the bones from a human body and expecting the flabby, gelatinous mass which remained, to stand erect as before. These, it will be said, are mere assertions; but let us look a little at the facts. The present proportion of foreigners in the Russian army is as follows:

And when we add to this estimate the number of foreigners in the manufacturing class, the provincial administration, the higher bureaucratic circles, and the Cabinet itself, one can hardly wonder that the "German problem" should be a standing anxiety to Russia, or that that elimination of the foreign element which is the desire of the unreasoning many should be the dread of the reasoning few. It is not generally known that, barely two years ago, 200,000 German colonists on the Volga, fearing to be deprived of their exemption from military service, resolved to emigrate en masse, and actually sent several of their number to St Petersburg, in order to make secret inquiries as to the possibility of getting off to America by sea. "Of all political contingencies," as I have said elsewhere, "Russia has most reason to dread a Prussian version of her favourite 'Slavonic Protectorate,' a union of all German-speaking men throughout every land under one head resident at Berlin.* The millions that people the Baltic sea-board,

* When this was first written, the Russian journals indignantly denied it. They will hardly venture to do so now.

the hosts of industrious craftsmen that swarm in every town of the empire, may yet become an eye-sore and a loss to the country of which they are now the stay and back-bone. In the dim future the anxious eye of Russian diplomacy sees the foreshadowing of a time when the Prince Bismark of that day shall say to all Germans from the White Sea to the Black, 'Come out of her, my people!' and when they shall obey the call, bearing with them the wealth which they have amassed, and the ability which has made them rich; while the Russian peasantry, unhelped and unhelpful, sown broadcast in pestilential hovels of ten or twelve together over an area larger than all the rest of Europe combined, shall remain to cumber the ground of which every spadeful is worth a king's ransom, till they are mercifully transported by typhus or cholera to a region where there is at least no thievish bureaucracy, and no tyrannical police."

Upon the panorama of the Volga, from Tsaritzin to Saratoff (one of the best bits of purely Russian scenery in the empire), I cannot dwell here; and I must also omit, however unwillingly, the cordial reception given me by the authorities both at Saratoff and Samara. I pass at once to the time when, after so many thousand miles of rail and steamer, I plunged at length into the primeval desert, where both rail and steamer are unknown.

CHAPTER V.

ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE WORLD.

EASTWARD Ho! at last; the horses' bells jingling merrily in the clear morning air as we fly along; the green hill sides looking fresh and beautiful under the bright May sunshine; the tall gilded church-towers and many-coloured houses of Samara melting away in the distance; and in front of us, the long smooth waves of a "rolling prairie," surging up to greet us with the first hint of the coming Ural.

When the long projected Samara-Orenburg railway shall translate itself into fact, "the easternmost town of the Volga" will doubtless resume its former importance; but for the present it is altogether eclipsed by Saratoff, which, though much farther from Orenburg, possesses the advantage of direct communication with Moscow. The surrounding country, too, is unutterably lonely, the enormous disproportion of area and population being nowhere more glaring than here. Russia is an undermanned fortress, and can spare no men to this remote outpost. It is all barren desolation farther on; it is all fertile desolation here. Nevertheless, in this magnificent weather, the wide grassy uplands, lonely as they are, have a beauty of their own; and so, ap

parently, thinks my driver, who is now lighting his short black pipe with the air of a man who, having got his work well in train, can afford to enjoy himself.

"Glorious weather, eh, Barin (master)? We shall make quick work of it to-day; but if you had come a month ago, you'd have found the road that deep in mud. Let alone that, you couldn't have got horses if you had offered a hundred roubles for them!"

"Why, were there many on the road then?"

"Weren't there, just? as thick as flies upon sugar! Why, what with officers going to Khiva, and couriers coming from Orenburg, and merchants passing backwards and forwards, and dogs of Jews hanging after our army on the chance of cheating Christian folk out. of a kopeck or two, the whole road was just like a bazaar. Ah! we poor fellows used to take a fine lot of money then!"

me.

The last remark is pointed by a sly side-glance at

"Which means that you would like some more, eh? Well, here's thirty kopecks for you (about 10d. English) if you do the stage within the hour and a half."

(It is a pity, by the by, that we do not follow the Russians in having a single word to express "one and a half;" that concise "poltorá " is a great economy.)

Stimulated by this unusual largesse, honest Ivân "puts on the steam" at an amazing rate; and the black and white posts of the little station heave in sight a good five minutes before the appointed time. Fresh horses are put to with a quickness which sufficiently

proves that we are still in Europe; and away we go again. Half-way through the second stage our road ends suddenly in a broad, sluggish river, without either bridge or ford; but the traditional raft is at hand, propelled by four bearded tatterdemalions in sheepskin, with the genuine rusty tan of the desert upon their flat heavy faces. For nearly an hour we glide slowly through a labyrinth of drowned thickets, and long low mud banks, and dainty little green islets-our boatmen keeping time with a low, dirge-like chant to the plash of their oars in the thick greasy water.

And then ashore again, and on, hour after hour, through the unchanging routine of genuine Russian post travelling. From the lonely monotony of the steppe you burst at once into a populous village, with its tall painted spire, and rough-hewn log-huts, and wide, dusty streets, up and down which you rattle till you reach the little station-house with its striped posts, and little black board marked with the distances to the last and the next station. You jump out, shaking off the hay upon which you have been lying, and give your travelling-pass (podorojnaya) * to the big yellow-haired postmaster in his sheepskin frock; and he shouts for fresh horses, and asks whether you won't have a tea-urn heated, and hints at possible fresh eggs if you care to buy any. Your old driver goes off to exhibit his pourboire to his cronies of the stable; and your new driver comes shambling up, struggling into

This is quite distinct from the passport, being merely a kind of official voucher, required to get post-horses.