That same night some peasants found a deserted carriage on the highway, near Kherson, and were soon satisfied on examining it, that a crime had been committed in it. Several pieces of silver coin were scattered in the straw, as if some one had forgotten them there in his haste, and copious marks of blood were discernible on the ground and in the carriage. These facts were communicated to the police, inquiries were instituted, and the courier's body, with a deep gash in the head, was found in a ditch two or three versts from the station. The driver had disappeared, and the postmaster, an unfortunate Jew, who was perhaps innocent of all participation in the crime, was immediately taken to prison. Such was the state of the case when we arrived at the station and found it all in confusion, and filled with Cossacks.
This tragic event threw the whole country into agitation, but it was not until six weeks afterwards that the police at last succeeded in arresting the perpetrator of the deed, in consequence of quite new information, which gave a still stranger complexion to the whole story. By the murderer's own statement, it appeared that he belonged to a family of shopkeepers, and that he had given up his business only to execute a long cherished project. Some months before the murder he had gone into the Crimea, where he had taken pains to conceal his identity and baffle any attempt to track his steps, by letting his beard grow, adopting the habits and appearance of a mujik, and frequently changing his place of abode. When he thought his measures complete in this respect, he went and hired himself as postillion to the Jew, who kept the post-station before mentioned. He had been waiting more than a month for a favourable opportunity, when the unfortunate courier, who was his victim, arrived. He confessed he had hesitated for some moments before committing the murder, not from horror of the deed itself, but because he recognised in the courier an old companion of his boyhood. Twice, perceiving that the man was asleep, he had left his seat and got up behind the carriage with the intention of knocking him on the head; but twice his courage failed him; the third time, however, he drew the courier's own sabre and cleft his skull with it at a blow. Having secured the valise, he threw the corpse into a ditch, and continued his journey to within a short distance of Kherson, where he left the kibitka, changed his dress, cut off his beard, and then entered the city on foot. His family received him without the least suspicion, never doubting but that he came straight from the Crimea, and for more than six weeks he lived quite at his ease, making like every body else numberless conjectures respecting the event which was the constant theme of conversation. Meanwhile, several persons having been struck by the resemblance of his features to those of the postillion who had disappeared, they put the police on the alert, and he was arrested just as he was setting out for Bessarabia. He was condemned to a hundred strokes of the knout, and the postmaster was sent to Siberia. The children of the latter were enrolled as soldiers, and all he was worth became the booty of the police.
With such penal laws, Russia has little to fear from malefactors. Notwithstanding its vast extent and its thinly scattered population, the traveller is safer there than in any other country. But this state of things is to be ascribed rather to the political situation of the people, than to the strict administration of the police, and it is easy to conceive that in a country, in which there are none but slaves bound to the soil, highway robberies, generally speaking, are morally impossible, because they can scarcely ever yield any gain to their authors. There existed, nevertheless, in Bessarabia, from 1832 to 1836, a very formidable gang of robbers, of which the police found it extremely difficult to rid the country. The captain, of whom a thousand extraordinary tales are told, was a revolted slave, unconsciously playing the part of Fra Diavolo, in a corner of Russia. He waged war not against individuals, but against society. It is alleged, that he never killed any one, and that many a peasant found with him an asylum and protection. He was a daring fellow, beloved by his gang, and a merciless plunderer of landlords, and above all of Jews. It was not until the close of 1836 that he was taken, through the treachery of a girl he was attached to, who betrayed him to the officers of justice. He died under the knout; the death of their leader dispersed his gang, and they fell one by one into the hands of the police.
Some days after my husband's return, we took our leave of the baroness to return to Clarofka. Our main journey through the Kalmuck steppes and to the Caucasus, being fixed for the following spring, part of the winter was spent in making preparations for our departure. Count Voronzof most obligingly furnished us with letters for the governors and authorities of the countries we were to pass through.
[3] The name applied collectively to the islands and channels formed by all the great rivers of Southern Russia.
[4] A favourite Russian dish, a sort of porridge of buckwheat or Indian corn.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX.
Petty Larceny.—"Highway robbery and burglary, with violence, are things wholly unknown in the greater part of Russia. The peasants laugh when they see foreigners travelling about with swords, pistols, and a whole arsenal of weapons. The Russian trader journeys from one end of the empire to the other, often with all he is worth in the world, and does not think it necessary even to carry a knife in his pocket; yet one never hears of their being robbed by force on the highways, at least in the parts of the country with which I was more intimately acquainted. Cases of the kind do indeed occur in the southern provinces, adjoining the Turkish dominions, and in Siberia, where so many malefactors are settled, and where there is often extreme distress. Some may be disposed to ascribe this unfrequency of highway robbery to the great remoteness of the villages from each other, and to the severity of the climate, which must deter rogues from remaining much in the open air, especially at night. But even in summer, and in the more populous regions, where the villages are tolerably close together, highway robbery is equally rare, and the absence of this crime seems to me attributable rather to the character of the people themselves, to whom the practice seems repugnant and unnatural. It were to be wished that they had the same instinctive aversion to robbery without violence, but this unfortunately is not the case. As I was a frequent sufferer from the nimbleness of their fingers, I had occasion enough to ponder on the causes of this striking propensity of theirs, and I came to the conclusion, paradoxical as it may perhaps seem, that it arises not so much from want of moral feeling as from want of intellectual cultivation. Most of the common folk who are given to this vice (for among educated persons it is as rare and is reputed as infamous as in any other country) see no harm at all in pilfering, and are, therefore, prone to practise it whenever they have an opportunity. I am fully persuaded that these people, who are often the most good-natured and even honest-hearted fellows, would desist from the practice if they were once taught to regard it in a different light, and were made conscious of its impropriety. This is a case as to which primary instruction, village schools, and church sermons, in the vernacular tongue, would deal most happily and beneficially for the morals of the nation. But village schools are rare, and sermons or religious instruction of any kind, are rarer still; books there are none, and if there were any the populace could not read them. What means then have they of becoming enlightened as to themselves and the things around them, and of correcting the views and notions handed down to them from generation to generation? Centuries ago they worked out for themselves their own system of ethics, if I may so speak, and they now make the best they can of it. Certain things, for instance, such as household furniture and the like, are regarded as sacred; the owners may leave them all night in the street, and be sure of finding them again in the morning, whereas there are a thousand other things which they cannot watch too carefully, though far less serviceable, and consequently less tempting. On the former there is a sort of interdict laid by tacit consent, whereas the latter are looked upon as common