Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

196BAD FAITH OF THE NOBLES.

deal with some of these people, on the strength of their word only, for two hundred thousand — five hundred thousand francs; and the dates for payment are very distant. These slavish millionnaires, these Aguados of the glebe, do not know how to read. In Russia it is requisite that the men should possess great natui`al intelligence, to supply the want of acquired. The people are very ignorant of arithmetic. For centuries they have reckoned their accounts by frames, containing series of movable balls. Every line has its colour ; each indicates units, tens, hundreds, &c. This mode of calculation is sure and rapid.

It must not be forgotten that the lord of these enormously-wealthy serfs could despoil them in a day of all they possess, provided he did not injure their persons. Such acts of violence, it is true, are rare, but they are possible.

No one remembers that any merchant ever suffered by his confidence in the peasants with whom he dealt: so true it is, that in every society, if only it be stable, the progress of morals corrects the faults of institutions.

I have, however, been told that, on the other hand, the father of a Count Tcheremitcheff, who is now living, once promised liberty to a family of peasants, in consideration of the exorbitant sum of 50,000 roubles. He received the money, and retained among his serfs the despoiled family.

Such is the school of good faith and probity in which the Russian peasants arc instructed, under the aristocratic despotism, which crushes them in spite of the autocratic despotism which governs them, and