310 The National Geographic Magazine 



must they keep and push on with the 

 same tireless speed. Great Britain, sur- 

 rounded by the inviolate sea, and safe 

 from even the threat of a hostile foot, 

 has wrought out farther than any other 

 people, perhaps farther than ourselves, 

 the application of principles to civil and 

 constitutional government. But her as 

 yet unwritten, unformulated constitu- 

 tion has had a thousand years for its 

 making. 



The nations move on like troops of 

 soldiers in a long and weary march 

 Some reach the place of bivouac and 

 light the camp-fires while others are 

 straggling far behind. Some of the 

 seeming loiterers have been pressing 

 on all the time toward the bivouac as 

 the rear guard, with their faces to the 

 foe ; and others are struggling forward, 

 wounded and disabled, with slow and 

 uncertain step ; and others still, because 

 of less ability, of less forceful energy, 

 but with just as strong determination 

 and just as good a will, find themselves, 

 when night approaches and time for 

 halt has come, far from the bivouac and 

 the front. Around one nation gleam 

 the watch-fires of the twentieth century; 

 another is fifty years behind ; a third 

 is groping still among the breaking 

 shadows of the eighteenth century, and 

 yet another has only of late emerged 

 from the darkness of the middle ages. 



RUSSIA LEFT THE MIDDLE AGES IN 

 1689, 240 YEARS AFTER THE REST OF 

 EUROPE HAD EMERGED FROM THAT 

 DARK PERIOD 



To the close of the middle ages in 

 western and southern Europe are as- 

 signed different dates. There modern 

 times began four or five hundred years 

 ago, perhaps when Constantinople fell 

 or when L,uther and Raphael were born 

 or when America was discovered . Then 

 universal disorder ceased ; centralized 

 states stood forth ; the various peoples 

 felt new thrills of national life. With the 

 ascent of the boy, Peter, to the throne 

 the middle ages were ended in Russia. 



That was in 1689. Thus in the onward 

 progress the inhabitant of other parts 

 of Europe had by two hundred and fifty 

 years the start of the Russian. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE PLAIN 



The Russian had been left thus far 

 in the rear by no fault of his own. In 

 natural endowment the Slav is not in- 

 ferior to the Latin or the Teuton or the 

 Celt. Geographic conditions and geo- 

 graphic environment determined Rus- 

 sian history and molded Russian nature. 

 In that enormous plain, which consti- 

 tutes the Russia of today, mountains, at 

 once a bulwark and defense and inspi- 

 ration, were denied him. The Scotch, 

 the Swiss, like the Vaudois Christian, 

 could sing : 



" For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, 

 Oh ! God, our father's God ; 

 Thou hast made thy children mighty 

 By the touch of the mountain sod." 



But the dwellers of the plain, exposed 

 to attack from every side in a wild and 

 lawless age, had no other destiny than 

 to suffer and endure. 



After the barbaric invasions ceased in 

 western Europe, for generations count- 

 less Asiatic hosts roamed over Russia, 

 sparsely populated and difficult of de- 

 fense, and devastated the land at will. 

 Moreover, the sunless forest and dreary 

 steppe wrought upon human nature 

 their repressive influence. Physical con- 

 ditions fashion character as the sculptor 

 shapes the clay. Thence were devel- 

 oped those traits of sluggish patience, 

 of long endurance, of morbid self-sacri- 

 fice which distinctly mark the Russian 

 people today. 



ADVANCES BEGIN AT THE TOP AND 

 WORK DOWNWARD 



In most countries each political or 

 economic advance has derived its first 

 impulse from popular feeling which 

 swelled into a resistless demand upon 

 authority — that is, the progress has 

 begun from below and worked upward. 



