CHAPTER III. 



PLANNING THE RIDE. 



MOSCOW, then, was the first objective point, and 

 along the length of Czar Nicholas's famous " ruler- 

 railway," between St. Petersburg and Moscow, a few 

 " impressions by the way ' of Russian railway travel- 

 ing may not be out of place. Every reader knows the 

 story of how the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway was 

 surveyed in one minute by the Emperor, with a ruler, a 

 pencil, and a map. A traveler once compared this 

 road to the pyramids of Egypt as a monument of Im- 

 perial will. Times have improved, however, in the 

 past five thousand years. It is still possible for a Czar 

 of Russia to draw a straight line across a map and 

 order a railway to be built along it, but these days not 

 even the Russians would stand a pyramid. 



To the American popular mind this railway is a 

 gigantic freak of autocratic power, toying recklessly 

 with the resources of a great nation. Those informed 

 of Russian affairs are aware that the ruler-and-pencil 

 survey was the result of the Czar's disgust at the 

 efforts of the officials, intrusted to draw up the plans, to 

 serve their own personal ends. A gentleman in St. 

 Petersburg told the author that the preliminary sur- 

 vey, as laid before the Czar, twisted about the country 

 like a serpent's trail, for no other reason than to en- 



37 



