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

friends, relations, all who are loved, die, and no one dares to even weep for them. People here are too unfortunate to complain.

The Russians are all courtiers. Soldiers, spies, gaolers, executioners in this land all do more than their duty ; all ply their trade as parasites. ЛУЪо shall tell me to what lengths a society may not go which is not built on the foundation of human dignity ?

I repeat that as much must be undone as done, before there can be here made a people.

This time, the silence of the police is not merely the result of a desire to flatter, it is also the effect of fear. The slave dreads the angry mood of his master, and employs every effort to keep him in a state of benignity and good humour. The chains, the dungeon, the knout and Siberia, are all within reach of an irritated czar; or at the best there is the Caucasus, a Siberia mitigated to the uses of a despotism softened in accordance with the spirit of the century.

It cannot be denied that in this instance the first cause of the evil was the carelessness of the administration. If the authorities had prevented the boatmen of Petersburg from overloading their vessels, or from venturing on the gulf in craft too small or weak +o ride the waves, no one would have perished; and yet, who knows ? The Russians are generally bad seamen : wherever they are, there is danger. When Asiatics, with their long robes and long beards, are the sailors, there can be little surprise at hearing of shipwrecks.

On the day of the fete, one of the steam-boats that generally run between Petersburg and Kron-