Indeed it was no longer strange that, with all the vast resources which Russia possesses, the masses of the people have made so little progress when I considered how large a portion of the population had no other task than that of holding the people down, hindering rather than inspiring and directing the efforts of the masses to rise. I had not gone far on our stroll about the village before I discovered that the Pole who so kindly volunteered to help us was a man of more than ordinary intelligence. He had seen something of the world, and I found his rather gossipy comments on the character of the different individuals we met, and upon the habits of the people generally in the village, not only entertaining but instructive. He had, for example, a very frank contempt for what he called the stupidity of the officials on both sides of the border, and it was clear he was no lover of the soldiers and the Government. At one time, as we started down a side street, he said: "There's a gendarme down there. He is just like one of those stupid, faithful watch-dogs that bristle up and bark at every person that passes. You will see presently. He will come puffing up the street to halt you and turn you back." "What shall we do when we meet him?" I asked. "Oh, there's nothing to do but go back if he says so, but you will, perhaps, be interested to observe the way he behaves." Presently we noticed a soldier clambering hastily over an adjoining fence, and in a few minutes he had come up with us, his face all screwed up in an expression of alarmed surprise. "This is the gendarme I was telling you about," said our guide quietly, and continued speaking about the man just as if he were not present. As we were not able to talk with this soldier ourselves, and as he did not look very promising in any case, we strolled leisurely back while our guide entered into a long explanation of who and what we were. I imagine that he must have put a good deal of varnish on his story, for I noticed that, as the soldier glanced at us from time to time, his eyes began getting bigger and bigger, and his mouth opened wider and wider, until he stared at us in a stupid, awestruck way. Finally the interpreter announced that the gendarme had come to the conclusion that we might go down the road as far as we wanted to, only he would be obliged to accompany us to see that we did not break the peace in any way. Under the direction of our self-appointed guide we visited a dusty, musty little bar-room, which seemed to be the centre of such life as existed in the village. We found a few young country boys lolling about on benches, and the usual shrewish, sharp-faced, overworked woman, who grumblingly left her housework to inquire what we wanted.