THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



257 



and the Semite. It is not easy to tell 

 which of one's fellow-passengers are pre- 

 dominantly Slav and which are Mongol; 

 Persian and Armenian sit side by side at 

 the table, and until pork is served the 

 American cannot tell them apart. So do 

 costumes blend. Yonder Chinese (or is 

 he a Mongol?) wears a wholly Russian 

 costume, and our tall Cossack may be 

 either a Georgian or a Circassian, though 

 he looks like an Armenian. 



As with the blood and costumes, so also 

 is it with customs. Below us, on the for- 

 ward deck, sits a family drinking tea 

 from bowls, which they hold in uttermost 

 Chinese fashion, rather than from glasses, 

 in the Russian mode ; yet one of the 

 women wears a wrist watch and all are 

 dressed as Slavic peasants. Alongside of 

 them sits a woman who is combing her 

 own hair, for various little reasons, while 

 another is performing the same office for 

 her neighbor, in the friendly fashion of 

 India and of all oriental mothers. 



The hair is a point of pride with both 

 men and women in this country. Not 

 only aboard ship, but even in the best 

 restaurants, I have seen men publicly 

 combing both beard and hair ; frequently 

 I have observed it among men at table. 

 Even in the midst of the church service 

 an occasional Russian priest will comb 

 his flowing beard and locks ; and I saw 

 bishops and archbishops, in the ante- 

 room of the procurator of the Holy 

 Synod, make a complete toilet with huge 

 combs which they carry hidden some- 

 where in their robes. 



EXAMPLES OE HIRSUTE EFFULGENCE 



On the other hand, there are apparent 

 Nazarites who give no heed to their wild, 

 unshorn locks. For example, there was 

 the young chap whom we dubbed Horace 

 Greeley, with his soft, straggling beard 

 and a quizzical look behind his ill-fitting, 

 silver-rimmed glasses, as if he were ever 

 in the glare of the sun. His straw hat 

 was fastened by a string, and he carried 

 a carpet-sack, from which he was contin- 

 ually drawing forth food, so that his time 

 was divided, like that of most Russians, 

 between smoking and eating. 



Many peasants and soldiers pay no 

 other attention to hair, apparently, than 



to cut it off square before it reaches the 

 shoulders. For hirsute effulgence, how- 

 ever, commend me to the genial izhvo- 

 stiks, or drosky-drivers, of Nizhni Nov- 

 gorod ; their whiskers are as ample as 

 their coats, which, as all who have seen 

 Russian Jehus know, is superlative speech. 

 The greatest blend of Volga River 

 travel is found among the fourth-class 

 passengers. First - class cabins, high- 

 ceiled and spacious, with no upper berths r 

 are forward on the upper deck, with 

 plate-glass windows in dining-room and 

 music-room. Second-class passengers are 

 aft on the same deck, with cabins and 

 their own dining - room, the overflow 

 sleeping in the dining-room. There is no 

 distinction on deck between the two 

 classes, and even the third and fourth 

 classes, in addition to the soldiers, prom- 

 enade the upper deck, in a merging con- 

 sequent upon the revolution. 



SCENES WITHOUT PARALLEL IN THE 

 WESTERN WORLD 



The third-class passengers have bunks, 

 two tiers high (I have even seen men 

 sleeping on the narrow luggage shelves 

 above the bunks), while the fourth class 

 simply camp down amid their luggage on 

 the deck — forward, aft, along the rails, or 

 wherever else they can find a foothold. 

 The footway alongside the oil-using en- 

 gines is lined at night with sleepers — 

 men, women, and children — with, faces 

 screwed up beneath the glare of the elec- 

 tric light. 



This is a scene with no parallel in the 

 western world. Slavs, Mongols, Jews, 

 Persians, Tatars, Circassians, Armenians, 

 and gypsies all herd together in what ap- 

 pears to be a conglomerate and inextri- 

 cable mass of misery. Each family or 

 group is perched on or beside its bun- 

 dles — bundles of cloth or of oriental rugs, 

 some of them beautiful — and its baskets. 

 Occasionally there will be seen an imita- 

 tion leather gripsack or a gaily-colored 

 tin trunk. 



As most of these people are traveling 

 with their household goods, it is easy to 

 see what a family prizes. This one has a 

 battered dressmaker's form. Yonder one 

 iron dumb-bell, weighing 15 pounds or 

 so, which a woman carefullv treasures. 



