ARM 223

RUSSIAN PEASANTS 249

MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA 267

THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 290

THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST 297

DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA 300

GROUP OF SIBERIANS 320

_THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS._

Far over the eastern half of Europe extends a vast and mighty plain,
spreading thousands of miles to the north and south, to the east and
west, in the north a land of forests, in the south and east a region of
treeless levels. Here stretches the Black Land, whose deep dark soil is
fit for endless harvests; here are the arable steppes, a vast fertile
prairie land, and here again the barren steppes, fit only for wandering
herds and the tents of nomad shepherds. Across this great plain, in all
directions, flow myriads of meandering streams, many of them swelling
into noble rivers, whose waters find their outlet in great seas. Over it
blow the biting winds of the Arctic zone, chaining its waters in fetters
of ice for half the year. On it in summer shine warm suns, in whose
enlivening rays life flows full again.

Such is the land with which we have to deal, Russia, the seeding-place
of nations, the home of restless tribes. Here the vast level of Northern
Asia spreads like a sea over half of Europe, following the lowlands
between the Urals and the Caspian Sea. Over these broad plains the
fierce horsemen of the East long found an easy pathway to the rich and
doomed cities of the West. Russia was playing its part in the grand
drama of the nations in far-off days when such a land was hardly known
to exist.

Have any of my readers ever from a hill-top looked out over a broad,
low-lying meadow-land filled with morning mist, a dense white shroud
under which everything lay hidden, all life and movement lost to view?
In such a scene, as the mist thins under the rays of the rising sun,
vague forms at first dimly appear, magnified and monstrous in their
outlines, the shadows of a buried wonderland. Then, as the mist slowly
lifts, like a great white curtain, living and moving objects appear
below, still of strange outlines and unnatural dimensions. Finally, as
if by the sweep of an enchanter's wand, the mists vanish, the land lies
clear under the solar rays, and we perceive t