"What's a day! You stand a day and at the end of it go away. To-morrow you come again and have had nothing to eat." I cast a glance at the Town Hall, where is a crowd of peasant women. In a corner is a table. With the notice: "Employment Bureau." A stout lady sitting there says to a peasant woman standing with a child in her arms: "With us, my dear, the conditions of employment for servants are usually ..." Tiny Roslavl. How is it possible to find employment here for tens of thousands of people! The peasant women stand in the waiting rooms. They stand patiently, they stand all day. And having obtained nothing whatever, go away. In the street you are stopped by people, saying: "Are you not in need of workmen in your village?" "Are you not hiring people?" And all in such melancholy, hopeless, gentle voices. I drive back to the place where last night I saw a horde of nomads--an actual horde. From the high bank of the Oster, on that side from which the forest has been cleared, you see for versts and versts a cloud of bluish, half-transparent smoke. That's the evening camping-ground. I walk farther and farther into the forest over the soft wilted grass. Everywhere are glades, everywhere people, huts of pine-branches, and from all sides is heard the sound of axes. How many thousands of people are there here! People tell you various enormous numbers.... How many drops of water are there in the river? What a terrible smoke in the forest! Because of the smoke the eyes of all are red and painful. "It is damp at night, the smoke settles down, and there's no getting out of the wood," says a small farmer to me, "but it's warm in the smoke. Just like sitting in a dark _izba_. Hot, even. We warm the forest. That's what it's come to for us." "Perhaps it's just the smoke that saves us," says his neighbour, also a farmer--"everyone is coughing all around, some are spitting blood, but in the smoke every microbe perishes." VI--STORY OF THE PRIESTS--AND REFUGEES Going farther into the forest I come upon a crowd. A priest is explaining to them how and where to go that their horses may be properly inspected and priced, how to go to Muchin yard, sell their horses, and receive the money; how to go to the railway station and wait their turn for a seat in the train, how much will be given to each man for food. "And I will drive ahead and meet you at such and such a station." That's so many versts away. This is a priest from the province of Holm, and he is explaining to his flock. Many of the priests of Holm province accompany their refugees. And the help which they give is colossal. They get some sort of understanding of the situation for themselves and explain everything to their people.