CHAPTER IX. 



INTO MALO RUSSIA. 



N Sunday morning, July 13, we rode into the pro- 

 vincial capital of Kursk ; and applied at the police 

 station for a renewal of Sascha's passport. Strange to 

 say, we were not received with anything beyond a mild 

 and reasonable degree of suspicion by the police 

 authorities of Kursk. The population of Kursk, how- 

 ever, is pre-eminently Orthodox, and the principal busi- 

 ness of the police officials being, in consequence, of a 

 monotonously routine character, their bumps of suspi- 

 cion are of less abnormal development than in localities 

 intellectually wider awake. The chief features of the 

 police station were the vast number of documents 

 piled on the tables and desks, and an exceedingly pom- 

 pous gentleman, whom we immediately decided must 

 be no less a personage than the Governor-General, but 

 who afterward turned out to be the assistant chief of 

 police, with a salary of, perhaps, 2000 rubles a year, or 

 $20 a week. 



One of the stock grievances that the Russians have 

 against the Germans, is, that a German officer, with the 

 salary of a journeyman tailor, will assume airs and ape 

 the hauteur of a prince with an enormous income. It 

 must not, therefore, be supposed that in speaking of 

 the tremendous personalities seen among the police 

 officers of the Russian service, that these worthy gen- 



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