1 86 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



This was indeed the rub — we were a little different 

 from the mortals about them, a thing that never fails 

 to arouse the suspicions of the Russian officials to ab- 

 normal activity. A foreigner on horseback with a 

 strange Russian for an interpreter, the one with no 

 document except an American passport which they 

 were unable to make anything of, the other with an 

 "irregular" paper! No wonder that officials, whose 

 first qualification for the faithful discharge of their du- 

 ties is to be suspicious of everything and everybody, 

 were more than suspicious of us. 



In Russia everybody is considered a criminal of some 

 kidney or other, unless he has papers in his pocket 

 proving him to be otherwise. Since, to the tchinovnik 

 mind, we were without such papers, we must therefore 

 be " something," though they were sorely puzzled for a 

 definite reply to their suspicions. 



Arrest us? Oh, dear, no ! not yet. No telling who 

 or what this American might turn out to be. 



Detain us, then, on suspicion ? No, not even that 

 on direct police responsibility ; this American might 

 have friends in high places in St. Petersburg; who 

 could tell ? Still, for all this, we must be detained on 

 some pretext or other, and, however fantastic in his 

 logic, the Russian tchinovnik is never at a loss for a 

 pretext. 



When we returned to the hotel, after a visit to the 

 post-office and to the railway station, where it had 

 taken us a couple of hours to unravel sufficient red 

 tape to dispatch a valise to Sevastopol, the hostler in- 

 formed us that a gentleman in a black coat and derby 

 hat had been in the stable critically examining our 



