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On the Volga.
141
all the passengers are out in the open, forming many a
picturesque group. Let us walk round the lower deck, among
the steerage passengers. The wind has free play, but the
smell is very "thick." We are at once surrounded by a crowd
of peasants, clamouring in chorus for bread. We buy some
for them, and proceed on our tour. Behind a barrel, one of
the ship’s crew is sitting, singing a jovial song, with a fat and
buxom lass in his lap. Further on, two small groups are on
their knees, round some object spread on the deck. What are
they doing? Praying? No. A nearer approach shows that
they are peasants—hunting. They have laid out their
sheepskin coats with the wool towards the sun, to entice the
numerous inhabitants out of their remoter haunts into the
light and warmth; when the unwary population, not suspecting
any evil, migrate to the outer regions merciless hands pounce
down and hurl the victims into Volga’s depths. So intent on
their hunting are the peasants that they do not utter a sound,
or pay the slightest attention to the ring of spectators around
them. When will all the Russian peasants take to this
excellent hunting business, and clear out all the vermin that
are eating into their very bones ?
Leaving them to their engrossing business and going
forward, we see a decently clad young man, of sympathetic
appearance, distributing New Testaments among the j>easants,
who receive them with bowed heads, making the while the sign
of the cross. He is a colporteur in the service of the British
and Foreign Bible Society, which has been and still is doing a
grand work in Russia. It reflects some credit on the Russian
Church that the circulation of the Bible has been allowed in
the Orthodox empire, however limited. The clergy have often
been antagonistic to Bible distribution, and several depots
have been closed, but still the work goes on. It was in 1812
that the Russian branch of the British and Foreign Bible
Society was established, through the untiring exertions of the
English clergymen Paterson, Pinkerton, and Henderson. At
first a parallel edition of the New Testament in Russian and
Slavonic was distributed, then from 1818 an entirely Russian
translation, while in 1824 the New Testament was issued in
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