendid dowry, and the assurrance
that her future fortune should be cared
for.

There is need now to encourage a show
of patriotism. The Englishwoman who, on
her return, found London streets as full of
peace as when she quitted them;- had left
St. Petersburgh wearing a far different
aspect. Long lines of cannon and ammunition-waggons
drawn up here and there;
parks of artillery continually dragged about;
outworks being constructed; regiments
marching in and out; whole armies submitting
ting to inspection and departing on their
mission, told of the deadly struggle to
which the Czar's ambition had committed
him. There was no hour in which wretched
recruits might not be seen tramping in
wearily, by hundreds and by thousands, to
receive the emperor's approval. It is hard
for us in this country to conceive the misery
attending the terrible conscriptions which
plague the subjects of the Russian empire.
Except recruits, hardly a young man is
to be seen in any of the villages; the
post roads are being all mended by women
and girls. Men taken from their homes and
families leave behind, among the women,
broken ties and the foundation of a dreadful
mass of vice and immorality. It is fearful
enough under ordinary circumstances. "True
communism," said a Russian noble, "is to be
found only in Russia."

One morning a poor woman went crying
bitterly to the Englishwoman, saying that her
two nephews had just been just forced from
her house to go into the army. "I tried"-
we leave the relator of these things to
speak in her own impressive words- "I tried
to console her, saying that they would return
when the war was over; but this only made
her more distressed. 'No, no!' exclaimed
she, in the deepest sorrow, 'they will never
come back any more; the Russians are
beaten in every place.' Until lately the
lower classes were always convinced that the
emperor's troops were invincible; but if seems,
by what she said, that even they have got to
know something of the truth. A foreigner in
St. Petersburgh informed me that he had
'gone to see the recruits that morning, but
there did not seem to be much patriotism
among them: there was nothing but sobs and
tears to be seen among those who were pronounced
fit for service, whilst the rejected
ones were frantic with delight, and bowed and
crossed themselves with the greatest grati-
tude.'" Reviews were being held almost
daily when the Englishwoman left, and she
was told that, on one occasion, when reviewing
troops destined for the South, the emperor
was struck with the forlorn and dejected air of
the poor sheep whom he was sending to the
slaughter.

"Hold your heads up!" he exclaimed
angrily. "Why do you look so miserable?
There is nothing to cause you to be so?"
There is something to cause him to be so,
we are very much disposed to think.

But we did not mean to tell about the war.
The vast empire over which the Czar has rule
is in a half civilised- it would be almost more
correct to say- in an uncivilised state. Great
navigable rivers roll useless through extensive
wilds. Except the excellent roads
that connect St. Petersburg with Moscow and
with Warsaw, and a few fragments of road
serving as drives in the immediate vicinity of
these towns, there are no roads at all in
Russia that are roads in any civilised sense.
The post-roads of the empire are clearings
through wood, with boughs of trees
laid here and there, tracks over steppes and
through morasses. There is everywhere the
grandeur of nature; but it is the grandeur of
its solitudes. A few huts surround government
post stations, and small brick houses at
intervals of fifteen or twenty miles along the
routes are the halting places of gangs destined
for Siberia. A few log huts, many of them
no better than the wigwams of Red Indians,
some of them adorned with elegant wood
tracery, a line of such dwellings, and commonly
also a row of willows by the wayside, indicate
a Russian village. A number of churches and
monasteries with domes and cupolas, green,
gilt, or dark blue, studded with golden stars,
and surmounted each by a cross standing on
a crescent; barracks, a government school
and a post-office; a few good houses, and a
great number of huts- constitute a Russian
provincial town, and the surrounding wastes
or forests shut it in. The rapid traveller who
follows one of the two good lines of road, and
sees only the show-places of Russian civilisation,
may be very much deceived. Yet even
here he is deceived only by a show. The
great buildings that appear so massive are of
stuccoed brick, and even the massive grandeur
of the quays, like that of infinitely
greater works, the Pyramids, is allied closely
to the barbarous. They were constructed at
enormous saciifice of life. The foundations
of St. Petersburg were laid by levies of men