As I saw people going into a court-yard I followed them, into a little chapel, where a corpse was lying in state. It was of an old man; thirty or forty candles were burning around him, but he was raised on a platform so high that his face could not be seen. Leaving him, I came out and met a funeral procession. The body was borne in a hearse, surmounted with a gorgeous crimson canopy, and drawn by six horses richly caparisoned and led by six grooms. The Emperor could not have desired a more ostentatious funeral; all hats were removed as the procession passed, and this practice, which prevails on the Continent generally, and especially in France, is a beautiful and becoming tribute of respect, which I would be glad to see prevalent at home. They uncover their heads when the King passes by; and what monarch is mightier than he to whom the stateliest head must bow.
Ours were the only English names on the register of the hotel, the largest in the city; we called at another hotel, and not an English name was there, and during the three days we were in Warsaw we did not hear a word of our tongue, except when we spoke ourselves. We were not, however, as much disturbed by this as the lady was in Paris, who was out of all patience and spirits hearing nothing but French day after day. One morning she heard a cock crowing, and exclaimed, “Thank God, there’s somebody who speaks English.”
Polish Peasants.
CHAPTER XXIII.
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
WE were to leave Warsaw in the course of the forenoon. At half-past eight we came downstairs, and found the breakfast-room closed, and nobody up in the house who could provide the morning repast. As time was precious, we went out to another hotel, and it was still closed; when at nine o’clock we succeeded in getting in, there was no one stirring but the landlord himself, and he managed to get breakfast for us with his own hands. Returning to our own hotel we called for the bill, and found the prices for rooms and board one-third more than we were assured they would be, by the same man who now made the charges. I mention all these little things to show the ways of the world we are travelling in. We do not remember any country, nor any hotel, where we were more systematically imposed on, and where we got so little for so much, as at the Hôtel l’Europe, the largest and most pretentious house in Poland.
We rode from the hotel across the Vistula, over a new and splendid bridge, and found the railroad station a mile beyond. It is put at this safe and very inconvenient distance from the town to be secure against sudden outbreaks of popular violence. The people are of the excitable order, and this road is the grand route between Warsaw and St. Petersburg, over which their Russian masters come to govern the Poles. The young man selling tickets was civil, and he was the first man who had spoken civilly to us since we entered unhappy Poland. The Russian officials at the station were all civil. Before we could purchase our tickets our passports were examined, and a “ticket of leave” was given us, for which we paid thirty copakes, about twenty cents. We paid a cent for the baggage check. The cars were splendid; the first and second class had spring seats, cushioned, with racks for parcels; and the second class was quite as good as the first in France or Germany. The passengers were very few; the train, the only one for the day, had but three cars, and none were full. We had an apartment for six entirely to ourselves, two of us.
We rush out into a vast prairie country, very sparsely inhabited, but well cultivated; large herds of cattle were grazing on the plains; pine groves were frequent; the north side of trees was torn by winter storms; houses were thatched with straw, and appeared to be miserable abodes for the poor inhabitants; they became poorer as we went north, sometimes partly under ground. They are now more scattered; fewer villages; but they are doubtless more frequent off the line of railroad, which may be laid through parts of the country less settled than others. The peasants in their rude working clothes had a wretched look, and the women were all barefooted. We passed a village that seemed to be Jewish, the men and boys being clad in long coats, such as we saw on the Jews in Warsaw. Once in every half-mile, on the road, was a neat house for the railroad man, whose duty it is to see that the road is in perfect order. These houses are numbered in order, over the whole route; they are of brick or stone, small, warm, and substantial, with a little ornament. The idea is excellent. A man thus provided for is impelled by his highest interests to be vigilant and faithful; and it would be strange, indeed, if the road were ever suffered to be out of order for a moment with such care. The road is solid, a single track with frequent turnouts, and the cars run smoothly. At every cross-road for wagons a man stands keeping guard. Accidents must be very rare on a road so managed.
We stop at Lapy, on the river Narev, for dinner; they give us good soup, stewed veal, and potatoes, and a ball of forced meat, and charge us about fifty cents, two or three times as much as it was worth, but they do not expect to entertain you twice; certainly we do not expect to dine at Lapy again.
At Bialystok, the next station, a lady left the cars and was met by a young man, perhaps her son, in military dress; they kissed each other four times, and he then kissed her hand, and the salutations were completed. Many Jewish women were out to-day, which is one of their feasts; the cross-roads were thronged with Jews, who seemed to be gathering there to see the cars passing; they were not allowed on the track or on the side of the railroad, but must keep themselves on the wagon-roads, where they crossed the track. This town of Bialystok is quite an important place of 16,000 people, on the borders of the old kingdom, and in the cutting up of the country it has sometimes been Prussia, sometimes Russia, and aforetime Poland. It is now Russia, of course. We come on to Grodno, with its 20,000 inhabitants, which is a large town in Russia proper, and we feel a pleasant relief in being within the bounds of the empire itself, though even this was once in Poland, and the residence of some of her kings. Here sat the diets, or congress, of Poland, and even that most celebrated of all of them, the diet of 1793, which gave its consent to the partition of Poland. Here, too, the last king of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, laid down his sceptre. We find the Jews, in great numbers, out on a holiday; the grand-high-priest, with his gorgeous breastplate on, with long hair, as if it had never been cut and he were a Nazarene from his birth. We are now travelling in Lithuania, once a duchy, whose duke married the Queen of Poland, by name Hedwiga, in 1386. This union made Poland powerful to resist the Tartars and the Dukes of Moscow, and to maintain the independence of the kingdom for a long series of years. The union of Lithuania and Poland continued until the third partition in 1795. The country appears poorer as we advance; the soil is less fertile; there is more sandy and barren waste. Pines and firs and white birches are the trees we see now; the houses of the peasants are low and poor; we have long since ceased to see improvements about the railroad stations; we are getting into regions of less civilization. As far as the eye reaches away to the horizon, no hills are in sight. It was across these wide plains that the great French captain led his hosts to invade Russia, sixty years ago! We shall be frequently on the track of that army’s awful march, and its disastrous retreat. We have come to Kowno, where the rivers Vilia and Niemen meet. Here the French army crossed the Niemen, June 23, 1812, on their way to Moscow, and a gentle rise of ground, on the bank, is still called Napoleon’s Hill. It was a mighty host when it was here in June. All the annals of war and of the world furnish no parallel to the story of that campaign; it was an epitome of Napoleon’s whole career. But it is rare that marble is so modest as the monument which the Russians have set up at Kowno to commemorate the miserable failure of Napoleon’s stupendous plan of subjugating Russia. In the centre of the market-place they have set up a stone bearing this significant inscription,—