Six Months at Astrakhan

JUST below the city of Tsaritsyn the Volga seems to rebound suddenly from the precipitous cliff of its right bank; for thenceforward, diverging in a south-easterly direction, it goes wandering on in a course at once new and capricious. No longer the broad, swelling current that laves the busy mart of Saratov, still less the majestic flood one sees mingling with the Oka at Nízhni-Nóvgorod, it now presents itself to the eye with a false width of channel, dotted everywhere with islets, sand dunes, and bugri. Winding their way through these obstructions in strange, zigzag lines, themselves inclosing spirals of a navigable course often perilously narrow, the waters traverse a country bare and desolate beyond description. Now and then a tall promontory breaks the monotony of the river banks ; at times some high-perched, parasite-like village, mudcolored as its environment, creeps into sight. Only treeless steppes, extending to the horizon, fill up the panorama, and thus the eye ranges on, resting for moments, perhaps, upon some solitary peasant’s wagon, a Calmuck horseman, or a cluster of khibitkas, but ever oppressed by the barren amplitude of the landscape and the ubiquity of sand.

Oases are, indeed, welcomed in deserts like these ! One scene comes back to me vividly as I witnessed it on a bright morning in the early autumn of 1883. Our steamer was descending the lower reaches of the Volga, when all at once cries were heard from the upper deck. There was scarcely time to look up before a dozen voices shouted, “ The Cathedral, the Cathedral! ” But the cry died away, and another rose, fuller and stronger : “ The City, the City ! ” In the rush which followed, a throng of peasants, scrambling and fighting, in their sheepskins, now and then losing their fur caps in the good-humored horseplay, easily won first place. Some Persians were just as eager for the ascent, but showed far more deliberation; and their dignity was imitated by the only Tatar on board, a priest, who had to grasp his flowing robes and tighten them around him as he went up. Next came a few Armenians, not distinguishable from native Russians ; a group of wild-looking burlaki, the boatmen and song-makers of the Volga ; and last two Mongols, of ferocious appearance, leading their Calmuck spouses to the highest point of vantage. It was a motley crowd, yet all gazed with the same affectionate interest on the outlines that had just come within range of vision, quite ten miles away over the plain. A slender pillar seemed to mark the spot where the gates of Asia once stood, choked with the wealth of Iran and of Ind, but where to-day, over the ruins of Tatar thrones and the sway of Mongol empires, shine the golden cupolas dominating the greentipped mosques of Astrakhan.

My own journey to the “ metropolis of the Caspian ” was due primarily to a journalistic mission requiring my presence in Transcaspian territory ; in the second place, to a pressing invitation extended to me by a resident of Astrakhan, whose acquaintance I had formed in St. Petersburg. Political changes unexpectedly relieved me of the journalistic mission, and I met with such hearty hospitality, as well as so many objects of interest, that I ended by devoting the whole of the six months at my disposal to Astrakhan and its environs. The circumstances of my arrival impressed me strongly ; indeed, I had a reception that foreshadowed, in quality if not in kind, all the good-natured rivalry in paying me attentions for which I afterwards came to be so grateful. Most people, I suppose, fail to realize their nearness to the " storied East ” in the Russian faces of the crowd always on the lookout for strangers at the Astrakhan quay. But for me, at any rate, the ethnological interest of the place quickly revealed itself. No sooner had the gangway fallen than a throng of bare-legged Persian porters rushed up fighting for my luggage, a dozen Tatar droshky drivers coming forward at the same moment to secure possession of my body.

My first visit, preliminary annoyances surmounted, was paid to the Kreml. The citadel at Astrakhan is encircled by a high, white-stone wall, still structurally intact, but crumbling in places, owing to age : in the masonry they show the marks of blows dealt in 1670 by Sténka Rázin and his victorious Cossacks. The naturally conspicuous object of the Kreml is the cathedral, a massive, squarely built piece of RussoByzantine architecture, that ends in five cupolas, and has a tower from which, historical works aver, the metropolitan of Astrakhan was once flung headlong. The traditionary atmosphere of the place is still full of the exploits of such popular heroes as Rázin and Pugachev, but in all attempts to glean reliable facts concerning the “martyr bishop ” and the alleged manner of his taking off I signally failed. The square of the cathedral, to-day quiet as an English churchyard, seems, at any rate, no fit place for sacrilegious bloodshed : a worn dial records the sunny hours of daylight; there is a slight rustle of feet at matins and vespers, when a few worshipers come with the priest and Ids assistant. Yet this is merely the ecclesiastical side of the Kreml. AN hen you lean over the southwest face of the wall, the sounds of a busy, toiling life float up from below, — sounds in which multitudinous street cries mingle with the shouts of boatmen, in which the plashing of steamers’ paddles and the rattling of chains fill up pauses in the clangorous hammering that comes from the gravingdocks. On the quay lie immense piles of merchandise: piece by piece, strange, half-naked figures are transferring it to the holds or decks of vessels that in a few hours will be on their way to ports of the Upper Volga or of the Caspian Sea. Barges are meanwhile discharging the piscine treasures of which they have been in quest: six men often stagger ashore beneath the load of a single sturgeon ; indeed, their burdens, viewed at a distance, look much more like slaughtered cows than dead fish. And behind all, in the background of the picture, is the famed Bridge of Commerce, the meeting-place of a dozen nationalities of merchants, venders, pedestrians, and mendicants.

The old Russian city consists of three parts : the Kreml, or citadel, devoted to defense ; the “ white town,” given over to business; and the “ quarters,” utilized for residential purposes. The citadel at Astrakhan would protect badly from even a Mongolian attack ; is today, in fact, a mere historical relic. The white town, on the other hand, might be manned so as to hold the troops of the Tsar at bay. Its buildings are wholly of stone and brick ; some of them have been built as massively as fortresses. The finest are the public schools ; the least attractive, the Ecclesiastical Seminary and the governor’s official residence, the former of which wears the aspect of a provincial barracks. Of really abnormal dimensions are the warehouses. Some of them have doors quite large enough to do service as city gates; the locks used are, as a rule, of Brobdingnagian size and the rudest workmanship, — just such specimens as Kuznets, the mighty blacksmith of Russian mythology, himself might have produced, in the earliest days of the national industries. The shops are chiefly remarkable for the brilliancy of their sign-boards. One flight of native imagination which I remember — the inexhaustible delight of the carriage dealer to whom it belonged — was the representation of a droshky resting on clouds, and surrounded by a wealth of gorgeous auroral coloring. Another feature of the retail trade in Astrakhan mystified me not a little. A pedestrian not over-careful of his course turns suddenly into streets in which most of the business is done underground. Here the shops have a flooring of bare earth, and the descent to them is disagreeably abrupt. The wares are of all heterogeneous kinds that never meet the eye in Western Europe ; the vender may be a Bokhariot, a Turcoman from Khiva, or an Aryan fire-worshiper converted to the service of Mammon ; the sounds of buying and selling are loud and weird ; there is much rolling of eyes and gesticulation ; a chaffering goes on quite Oriental in its length. The whole scene, in fact, with its setting of picturesque dresses, seems like a page taken bodily out of the Arabian Nights. Nor is this obtrusion of the foreign element at all confined to one part of the town. The Tatar cart utilized to the airing of a whole family ; the Khirgiz horseman or carrier returning to winter quarters ; the Calmuck fisherman purchasing tackle and stores ; the Persian oscillating between shop and mosque ; the gay Georgian or Mingrelian on his way to the capital; the rarer Grusinian, Chuvach, and Cheremiss, — all these help to form the every-day street sights of Astrakhan. The periodical fairs afford a wider ethnological vista still, it being not uncommon for them to represent twenty distinct races and families of speech.

The house in which I was a guest belonged to Vassily Nikoláievich,¹ and stood in the Street of the Cossacks, a quiet thoroughfare, within easy distance of the river and the open steppe. Devoid of architectural beauty and built

wholly of wood, it was nevertheless unusually spacious and convenient, permitting a degree of comfort and luxury not at all common to one-story buildings in the outskirts of Russian towns. Access to its inevitable side entrance was gained through a small door in the great folding gates of a courtyard, in which stood, in addition to the domicile itself, a wood-shed, bath-house, kitchen, coachhouse, and a few other out-buildings. Passing through the court, the visitor ascended steps to a sort of veranda, thence entering the house by two doors, the outer of which was massive and bore ornament in the shape of a huge iron ring, the inner one being covered with felt. The apartments thus protected, mainly against frost, I found furnished in a superior style. Being waxed, in Russian fashion, the floors were without carpets ; the walls were ornamented with paintings representing scenes from Russian history; in the reception and dining rooms tropical plants were displayed, after the fashion common to drawing-rooms in St. Petersburg.

Vassíly Nikoláievich spared neither money nor pains in adding to the comfort of his dwelling. That he abundantly deserved domestic enjoyment was the verdict of all who knew the story of his life. His youth had been spent at a military academy in the provinces ; his early manhood was given to the consolidation of Russian rule in the Caucasus. Tired of army service, he took charge of a fishing station on an island in the Caspian, there passing the first years of his married life. But Astrakhan was destined to be his home, for it was here, by simple perseverance and force of character, that he subsequently became one of the most successful business men along the whole line of the Lower Volga. While saying thus much I am far from wishing it to be understood that I present Vassíly Nikoláievich as a type of the merchant class in Russia. To do this would be to do a serious injustice. I believe him to be naturally incapable of the pettinesses of sordid callings. I met few men free as he was from the cant of cosmopolitanism so frequently displayed in the east of Europe ; and yet withal my host was singularly alive

— account being taken of his education and surroundings — to the political and intellectual movements of the time. He was particularly fond of science, and would discuss theories and discoveries with great intelligence. Happy as Vassíly Nikoláievich was in all his family relationships, there was nevertheless something half tragic in his existence ; for he had a love of travel destined never to be gratified, and a fondness for languages and literatures from which continually increasing business cares effectually shut him out. And if his passion for political study wasted itself, in the absence of subjects nearer home, on movements going on in the west of Europe. America was his political ideal,

— his “ happy isles beyond the sea.”

The man’s patience was inexhaustible. Childlike in his ways, that hid to the unwary a plentiful reserve of dignity and manliness ; frank and outspoken when there were no feelings to be wounded, he won all by his genial manner and unaffected simplicity. His success in business I have mentioned, yet he had a trust in human nature almost unlimited, He used to say that people are oftener bad for want of faith in them than good because of distrust. But it was as a father that Vassíly Nikoláievich excelled. His paternal affections had an Oriental warmth, unrestrained by conventionalities ; his interest in the welfare and pleasures of his family showed itself in impulsive and unexpected ways. My host, who was about forty years of age, was six feet in height, and of robust physique. He had a commanding, intellectual presence, with a personality so difficult to forget that even as I write he seems before me, his brown hair parted from his open forehead, his patriarchal beard flowing far below his chin, his broad features lit by a cheerful smile, his blue eyes sparkling with intelligence.

When Vassíly Nikoláievich married, there was much speculation amongst local gossips as to the manner in which his dark-complexioned wife would settle down to household duties ; for Eudoxia Petróvna had gone to the altar young, pretty, and proud of her social successes. The lady showed herself fully equal to the new situation. Twenty years of wedded life, while they had not robbed her of a certain grace of manner, an unmistakable liveliness of disposition, had built upon her earlier fame as a belle a solid and enduring reputation for administrative ability in the maternal and domestic relationships. Though not a woman of culture, she had a plentiful fund of good sense, took a practical view of the problems of life, and strengthened her judgments much oftener by force of character than by plausibleness of reasoning or satisfactoriness of logic. A faithful observer of the formalisms of the Greek Church, and an opponent just as pronounced of all new dogmas in politics ; the declared enemy of marriages based solely upon sentiment, the warm friend of utilitarian ambitions ; full of proverbial maxims, each one of which had been exemplified in her own career, Eudoxia Petróvna represented a school of thought which counts many more truants than teachers in the young Russia of to-day, and which challenged little sympathy even in her own immediate surroundings. But she was an affectionate wife and mother ; the family bonds were strong and close; and the household was not divided against itself.

One bustling morning, whereon the domestics had risen early, my host drew me out with him for a stroll along the quay. We chatted in the crowd until the midday steamer came in sight, when I saw Vassíly Nikoláievich make certain mysterious passes with a handkerchief, and noticed a fluttering answer to the signal from mid-stream. As soon as the paddle-wheels had come to a standstill within two paces of us, my companion bounded over the gangway, and promptly in his great beard was buried the face of a tall, slender young lady, who had seized Vassíly Nikoláievich round the neck and kissed him on both cheeks. Then, leading her ashore, as a lover might lead his sweetheart, my host addressed me with, “ Edmund Ivánovich,² I have the honor to present my daughter, Sophie Vassilievna.”

The new-comer had journeyed more than a thousand versts to spend her vacation at home. Looking at eighteen younger by at least three years, she had all the sprightly buoyancy and ease of manner that characterize feminine society in the Russian capital. Her features were strikingly oval ; the smallness of the nose and mouth gave the face an almost infantile expression, but the forehead was lofty ; in merry moments the brown-black eyes scintillated with light and motion ; the countenance, normally pale, flushed faintly under excitement. Sophie Vassilievna had teeth of peculiar whiteness, and laughed with a clear, silvery laugh that to a lover must have sounded like music. A child in manners, she was a woman in experience, with a strange history and an education only to be paralleled in the country of her birth. Her earliest memories were of the storms of an inland ocean; her earliest friends were the kith and kin of those Mongol toilers of the sea whose khibitkas dot almost every shore and islet of the Caspian. At the age of ten she was entrusted to the care of an intelligent Russian family in Astrakhan, and there, three years later, she again found herself under the paternal roof. On the completion of her studies at the local gymnasium, she proceeded to St. Petersburg, and had, at the time of my meeting with her, already spent three years at the “ Higher Courses for Women ” in the capital.

I found Sophie Vassilievna well acquainted with general literature and history. She could converse with fluency in French and German, and had a critical knowledge of her own tongue, fortified by the smattering of ecclesiastical Slavonic usually entailed by the theological course in Russian schools. With modern science, particularly chemistry and astronomy, she was surprisingly familiar. Sociology was her favorite study. Spencer she knew at first hand. The doctrines of Darwin had reached her by a route singularly circuitous. It was Pissarev who, in opposing his “ natural school ” to the msthetic system of the great art critic, Bielínsky, produced a body of ethical science, mainly based on the Darwinian revelations, which is to-day the groundwork of almost all free thought in Russian educational establishments. Of native writers, one for whose compositions she had great partiality was the novelist Dostoiévsky, — an author who, with a masterly power of analyzing motives, painted the sufferings of the poor, and, himself paralyzed, delighted to inflict morbid creations upon his readers. Sophie Vassilievna had also adopted some of the ideas of the famous economist and exile Chernishévsky,³ whose socialistic romance, What’s To Be Done ? exerted, even long after its publication, an enormous influence upon the Russian youth of both sexes. Some of these apparently digressive facts I mention in order to present a type as well as an individual; for this young Russian, with a personality thoroughly her own, had been moulded by influences that sway a whole class. Communicative, fond of change, eminently unpractical, easily moved to enthusiasm or indignation, idealistic in her views of life, receptive of new ideas and openly cynical in her rejection of many old ones, interested in human nature for its own sake, with a strong intolerance of oppression in all its forms, Sophie Vassilievna seemed to suffer from the same nobleness of impulse and meanness of opportunity as those which afflict her sisters of the new generation of Russian women.

In these surroundings, then, it was easy and pleasant to settle down to the interest of my sojourn in Astrakhan. Throughout the autumn I had out-door exercise in abundance. Cold weather does not fairly begin in the southeastern governments until the month of December, but the evenings are sharp and frosty long before the appearance of snow. At Astrakhan — on nearly the same parallel of latitude as La Rochelle — they have an atmospheric charm that sometimes verges on the phenomenal. As the sun descends, a broad band of purple, with an upper fringe of red, rises slowly in the east, until it has attained an elevation of about twentyfive degrees above the horizon ; it then fades and disappears. Afterwards the west is rosy for a brief space, the vivid color dying with remarkable quickness. But the vault is never dark, even in the absence of the moon ; all night there is a brilliant blue overhead, in which the stars burn with a soft planetary lustre, scarcely twinkling. The town has few lights of its own, and thus the contrast between the earth deep in shade and the luminous sky hovering over it formed a spectacular effect to me novel and striking.

Some of my evenings were devoted to boating excursions, undertaken for the most part in the society of from thirty to forty young people, whose favorite summer resort was a picturesque suburb, separated from Astrakhan by water. Here the party danced by torchlight, and ended its entertainment with an open-air supper, rarely returning to the Tatar Bridge before midnight. My own interest in these gatherings centred in the vocal exercises which they invariably called forth. Afloat on the river, I caught many an old song, melody, or couplet that has no record in contemporary Russian literature, but lives along the Lower Volga literally in the mouths of the people. Most of these fragments were composed in honor of this historic stream, and seem to belong to the earliest period of the folk-song in Russia ; a few contain traces of the hero-worship called into being by the exploits of Sténka Rázin and Pugachev. Nearly all use the caressing word matushka,⁴the Volga being thus apostrophized as “ dear little mother.” One popular snatch of this kind — song it can scarcely be called — has the simplicity of an improvisation, and may be heard in all parts of the Russian Empire. Even the Arkhangel peasant knows the words and tune of Down on the Volga, our Dear Mother. Another unrhymed composition frequently sung at Astrakhan begins, —

Introductions in this style often lead up to a love story, and so from the flowerets the singer gradually reaches the injunction, —

Nor is the personification one of words only. The river is actually addressed. The Volga songs are, so to speak, sung out upon the waters.

As the season deepened in-door life began to claim attention. In the Street of the Cossacks it had a smooth, equable, half-listless flow, refreshing to both eye and ear. I was accustomed to spend several of the hours of daylight in my friend’s well-supplied library, where I regularly saw the Golos, the Novosti, and other St. Petersburg newspapers. It was like peeping into Western Europe for a few brief moments, and then suddenly realizing its utter antithesis of all one’s surroundings. Vassíly Nikoláievich joined me in the afternoon. The evening we devoted to social recreation. At my host’s hospitable “ sideboard ” I met all kinds of guests. Merchants came, fishery proprietors, doctors, army officers, schoolmasters, clerks, pupils, governesses. Nor was there any lack of entertainment. When the interest lagged in conversation, story-telling, or chess, — in which the Astrakhaners are experts, — a “ literary evening,” as we pompously called it, would be extemporized. Vassíly Nikolaievicli was expected to open the ball with a reading out of The Annals of the Fatherland,⁵ generally one of the inimitable satires from the editorial pen of Prince Saltykov. Sophie Vassilievna would follow with a scene from Pushkin, or, tired of “ declamation,” as it is styled in Russia, she would seat herself at the piano, and sing, in a clear, tremulous voice, her favorite lyric from Lermontov : —

Bright wanderers, heavenly clouds are ye,
That spurn the flow’rëd steppe and flee
And pass, as T, all southward bent
From that dear North to banishment !

Who chases you ? Decree of fate ?
Dissembled envy, open hate ?
Some crime’s remorse, a conscience wrung,
Or blatant friendship’s poisoned tongue ?

Ah, no ! a fruitless soil ye flee.
To you, the ever cold and free,
Not passion and not pain is sent, —
Ye have no home, no banishment.

Platosha Vassilievna, my host’s youngest daughter, a black-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl of ten, was also pleased to contribute to these evening entertainments. She excelled in the old Russian dance. Attired in picturesque Slav costume, — wearing the tall head-dress with its diamond spangle, and the pearl necklaces hung one over the other, — she went through the simple lines of her part, not only without music, but with a rhythmical accuracy and gracefulness of movement that I have never seen equaled in any of the tawdry ballets of Western Europe. Perhaps the gestures of the arms or the roguish persuasiveness of the eye had something to do with the effect of the performance. As for me, I never witnessed it without feeling that the dance is of the East, Eastern; that for advanced civilizations its real meaning has been lost.

One somewhat singular custom I noticed at some of these social assemblies. When women come together in Astrakhan, a large plate of dried melon-seeds is placed upon the table, or handed round to each guest; the cracking and consumption of the proffered edible being regarded as the indispensable condition of any conversation that can be called at all enjoyable. True, the husk is removed only after great labor, while the result in nutriment is exceedingly small ; yet there is a certain utility in the operation, since it is believed to prevent yawning and ennui. An even greater service may be ascribed to the habit, if it be true as well as proverbial in Russia that “ fools are born during the awkward pauses in conversation.”

When priests came to argue with him, as they very rarely did, Vassíly Nikoláievich hesitated not to disclose the agnostic cast of his religious beliefs. When they came to ask contributions, as they very often did, my host gave liberally and unhesitatingly. In all substantial respects he discharged his duty to the church. He, too, ate rice with Eudoxia Petróvna on the sorrowful anniversary of the death of their firstborn, and like her was regular in his attendance at divine service. Nor was ceremonial neglected by his household. Lamps were lighted before the holy images on the eve of every church festival; the bath was simultaneously resorted to, in order that no mundane taint might nullify the services of the morrow. Vassíly Nikoláievich even tolerated the occasional presence of a holy icon, known far and near for its miraculous powers. It generally came in the early morning, that its effect upon the worshipers might not be interfered with by the gross vapors of food. A hum of voices from the street would announce its arrival, and then, on the doors being flung open, four men would stagger in, bearing the icon on their shoulders, closely followed by the priest, his assistant, and half a dozen juvenile choristers. The image I saw on these occasions was chiefly remarkable for the large and luminous eyes of the “Mother of God,” and the wondering ones of the “ Divine Babe.” The icon was usually placed against one of the walls of the apartment, the members of the family standing round in a half-circle. The holy man, aided from time to time by his subordinate, recited the service in ecclesiastical Slavonic, swinging the censer to and fro as he did so ; the boys chanted in high alto, and the clerk responded in a deep bass, “ The Lord have mercy upon us! ” The priest pronounced the benediction, and the service was at an end.

That the spectacular element is always strong in these ministrations to the orthodox may perhaps account for the saying that in Russia it is only one step from the church to the theatre. At Astrakhan they take that step with great frequency. Passionately fond of playgoing, the inhabitants boast loudly of their brand-new theatre, built wholly of stone and lit by electricity ; furnished, as well, in a style that would not be considered niggardly in the capital itself. In these days the best companies are secured for the Lower Volga. The people of Astrakhan are thus proud to think that their theatrical tastes are consulted, quite regardless of cost. I cannot speak of their play-house as being exclusively devoted to amusement. Merchants may be seen in it doing market business between acts, officials holding receptions and signing documents in their private boxes. The foyer at times wears the aspect of a stock exchange. On the other hand, the audience misses no word or gesture, once the curtain has been rung up. This is particularly noticeable during the performance of Russian plays, which in the provinces, at any rate, still hold their own against Western productions. The mass of the Russian people care little for the foreign theatre, however well it may have been “ adapted;” the thoroughly native comedies of Gogol and Ostrovsky are everywhere welcomed with unbounded and never-tiring enthusiasm. They appeal strongly to the people, reflecting often enough the coarsenesses as well as the idyls of provincial life. One of the stage customs that die hard in Russia is the step dance, a series of uncouth motions, during which the performer, assuming a half-sitting attitude, throws his legs alternately forward with great violence and rapidity. In Ostrovsky’s Poverty is not Vice the spectacle is presented of two men — benefacted and benefactor — kissing each other literally from head to foot.

The table habits of Astrakhan also have elements of novelty for foreigners. It must be premised that in Russia there is a form of abstemiousness natural to the people, and another which has been foisted upon them by the Greek Church. Which of these is the more meritorious in a religious sense it is not for me to decide, but I do know that it requires very robust orthodoxy to fast by the card amidst the rigors of an Astrakhan winter. The Slav breakfast on the Neva is rarely anything more than a glass of weak tea hot from the samovar. In Astrakhan they add a piece of Tatar cake, a thin tegument of baked dough sprinkled with poppy seeds, with a relish, on occasions of unusual hunger, in the shape of rak, a sort of fluvial lobster. The dinner that follows rarely includes either beef or mutton, even when its cost has fallen, as it frequently does, to two cents per pound. Piscine luxuries practically unattainable in Western Europe are so cheap in Astrakhan as to form the staple nutriment of the poorest families. While the artisan of South London is exploring the New Cut in search of a tolerable side of beef at less than 1s. 4d. a pound, the Astrakhan boatman is getting his pound of sterlet for four cents. It is the matushka, the dear little mother, that does all this. She not only feeds her countless progeny in the Caspian, but furnishes them with quiet shelving banks in which they may spawn undisturbed. There is a poetic and a material side to the fishing industries. I must therefore note that the Russians cook and eat the heads of all fish deemed worthy to be sent to table. Once I saw a diner thrust his fork into the eye of a sturgeon and whip the lustreless optic into his mouth, saying as he did so, in response to my look of consternation, “Why, that’s the choicest part! ” I liked better caviare,

the minced sterlet patties served in soup, or the luscious fish pie with the crust baked brown.

Loaf-bread I scarcely expected to find at Astrakhan, since the only nutriment of this kind eaten in the northern governments takes the form of rolls; the halach, a genuinely native product, standing first in popular favor. Yet along the Lower Volga kalach is a well-known generic term applied to loaves of bread baked in the West European manner, the real kalach, as sung by the old Russian poets, being practically unknown.

Potatoes are seldom eaten in Astrakhan, even by the poorer classes. The inhabitants reject hares as articles of food, rarely use butter, are fond of Tatar cheese, and regard Calmuck tea, prepared with salt and grease, as a luxury. Fruit is cheap and abundant. Watermelons are sold at half a cent each during the summer months. Grapes, from which “ Astrakhan wine ” is made, cost from two to three cents a pound. In fine, the expenses of living are less at Astrakhan than in any other part of European Russia, — phenomenal!y small when compared with the cost of subsistence in the west of Europe. A shopkeeper, fairly representative of the middle classes, assured me that the expenditure of his family for a year, excluding outlay on rent and wearing apparel, had never exceeded 400 rubles; that is to say, $200.

One morning Vassily Nikolaievich brought me a dainty little envelope, addressed in an original manner and secured with an enormous seal. It proved to be a simple invitation to dinner, but it led to my spending a week with an Armenian family, amidst purely Armenian surroundings, on the outskirts of Astrakhan. This novel experience showed me that Armenians areas susceptible to influences of environment as are most races on the same level of culture. Of the tenacity with which they are said to cling to race customs and prejudices I saw very little. At Astrakhan they have been almost thoroughly Russianized in language, dress, and manners. To attribute to them in European Russia the exclusive racial spirit of M. Elisée Reclus’s description ⁶ would be to do them injustice. There is, on the contrary, the closest intimacy between the Armenian colony and the native population. Common interests in trade have done much to foster this solidarity. The Armenians display great business enterprise, stand in high commercial repute along the Volga, and send to the university cities of Russia young men and young women whose zeal for learning and success in study are the envy of the native scholars. I cannot say that I met any of those Armenian women whom M. Reclus describes as “ compelled to keep their mouths shut at least until the birth of their first child.”⁷ The women of this race whom I knew at Astrakhan were just as vivacious, just as ready to resent undue interference with their personal liberty, as their neighbors of Slav blood. When uneducated and untraveled they play many pranks with rouge, until at last the cheek wears a permanent blush of dark vermilion, not attractive, but rather revolting, to the spectator. Philologists claim Armenian for the Indo-European family of languages, but the Armenian face is not Aryan in any sense. It has an aquiline nose, slightly épaté, bright eyes, and a high forehead, with a complexion mingling the Italian olive and the Anglo-Saxon red. In feature the Armenian is a Jew idealized. Were I a painter, and in quest of an ideal Christ, it is my fancy that I should seek my model amongst the descendants of Haik.

Soon after my visit to the Armenian colony, Yan drove me in a tarantass to the uttermost part of the sloboda, where Astrakhan habitations first degenerate, and then disappear into the open steppe. Yan was the Tatar coachman of Vassíly Nikoláievich, and on this day he had considerately planned a tour through the quarters of his fellow Mahommedans, for the special benefit of myself. Our first halting-place was the Tatar school, at the door of which the master met me with a warm greeting. He invited me to follow him, and I did so with difficulty, the passage being long and dark. Such was the slowness of my approach that on emerging into the light I found the school in full swing again; that is to say, an apartment in which boys and pedagogue, to the number of nearly fifty persons, were seated on the bare ground, — the former reciting from the Koran, the latter enforcing attention to the lesson with a light rod. The schoolmaster at once engaged me in conversation. He talked for half an hour, and with such demoralizing effect upon his pupils that, on my retreat through the labyrinth, they followed me with a rush, shouting, laughing, and jostling. One of them told me it was customary for scholars to take a holiday whenever visitors came. In the open air I could examine them more closely. Young people suffering less than they from intellectual cramming I never met. The boys were certainly well fed. They were also well dressed. They had symmetrical features, long lashes, and lustrous black eyes.

As we set out again, a Tatar woman, somewhat advanced in years, beckoned to us from the road, and Yan held parley with her from the tarantass. Across her forehead she wore a band of gold coins ; her hair, hanging in long tresses, was heavy with silver money, much of it ancient and badly shaped. It was finally arranged that Yan and I should, accompany her home. On the road she recounted at bewildering length the names of the relatives from whom the separate pieces of her head-dress and hair ornaments had descended; nor was the story of these heirlooms complete when, after a long route through streets, courtyards, and passages, we at last stood at the door of her dwelling. Here the woman’s first act was to introduce us to her husband, a man of substantial proportions, tall, affable, wearing the Tatar skull-cap and surtout; the latter a long overcoat of slender material, a compromise between the Russian sarafan and the more nomadic attire of Central Asia. Otherwise built in Russian fashion, the domicile had little more than a single apartment, which seemed to be used for both sitting and sleeping purposes. More than half of the floor space was taken up by a raised platform, covered with rich quilting. At one end of this a young Tatar woman was embroidering a silk cap; at the other, somewhat in the shade, a boy sat swinging to and fro a baby asleep in a square cradle, suspended from the roof by silken ropes. The room was tolerably well furnished. A cupboard stood against the wall, stocked with China tea ware. A clock, of Paris manufacture, hung near. To the sides of the apartment were affixed numerous slips of paper, containing passages from the Koran, in Arabic. The elder woman read, or rather sang, in a monotonous voice, portions of holy writ, for the edification of Yan and myself. She was proceeding to regale us with profane narratives, when the young embroiderer interjected an observation that at once precipitated an altercation. What relation existed between the two women I know not. It was clear that their quarrel had us for its subject, so we withdrew.

I had much for which to thank Yan. Another of his services was to bring me into contact with the leaders of a Khirgiz caravan, about to leave Astrakhan for Persia. There being no obstacle in the way, I decided to accompany the party as far as a Calmuck encampment, ten miles distant. Setting out in the early morning, — myself mounted, for safety, on the smallest of the camels, — we reached the Mongols long before noon. I found about thirty khibitkas scattered over five or six acres of ground. The occupants all came out to inspect me, and, as many of them could speak Russian, friendly relations were soon established between us. The nomads had just donned their sheepskins for the winter; below these, like a dressing-gown, hung a loose garment, bright with its fantastic patchwork of red and yellow, — the only genuinely native vestment that the Mongols wear. Boots, on the other hand, the Calmucks have borrowed from the Russians ; their cap is cousin-german to the fur turban of the Khirgiz. Unpicturesque as it may be thought, Calmuck attire is tolerable when compared with the Calmuck countenance. Stranger than all is it that the high cheek bone and oblique eye are at their highest and obliquest in the female face. Of two Mongols, male and female, I might meet, the uglier was sure to be the woman. There is, nevertheless, no danger of facial indications becoming a test of sex amongst the Calmucks : this has been deftly averted by the feminine habit of wearing leaden earrings, and of keeping the hair in long silken bags pendent to the waist.

At the time of my arrival in the encampment, some of the women were plaiting rushes into mats. This is the earliest stage in the art of Mongol house-building. The khibitka is round in shape, with a diameter never less than ten feet, and has a sloping roof, in which a central opening is left for the escape of smoke. The framework of the dwelling is of wooden poles ; against and upon these rush mats are laid, the whole being protected by a covering of felt or camel’s skin. Within khibitkas thus constructed a considerable degree of domestic comfort may be enjoyed. In more than one of them I saw carpets, rugs, and furniture much more suitable, I could not help thinking, for a city drawing-room than for a shifting home on the steppe. Smoke is the bane of the khibitka; much more being emitted from the central fireplace than can be quickly got rid of through the opening in the roof. Hence, no doubt, the frequency of sore eyes amongst the Calmucks. Yet a race keener of vision does not exist.

In one tent the female occupants consulted my wishes in regard to a dancing performance. On my assenting, they brought a boy, who, after much parleying, was induced to give a specimen of his skill. A Mongolian hag supplied the music, — a quick, barbaric melody, half sung, half played with the hands on an imaginary instrument. The dance itself was both erotic and martial in character. There were alternate advances and retreats, threatenings of the arm and stampings of the ground ; then milder gestures, beckonings, enticing waves of the hand ; but, on a turn in the music, delirious movements of the whole body, in which the performer seemed too overcome by passion to preserve his equilibrium. The lad did actually stagger and fall, and that put an end to the dance.

I sought diligently for specimens of Calmuck literature, but failed to find any in all the thirty khibitkas. On religious ground my success was not much greater. I was not, for example, permitted to look into the mechanism of the praying-machines, the priest being absent, “on parish duty.” This Calmuck ecclesiastic, with his flowing scarlet robe that sweeps the ground and his haughty superciliousness of manner, is at once the exponent and the arbiter of the Buddhism of the steppe. It is, perhaps, as much owing to his influence as to the waudering habits and gross credulity of the race that beliefs and legends have been grafted upon the old faith which have no justification in the teachings of Sakaya Muni.

This visit to the Calmuck encampment practically brought my six months’ sojourn in Astrakhan to a close, for on my return Vassíly Nikoláievich met me with letters and news; the one conveying intelligence of startling events in the capital, the other summoning me to St. Petersburg. The river-way being closed by ice, I had to prepare for a journey along the post road for four hundred versts, as far as Tsarítsyn, where the Volga railway system begins. In two days all things were ready, — my small impedimenta well packed, myself wrapped in Russian furs. The morning was piercingly cold, yet many came to see me off. Nothing could be heartier than the good-by of this kind-hearted, hospitable family. It was a parting at the troika side characteristically Russian. “ Zheláyu vam vsevo kharóshavo ! ” (I wish you every good) said Vassily Nikoláievich. “ Búdtye zdorov ! ” (May you be healthy) ejaculated Eudoxia Petróvna. “ Dóbry put! ” (A good road to you) was the thoughtful utterance of Sophie Vassilievna. Last, little Platosha Vassilievna called after me: “ Edmund Ivanovich, don’t forget us! ” Then, when the hand-shaking had been gone through again and again, the driver gave a low whistle; the horses started forward and the troïka bells jingled merrily, and in a brief space Vassíly Nikoláievich and the Street of the Cossacks had wholly disappeared from sight.

Edmund Noble.