occasional patches of sand or forest. The imaginary undulating line
separating those two regions starts from the western frontier about the
50th parallel of latitude, and runs in a northeasterly direction till it
enters the Ural range at about 56 degrees N.L.

Well do I remember my first experience of travel in the northern region,
and the weeks of voluntary exile which formed the goal of the journey.
It was in the summer of 1870. My reason for undertaking the journey was
this: a few months of life in St. Petersburg had fully convinced me that
the Russian language is one of those things which can only be acquired
by practice, and that even a person of antediluvian longevity might
spend all his life in that city without learning to express himself
fluently in the vernacular--especially if he has the misfortune of
being able to speak English, French, and German. With his friends and
associates he speaks French or English. German serves as a medium of
communication with waiters, shop keepers, and other people of that
class. It is only with isvoshtchiki--the drivers of the little open
droshkis which fulfil the function of cabs--that he is obliged to use
the native tongue, and with them a very limited vocabulary suffices. The
ordinal numerals and four short, easily-acquired expressions--poshol
(go on), na pravo (to the right), na lyevo (to the left), and stoi
(stop)--are all that is required.

Whilst I was considering how I could get beyond the sphere of
West-European languages, a friend came to my assistance, and suggested
that I should go to his estate in the province of Novgorod, where I
should find an intelligent, amiable parish priest, quite innocent of
any linguistic acquirements. This proposal I at once adopted, and
accordingly found myself one morning at a small station of the Moscow
Railway, endeavouring to explain to a peasant in sheep's clothing that