Some of the villages were in a most wretched condition, the houses dirty and dilapidated, without windows, and having only a little trap-door just large enough for a man to peep through, which shuts at pleasure to exclude the cold. Indeed the log-huts of the Russian peasants are very little better than the wigwams of the Red Indians, although sometimes the exterior is more ornamented. The inhabitants live in much the same manner as they did centuries before Peter the Great’s reign. The _people_ have not made a single forward step in the march of intellect, of which the admirers of Russia so madly rave. Scores of the Russians of the upper classes, I have heard, say the same thing, notwithstanding their own vanity, which so blinds their eyes that they imagine that by imitating the exterior polish of the French—although omitting the solid enlightenment of that nation—they have really become civilized, and many, I verily believe, think that they have even surpassed them. Perhaps the Czar would have done more towards the advancement of his people, and have benefited the cause of civilization more, had he spent his money in forming roads throughout his empire, and made the means of communication easier between the various towns, instead of playing the game of chess in Turkey, and sinking such enormous sums in the marshes of the Danube. A short time since the Grand-Duke Alexander, the heir apparent to the throne, was at a banquet, when some one was remarking on the great advantage it would be to the country when the railway was finished between St. Petersburg and Warsaw. His Imperial Highness replied that it would be so indeed, but that his Majesty, being engaged in war with the Turks, was obliged to employ the money intended for its construction in defraying the expenses of the army. When we were passing through Poland I noticed that the works had been entirely suspended. _A propos_ of this subject I may mention that, when the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow was nearly finished, orders came that it was to be ready on a certain day, as the Imperial family were to visit the latter city, and proposed going thither by train. There were several miles of it entirely unconstructed, but, to obey orders, they patched them up in the best way they could, and laid the rails down so that the waggons might pass over them. The most wonderful thing was that some fatal accident did not happen. The Emperor, of course, knew nothing about it, or perhaps he would not exactly have liked to risk _his own_ life and those of his court on the Moscow railroad. We were staying near the spot at the time. So badly arranged was this road at first, that, when we went to St. Petersburg by it, we were kept thirty-six hours in the midst of the Valdai hills, in twenty-eight degrees of cold (Réaumur), without anything to eat or drink. Some of the third-class passengers were obliged to be brought into the first-class waggons, lest they should be frozen