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

THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.99

of the country, and the care bestowed in the rearing of the cattle which roam over them at large, forms the sole occupation of the peasants.

Numerous herds and flocks, whose diminutive size and feeble frames evince the severity of the climate, feed on the banks of the lake of Vologda, and form the only enlivening objects in the scene. Such landscapes are destitute of real beauty; nevertheless they have a tranquil, indistinct, and dreamy kind of grandeur, whose deep repose lacks neither sublimity nor poetry : it is the east without the sun.

One morning, Xenie went out with her father to assist in numbering the eattle, an operation which he himself performed every day. The herds, picturesquely grouped at different distances before the castle, animated the green banks of the lake, which were brightened by the rays of the rising sun, whilst the bell of a neighbouring chapel was summoning to morning prayer some infirm, and therefore unemployed women, and several decayed old men, who enjoyed with resignation the repose of age.

The noble form of these hoary heads, the still fresh complexion of faces, whose brows were silvered with age, demonstrate the salubrity of the atmosphere, and evidence the beauty of the human race in this frozen zone. It is not to youthful countenances we must look, when we would know if beauty exists in a country.

" Look, my father," said Xenie, as she crossed the causeway which formed the isthmus that united the peninsula of the eastle to the plain ; " look at the flag floating over the cabin of my foster-brother." f 2