A few years ago, during our stay in the country, there was quite a famine in some of the provinces. Now, by the law, each proprietor must have granaries on his estates, and keep a certain quantity of corn in store, in order to be provided against such a misfortune. It was just at the time that England was buying up large provisions of grain for the Irish, and was consequently paying very high prices in foreign markets. The landowners in Russia, tempted by this, actually sent millions of tchetvas of corn out of the country, and left their own people in a state of absolute starvation: they emptied the granaries, and the unhappy serfs were reduced to dreadful extremities. It is true that the crown appoints officers to visit the estates and see that the granaries are filled; but any one who has been in Russia knows well how easy it is to bribe them, and induce them, for the sake of a few roubles, to shut their eyes to abuses and their ears to complaints. If the Emperor could have known it, the poor serfs would have found a protector, but how was he to be informed of it? The officers sent affirmed that the granaries were full, and reported them as such to their superiors. Few of the slaves can ever escape to make their complaints in person, and, even if they should do so, the chances are that their owner has friends at court, who make out that the accusation is false, that the serfs are discontented, lazy, and disobedient, and deserving of punishment. I recollect seeing some slaves once in the country driven to their work by soldiers with bayonets fixed, and they had chains on their legs as if they were common convicts. We were told that they had gone to St. Petersburg to make some complaint; that the Emperor had caused inquiries to be made, and, finding them to blame, had commanded that they should be sent back to the estate and made to work in the condition in which we saw them. The upper class of the land-proprietors are often estimable people, but there are others unprincipled and immoral, intemperate and debased, unworthy of the position they hold, and of whom fearful and disgusting tales are told enough to make one shudder that they should possess any power over their fellow-creatures. No wonder that the Russians look forward to a revolution, for, let the people be ever so patient, there is a measure of evil which cannot be borne for ever.