FORESTS OF ARCHANGEL. 55 



elder [Starist] must provide for them the things required 

 carts, horses, drivers, in accordance with their podorojna; 

 but in many villages the party finds no men, or none 

 except the very young and very old. Husbands are leagues 

 away, fishing in the polar seas, cutting timber in the 

 Kargopol forests, trapping fox and beaver in the Ural 

 mountains, leaving their wives alone for months. These 

 female villages are curious things, in which a man of 

 pleasant manners may find au opportunity of flirting to 

 his heart's content. 



' Villages, more villages, yet more villages ! We pass a 

 gang of soldiers marching by the side of a peasant's cart, 

 in which lies a prisoner, chained; we spy a wolf in the 

 copse ; we meet a pilgrim on his way to Solovetsk ; we 

 come upon* a gang of boys whose clothes seem to be out at 

 wash j we pass a broken waggon ; we start at the howl of 

 some village dogs ; and then go winding forward hour by 

 hour, through the silent woods. Some touch of green and 

 poetry charms our eyes in the most desolate scenes. A 

 virgin freshness crisps and shakes the leaves. The air is 

 pure. If nearly all the lines are level, the sky is blue, the 

 sunshine gold. Many of the trees are rich with amber, 

 pink, and brown ; and every fragrant breeze makes music 

 in the pines. A peasant and his dog troop past, reminding 

 me of scenes in Kent. A convent here and there peeps 

 out. A patch of forest is on fire, from the burning mass of 

 which a tongue of pale pink flame laps out and up through 

 a pall of purple smoke. A clearing swept by some former 

 fire is all aglow with autumnal flowers. A bright beck 

 dashes through the falling leaves. A comely child, with 

 flaxen curls, and innocent northern eyes, stands bowing in 

 the road with an almost Syrian grace. A woman comes 

 up with a bowl of milk. A group of girls are washing in 

 a stream, under the care of either the virgin mother or 

 some local saint. On every point the folk, if homely, are 

 devotional and polite ; brightening their forest brakes with 

 chapel and cross, and making their dreary wood, as it were, 

 a path of light toward heaven 



