THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



9.-)9 



Photograph by William T. Ellis 

 LOOKING DOWN ON DECK PASSENGERS 



It's a motley medley of human freight you see on the river boat of Russia in 1918. These 

 steamers are packed and crowded and jammed. White Russians, Red Russians, Little Rus- 

 rians, Kirghiz, Turkomen, Gypsies — a great medley of humanity, few seeming to feel or care 

 that the world is on fire and western civilization in the balance, so long as they can rest from 

 the burdens of the time. 



Musical instruments are common, and a 

 huge gramaphone horn is not infrequent. 

 A child's toy sometimes has a pathetic 

 first place. Sewing-machines are not 

 rare. But mostly the array is bundles, 

 huge and shapeless. Frequently baskets 

 of fowls are carried. One sunny morn- 

 ing I made count of what I saw on the 

 iron main deck, aft, in a space 25 by 45 

 feet. 



SUCKLING PIGS AND SICKLY CHICKENS 

 TRAVEL WITH THE FAMILY 



There were 60 persons in all visible, 

 besides luggage. Fifteen of them were 

 asleep and 45 were awake. Most of the 

 passengers were women ; some of the 

 groups had not a man among them. But, 

 then, the Russian peasant woman asks no 

 odds of man in any test of strength, in- 

 telligence, or capability. Two of the 

 women below, as I watched, were cod- 

 dling sickly chickens in their arms, the 

 fowls evidently having been victims of 

 the congestion in the baskets. Another 

 woman was airing a suckling pig on her 



knee. Two women were knitting socks 

 and two were making the toilets of chil- 

 dren. 



One woman was counting her money 

 and wrapping it up in a rag — the dirty 

 paper currency, which, in denominations 

 of 30, 25, 20, 15, and 10 kopecks, is in the 

 form of postage stamps, while the one, 

 two, three, and five kopeck notes are 

 larger, the 50-kopeck note being larger 

 still. There is no clink of currency in 

 Russia now. Metal currency has disap- 

 peared, save for some coppers down in 

 the Caspian region. An American gold 

 piece is worth five times its ante-war 

 value ; and in the bazaars, owing to the 

 many-fold depreciation of the rouble, one 

 may secure incredible bargains by the dis- 

 play of a gold coin — which is no little 

 comfort, after the staggering war prices 

 that are one's daily experience. 



To return to the deck scene: Half a 

 dozen of the women are eating and drink- 

 ing, while one woman is selling scrubbv 

 apples, which customers cut into bits and 

 put into their tea — almost anything edi- 



