The period of repression following the Duma dissolution--Under arrest in Moscow--The cradle of the Romanoffs--A peasant gathering--Outspoken muzhiks--A “constituent assembly”--Rational opinions of the Viborg manifesto--Nijni Novgorod--The great fair--A disturbed province--Kazan--A journey to the interior--A visit to Prince Ouktomsky--Professor Vassiliev and his family--Advanced ideas of the peasants--Simbirsk, the “Mountain of the Winds”--An illiterate government--What the peasants want--Entering the famine belt. The dissolution of the Duma tore away the last remaining vestige of faith of the peasants in the Czar and in the government. I allowed a month to pass after the dissolution before I set out upon my journey into the interior, for I wanted the news to permeate everywhere before my arrival, in order that I might gather impressions of the effect of this step upon the peasants. Intense repression was the aftermath of the dissolution, and martial law was spread to every quarter of the empire. The number of arrests made during the latter half of the summer was appallingly large. I left St. Petersburg on the night train, intending to leave Moscow the following evening. In Moscow I stepped into a book-shop to purchase a map. As I turned to leave the store a clatter of spurs and the rattle of a sword caused me to turn my head, and I saw an officer of gendarmes, accompanied by several regular soldiers, entering the shop by the rear door. A moment later a party of several officers and more soldiers passed through the front door by which I was about to pass out. The senior officer motioned me back, the doors were all locked, a soldier placed by each, and all of us who were there--proprietor, clerks, customers, understood that we were all under arrest. Thereupon we made ourselves as comfortable as we could pending the long and tedious search of the officers for forbidden books or pamphlets. From time to time I glanced out of the window into the streets, where I could see the radiant face of my droshky driver whom I had engaged by the hour. It was just the noon hour when I had entered the shop, and I began to get ravenously hungry, but I had to bide my time. After several hours of patient waiting we customers were taken into a rear room and subjected to a searching examination. I was able to establish my identity as an American citizen and was presently released, but all of the others were detained, some for over night, and two or three for several days. In the interior none of us would have got off so lightly. It was now early August and eighty-five of the eighty-seven provinces of European Russia were then under some form of “extraordinary protection,” or martial law. One of the five exempt, or officially “tranquil” provinces, was Kostroma, a government which lies across and above the upper Volga. The capital of this province, Kostroma city, is situated about 260 miles