THE NATIONAL, GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



265 



waste. The passengers on the boats do 

 their utmost to prevent that undesirable 

 fate for edibles, for they seem to be al- 

 ways eating, eating, eating. I cannot re- 

 call a single stroll around the deck, at any 

 hour of day or night, when I did not see 

 somebody eating and drinking. The over- 

 crowded peasants on the deck below and 

 the saloon passengers above are alike in 

 this, that they are continually producing 

 from their stores some sort of food to be 

 eaten with the ever-present tea. 



Still, one need not always study his 

 fellow-passengers. There is the scenery 

 of the shore, which, further down, in- 

 cludes the villages of the various Tatar 

 tribes, with their round houses that look 

 like haystacks ; and far reaches of rolling 

 meadow land and wheat fields ; and hills 

 and forests, and sand-dunes and towns 

 and cities, with the wild ducks and geese 

 flying between. 



AN ENDLESS PROCESSION OE RIVER CRAET 



Then there is the incessant procession 

 of boat life; 2,000 steamships regularly 

 ply upon the Volga. Big barges, in groups 

 of five or six, with half a dozen small 

 boats clustered like barnacles behind, are 

 towed by side-wheel tugs. Fishing craft, 

 manned by Karmacks and other natives, 

 glide by or are passed at anchor. From the 

 shore comes the sound of church bells, 

 made musical by traveling over the water. 



Sunsets of surpassing loveliness, and 

 sunrises which few Russian passengers 

 see, cast a spell of peace over one's spirit, 



and the war seems for the moment dis- 

 tant and unreal. It is difficult to realize 

 that upon every incident of the trip is 

 stamped the grim seal of Mars. Every 

 soldier on the decks ; all the man-work 

 done by women ; each scramble for food ; 

 the almost total absence of pleasure-seek- 

 ers from these passenger steamers at the 

 height of the Russian travel season ; the 

 partings by the way; the munition fac- 

 tories on the river banks ; the driving of 

 all passengers indoors when the ship 

 passes under the great railway bridge 

 across the Volga — all these spell the life 

 and death conflict, internal and with a 

 foreign foe, which Russia is waging. 



As the reader has perceived, I have 

 been endeavoring to portray enough char- 

 acteristic incidents of a large and repre- 

 sentative section of Russia to make clear 

 something of the condition of the place 

 and the people. 



Russia is huge and inchoate and poten- 

 tial. Her people are at present adrift in 

 their minds, as so many of them are adrift 

 physically. They are in the grip of a 

 great negation ; the old order of autocracy 

 has been cast off forever. But the great 

 essentials and affirmations of democracy 

 have not yet taken hold of this conglom- 

 erate and simple-minded mass of chil- 

 dren. Nevertheless, as surely as the tur- 

 bid and tortuous Volga finds the shining 

 sea, so surely will Russia one day emerge 

 from her muddled and wavering drifting 

 into the clear calm of a great and pur- 

 poseful and brotherly national life. 



