54 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



with greater enthusiasm, or brighter visions of advan- 

 tages to be reaped from success. In the autumn he 

 was to enter upon his military duties by joining a regi- 

 ment of cavalry. The ride would win him fame and 

 prestige among his comrades, and bring him to the no- 

 tice of his superior officers. He would gain a knowledge 

 of his country, and, by having some one to talk to in 

 that language, improve his English. He would keep a 

 diary, and upon his return write a book. In the eyes 

 of his relatives and his fiancee, the daughter of a mer- 

 chant of Tula, he would be a hero. 



The keeping of a diary proved too irksome at the end 

 of three days, so he gave it up and decided that it 

 would be easier and better to wait until I had pub- 

 lished a book in America, when he would translate it 

 into Russian. A week's journey on our road we called 

 on his fiancc'e. The young lady was delighted 

 with him, for what he was doing was, in her eyes, 

 an heroic performance. She presented him with a 

 bouquet, and stuck rose-buds in his hat-band when we 

 rode away. Scarcely had the roses faded, and the vis- 

 ion of his sweetheart's approving smiles grown dim, 

 than he began to dwell on the contrast between the 

 fatigue and discomforts of the road and the ease and 

 pleasure of life in Moscow. And he eventually threw 

 up the sponge and returned, when but twelve days' 

 ride from the end of our journey. 



In intellect, he was as bright as he was incapable of 

 logical reasoning. He knew four languages and could 

 quote Shakespeare by the page ; but could never be 

 brought to understand why the Czar couldn't make 

 Russia as rich as he chose, by simply ordering the 



