Kieff carriages, but when we left Jmerinka at seven o'clock there were so many passengers that there was no chance of getting a comfortable stretch. We were as uncomfortably packed for the night as in a crowded compartment on an English line.

From Jmerinka to Odessa, fifteen hours' journey, the railway traverses a real piece of steppe land—at places so flat that gazing from the window on either side of the carriage, it is often impossible to discern the slightest elevation or depression as far as the eye can reach. All around extends an interminable expanse of more or less cultivated land, unbroken by a single mound, landmark, tree, or shrub. Villages exist at intervals of many miles, but the stone or mud cabins have no gardens round them, no bushes, no trees. The whole country is a corn desert, terribly monotonous to look at in summer, and a fearful place for snowstorms in winter. I have traversed the steppes in almost every part of Russia, but those of Kherson are the flattest I have yet seen. For hours the next morning after quitting Austria we crawled through nothing but corn-here cut and standing in massive sheaves, there already carted away and the stubble ploughed up for the winter sowings, but mostly still untouched by the reaper. It is this region that absorbs the largest amount of the English agricultural machinery imported into Russia; for, in the southernmost steppes of Russia the population is scanty, labour relatively dear, and the harvest can only be won by the aid of machinery.

Being Sunday morning, there were very few peasants at work in the fields. As the train rattled slowly over the metals, we constantly passed parties of them in clumsy waggons, drawn by bullocks, going on visits to other villages or to some neighbouring market. For weeks there had been no rain in the district—the ground was cracked and parched, the ponds dried up, and in

places the entire crop had been scorched off the ground. Huge dense clouds of black dust rose and enveloped the peasants as their waggons rumbled over the uneven roads, and even our train, jolting over the rotten sleepers, on which the metals were loosely pinned, provoked powdery emanations from the soil that filled the carriage with motes, and clogged the pores of our skin. Long before the hour that we should have sat down to breakfast in England, we were experiencing the exhausting effects of the heat, and longing for a bath to remove the coating of dust that had collected since our evening ablutions at Jmerinka. The railway carriage was provided with a lavatory, but it was so filthy that it was impossible to perform one's toilette in the place. I was sorry I had not brought with me a portable india-rubber basin and ewer, which could have been easily strapped with the rugs. There was plenty of water at the various stations, and abundance of time for lavatory operations either in the train, or, undisturbed by oscillations, during the numerous halts.

The nearer we got to Odessa the larger the stations became, and the greater the number of passengers. The latter consisted of peasants, mostly Cossack or Little Russian, with a considerable sprinkling of Jews. At one of the stations, where we had an eight o'clock tumbler of tea, the peasants had brought several waggonloads of water melons to a spot near the platform, and did a brisk trade with the passengers by selling them at the rate of about a penny a-piece. Still crawling along at a miserable speed, the scenery never varying, we reached Odessa at last at ten in the morning, hungry, dirty, hot, and tired.

CHAPTER II.

ODESSA AND THE CORN TRADE.

A Change for the Better-A Sunday Morning in Odessa-The Town no longer an Ink-bottle in Winter and a Sand-box in SummerGrowth of Odessa-Its Position as the Capital of South RussiaThe Export of Corn-Changes in the Trade-Competition of America and India-Dearness of Transport-The Elevator Question-Necessity for Organizing the Trade-Slow Growth of Railways in Russia-Outrun by India, Canada, and other Colonies-Trade between Odessa and the East-The Suez Canal -An Odessa Country House-Departure from Odessa for Batoum-Steamboat Arrangements-Daily Life on Board a Black Sea Steamer-A German Preferable to a Russian as a Cabin Companion-Crossing over to the Crimea-Eupatoria.

"COME, come, Mr. Marvin, if this is Russia, all I can say is, that it is a little bit more civilized than the Newcastle folk believe it to be," said C., an hour later, gazing with satisfaction at the breakfast table at the Hotel d'Europe. To this hotel we had driven direct from the station, and had enhanced the exhilaration produced by rattling along the leafy boulevards at a furious pace, breasting a glorious sea-breeze, by unlimited splashing and dabbling in cold water. Russians can wash themselves to their heart's content with a mere mugful of that liquid. Hence the quart-pot supply that stood in the bedrooms evidently represented what the Hotel d'Europe thought to be the extra allowance demanded. by the more exacting nations of the West. However, this little defect was overcome by impressing all the

servants we saw loitering about the spacious corridors, and ordering them to keep on bringing water in pans, pots, and ewers until further notice. By this means we accumulated in a few minutes a plentiful supply, and went at it as only Englishmen can who have experienced the craving for water that accompanies a long journey across a dusty and arid plain.

There are a number of good hotels at Odessa, but few equal the Hotel d'Europe for cleanliness, comfort, and luxury; while as regards site it is unsurpassable, situated as it is in front of a square on a height overlooking the harbour and sea, and catching the refreshing salt breeze blowing from the water. One could hardly be more comfortable in an English seaside hotel than at the Hotel d'Europe, and if the charges are higher than those of the other Odessa establishments, they do not exceed the general run of prices in England. The manager speaks English, and from the numerous English travellers calling there, knows our ways tolerably well. To any one arriving at Odessa from a journey to the East, it is an additional comfort to be able to get there the latest English newspapers.

Our breakfast was served up in a handsome spacious room, with a highly polished cool parquet floor, and windows and doorways decorated with palms and evergreens. Through the windows could be seen people passing to and fro in flat caps or helmets, and loose white summer clothing. The day was hot, and there was not a cloud in the intensely blue sky to intercept the heat of the southern sun; but as they passed the windows they evidently enjoyed as much as we did the cooling breeze from the sea. This, entering by doorway and window, ruffled pleasantly the cool clean white damask table-cloth, spread on a little table near a grove of evergreens, whereon were disposed delicious coffee and rolls, and a huge dish of ham and eggs, set off with handsome electro

RAPID GROWTH OF ODESSA.

25

plated ware and china, and a fresh uncut copy of the Times received by the last post from London. One might have searched a long while that pleasant Sunday morning to have found in any English town more agreeable arrangements for a breakfast, and, coming to it as we did, hungry from the Kherson plains, we thoroughly appreciated every feature of it.

Odessa has greatly improved since the primitive time of alternate mud and dust, which caused the poet Pushkin to compare it to an ink-bottle in winter and a sandbox in summer. Its broad quadrangular streets are well paved, and planted like boulevards with acacia; the lofty white houses, built of shell concrete obtained from neighbouring quarries, are enlivened by handsome shops. As a town it is better built and better paved than either St. Petersburg or Moscow, and in many other respects is more advanced than either of those capitals. When the poet Pushkin-the contemporary and admirer of Byrondwelt in it, the city was still in its infancy, like Novorossisk, Poti, Batoum, and other points on the Caucasian coast to-day. There are yet persons living in South Russia who remember when Odessa had no existence, It is only ninety-five years ago since General de Ribas and the Russians stormed the insignificant fortress of Hadji Bey, and secured for the Empress Catherine the Great the port of Odessa, and it was not until several years after that assault that the conquerors began to develop the place. Once a start was made, however, the city grew amazingly; acquiring in its career Gallic characteristics, from the fact of its successive early governors, De Ribas, Richelieu, and Langeron, being Frenchmen. At the beginning of the present century its population was 2,000; it is now 190,000, and in point of size it ranks as fourth city in the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg coming first with 840,000 people, Moscow next with 625,000, Warsaw third with 340,000, and then