. In joyful Russia. mber of dogs, I have, I believe,given a complete inventory of the things contained withinthe four walls of the living room of Ivan are thousands and thousands of just such homes, con-taining just such rooms and inhabited by just such people,scattered thickly over the length and breadth of Eussia. It is not worth our while to peep into the lower shedinto which the door at the back of the living room cramped is this little back room, and chock-a-block with the shreds and patches of peasant life—noneof them very clean and none of them of interest. I
. In joyful Russia. mber of dogs, I have, I believe,given a complete inventory of the things contained withinthe four walls of the living room of Ivan are thousands and thousands of just such homes, con-taining just such rooms and inhabited by just such people,scattered thickly over the length and breadth of Eussia. It is not worth our while to peep into the lower shedinto which the door at the back of the living room cramped is this little back room, and chock-a-block with the shreds and patches of peasant life—noneof them very clean and none of them of interest. In thisplace as many of the household dogs sleep as can not crowdtheir way in among the family. In this heterogeneousmass of things is sure to be at least one litter of extremelyyoung puppies. Multiply the inhabitants of any Eussianvillage by thirteen, and you arrive at something near thenumber of the village dogs. This estimate is not exces-sive, I assure you. Against the outside of the house leans a ladder; climb. AS SEEN EN ROUTE. 63 it, crawl through a hole of a window, and you are in thecherdak or garret—squat, dirty, and oh, what a triumphof disorder! Here clothes are dried, if they ever by anychance get washed, or as often as any of the family getcaught out in a rain storm. Here Ivan stores his grain,if he has any, and here is also stored all the overflow ofrubbish from the little lower back room, or from the out-house or shed which is usually found standing like agreat gray ant-hill somewhere in the waste of mud whichIvan calls his back yard. It would be interesting to ex-amine the interior of the two-storied building which isthe house and shop of that great and good man, the vil-lage merchant. And the sociology of the village wouldwell repay our study. But we have time for neither now,for we must on to Moscow. CHAPTEE VI. LOYELY, LAUGHING MOSCOW. There is a charm peculiar to Moscow among the cities of theworld. She is in herself the centre of the history of a people
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