"Are there many tramps in Russia?"

My friend laughed. "Thousands of them. You can hardly go into a village without meeting them. They are one of the greatest problems Russia has to deal with."

I soon saw also that I could not even approach a church without being accosted by them. They stood on the steps and at the doorway of every one I visited, and invariably begged of me, saying, "Radi Krista" ("For Christ's sake"). Even at Yasnaya Polyana, fifteen miles from the nearest town, and several minutes' walk from a highway, the Goriouns put in an appearance. I was there ten days, and at least one called every morning. They all seemed to know about Count Tolstoi's gospel, and came to his home, sure, at least, of something to eat. On the highway, at some distance from the house, I saw bands of ten and twenty marching by every day, and they often camped at a bridge which I crossed on my walks.

This continual meeting the tramp and hearing about him naturally made me curious, and I wondered whether it would be possible to make a journey among them. I knew enough Russian at least to make myself understood, and could understand much that was said to me. The great question, however, was whether, as a foreigner, I should be allowed to make such a trip. I talked with Count Tolstoi one day about the matter, telling him some of my experiences in other countries, and asking his advice.

"Why not?" he said, in his jovial, pleasant way. "Of course you will have hard work in understanding their dialects, and you can hardly expect to be taken for one of them, but otherwise you ought to get on easily enough. From your pass and other papers the police will see that you are nothing dangerous, and if anything should happen, all you have to do is to send to St. Petersburg. I should like to make such a trip myself, if I were younger. I'm too old now. Once I went on a long pilgrimage and saw a good deal of the life, but of course you will see much more if you go directly into the tramp class. If you decide to make the trip, I wish you would find out how they look upon the authorities, and whether they really believe in what they call their religion. It ought to be very interesting to talk with them on these topics, and perhaps you will be able to gather some useful material—only you will not be permitted to print it here in Russia"; and he smiled.

I finally decided to make a trial trip, and was fortunate in finding a Moscow student who was willing to accompany me for a few days. He had tramped perforce in some of the southern provinces, and being much interested in the tramp class in the Vitebsk government, consented to go with me if I would begin my investigations there. I was fortunate also in having brought a tramp outfit with me. It had already seen service in England, Germany, and Italy, and I had taken it along for work in the fields at Yasnaya Polyana. It was a little better than the usual Gorioun dress, but I should really have been ashamed to put on anything shabbier. My friend the student was clad in a patched university uniform, which all of his class have to wear in Russia, and he looked like pictures I have seen of ragged Union soldiers in Libby Prison. We both had a little money in our pockets, and it was not our intention to beg for anything more than bread and milk, and not even for these things unless it was necessary to make good our pose. We reasoned that the peasants of whom we should have to ask for them needed them much more than we did, and I am glad to say that neither of us on this trip, nor I on others, which were sometimes made alone, asked for much that we did not pay for.

Our credentials for the journey consisted of our passports, some university papers, and an open letter which I had received in St. Petersburg from Prince Chilkoff, the Minister of Ways and Communication. It was addressed to the director of the Siberian Railway, but I kept it by me for the sake of identification, and it helped me through many a predicament, although the officials to whom it was presented could never get it through their heads how I, an Amerikanski tramp, could be in the possession of such an almighty document. There were times, I fear, when they were tempted to arrest me as an impostor, but they never did—a good fortune which I can only explain on account of the singularity of the situation. The Russian "system" was evidently not prepared for so weird a creature, and I was allowed to pass as an anomaly.

With the Moscow student I tramped for three days in the Vitebsk government, between the towns of Polotsk and Dünaburg, as dreary a stretch of country as is to be found anywhere in our West. It was warm August weather, and the sun came down on us in all its Russian fierceness. There were times when I simply had to get under a tree to keep from sun-stroke. At night we slept out of doors, or in haystacks and barns. The peasants always offered us the hospitality of their cabins, as they do to all tramps, but we could not bring ourselves to put up with the vermin we should have found there. In winter, on the other hand, the Gorioun is glad enough to curl up over their stoves, and I suppose that we also should have been, had the weather been cold. As it was, most of the vagabonds we met slept outside, as we did, and we always had plenty of company. On this trip we met two hundred, traveling in bands and families. They invariably wanted to know where I came from, which is the first question they ask, after the greeting, "Strassvuitye," and I told them the truth on each occasion. "America—America," they would say in their simple way. "What government is that in?" meaning what Russian province. I could not make them understand that it was not in Russia at all, which to them is the entire world, but they called me "the far-away brother," and I was probably considered a new species in their class. I never had the feeling that they accepted me as one of their own,—it would have been strange if they had,—but they, at any rate, dubbed me "brother," and this was as much as I could ask. They always wanted to share their simple fare with me, and I soon saw that there was but little danger in associating with them.

II

There are two types of tramps in Russia, and they may be classified as the authorized and the unauthorized. The first are the so-called religious mendicants, who are protected by the church and tolerated by the police; the second are the common vagabonds. It is these last who constitute, from the Russian point of view, the tramp problem. The religious beggars are considered an inevitable church class, and are taken care of almost as conscientiously as the priests. The common tramps, on the other hand, are looked upon as a very unnecessary burden, and ever since the conversion of Russia to Christianity, laws have been passed and institutions founded for their suppression and reform. It is estimated that in European Russia alone they number over nine hundred thousand, and in Siberia their class represents an even greater proportion of the population.