FRED BURNABY

"Bring out another sleigh," said my friend. "How the wind cuts! does it not?" he continued, as the breeze, whistling against our bodies, made itself felt in spite of all the precautions we had taken. The vehicle now brought was broader and more commodious than the previous one, which, somewhat in the shape of a coffin, seemed especially designed so as to torture the occupants, particularly if, like my companion and self, they should happen to be endowed by nature with that curse during a sleigh journey—however desirable appendages they may be when in a crowd—long legs. Three horses abreast, their coats white with pendent icicles and hoar-frost, were harnessed to the sleigh; the centre animal was in the shafts and had his head fastened to a huge wooden head-collar, bright with various colors. From the summit of the head-collar was suspended a bell, while the two outside horses were harnessed by cord traces to splinter-bars attached to the sides of the sleigh. The object of all this is to make the animal in the middle trot at a brisk pace, while his two companions gallop, their necks arched round in a direction opposite to the horse in the centre, this poor beast's head being tightly reined up to the head-collar.

A well-turned-out troika with three really good horses, which get over the ground at the rate of twelve miles an hour, is a pretty sight to witness, particularly if the team has been properly trained, and the outside animals never attempt to break into a trot, while the one in the shafts steps forward with high action; but the constrained position in which the horses are kept must be highly uncomfortable to them, and one not calculated to enable a driver to get as much pace out of his animals as they could give him if harnessed in another manner.

Off we went at a brisk pace, the bell dangling from our horse's head-collar, and jingling merrily at every stride of the team.

The sun rose high in the heavens: it was a bright and glorious morning in spite of the intense cold, and the amount of oxygen we inhaled was enough to elevate the spirits of the most dyspeptic of mankind. Presently, after descending a slight declivity, our Jehu turned sharply to the right; then came a scramble and a succession of jolts and jerks as we slid down a steep bank, and we found ourselves on what appeared to be a broad high-road. Here the sight of many masts and shipping which, bound in by the fetters of a relentless winter, would remain imbedded in the ice till the ensuing spring, showed me that we were on the Volga. It was an animated spectacle, this frozen highway, thronged with peasants who strode beside their sledges, which were bringing cotton and other goods from Orenburg to the railway. Now a smart troika would dash by us, its driver shouting as he passed, when our Jehu, stimulating his steeds by loud cries and frequent applications of the whip, would vainly strive to overtake his brother coachman. Old and young alike seemed like octogenarians, their short thick beards and mustaches being white as hoar-frost from the congealed breath. According to all accounts the river had not been long frozen, and till very recently steamers laden with corn from Southern Russia had plied between Sizeran and Samara. The price of corn is here forty copecks the pood of forty pounds, while the same quantity at Samara could be purchased for eighteen copecks. An iron bridge was being constructed a little farther down the Volga. Here the railroad was to pass, and it was said that in two years' time there would be railway communication, not only between Samara and the capital, but even as far as Orenburg.

Presently the scenery became very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuirass beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid mass. Pillars and blocks of the shining and hardened element were seen modelled into a thousand quaint and grotesque patterns. Here a fountain, perfectly formed with Ionic and Doric columns, was reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from the diamond-like stalactites which had attached themselves to its crest. There a huge obelisk, which, if of stone, might have come from ancient Thebes, lay half buried beneath a pile of fleecy snow. Farther on we came to what might have been a Roman temple or vast hall in the palace of a CÆsar, where many half-hidden pillars and monuments erected their tapering summits above the piles of the dÉbris. The wind had done in that northern latitude what has been performed by some violent pre-adamite agency in the Berber desert. Take away the ebon blackness of the stony masses which have been there cast forth from the bowels of the earth, and replace them on a smaller scale by the crystal forms I have faintly attempted to describe, and the resemblance would be striking.

Now we came to some fishing-huts, which were constructed on the frozen river, the traffic in the finny tribe which takes place in this part of Russia being very great, the Volga producing the sterlet (a fish unknown in other rivers of Europe), in large quantities. I have often eaten them, but must say I could never appreciate this so-called delicacy. The bones are of a very glutinous nature, and can be easily masticated, while the taste of a sterlet is something between that of a barbel and a perch, the muddy flavour of the former predominating. However, they are an expensive luxury, as, to be perfection for the table, they should be taken out of the water alive and put at once into the cooking-pot. The distance to St. Petersburg from the Volga is considerable, and a good-sized fish will often cost from thirty to forty roubles, and sometimes even a great deal more.

We were now gradually nearing our first halting-place, where it was arranged that we should change horses. This was a farm-house known by the name of Nijnege Pegersky Hootor, twenty-five versts distant from Sizeran. Some men were engaged in winnowing corn in a yard hard by the dwelling; and the system they employed to separate the husks from the grain probably dates from before the flood, for, throwing the corn high up into the air with a shovel, they let the wind blow away the husks, and the grain descended on to a carpet set to catch it in the fall. It was then considered to be sufficiently winnowed, and fit to be sent to the mill. The farm-house was fairly clean, and, for a wonder, there were no live animals inside the dwelling. It is no uncommon thing in farm-houses in Russia to find a calf domesticated in the sitting-room of the family, and this more particularly during the winter months. But here the good housewife permitted no such intruders, and the boards were clean and white, thus showing that a certain amount of scrubbing was the custom.

The habitation, which was of a square shape, and entirely made of wood, contained two good-sized but low rooms, a large stove made of dried clay being so arranged as to warm both the apartments. A heavy wooden door on the outside of the building gave access to a small portico, at the other end of which there was the customary obraz, or image, which is to be found in almost every house in Russia. These obrazye are made of different patterns, but generally take the form of a picture of saints or of the Trinity. They are executed in silver-gilt or brass relief, and adorned with tawdry fringe or other gewgaws. The repeated bows and crosses made by the peasantry before these idols is very surprising to an Englishman, who may have been told that there is little difference between the Greek religion and his own; but if this is the case, the sooner the second commandment is omitted from our service, the better. It may be said that the Russian peasantry only look upon these images as symbols, and that in reality they are praying to the living God. Let any one who indulges in this delusion travel in Russia and talk to the inhabitants with reference to the obrazye, or go to Kief at the time of a pilgrimage to the mummified saints in that sanctuary, and I think he will then say that no country in the world is so imbued with superstitious credences as Russia.

Above the stove, which was about five feet high, a platform of boards had been erected at a distance of about three feet from the ceiling. This was the sleeping resort of the family, and occasionally used for drying clothes during the day. The Russian moujik likes this platform more than any other part of the habitation, and his great delight is to lie there and perspire profusely, after which he finds himself the better able to resist the cold of the elements outside. The farm-house in which I now found myself had cost in building two hundred roubles, about twenty-six pounds of our money, and her home was a source of pride to the good housewife, who could read and write, an accomplishment not often possessed by the women of this class in the province of Russia.

By this time our former team had been replaced by three fresh horses, and the driver who was to accompany us had nearly finished making his own preparations for the sleigh journey. Several long bands of cloth, first carefully warmed at the stove, were successively wound round his feet, and then, having put on a pair of thick boots and stuffed some hay into a pair of much larger dimensions, he drew the latter on as well, when, with a thick sheep-skin coat, cap, and vashlik, he declared that he was ready to start.

The cold was very intense when we quitted the threshold, and the thermometer had fallen several degrees during the last half-hour; the wind had also increased, and it howled and whistled against the eaves of the farm-house, bearing millions of minute snowy flakes before it in its course. Presently the sound of a little stamping on the bottom of the sleigh announced to me that the cold had penetrated to my companion's feet, and that he was endeavouring to keep up the circulation.

Very soon that so-called "pins-and-needles" sensation, recalling some snow-balling episodes of my boyish days, began once more to make itself felt, and I found myself commencing a sort of double-shuffle against the boards of the vehicle. The snow was falling in thick flakes, and with great difficulty our driver could keep the track, his jaded horses sinking sometimes up to the traces in the rapidly forming drifts, and floundering heavily along the now thoroughly hidden road. The cracks of his whip sounded like pistol-shots against their jaded flanks, and volumes of invectives issued from his lips.

"Oh, sons of animals!"—[whack].

"Oh, spoiled one!"—[whack]. This to a brute which looked as if he never had eaten a good feed of corn in his life. "Oh, woolly ones!" [whack! whack! whack!].

"O Lord God!" This as we were all upset into a snowdrift, the sleigh being three parts overturned, and our Jehu precipitated in the opposite direction.

"How far are we from the next halting-place?" suddenly inquired my companion, with an ejaculation which showed that even his good temper had given way under the cold and our situation.

"Only four versts, one of noble birth," replied the struggling Jehu, who was busily engaged endeavouring to right the half-overturned sleigh. A Russian verst about night-fall, and under such conditions as I have endeavoured to point out to the reader, is an unknown quantity. A Scotch mile and a bit, an Irish league, a Spanish legua, or the German stunde, are at all times calculated to call forth the wrath of the traveller, but in no way equal to the first-named division of distance. For the verst is barely two-thirds of an English mile, and when, after driving yet for an hour, we were told that there were still two versts more before we could arrive at our halting-place, it began fully to dawn upon my friend that either our driver's knowledge of distance, or otherwise his veracity, was at fault.

At last we reached a long, struggling village, formed of houses constructed much in the same way as that previously described, when our horses stopped before a detached cottage. The proprietor came out to meet us at the threshold. "Samovar, samovar!" (urn), said my companion. "Quick, quick! samovar!" and hurrying by him, and hastily throwing off our furs, we endeavoured to regain our lost circulation beside the walls of a well-heated stove.

The Russian peasants are not ignorant of the good old maxim that the early bird gets the worm, and the few hours' daylight they enjoy during the winter months makes it doubly necessary for them to observe this precept. We were all up a good hour before sunrise, my companion making the tea, while our driver was harnessing the horses, but this time not three abreast, for the road was bad and narrow; so we determined to have two small sleighs with a pair of horses to each, and put our luggage in one vehicle while we travelled in the other.

Off we went, a motley crew. First, the unwashed peddler who had wished to be my companion's bedfellow the night before; then our luggage sleigh; and, finally, my friend and self, who brought up the rear, with a careful eye upon our effects, as the people in that part of the country were said to have some difficulty in distinguishing between meum and tuum.

The sun was bright and glorious, and in no part of the world hitherto visited have I ever seen aurora in such magnificence. First, a pale blue streak, gradually extending over the whole of the eastern horizon, arose like a wall barring the unknown beyond; then, suddenly changing colour until the summit was like lapis-lazuli, and its base a sheet of purple waves of grey and crystal, radiating from the darker hues, relieved the eye, appalled by the vastness of the barrier; the purple foundations were in turn upheaved by a sea of fire, which dazzled the eye with its glowing brilliancy, and the wall of colours floating in space broke up into castles, battlements, and towers, which were wafted by the breeze far away from our view. The sea of flame meanwhile had lighted up the whole horizon; the eye quailed beneath the glare. The snowy carpet at our feet reflected like a camera the wonderful panorama overhead. Flakes of light in rapid succession bound earth to sky, until the globe of sparkling light arising from the depths of this ocean of flame dimmed into insignificance the surroundings of the picture.

Presently a sudden check and exclamation of our Jehu told us that the harness had given way, and a conversation, freely interlarded with epithets exchanged between the driver and the peddler, showed that there was decidedly a difference of opinion between them. It appeared that the man of commerce was the only one of the party who knew the road, and having discovered this fact, he determined to make use of his knowledge by refusing to show the way unless the proprietor of the horses who drove the vehicle containing our luggage would abate a little from the price he had demanded for the hire of the horse in the peddler's sleigh. "A bargain is a bargain!" cried our driver, wishing to curry favour with his master, now a few yards behind him. "A bargain is a bargain. Oh, thou son of an animal, drive on!" "It is very cold," muttered my companion. "For the sake of God," he shouted, "go on!" But neither the allusion to the peddler's parentage nor the invocation of the Deity had the slightest effect upon the fellow's mercenary soul.

"I am warm, and well wrapped up," he said; "it is all the same to me if we wait here one hour or ten;" and with the most provoking indifference he commenced to smoke, not even the manner in which the other drivers aspersed the reputation of his mother appearing to have the smallest effect. At last the proprietor, seeing it was useless holding out any longer, agreed to abate somewhat from the hire of the horse, and once more the journey continued over a break-neck country, though at anything but a break-neck pace, until we reached the station—a farm-hause—eighteen versts from our sleeping quarters, and, as we were informed, forty-five from Samara.