288 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



getting matters curiously muddled. Thus the Prophet 

 Elias has succeeded to the office of Perun, the ancient 

 god of thunder. St. Elias is now the Russian peas- 

 ants' " clerk of the weather." He it is who gives or 

 withholds the rain necessary to the growing of their 

 crops. And when it thunders and lightens, it is St. 

 Elias driving in his chariot across the heavens. 



A Russian peasant will not harm a pigeon, nor would 

 he think of eating one, even if suffering from want of 

 food. All through Russia, and particularly in the 

 lower forest zone south of Moscow, the country is full 

 of pigeons, that enjoy complete immunity from moles- 

 tation. In the country they are as tame as the semi- 

 domestic pigeons owned by breeders in American cities. 



The pigeon has always been a sacred bird in Russia. 

 In the old pagan times it was consecrated to Perun, 

 the god of thunder, just mentioned. When the mis- 

 sionaries of the Cross invaded the country and prevailed 

 against Perun and his associates, the lucky pigeon lost 

 nothing of its sacred character by the new order of 

 things. The converts, by some occult process of 

 reasoning, came to associate it with their idea of the 

 Third Person of the Trinity. The sacred character of 

 the pigeon, like the office of " weather clerk," has been 

 brought over from the old religion to the new and 

 consecrated to the Third Person of the Trinity, which 

 the majority of the peasants think to be St. Nicholas. 



Readers will remember stories that have occasionally 

 reached us from Russia of atrocities committed by 

 fanatical peasants in the villages of the interior. On 

 one occasion the burning of a poor old woman startled 

 the Western World and taxed the credulity of the 



