Our labourers were filled with amazement at the primitive workmanship of the Russians. The peasant is a jack-of-all-trades--agriculturist, carpenter, mason, wheelwright, weaver, and so on. The consequence is that nothing gets done well. The plough is as simple as Abraham’s must have been. Our carpenters declared that in Germany an apprentice of fourteen could make better gates, doors, window-frames, and wheels than those they saw in Russia. The peasants often wore shoes of bast, even in the dirtiest weather, and in their general appearance they reminded me of pictures of Anglo-Saxon serfs I had seen somewhere. Sometimes the remarks of our men went too far. Russian pigs are sometimes bred from an English strain and show the tawny tiger-like markings of certain English breeds. This kind of pig was unfamiliar to my companions, and when they caught sight of it for the first time, they said, “Look there, they can’t even tame pigs, they have only wild swine running about!” The more they saw of the Russian peasant, the more amazed our men were that Russia had been able to do so much in the war. They thought it almost impossible to build up an army with material of this quality. [SN: SYNAGOGUES] We most enjoyed being in the synagogues. The Jews would come early in the morning to hold a service. They would put on the sacred robes and adorn themselves with phylacteries and then begin to chant the holy words. Suddenly, quick as lightning, they would spit over their shoulders adroitly as a London cabman, or they would empty their noses between finger and thumb on to the floor, and then resume the solemn rise and fall of their chant as if nothing had happened. The very moment they had finished and disrobed, they began bargaining with one another with the same zeal that they had just shown in prayer. We were never tired of listening to the harsh, discordant jangle of their voices, not united, but, as it seemed, vying with one another in prayer. And I was never tired of hearing the explanation our Catholic workmen had to offer of all this jarring noise. Their priests had assured them that it was a punishment on the Jews, that ever since the time they had quarrelled over the fate of Christ they were doomed, when they assembled in the synagogue, to wrangle helplessly with one another and not to pray. We were quartered in synagogues as a deliberate insult to the Jews. Often the soldiers would break in on their services and send them away. They have not forgotten these things, and now that they are the masters of Russia, they are showing how consummately they understand the art of revenge. [SN: RUSSIAN ARMY]