38 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



hance the value of the estates of the survey officers, 

 and made the distance from St. Petersburg to Mos- 

 cow nearer 1500 miles than 400. Like many other 

 things, moreover, which from a distance assume fan- 

 tastic proportions, the " ruler-railway" turns out to be 

 less of a freak than one would imagine, upon a closer 

 acquaintance. 



It runs through a country almost as level as a floor, 

 and with a population of but twenty-five to the square 

 verst. Railways wind about to avoid engineering dif- 

 ficulties and to accommodate cities and towns. As 

 there were none of the former, and next to none of the 

 latter to consider, and as the termini were the two 

 greatest cities of the empire, the Czar was at least as 

 much of an economist as an autocrat in making his 

 famous survey. 



For an hour prior to the departure of the train the 

 crowd at the station was enormous. There is as much 

 leave-taking, kissing, and shedding of tears at the de- 

 parture of a Russian train as there is at the sailing of 

 an Atlantic liner. To nine tenths of the Russians a 

 journey of a hundred miles by rail is a tremendous 

 event, and each passenger has probably a dozen friends 

 who have come to see them off. 



The hum, bustle, and buzz as the time for the train 

 to leave draws near is astonishing to an American. 

 Rough men and stout old women hug one another 

 with the fervor of bears, and half the people are either 

 kissing each other or shedding tears. The average 

 Russian face of the middle and lower classes is singu- 

 larly vacant and devoid of sentiment. But at the 

 departure of the train the overflow of emotion is a 



