54 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
homestead stands alone. From ten to a hundred cabins 
make a village. Built of the same pine logs, notched and 
bound together, each house is like its fellow, except in 
size. The elder’s hut [Starista] is bigger than the rest ; 
and after the elder’s house comes the [Kabac] whiskey- 
shop. Four squat walls, two tiers in height, and pierced 
by doors and windows; such is the shell. The floor is 
mud, the shingle deal. The walls are rough, the crannies 
stuffed witb moss. No paint is used, and the log fronts 
soon become grimy with rain and smoke. The space 
between each hut lies open and unfenced, a slough of 
mud and mire, in which the pigs grunt and wallow, and 
the wolf-dogs snarl and fight. The lane is planked. One 
house here and there may have a balcony, a cow-shed, an 
upper storey. Near the hamlet rises a chapel built of 
logs, and roofed with plank ; but here you find a flush of 
colour, if not a gleam of gold. The walls of the chapel are 
sure to be painted white, the roof is sure to be painted 
green. Some wealthy peasant may have gilt the cross. 
‘Beyond these dreary cabins lie the still more dreary 
fields which the people till. Flat, unfenced, and lowly, 
they have nothing of the poetry of our fields in Sussex and 
Essex plains; no hedgerow of ferns, no clumps of fruit- 
trees, and no hints of home. The patches set apart for ” 
kitchen stuffs are not like gardens even of their homely 
kind. They look like workhouse plots of space laid out 
by yard and rule, in which no living soul had any part. 
These patches are always mean, and you search in vain 
for such a dainty as a flower. 
‘The forest melts and melts! We meet a woman driv- 
ing in a cart alone; a girl darts past us in the mail ; anon 
we come upon a waggon, guarded by troops on foot, con- 
taining prisoners, partly chained, in charge of an ancient 
dame. 
‘ This service of the road is due from village to village ; 
and on a party of travellers coming into a hamlet the 
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