The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

284 . RUSSIAIX EUROPE.Russians may be regarded as the true aborigines of the land, a circumstance whichattaches all the more importance to their customs and traditions.The traces of water and tree worship are numerous. Certain springs stillreceive the offerings of pilgrims, and feasts are held in honour of particular pine,birch, and other trees. Stems blasted by lightning are preserved as precioustalismans, and never left behind when the peasant migrates to another home. Thememory of the dead also is still honoured with ancestral repasts, and the bakedmeats are laid on the graves, or else in the ruins of churches. But while pagansuperstitions were preserved, little progress was made in agriculture.The grain,thrown carelessly into the ground, scarcely ripens once in three times, and as hesows the peasant resignedly repeats the proverb, "Await death, but sow thy corn,"or else tries to conjure the frost god (moroz) with offerings and the invitation," Come and eat, but spare our wheat." The method of threshing is probablyunique in Europe. A young girl holds the corn in one hand, and with the otherbeats the ears over a hollow trunk, afterwards collecting the grain from the ground.With such practices famine and misery may well be chronic iu the land. The huts,mostly grouped in small hamlets, are as destitute of furniture as the most wretchedhovels of the northern tundras, and the pig occupies the place of honour as in somany Irish cabins. Merely for their bread the peasantry barter their children tothe szlaehticz, or small landed proprietors. Worn out with thankless toil, orwasted by the unhealthy climate, the White Russians are a sickly race, and prematurelydecrepit ;yet their type seems to be the most regular amongst all theRussian Slavs.Seeing their general poverty, we cannot be surprised at their avarice and wantof hospitality. But in the family circle they are very gentle, and paternaldespotism is of a milder type than in Great Russia.Their songs are full of tenderexpressions, although those relating to marriage contain formulae showing that itformerly consisted of an abduction or a bargain.In these songs the bride betraysnone of the terror shown by the Great Russian maiden " consigned by hersovereign father and sovereign mother to a stranger of whom she had neverthought." And when the old forms are pronounced over the rod as it passes fromthe father to the bridegroom, the nuptial chorus replies with an ironical strophe.Free choice is evidently common enough, and the bride's dowry plays a smallpart amongst this poverty-stricken people.says the chorus, " but her who is clothed in wisdom."" Take not her who is decked in gold,"The White Russian people have seen better days. They are not strangers tothoughts of independence, and those whom they most admire arethe free LittleRussian Cossacks, from whom they have borrowed over a third of their songs.during their long period of serfdom they acquired the vices inseparable fromslavery. The Polish feudal system weighed heavily on them, and the landssuffered most from the devastating wars of the seventeenth century. Those werethe days of " Ruiua," a Latin word which passed into their language, and is stilluttered with a shudder.ButBut the wretched villages were soon rebuilt, the countrywas opened up, the towns enriched by trade, while most of the old castles, convents,