Notes and Gleanings. 99 



country is unenclosed : the herds of cattle at pasture are attended by keepers, 

 mostly women or boys, to prevent their straying, or encroaching on the culti- 

 vated fields. Although, as I have stated, the soil is generally light and sandy, 

 yet in some places there seemed to be deposits of peat, into which the fires, that 

 were devastating the forests in many places as I passed through them, had pene- 

 trated, causing great damage, and resisting all efforts to extinguish them. The 

 country did not appear as if it suffered for want of water. Besides the Niemen 

 and the Dwina, other streams and water-courses were not unfrequently passed. 

 The Niemen and Dwina are large rivers. Upon the first named, I noticed some 

 navigation by means of large boats : very probably the same is to be found on 

 the last, although I did not happen to observe any as I crossed it. The Neva, 

 that at St. Petersburg divides into several branches, some of which are connected 

 by means of canals, — thus giving access by water to different parts of the city, — 

 atTords transport for a supply of fuel and other articles, by means of boats of 

 great size, from the upper waters of that stream. Besides these rivers and 

 streams, there are numerous lakes, some of large size, one of which, the Lake of 

 Laguda, is not far from the city of St. Petersburg. 



In a first visit to a strange country, though the view to be obtained of it is only 

 such as can be caught from the window of a fast-moving railway-carriage, to be 

 enabled, from seeing them at their labors and amusements, to form some opinion 

 of the outward forms of the civilization of its people, slight and imperfect as is 

 the information thus obtained, is never without gratification ; but, aside from 

 this source, the main interest attending a journey to Russia is to be sought in 

 its cities. The country is not an exciting one to the traveller. 



The term '• scenery " is intended to refer to views of grandeur and sublimity ; 

 lofty chains of snow-covered mountains, with deep gorges and rocky precipices ; 

 or to those that, less grand, are still wild and picturesque ; a lake surrounded by 

 precipitous mountains, high upland valleys amid hills whose sides are clothed 

 with wood, perhaps a mountain-stream rushing through them, such as may be met 

 with among the Swiss Alps ; or even landscapes of a tamer and more domestic 

 character. — smooth grassy slopes and valleys, with groves and trees about some 

 gentleman's seat, pastures stocked with sleek cattle, and farm-houses that seem 

 abodes of ease and comfort, such as England is constantly presenting under 

 their most attractive forms. In none of these acceptations of the term can there 

 be said to be, in that part of Russia that I saw, any scenery at all. It is every- 

 where one vast broad, rolling, or level plain, thinly peopled, and partially covered 

 with forests, monotonous in its vastness, and dull and dreary from the absence 

 of any signs of activity and aninxition. The traveller constantly finds himself in 

 a vast circumlerence, whose bounds on all sides are the horizon, the central 

 point in a great plain ; and he at first hopes, as he approaches it, that different 

 views will open belore him. But no: as he proceeds, the horizon rises before 

 and closes behind him, and he still continues the moving central point of this 

 same broad plain. 



As might perhaps be inferred from the climate and character of the country, 

 gardening has made but little progress in the western part of Russia. About 

 the stations on the railways, a portion of ground is usually encloi^ed, laid out 



