cceeded, however, in learning indirectly
something about the old witch. She enjoyed among her neighbours that
solid, durable kind of respect which is founded on vague, undefinable
fear, and was believed to have effected many remarkable cures. In the
treatment of syphilitic diseases, which are fearfully common among the
Russian peasantry, she was supposed to be specially successful, and I
have no doubt, from the vague descriptions which I received, that the
charm which she employed in these cases was of a mercurial kind. Some
time afterward I saw one of her victims. Whether she had succeeded in
destroying the poison I know not, but she had at least succeeded in
destroying most completely the patient's teeth. How women of this kind
obtain mercury, and how they have discovered its medicinal properties,
I cannot explain. Neither can I explain how they have come to know the
peculiar properties of ergot of rye, which they frequently employ for
illicit purposes familiar to all students of medical jurisprudence.

The znakharka and the feldsher represent two very different periods
in the history of medical science--the magical and the scientific.
The Russian peasantry have still many conceptions which belong to the
former. The great majority of them are already quite willing, under
ordinary circumstances, to use the scientific means of healing; but as
soon as a violent epidemic breaks out, and the scientific means prove
unequal to the occasion, the old faith revives, and recourse is had to
magical rites and incantations. Of these rites many are very curious.
Here, for instance, is one which had been performed in a village near
which I afterwards lived for some time. Cholera had been raging in the
district for several weeks. In the village in question no case had yet
occurred, but the inhabitants feared that the dreaded visitor would soon
arrive, and the following ingenious contrivance was adopted for warding
off the danger. At midnight, when the male population was supposed to
be asleep, all the maidens met in nocturnal costume, according to a
preconcerted plan, and formed a procession. In front marched a girl,
holding an Icon. Behind her came her companions, dragging a sokha--the
primitive plough commonly used by the peasantry--by means of a long
rope. In this order the procession made the circuit of the entire
village, and it was confidently believed that the cholera would not be
able to overstep the magical circle thus describ