522 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



his hand, and the harvest, according to his limited ideas, becomes 

 a curse. 



These conditions, which apply to the present day, explain most 

 of the vices as well as many of the virtues of our colonist: his 

 laziness, his incorrigible contentment, his indifference to losses, his 

 liberality to the needy, his compassion for the unfortunate. They 

 also explain the intense desire, innate in all Siberians, to increase 

 the population. The vast land is hungry for inhabitants, if I may 

 so speak. Therefore even now the Siberian looks with pride on a 

 numerous family; and there is no foundling asylum in the whole 

 country. Why should there be? Every woman who cannot bring 

 up the child she has borne, or who wants to be rid of it, finds some- 

 one willing and anxious to take the little creature off her hands. 

 "Give it to me," says the peasant to the faithless mother: "I will 

 bring it up;" and he looks as pleased as if a foal had just been 

 added to his stock. In former times, when the population was 

 considerably less than it is now, children were married while still 

 immature, or scarcely mature, so that they might become parents 

 as soon as possible and gain other hands to help them; now youths 

 do not usually marry until the beginning of their eighteenth year, 

 but they frequently wed older women who give promise of early 

 child-bearing, and the designs of such women upon marriageable 

 youths are not only winked at but encouraged by the bridegroom's 

 parents. 



In order that romance may not be altogether awanting, I may 

 mention that elopements of young girls with love-struck youths, 

 and secret marriages, are by no means rare occurrences among the 

 peasants of the Altai. But the great majority of these elopements 

 take place with the consent of all concerned, thus also of the parents 

 of both bride and bridegroom to avoid the customary entertaining 

 of the whole village at a meal, simple in itself, but accompanied by 

 a great deal of brandy. As may be imagined, however, love over- 

 comes all obstacles, particularly the disapproval of parents, on the 

 crown -lands as elsewhere. The maiden, like every other on the 

 round earth, is soon won over by the youth who desires to run away 

 with her; a holy servant of the Church can also be procured at all 





