1 84 THRO UGH R US SI A ON A M US TA JVC. 



along the route. Log villages, brightly painted, sprang 

 up like mushrooms at his bidding, and thousands of 

 peasants were compelled, nolens vo/ens, to take up their 

 residence in them and to turn out in their Sunday- 

 clothes when the Imperial party drove through. From 

 Kiev the Empress sailed in barges down the Dneiper, 

 and taking a fancy to the spot on which Ekaterinoslav 

 now stands, ordered a city to be built. Her statue is 

 perched on the highest spot of ground at the east end 

 of the boulevard. 



This boulevard consists of three parallel roads. The 

 center track is divided from the others by an avenue 

 of trees and sidewalks, and is paved after the usual 

 manner of provincial Russia, in other words, so 

 abominably rough that the drosky drivers keep off it 

 altogether, except in wet weather, when the side roads 

 are sloughs of sticky mud. These side roads were 

 several inches deep in dust as we rode down the street 

 in search of a hotel, and droskies and squeaking telegas 

 plowing through it filled the air to suffocation. 



Dusty policemen eyed us suspiciously, and news was 

 immediately conveyed to the Chief of Police that a 

 couple of strange horsemen had arrived in the city. 

 Ekaterinoslav is full of latent sedition, both civil and 

 religious, and the authorities are offensively suspicious 

 of anything that strikes them as being a trifle out of 

 the ordinary. That we were dangerous characters to 

 be at large seemed the opinion of every policeman who 

 cast his eye on us as we rode down the street, and at the 

 hotel our passports were at once declared *' irregular." 



In short, we were to be detained on some pretext or 

 other until the police authorities had time to revolve 



