54 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



homestead stands alone. From ten to a hundred cabins 

 make a village. Built of the same pine logs, notched and 

 bound together, each house is like its fellow, except in 

 size. The elder's hut [Starista] is bigger than the rest ; 

 and after the elder's house comes the [Kabac] whiskey- 

 shop. Four squat walls, two tiers in height, and pierced 

 by doors and windows; such is the shell. The floor is 

 mud, the shingle deal. The walls are rough, the crannies 

 stuffed with moss. No paint is used, and the log fronts 

 soon become grimy with rain and smoke. The space 

 between each hut lies open and unfenced, a slough of 

 mud and mire, in which the pigs grunt and wallow, and 

 the wolf-dogs snarl and fight. The lane is planked. One 

 house here and there may have a balcony, a cow-shed, an 

 upper storey. Near the hamlet rises a chapel built of 

 logs, and roofed with plank ; but here you find a flush of 

 colour, if not a gleam of gold. The walls of the chapel are 

 sure to be painted white, the roof is sure to be painted 

 green. Some wealthy peasant may have gilt the cross. 



' Beyond these dreary cabins lie the still more dreary 

 fields which the people till. Flat, unfenced, and lowly, 

 theyjiave nothing of the poetry of our fields in Sussex and 

 Essex plains ; no hedgerow of ferns, no clumps of fruit- 

 trees, and no hints of home. The patches set apart for 

 kitchen stuffs are not like gardens even of their homely 

 kind. They look like workhouse plots of space laid out 

 by yard and rule, in which no living soul had any part. 

 These patches are always mean, and you search in vain 

 for such a dainty as a flower. 



' The forest melts and melts ! We meet a woman driv- 

 ing in a cart alone ; a girl darts past us in the mail ; anon 

 we come upon a waggon, guarded by troops on foot, con- 

 taining prisoners, partly chained, in charge of an ancient 

 dame. 



* This service of the road is due from village to village ; 

 and on a party of travellers coming into a hamlet the 



