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CHAPTER VIII.
A DAY IN A FAMINE-STRICKEN VILLAGE.
(Specially contributed by P. von Birukoff.)
Early Dawn—Starved Horses—Applicants for Relief—A Terrible Story—
In the Eating Room—Simplicity of Human Want-*—A Hidden Izba— A
Scorbuiine Farming—More Applicants—Weariness and Its Effects—A
Tangle of Thoughts.
It is a fresh, spring morning. The sun is not yet risen, but
the " monjenroth " stretches over half the sky. I go out into
the streets to breathe the pure morning air. There is a breeze
springing up from the east, and the village folk are
beginning to stir. As the peasant women light the fires in
their ovens slender columns of smoke ascend. The church
bells are ringing for matins, and a number of old men and
women are going, single file, into the church. Half-wakened,
uncombed mushik-youths crawl slowly from the low izbas to
harness the horses and fetch water. From other huts come
peasant men and women with yokes on their shoulders.
The earth is hard in the morning frost. From a distance
comes the ring of a horse’s hoofs striking the frozen ground.
It is most likely someone riding out on the steppes to relieve
the liorsekeeper, who has been tending the village horses on
the hills where the snow has melted, and the poor beasts
munch the sparse and short stubble left from last year’s
harvest, or the dried old grassroots. " They may find
something," think the musluks ; so they keep one horse at home,
to fetch water and for other household purposes, while the}’
take it in turns to watch the others out on the steppes.
However poor the feeding is out there it is better than at home,
where everything is devoured, even to the rotten straw on the
roofs of the outhouses, and in many places of the izbas also.
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