CHAPTER XIV. 



MY INTERPRETER RETURNS. 



WE were now in a country where a large share of 

 the population were secretly and openly dissen- 

 ters from the Orthodox Greek Church, and by no 

 means so loyal to the Russian government as the peo- 

 ple of the provinces we had traversed on the way from 

 Moscow. The steppes of Southern Russia are dotted 

 over with the villages of colonists from Germany, who 

 have settled there at various periods of the past two 

 centuries. These people have stubbornly clung to their 

 Protestantism, and have infused a spirit of restless 

 skepticism in regard to the efficacy of the dead ceremo- 

 nials of the Orthodox Church, in the minds of a large 

 share of the Russian and Cossack population. More- 

 over, their attitude toward the Czar and his government 

 differs from the blind infatuation of the Orthodox 

 moujiks, in that they are intelligent, reasoning beings, 

 who have brought from Germany or inherited from 

 their German-born parents the logic and philosophy of 

 Teuton civilization. 



They have also imported into the country the Teu- 

 ton's methodical and thrifty habits of life ; and on the 

 road beyond Ekaterinoslav we began to meet prosper- 

 ous looking farmers, driving fat teams of horses in 

 strong, gayly-painted wagons, the like of which my com- 

 panion from the old Muscovite capital had never set 



216 ^ 



