Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/11



N preparing this volume for the press, the author has followed very closely the plan adopted for "The Boy Travellers in the Far East," and also for his more recent work, "The Boy Travellers in South America." Accompanied by their versatile and accomplished mentor, Dr. Bronson, our young friends, Frank Bassett and Fred Bronson, journeyed from Vienna to Warsaw and St. Petersburg, and after an interesting sojourn in the latter city, proceeded to Moscow, the ancient capital of the Czars. From Moscow they went to Nijni Novgorod, to attend the great fair for which that city is famous, and thence descended the Volga to the Caspian Sea. On their way down the great river they visited the principal towns and cities along its banks, saw many strange people, and listened to numerous tales and legends concerning the races which make up the population of the great Muscovite Empire.

They visited the recently developed petroleum fields of the Caspian, and, after crossing that inland sea, made a journey in Central Asia to study certain phases of the "Eastern Question," and learn something about the difficulties that have arisen between England and Russia. Afterwards they travelled in the Caucasus, visited the Crimea, and bade farewell to the Empire as they steamed away from Odessa. Concerning the parts of Russia that they were unable to visit they gathered much information, and altogether their notes, letters, and memoranda would make a portly volume.

The author has been three times in the Russian Empire, and much of the country described by "The Boy Travellers" was seen and traversed by him. In his first journey he entered the Czar's dominions at Petropavlovsk in Kamtchatka, ascended the Amoor River through its entire navigable length, traversed Siberia from the Pacific Ocean to the Ural Mountains, and continuing thence to Kazan, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw, left the protection of the Russian flag eleven thousand miles from where he first went beneath it. His second visit included the