cs and the tombs of
Russian grand-dukes. Next in importance is the Church of the Assumption,
containing the bodies of seven saints conveyed here from Constantinople.
At night the cross borne by the statue of Vladimir, erected on a high
point overlooking the Dnieper, is lighted up by electricity. This
luminous cross can be seen for miles and miles all over the country, and
the effect is most impressive and weird.

From Kiev I had to strike across country, and the trains were naturally
not quite so luxurious as the express trains on the main line, but still
the carriages were of the same type, extremely comfortable and spacious,
and all the trains corridor trains.

The next important city where I halted for a few hours was Kharkoff in
the Ukraine, an agricultural centre where beet-root was raised in huge
quantities and sugar manufactured from it; wheat was plentiful, and good
cattle, sheep and horses were bred. The population was mostly of Cossacks
of the Don and Little Russians. The industries of the place were closely
akin to farming. Agricultural implements were manufactured; there were
wool-cleaning yards, soap and candle factories, wheat-mills, brandy
distilleries, leather tanneries, cloth manufactories, and brick kilns.

The horse fairs at Kharkoff are patronised by buyers from all parts of
Russia, but to outsiders the city is probably better known as the early
cradle of Nihilistic notions. Although quite a handsome city, with fine
streets and remarkably good shops, Kharkoff has nothing special to
attract the casual visitor, and in ordinary times a few hours are more
than sufficient to get a fair idea of the place.

With a railway ticket punched so often that there is very little left of
it, we proceed to Rostoff, where we shall strike the main line from
Moscow to the Caucasus. Here is a comparatively new city--not unlike the
shambling lesser Western cities of the United States of America, with
plenty of tumbling-down, made-anyhow fences, and empty tin cans lying
everywhere. The streets are unpaved, and the consequent dust blinding,
the drinking saloons in undue proportion to the number of houses, and
votka-drunken people in undue proportion to the population.
Votka-drunkenness differs from the intoxication of other liquors in one
particular. Instead of "dead drunk" it leaves the individuals drunk-dead.
You see a disgusting number of these corpse-like folks lying about the
streets, cadaverous-looking and motionle