All the time of dinner we were entertained by a choir of forty young men who sang some fine harmonised pieces, and some Cossack airs that pleased us much. Our entertainer was one of the richest landowners in New Russia, and his manner of living partakes of many of the old national usages. His musicians are slaves taught by an Italian long attached to the establishment in the capacity of chapel master.
Such are the Easter festivities. As the reader will perceive, they consist on the whole in eating and drinking inordinately. The whole week is spent in this way, and during all that time the authority of the master is almost in abeyance; the coachman deserts the stables, the cook the kitchen, the housekeeper her store-room; all are drunk, all are merry-making, all are intent on enjoying a season of liberty so long anticipated with impatience.
The rejoicings in the town are of the same character. The katchellni, a sort of fair lasting three days, brings together all classes of society. The nobles and the government servants ride about in carriages, but the populace amuse themselves just as they do in the country, only they have the pleasure of getting drunk in better company.
CHAPTER IX.
EXCURSION ON THE BANKS OF THE DNIEPR—DOUTCHINA—ELECTION OF THE MARSHALS AND JUDGES OF THE NOBILITY AT KHERSON—HORSE-RACING—STRANGE STORY IN THE "JOURNAL DES DÉBATS"—A COUNTRY HOUSE AND ITS VISITERS—TRAITS OF RUSSIAN MANNERS—THE WIFE OF TWO HUSBANDS—SERVANTS—MURDER OF A COURIER—APPENDIX.
We left Clarofka in May, to explore the banks of the Dniepr, and the shores of the Sea of Azov. The object we had in view was purely scientific, but the journey became doubly interesting by affording us a closer insight into the habits of Russian society, and the manner in which noble families live on their estates. I had intended to visit Taganrok, but on this occasion I proceeded no further than Doutchina, the property of a Baroness de Bervick, who most hospitably insisted on my remaining with her whilst my husband was continuing his geological researches in the country of the Cossacks.
Doutchina is situated on the post-road from Kherson to Iekaterinoslav, in a broad ravine formed by a brook that falls into the Dniepr a little way from the village. From the high ground over which the road passes, the eye suddenly looks down on a beautiful landscape—a most welcome surprise for the traveller who has just passed over some hundred versts of uncultivated plains.
In Russia, travelling is not, as elsewhere, synonymous with seeing new sights. In vain your troïka bears you along with dizzy speed; in vain you pass hours, days, and nights in posting; still you have before your eyes the same steppe that seems to lengthen out before you as you advance, the same horizon, the same cold stern lines, the same snow or sunshine; and nothing either in the temperature or the aspect of the ground indicates that you have accomplished any change of place.
It is only in the vicinity of the great rivers that the country assumes a different aspect, and the wearied eye at last enjoys the pleasure of encountering more limited horizons, a more verdant vegetation, and a landscape more varied in its outlines. Among these rivers, the Dniepr claims one of the foremost places, from the length of its course, the volume of its waters, and the deep bed it has excavated for itself athwart the plains of Southern Russia. But nowhere does it present more charming views than from the height I have just mentioned and its vicinity. After having spread out to the breadth of nearly a league, it parts into a multitude of channels, that wind through forests of oaks, alders, poplars, and aspens, whose vigorous growth bespeaks the richness of a virgin soil. The groups of islands capriciously breaking the surface of the waters, have a melancholy beauty and a primitive character scarcely to be seen except in those vast wildernesses where man has left no traces of his presence. Nothing in our country at all resembles this kind of landscape. With us, the creature has everywhere refashioned the work of the Creator; the mark of his hand appears even on the most inaccessible mountains; whereas, in Russia, where the nobles are the sole proprietors, nature still remains, in many places, just as God created it. Thus these plavniks[3] of the Dniepr, seldom touched by the woodman's axe, have all the wild majesty of the forests of the new world. For some time after my arrival at Doutchina, I found an endless source of delight in contemplating those majestic scenes, lighted by a pale sky, and veiled in light mists, that gave them a tinge of sadness, sometimes more pleasing than the glare of noon.