Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/82

 58 important line for foreign exports, the land road consisted of mere paths running through forests and over marshes. There were no inns, and very few villages. The country between Novgorod and Moscow was a desert, and summer travellers had the greatest difficulty in getting from Moscow to Vilna. The only tolerably convenient and pretty nearly practicable road at every season of the year was that between Pskov and Riga, on the western frontier. Thus, in summer-time heavy merchandise was transported exclusively by water, and in winter over the frozen snow. It was no uncommon thing, in the winter season, to meet 700 or 800 sledges, all laden with grain or fish. They travelled in large bands, as a rule, fearing the armed attacks so frequent in those days.

This state of insecurity was general. On the east, Tartars made perpetual incursions into the country, stripping and murdering travellers. In the south, there were Cossacks and robbers everywhere. On the Volga, pirate bands even defied the military expeditions sent out year after year to put them down.

Foreign travellers have noted one feature which, in connection with those to which I have just referred, strikes us as surprising—excellent posting arrangements. When the roads were good—in winter, that is to say—the 524 versts between Novgorod and Moscow could be covered in seventy-two hours, at a very moderate charge—6 kopecks for a stage of 20 versts—and the traveller could get as many relays of horses as he wanted. A tired horse was quickly replaced—left behind, and a fresh one taken in its stead, in the nearest village, or from the first passerby. This was the Tsar's service, and the traveller only had to show a way-bill signed by the proper authority to insure his being served in this fashion. In summer, indeed, the scene changed. The horses were out at pasture, or working in the fields, and hours would slip by before the necessary team could be collected. But at that season travellers preferred the waterways, on which there were boats and rowers, also belonging to the State.

This was a legacy from the Tartar conquest, which partly owed its startling successes to the extreme rapidity and clever handling of its transport. It must not be forgotten that France had no posting system till Louis XI. established one by edict in 1464, and then with an exclusively political object, to convey the King's couriers. Russia has ever been a country of surprises.

But this single advantage did not compensate, in the sixteenth century, for the other causes of inferiority which paralyzed her economic life. In the year 1553, 25,000 corpses were buried in the cemeteries at Pskov, without reckoning the unknown