238 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. CHAP. xix. 



the little stints I had seen were probably breeding at no 

 great distance from the spot I had visited the previous day. 

 The thought of the probable vicinity of the nests, the dis- 

 covery of which had been one of the strong motives of our 

 journey, excited us so much that we did not go to bed, but 

 spent the night plotting and planning the possibilities of 

 getting to Dvoinik again. There were difficulties in the 

 way. Unluckily for us, the Company's manager was a very 

 impracticable man. It was his first year in office ; he was 

 young, inexperienced, and comparatively uneducated. For 

 the nonce, he was absolute monarch of Alexievka, and the 

 absoluteness of his power was "too many" for him. A 

 German (from Kevel), he had yet so much of the Kussian in 

 him, that when scratched the Tartar would out. He was 

 very unpopular, and one glimpse behind the scenes revealed 

 to us rebellion " looming in the distance." There were 

 allowances to be made for the man. No gentlemen would 

 come to such a place as Alexievka, or face the existing 

 muddle, for the sake of the miserable pay " la pauvre com- 

 pagnie," as Cocksure calls it, gives. The Provalychik had a 

 plentiful crop of cares under his crown. So far as we could 

 see, he was plotting and being plotted against. He was not 

 backed up by the Bureau at St. Petersburg. His domestic 

 affairs looked ugly; and amongst his subordinates he had 

 scarcely one reliable man he could trust. The whole situ- 

 ation was a specimen of what the Germans call " Eussische 

 Wirthschaft." We knew the man could render us an in- 

 valuable service without exposing the Company to the 

 slightest loss, but as yet we had not been able to make him 



