A Russian Gentleman

nd blooming and undeflowered by hordes of settlers from every quarter. It is changed; but it is still beautiful and spacious, fertile and infinitely various, the Government of

tle streams flowing from deep water-holes-streams so tiny that you can hardly see the trickle of water in them. And thy rivers that flow swift from fountain-heads and run under the shade of trees and bushes are transparent and cold as ice even in the heat of summer; and all kinds of trout, good to eat and beautiful to see, live there; but they soon die out, when man begins to defile with unclean hands the virgin streams of their clear cool retreats. Fertile is the black soil of thy corn-land, and rich thy pastures; and thy fields are covered in spring with the milk-white blossom of the cherry-tree and

irited and tireless horses; and the stallion proudly guards his mares as they graze, and keeps both man and beast at a distance. The meagre cattle have grown fat, and their udders swell with milk. But for cow's milk the Bashkir cares nothing. For the koumiss12 is now in season and already fermenting in the bags of horse-hide; and every creature that can drink, from the infant in arms to the tottering old man, swallows the health-giving beverage, a drink for heroes. And the result is marvellous: all the traces of winter and starvation soon disappear, and even the troubles of old age; their faces f

from the borders of Vyatka and Perm, where the mercury often freezes in winter, to the little town of Guryeff on the edge of Astrakhan, where small grapes ripen in the open air-grapes whose wine the Cossack trades in and drinks himself for c

of the beautiful country where I was born. Now let us go back