PLANNING THE RIDE. 45 



your own provisions, tea and sugar, and buy a pot of 

 boiling water, holding enough for six glasses of tea, 

 for one kopeck. A gourmet's feast for a moujik is a 

 glass of vodka, a big salted cucumber, a slice of smoked 

 sturgeon, rye bread, a glass of tea, with a slice of 

 lemon in it, and a cigarette. 



At every station is a gendarme, with long sword and 

 revolver, blue uniform with red trimmings, lamb's-wool 

 hat with tall red plume — as gorgeous an individual as 

 the rural carbineers one sees at the stations in Italy. 



At every station, also, are peasant girls selling beer- 

 bottles of milk, and members of the " Orthodox," in 

 rags and tatters, humbly begging, " for Christ's sake," a 

 kopeck. All true Russians are Orthodox, but the wan- 

 faced wretch, with unkempt hair and bleary eyes, who 

 wails for alms as the train glides slowly into the station, 

 is peculiarly so. We toss him a coin, he crosses him- 

 self a half-dozen times, calling down on you the bless- 

 ings of many saints, then moves on to the next win- 

 dow. 



" For Christ's sake, a kopeck for the Orthodox," he 

 repeats. The scene wafted me to similar scenes in 

 other countries and alien religions. On the great pil- 

 grim roads of Persia the half-starved devotee, footing 

 his weary way a thousand miles without means to pay 

 his expenses, begs for alms in the name of Mahomet. 



" I am a good Moslem on a pilgrimage to Meshed," 

 says he; "therefore give me alms." 



" Give me alms," says the Russian peasant, " for I 

 am a Christian." 



In the north the Russian locomotives burn wood, in 

 the south refuse petroleum. Pine forests cover about 



