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124
A Policy op Death.
rate, they play their part exceedingly well, and give no sign
that they have any faith in pure water and cleanliness. While
the people were dying by the tens of thousands, the officials,
who were careful not to set their sacred feet within the
precincts of a plague-stricken village, busied themselves with
devising and issuing most sapient orders by which to
counteract the ravages of hunger and disease. While I was in
Samara the children were forbidden to play in the streets or
fields so as not to offend the Great Powers. The poor little
starving mites were truly in no mood for play. Probably it
was for the same cause that parents of the Orthodox faith
were forbidden to give their children Jewish names, and vice
versa, and all peasants were commanded to uncover their heads
before every one of higher rank, on pain of flogging and
imprisonment.
As a consequence there is absolutely no sanitation in most
villages, and when the thaw came after the terrible winter our
worst fears were realised. The village streets were turned into
canals, along which flowed streams of dirty, yellowish-green
water, setting the heaps of excrement, from men and beasts,
that had accumulated through the winter, in a ferment. From
these streams the women got their water for drinking, cooking,
&c., and from the heaps of refuse themselves there [rose
continual vapours, spreading in the atmosphere; an incense that
might fitly rise in worship of the great powers enthroned at
Petersburg.
Look at this village street awhile. Here comes one of the
•doctors belonging to the expedition I have mentioned—not sent
out by the Government. He is riding on a horse whose legs
sink deep into the muck and filth. Soon after comes one of the
"sisters," shod with high boots, one hand engaged in holding
up her skirts, the other carrying medicine and food for the
patients; from izba to izba she goes on her errand of mercy,
wading through the liquid mud.
We will go with her awhile on her rounds, approaching her
with deepest respect. She belongs to no religious order; there
is nothing of the nun or "saint" about her. She is of high
o o
rank, and has received a superior education. It is the inward
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