struggling mass. My breath was nearly choked
out of me by the weight of a fat Russian baron
whose thumb I was obliged to bite as he was
digging his hands into my face, before he could be
induced to tumble off. After scrambling, as
usual, out at the top door, and to the track
again, we found the whole wreck beyond remedy
by our unassisted powers. Fortunately,
however, a long line of sledges with goods from
Rastov fair, being just in front of us, the poor
peasants who were attached as drivers and
guards, although they had plenty of troublesome
work on their own hands, came back, and
by main force lifted us out of the hole. It was
some time before we were so far righted as to
be able to go on, and then when we were making
up lost time and overtook our friends with their
sledges, numbering probably a hundred in a
long line on the one solitary track, it became
necessary to pass them if we would not be kept
at a snail's pace for many hours. But the passing
was not easy. The whole line must draw
close to one side, and in some cases into the
soft snow, and this the men for a long time
refused to do. It was a difficult job, involving
risks to some, and the road was theirs as well
as ours. The Russian baron, who was one of
us, at length lost all temper, and began to
swear as only a Russian can. Being cold and
hungry, exhausted and much shaken, he was
anxious to get to some shelter, especially as
night was now closing. Oaths having no effect,
he lost the last glimmer of polish and came out
the born Tartar that he was. Dragging the
cudgel from my hand, he began belabouring
with all his might the men and horses, dealing
blows right and left, and compelling the men
to draw up to one side as fast as we came up.
For an hour this lasted, before we had passed
all the sledges.

"There, you canaille!" he cried as he struck.
"Take that! Give the road, you lazy vermin!
Make room, you pigs! I am a baron, don't you
see? A friend of the governor's! Sons of dogs!
Defilement of the earth! Your mothers are
beasts!" and so forth.

This was his gentlest style, while the blows
fell in a shower. Forty or fifty men submitted
to all this, grumbled, but cowed; they took
the blows and insults of this one man as dogs
take their masters' kicks; they were serfs, he
was a baron. After he had recovered his seat
and his breath, and had wiped the perspiration
from his head, he turned to me, and asked, with
an air of national pride,

"What do you say to that, me lort?"

"I say, that had you struck the poorest of my
countrymen in that manner, they would either
have boxed you into a jelly, or they would have
tied you to a sledge until they reached the first
town, and then given you up to a magistrate for
an assault."

"Oh, as to that, I should soon get away from a
magistrate. A little money would soon do that."

"Indeed! I can tell you that your whole
estate, with a dozen like it, would not buy one
of our magistrates."

This assertion only caused an incredulous
laugh, and a remark from the baron that he
could buy any country magistrate in Russia for
fifty kopecks (eighteenpence).

FIVE IN A KIBITKA.

The baron referred to was a tall, stout man,
well acquainted with the French and German
languages as well as the Russ, and apparently,
also, with the literature of England. He had
read in French and Russian, translations of
the works of the chief English novelists and
poets of the present century. He spoke with
enthusiasm of the English government and
people; and he recited Russian compositions,
which, in the time of Nicholas and at St.
Petersburg, would have ensured him a free
passage to Siberia. He told me he had just
manumitted a great portion of his serfs, and was
on his way to the two capitals to sell his
estate and leave the country; or, failing in that,
to lot his land, and bring it into proper cultivation.
The great curse of the country, he
thought, were the priests, a lazy, ignorant pack,
immoral, drunken, and filthy in the interior,
polished and crafty in the capitals. The
emancipation of the serfs was nothing without
the abolition of the priestly influence. The
state finances, he said, were in a terrible low
state. Why did not the emperor play Henry
the Eighth, seize upon the numerous and
enormously wealthy monasteries and churches, and
melt down the gold and silver lying useless in
their coffers, or covering their altars and
pretended saints? My name not being asked, the
baron and the others called me Lort Palmerston.
My baron worshipped Palmerston, but he said it
was "Henry the Eighth and Oliver Cromwell
they wanted." In opinions and character this
fellow-traveller was one of a large class that
may one day play a cudgel for what it considers
Russian regeneration; a man polite to excess,
but, "when scraped, a Tartar," as the poor
sledge-drivers who had pulled us out of the pit
could witness. This baron's son, a young man
of twenty-two, was with us, already proud to
employ English oaths and talk of "box,"
besides being so unpleasantly addicted to rather
practical jokes, that on one occasion I was
obliged to give him a little unexpected
practice in the "noble science," for which his
father most politely, and I think sincerely,
thanked me.

An officer of infantry, wounded at Inkermann,
and now invalided, was another of our party.
He was very civil to me, and asked many questions
about the English army and navy systems.
Of Inkermann, "Ah!" he said, " I was there,
and received my wound from an English officer's
revolver. Poor fellow! I forgave him; it
was his last barrel, and the last shot he ever
fired; but he hurled the empty pistol at one of
those who were pressing on him, so that he
knocked the fellow down, but the next moment
he fell, pierced with balls and bayonets. My
God! how these few men did fight and die,
surprised by a whole army!" He related what,