10 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



with a magenta coloured sash ending in long tassels, blue 

 trousers, and long brightly polished boots. 



It is said that when the chart representing the line 

 which the surveyors proposed for the railway between the 

 two capitals was submitted to the Emperor Nicolas, lie 

 took a pencil and ruler and- drew a straight line from the 

 one point to the other, saying, Kak boodit! (So be it !) and 

 so it was constructed not as the professional engineers 

 designed, but as the Sovereign willed it to bs; and view- 

 ing the railway system of Russia as primarily of importance 

 with a view to military tactics, it may be that the Imperial 

 military projector was right. In consequence of the course 

 followed by the line several towns of importance are passed 

 at a distance ; but it passes through the town of Tver, with 

 a population reckoned at 23,000, situated on the Volga, 

 And here the traveller may leave the railway carriage 

 for the steamboat, and embarking, pass over some 

 hundreds of versts of his journey with less fatigue than 

 even that experienced in travelling by railway. But time 

 has a money value, and most travellers for the east and 

 the south who can afford to do so continue their journey 

 by railway to ISijni-Novgorod, and embark upon the 

 Volga there. The country between St, Petersburg and 

 this is very level ; it is but poorly cultivated ; and it is 

 uninteresting, The line of rails crosses the Valdai Hills, 

 in which the Volga, debouching on the Caspian; the Dwina, 

 flowing into the Black Sea ; and the Volkhof, take their 

 rise. My brother, travelling from St, Petersburg to Moscow 

 by diligence, before the days of railways, said one evening 

 to the conductor, ' Please awake me, if I happen to be 

 asleep, when we reach the Valdai Hills/ ' The Valdai 

 Hills!' said the conductor, with a look of astonishment, 

 ' why, we crossed them yesterday ! ' And, like my brother 

 travelling by diligence, the traveller by railway may cross 

 the entire range without ever remarking a departure from 

 the dead level over which he had previously passed, 



Of Moscow it concerns me not here to speak. 



