born, 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 a 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 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 kalach, 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.

"Dans presque toutes les contrées qu'ils habitent les Arméniens se tiennent soigneusement à

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,-phenomenally 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 ap parel, had never exceeded 400 rubles; that is to say, $200.

One morning Vassíly 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 are as 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 1 would be to do them injustice. There is, on the contrary, the closest intimacy between the Armenian colony and the native popula tion. Common interests in trade have done much to foster this solidarity. The Armenians display great business enterl'écart des hommes d'autre race et d'autre langue." (Géographie Universelle.)

prise, 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 66 compelled to keep their mouths shut at least until the birth of their first child." 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 Nikolaievich, 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 in vited me to follow him, and I did so with difficulty, the passage being long and dark. Such was the slowness of

1 "La femme, astreinte en silence du moins

jusqu'à la naissance de son premier enfant." (Géographie Universelle.)

VOL. LV.NO. 332.

51

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 fash

ion, 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 wandering 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 Tsaritsyn, 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. "Zhelayu vam vsevo kharóshavo!" (I wish you every good) said Vassíly Nikoláievich. Búdtyě zdoróv !” (May you be healthy) ejaculated Eudoxia Petróvna. "Dobry put!" (A good road to you) was the thoughtful utterance of Sophie Vassilievna. Last, little Platosha Vassilievna called after me: "Edmund Ivánovich, don't forget !" Then, when the hand-shaking had been gone through again and again, the driver gave a low whistle; the horses started forward and the troika bells jingled merrily, and in a brief space Vassíly Nikoláievich and the Street of the Cossacks had wholly disappeared from sight.

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66

Edmund Noble.

XVII.

LADY MARKLAND had recovered in a great degree from the shock of her husband's death. It had been, as Mrs. Warrender said, a shock rather than a

sorrow. There is no such reconciler of those who have been severed, no such softener of the wounds which people closely connected in life often give one another, as death. A long illness ending so has often the effect of blotting out