A PROSPEROUS VILLAGE. 41 



these Dnieper villages seemed to have a small 

 vineyard attached to their cottages, and all 

 had their garden and their corn-patch allotted 

 to them on the adjoining steppe. Men and 

 women alike are at work all day, the men fish- 

 ing on the lake or working in the fields, the 

 women mending nets, tending the cattle, or 

 busy on the threshing floor ; and I never 

 remember to have seen a more prosperous vil- 

 lage than Troitsky. So far as I could see, 

 there was only one liquor -shop in it, and not a 

 single Jew, while ever}^ one seemed as healthy 

 and happy as simple folk who work hard in a 

 bracing atmosphere ought to be. I even met an 

 old Russian here, who refused my ofl'er of a 

 cigarette, and spoke scornfully of the use of the 

 pleasant weed as a modern habit and a filthy 

 one, fit only for idle boys ; he hunself, he said, 

 remembered the time when no grood true- 

 believing Russian moujik ever knew how to 

 smoke. Times are indeed changed since then, 



