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Again and again in those days, when France was crushed under the heel of the Second Empire, when Poland was vainly writhing in her cruel bonds, when Hungary was filled with the spirit of rebellion, and when the people of Italy were taking their first steps by the intricate paths of conspiracy and insurrection towards unity and freedom, Joe Cowen would find some excuse for summoning a public meeting in the old Lecture Room, Nelson Street, in order that we might listen to some patriot exile as he told the story of his country's wrongs, or give expression to our own detestation of the despotism which at that time weighed upon Europe, from the banks of the Seine to those of the Volga.
For century after century they swarmed out of the dark woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their force spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who dwelt along the coasts of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. From the Volga to the Pillars of Hercules, from Sicily to Britain, every land in turn bowed to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin.
It was my purpose to have reached the Caspian, and taken boats to the Volga, and up that river as far as navigation would permit, but we were dissuaded by the Grand-Duke Michael, Governor-General of the Caucasas, and took carriages six hundred miles to Taganrog, on the Sea of Azof, to which point the railroad system of Russia was completed. From Taganrog we took cars to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
On the one side merchants left Spain, traversed the straits of Gibraltar, went by caravan from Tangier along the northern fringe of the desert, to Egypt, Syria, and Persia. This was the southern route. Then there was the northern route, through Germany, across the country of the Slavs to the Lower Volga; thence, descending the river, they sailed across the Caspian.
Batu, who had completed the devastation of South Russia, summoned Yaroslaff to do him homage at Sarai, on the Volga. Yaroslaff was received there with distinction. Batu confirmed his title of grand prince, but invited him to go in person to the Great Khan, supreme chief of the Mongol nation, who lived on the banks of the river Sakhalian or Amur.
The Hi region remained thereafter a bone of contention between China and Russia, until it finally went to Russia, bit by bit, between 1847 and 1881. The Kalmuks and Kazaks played a special part in Russo-Chinese relations. The Chinese had sent a mission to the Kalmuks farthest west, by the lower Volga, and had entered into relations with them, as early as 1714.
It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the same force which had driven them from their native seats, still continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe.
Gerôme was in great request on these occasions, and, under the influence of some fiery raki, of which he seemed to have an unlimited stock, would have trolled out "Matoushka Volga" and weird Cossack ditties till the stars were paling, if not suppressed.
The narratives of antiquity are justified by the experience of modern times; and the banks of the Borysthenes, of the Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently present the same uniform spectacle of similar and native manners. I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the patient toil of the husbandman.
With Vera as the central figure, and the scene his own estate and the bank of the Volga his fancy took shape and the secret of artistic creation became clear to him. It chanced once or twice that he found himself walking with Vera.
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