ign country, the traveler must
see people and customs not with the eyes of his body only, but with the
eyes of his heart, if he would really understand them. Above all things,
he must not deliberately buckle on blinders. Of no country is this axiom
more true than of Russia. A man who would see Russia clearly must strip
himself of all preconceived prejudices of religion, race, and language,
and study the people from their own point of view. If he goes about
repeating Napoleon I.'s famous saying, "Scratch a Russian and you will
find a Tatar," he will simply betray his own ignorance of history and
facts.

In order to understand matters, a knowledge of the language is
indispensable in any country. Naturally, very few possess this knowledge
in Russia, where it is most indispensable of all. There are guides, but
they are a lottery at best: Russians who know very little English,
English who know very little Russian, or Germans who are impartially
ignorant of both, and earn their fees by relating fables about the
imperial family and things in general, when they are not candidly
saying, "I don't know." I saw more or less of that in the case of other
people's guides; I had none of my own, though they came to me and begged
the privilege of taking me about gratuitously if I would recommend them.
I heard of it from Russians. An ideal cicerone, one of the attendants in
the Moscow Historical Museum, complained to me on this subject, and
rewarded me for sparing him the infliction by getting permission to take
us to rooms which were not open to the public, where the director
himself did the honors for us. Sometimes travelers dispense with the
guides, as well as with a knowledge of the language, but if they have a
talent for pronouncing what are called, I believe, "snap judgments,"
that does not prevent their fulfilling, on their return home, their
tacitly implied duty of uttering in print a final verdict on everything
from soup to government.

If the traveler be unusually lucky, he may make acquaintance on a
steamer with a Russian who can talk English, and who can and will give
him authentic information. These three conditions are not always united
in one person. Moreover, a stranger cannot judge whether his Russian is
a representative man or not, what is his position in the social
hierarchy, and what are his opportunities for knowing whereof he speaks.
"Do you suppose that God, who knows all things, does not know our table
of ranks?"