THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



263 



when two cabbies, or izhvostiks, clutched 

 each other's big padded coat and pushed 

 and pulled while they cursed. 



The Russians really are a peaceable 

 people, of a surpassing kindliness. In 

 some of the worst jams aboard the boat 

 I have heard the women use language 

 such as on the battle front is transmuted 

 into bullets ; but of the good nature which 

 usually prevails amid congested travel 

 conditions, one cannot speak too highly. 



FOOD THE PRINCIPAL OCCASION OP 

 EXCITEMENT 



Most of the excitement at ports of call 

 has to do with food. This phase of the 

 Volga voyage, or of life in Russia itself, 

 deserves a chapter apart. The meal hours 

 on the big passenger steamers were sim- 

 ply incomprehensible. Of course, "chai," 

 or tea, was served, or made, in one's 

 cabin or in the dining-room, at the time 

 of arising, which might be anywhere from 

 9 to 12 o'clock. Nothing is served in the 

 dining-room or from the kitchen and 

 pantry between the hours of 12 and 2 

 o'clock at mid-day or between 6 and 8 

 o'clock in the evening! This is the rest- 

 time of the servants. 



Since the revolution all sorts of radical 

 changes have come about in the lot of 

 waiters, cooks, chambermaids, and other 

 domestics. For one thing the fee system 

 has been abolished, except in the case of 

 hotel porters. Fifteen or 20 per cent is 

 added to one's bill for "service." 



Reforms in the hours of labor have 

 also taken place ; so that, for example, in 

 Astrakhan it was impossible to secure a 

 morsel of luncheon before 1 o'clock at the 

 city's one leading restaurant. The nigHt 

 before it had been 8 o'clock befo're the 

 Arcadia restaurant opened, though the 

 hungry Americans got something to eat 

 an hour earlier by being admitted to the 

 city's leading gaming club, which had a 

 buffet attached. On the boat, as I have 

 indicated, there was strictly no business 

 done in the culinary department within 

 the hours when all Americans are accus- 

 tomed to their meals. 



As it worked out in practice, one's 

 order for luncheon was taken at 2 o'clock 

 and he was lucky if he got something to 

 eat by 3. Commonly, we sat down to 



dinner in the evening at 10 o'clock. If it 

 were not for individual stores of food 

 and tea-making outfits, there would be 

 real suffering, since the distance between 

 tea and bread upon arising and luncheon 

 at 3 is of Marathon magnitude to a hun- 

 gry American. 



Contrariwise — and Russia is a land of 

 contraries — the very next steamer we 

 took, from Astrakhan to Baku, on the 

 Caspian, served meals promptly at west- 

 ern hours — "little breakfast" at 8, lunch- 

 eon at 12, and dinner at 6. So the eat- 

 ing habits of Russians may not safely be 

 generalized upon, except that they eat 

 with frequency and with disregard of 

 standardized usages. 



FORAGING AS A FINE ART 



War's gentle art of foraging is no new 

 acquisition for Russia. All travel is based 

 on the assumption that most of the pas- 

 sengers will carry food with them or se- 

 cure it en route. It is the rare person 

 who depends entirely upon the dining-car 

 or the ship's restaurant. 



It is perfectly au fait for a gentleman, 

 and even for a military officer, to enter 

 the dining-room with a box of caviar, or 

 a loaf of whitish bread and a couple of 

 cucumbers, or a jar of jam in his hands. 

 It may be that he carries dried fish by 

 their tails or a watermelon under his arm. 

 It is to secure these supplies that passen- 

 gers rush ashore at every stop. Most 

 have come from the sad and soggy black 

 bread of Petrograd and Moscow ; and be- 

 fore they are far down the Volga they 

 find themselves in the realm of plentiful 

 white bread, or near-white bread, and 

 even, in some places, of real pastry. 



There is abundance of grain in some of 

 these towns, but the local committees will 

 not permit it to be shipped out — another 

 illustration of the everywhere-apparent 

 fact that Russia's fundamental need is 

 organization and transportation. The 

 traveler has scarcely come out from 

 under the depression of the bread lines of 

 the North, and the nightmare of black 

 bread, when suddenly, at Astrakhan, he 

 finds himself once more in the black- 

 bread-line zone. Of dairy products and 

 fruits — milk, butter, cheese, eggs, melons, 

 potatoes, onions, egg-plants, tomatoes, 



