e
travels much, and especially in a land of half savages. I asked the
chevochic to drink, but he appeared to be in great melancholy. I enquired
what was the matter, and he told Zaira that one of his horses had refused
to eat, and that it was clear that if he could not eat he could not work.
We followed him into the stable, and found the horse looking oppressed by
care, its head lowered and motionless; it had evidently got no appetite.
His master began a pathetic oration, looking tenderly at the animal, as
if to arouse it to a sense of duty, and then taking its head, and kissing
it lovingly, he put it into the manger, but to no purpose. Then the man
began to weep bitterly, but in such a way that I had the greatest
difficulty to prevent myself laughing, for I could see that he wept in
the hope that his tears might soften the brute's heart. When he had wept
some time he again put the horse's head into the manger, but again to no
purpose. At this he got furious and swore to be avenged. He led the horse
out of the stable, tied it to a post, and beat it with a thick stick for
a quarter of an hour so violently that my heart bled for the poor animal.
At last the chevochic was tired out, and taking the horse back to the
stable he fastened up his head once more, and to my astonishment it began
to devour its provender with the greatest appetite. At this the master
jumped for joy, laughed, sang, and committed a thousand extravagancies,
as if to shew the horse how happy it had made him. I was beside myself
with astonishment, and concluded that such treatment would have succeeded
nowhere but in Russia, where the stick seems to be the panacea or
universal medicine.

They tell me, however, that the stick is gradually going out of fashion.
Peter the Great used to beat his generals black and blue, and in his days
a lieutenant had to receive with all submission the cuffs of his captain,
who bent before the blows of his major, who did the same to his colonel,
who received chastisement from his general. So I was informed by old
General Woyakoff, who was a pupil of Peter the Great, and had often been
beaten by the great emperor, the founder of St. Petersburg.

It seems to me that I have scarcely said anything about this great and
famous capital, which in my opinion is built on somewhat precarious
foundations. No one but Peter could have thus given the lie to Nature by
building his immense palaces of marble and granite on mud and shifting
sa