"HOLY RUSSIA ." 289 



newspaper-reading public. Then a man or woman 

 was buried alive ; and we heard of a woman severely 

 mangled by a wolf while rescuing a child from attack, 

 left to perish in an out-house because no moujik would 

 admit her into his house. On this horseback ride, 

 which put me for several weeks in contact with the 

 peasantry, I managed to pick up more or less informa- 

 tion concerning their peculiar superstitions. 



Although the peasants have certainly advanced a 

 step or two in knowledge and understanding during 

 the thirty years since their emancipation, the powers 

 of darkness still hold well-nigh undisputed sway over 

 the minds of a majority of the rural population of 

 Russia. Ignorance links arms with superstition, and 

 the two revel in the interior villages whenever the 

 normal apathy of the moujik brain is disturbed by fear 

 or suspicion. Though he is sitting on the threshold 

 of the twentieth century, and the humblest tillers of 

 the soil in lands not far from him learned years ago 

 that the world they live in is a planet revolving around 

 the sun, the moujik still thinks that it rests on the 

 backs of three whales, or monster turtles, in the ocean. 



No limit exists to the absurdities that find expres- 

 sion in the beliefs and superstitions of such a people. 

 The women and girls, of course, are the most supersti- 

 tious. Unreasoning faith makes them tenaciously 

 loyal to their old pagan traditions. In Little Russia it 

 was the rather uncomplimentary lot of myself and 

 companion to come daily under the suspicion of being 

 the Evil One, Antichrist, the " Cattle Plague," or 

 other malignant spirit in disguise. 



In many of the postayali dvors of Little Russia 



