In this dilemma, I turned to Colonel Greig and explained that it was not possible for me to attend the banquet as I had no dress clothes with me. He looked me over, and replied: "I think we are about the same size. Suppose you try one of my suits?" I accepted the offer at once, and found that his suit fitted me as well as my own. The banquet was a great affair, with a vast concourse of "skis," "offs," "neffs," and so on—little tag-ends of words by which one may tell a Russian name, even if it were possible not to tell it from its general appearance and sound without them.
After a few days at the Greigs', I left for Moscow, where I was received by Prince Dombriski, brother-in-law of the Emperor. The old city of Moscow impressed me more than any other city of Europe. It seemed to belong to quite another world and to a different civilization. There is something primitive and prehistoric about it—elemental in its somberness and in its grandeur. I was astonished to find in the Kremlin a portrait of Napoleon at the battle of Borodino.
In going from the capital to Moscow over the straight line of railway, I heard much of the way that the Czar Nicholas had built the road. It is said that he summoned to him his chief contractor and engineer, Carmichael, and asked him to make specifications for the line as arranged for between the two cities. The Czar confidently expected that he was being deceived about all matters of this kind, and was prepared for fraud in this enterprise. Carmichael drew up elaborate specifications, which Nicholas saw at once were entirely too elaborate, and gave abundant room for "pickings." He turned to Carmichael and asked if the specifications were all right. Carmichael assured him they were. "All right, then," said Nicholas, "I shall turn them over, just as they are, to Major Whistler." The Major was the uncle of the famous artist of to-day. Whistler built the road on Carmichael's specifications, and made a fortune, which has been the foundation of a half dozen family estates—the Winans, Harrison, Whistler estates, et al.
I observed a peculiar effect of the direct method of the Czar in building a straight road to Moscow. All the big cities and even the prosperous and important towns had, without exception, been left at varying distances from the line of railway. At the little stations on the route the Russians would get off and get hot water in samovars and make tea, each of them carrying a supply of tea in bricks, with square loaf sugar in their pockets.
Nijnii Novgorod I found a wonderful city. There, on the "Mother" Volga, as the Russians call it, I saw the origin of all the world's fairs and expositions, in this great fair, at which the nations of a world unknown to Europe and America assemble for traffic and barter. More than 100,000,000 rubles, or, roughly, $50,000,000, change hands in six weeks. There the traveler, who is too indolent or too poor to see the remote tribes of the earth, may have all these strange and outlandish races come to him, on the banks of the Volga. It was a marvelous experience to me, and I considered it as well worth a trip around the world to see Nijnii Novgorod alone.
Some time afterward, when I was in England, I received a letter from Baron Bruno, the Russian Ambassador, enclosing a letter from Colonel Greig, the aide-de-camp of the Grand Duke Constantine. He said that the Grand Duke had read my book, Young America Abroad, with interest. The Grand Duke, he said, was greatly pleased with my descriptions of Russia, with my exposure of the Crimean fiasco, and with my predictions as to the future development and greatness of the country. He added that the Russian Government would like to have me visit the region of the Amur, Petropauloffski and Vladivostok, and to make a report of the prospects of far-eastern Siberia.
The Government proposed to make all the arrangements for me, so that I could travel in luxury and leisure; but I could not then undertake so extended an enterprise, besides I have ever preferred to follow my own ideas rather than those of others. I desired to pursue original lines of investigation, to go over new routes of travel and of trade, to explore corners of the world that had not been worn into paths by the myriad feet of travelers. I have always felt hampered in trying to carry out the suggestions of others. I have found that there is but one course for me, if I am to succeed, and that is to follow my own counsel. I must be myself, untrammeled, unfettered, or I fail. If I had gone to Eastern Siberia for the Russian Government, I might have succeeded in the way the Government expected; but the chances, I consider, would have been against me. If I had gone there at my own motion, I might have created a sensation by exploiting that vast and magnificent region, which must soon play a tremendously important part in the history of the world.
CHAPTER XXI
BUILDING THE FIRST STREET-RAILWAYS IN ENGLAND
1858