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“Is it true,” asked his neighbor, “that the Kirghiz of the middle horde have joined the Tartars?”
“So it is said,” answered the traveler, lowering his voice; “but who can flatter themselves that they know anything really of what is going on in this country?”
“I have heard speak of a concentration of troops on the frontier. The Don Cossacks have already gathered along the course of the Volga, and they are to be opposed to the rebel Kirghiz.”
“If the Kirghiz descend the Irtish, the route to Irkutsk will not be safe,” observed his neighbor. “Besides, yesterday I wanted to send a telegram to Krasnoiarsk, and it could not be forwarded. It’s Ostaa Halpa Nike Air Max 91 Naisten to be feared that before long the Tartar columns will have isolated Eastern Siberia.”
“In short, little father,” continued the first speaker, “these merchants have good reason for being uneasy about their trade and transactions. After requisitioning the horses, they will take the boats, carriages, every means of transport, until presently no one will be allowed to take even one step in all the empire.”
“I’m much afraid that the Nijni-Novgorod fair won’t end as brilliantly as it has begun,” responded the other, shaking his head. “But the safety and integrity of the Russian territory before everything. Business is business.”
If in Atletico Madrid Drakt Barn this compartment the subject of conversation varied but little — nor did Toni Kroos Tröja it, indeed, in the other carriages of the train — in all it might Washington Redskins Hattar have been observed that the talkers used much circumspection. When they did happen to venture Los Angeles Chargers Hattar out of the region of facts, they never went so Tampa Bay Buccaneers Hattar far as to attempt to divine the intentions of the Muscovite government, or even to criticize them.
This was especially remarked by a traveler in a carriage at the front part of the train. This person — evidently a stranger — made good use of his eyes, and asked numberless questions, to which he received only evasive answers. Every minute leaning out of the window, which he would keep down, to the great disgust of his fellow-travelers, he lost nothing of the Casquettes Pas CHer views to the right. He inquired the names of the most insignificant places, their position, what were their commerce, their manufactures, the number of their inhabitants, the average mortality, etc., and all this he wrote down in a note-book, already full.
This was the correspondent Alcide Jolivet, and the reason of his putting so many insignificant questions was, that amongst the many answers he received, he hoped to find some interesting fact “for his cousin.” But, naturally enough, he was taken for a spy, and not a word treating of the events of the day was uttered in his hearing.
Finding, therefore, that he could learn nothing of the Tartar invasion, he wrote in his book, “Travelers of great discretion. Very close as to political matters.”
Whilst Alcide Jolivet noted down his impressions thus minutely, his confrere, in the same train, traveling for the same object, was devoting himself to the same work of observation in another compartme |
