t was close on midnight when we left Yasnaya Polyana. A large and merry
party of Count Tolstoy's children and relatives escorted us: some in the
baggage cart, perched on our luggage; some in the jaunting-car-like
_lineika_ with us, on our moonlight drive to the little station where we
were to join the train and continue our journey southward.

We should have preferred to travel by daylight, as we were possessed of
the genuine tourist greed for seeing "everything;" but in this case, as
in many others in Russia, the trains were not arranged so that we could
manage it.

There is very little variety along the road through central Russia, but
the monotony is of a different character from that of the harsh soil and
the birch and pine forests of the north. The vast plains of this
_tchernozyom_--the celebrated "black earth zone"--swell in long, low
billows of herbage and grain, diversified only at distant intervals by
tracts of woodland. But the wood is too scarce to meet the demands for
fuel, and the manure of the cattle, well dried, serves to eke it out, a
traveling native in our compartment told us, instead of being used, as
it should be, to enrich the land, which is growing poor. Now and then,
substantial brick cottages shone out amidst the gray and yellow of the
thatched log huts in the hamlets. We heard of one landed proprietor who
encouraged his peasant neighbors to avoid the scourge of frequent
conflagrations by building with brick, and he offered a prize to every
individual who should comply with the conditions. The prize consisted of
a horse from the proprietor's stables, and of the proprietor's presence,
in full uniform and all his orders, at the house-warming. The advantages
of brick soon became so apparent to the peasants that they continued to
employ it, even after their patron had been forced to abolish the
reward, lest his horses and his time should be utterly exhausted.

Minor incidents were not lacking to enliven our long journey. In the
course of one of the usual long halts at a county town, a beggar came to
the window of our carriage. He was a tall, slender young fellow, about
seven-and-twenty years of age. Though he used the customary forms,--
"Give me something, _sudarynya_* if only a few kopeks, _Khristi
radi!_"** there was something about him, despite his rags, there was an
elegance of accent in his language, to which I was not accustomed in the
"poor brethren" generally.

* Madam. ** For Christ's sak