CHAP. IX.

Smolensco, September 1814.

We were now to bid adieu to the ancient seat of the Czars, and gaze no longer on its hallowruins. The last chime of its bells was to ring on our ear, the last glitter of its domes was to fade on our sight, and, as their tints stole away into the horizon, our minds mingled with their dying hue, and left us at peace with a jarring world.

And now lay before us the dark and dreadful part of our journey, the most interesting, but the most melancholy. Hitherto its picture was calm and serene; whatever dark spots it had belonged to the canvas, not to the pencil, and we gazed on a country, on which God and man had bestowed many choice gifts. Far different now were the scenes before us. On all sides lay vast and dreary wilds, their only tracks the bloodstains of war, their only companions the sad remnants of its desolation. No longer was the cheering warmth of humanization to be felt; all was dark and dreary: one wretched map of misery "threw

its listless length around." Wherever we rolled our wearied eye, still it was the same, nothing to catch, on which it could sweetly gaze, nothing discernable, on which it could fondly linger; and wherever our fellow creature gave colour to the scene, it added interest, but it added melancholy. The tear of the widow was to awake our sympathy; the cry of the orphan was to din in our ears, and send its echo to the listening waste; their husbands, their fathers, and their friends no more! their alters insulted, their homes polluted, and their wretched, houseless, figures stalking abroad, like the genii of famine and despair, and clinging to the yet reeking embers of their roofless dwellings.

Let not the enthusiast roam here. Far different are those scenes, where the bright fancies of his boyhood plumed their eagle wing, and took their gay and glittering flights. The cup from which he has taken his draught will be dashed from his lips; the dream, from which he is awakened, will add to its bitterness; the spell will be broken, and he will turn away with disgust. No more; for him, will the lovely features of nature smile; hideous and distorted they will "rack his gaze." He will see his fellow-creatures in all the varieties of wretchedness and despair, stealing away, from the scanty boon of nature, wherewith to support their miserable existence,

The road from Moscow passed out at the Westgate, after crossing the Moskwa by a long wooden bridge. It then enters on a flat plain, partly diversified with clumps of trees and numerous ruins of wooden huts, &c. and it continues flat until it reaches Perkouchekovo our first stage.This place presents a miserable group of wooden hovels, about thirty in number, and scattered on each side of the road. A large green painted church, partly demolished, stands in the middle it is a fine bourg or borough and belongs to the Emperor.

This was the first stage which the French army reached on their retreat, and, while we were changing horses, we could not but shudder at the sad relics of their devastation. Paltry and simple as it was, it could not escape their all devouring firebrand. Scarcely a vestige of its once neat form survived, except the church. The wretched inhabitants fled, partly to another village and partly to their woods and wilds. A few have returned, and are still fondly lingering over the ruins of their once beloved homes, with scarce a rag to cover their wretched forms, and hardly a roof to shelter them from the pitiless blast.Mothers and orphans crowd together, mingling their sighs and their sorrows; clinging to the shelter of a few hurdles, and hanging over each other in famine and despair. Here they are to face the

howling winds and winter snows, until tired nature puts an end to the measure of their sorrows. Unhappy country, is it not enough that the depravities of thy ancient mother have called down Heaven's vengeance on her bleeding form? Is the Scourge of war to crimson, with its blood stained lash, those peaceful vales, where thy simple offspring draw their little store, and where, like the lowly flower, which droops its head to the blast, their humility, and their innocence should have sheltered them from desolation?

From the last stage, our road continued tolerably good and flat; partly made with planks and partly a track through an extensive plain, level and fit for pasturage, and brought us to a wretched village, or rather a heap of rubbish, which, like the former, is free and belongs to the Emperor. A similar mass of devastation presents itself. The inhabitants received fifty roubles for each house from the Emperor, in the former they received an hundred roubles for each house, being in proportion to the extent of the destruction committed, and to their indigence. The inhabitants of this place are mostly Poles; they are robust and with fair complexions. The men wear a large slouching hat, and sheepskin jackets; the women are clad in rags; in short, misery and wretchedness seem to abound here. This village is called Koubinskoe and contains about sixty persons.

We continued to proceed through a flat and insipid country, without any object which could interest the attention, and soon reached the village of Chelkovo, similarly wretched and ruinous with the last, and containing a few temporary sheds on each side of the road. It shared the fate of the others; but this, it is said, was owing to the Cossacks, more than the French. A small quantity of grain seems to be raised around this part of the country. The soil, from Moscow, is yellow sand and clay, cold and sterile. The pas turage is scanty and bad, and the crops light. The common flail of Scotland is used here; the women thresh out the grain on a platform, in the field. The common plough of Russia is still in use; but the rudely formed harrow of the northern provinces is somewhat improved. This country is more barren, both as to nature and art, than that lying between the capitals.

The road continued flat, cheerless and insipid, irregularly formed and often deeply rutted. We passed by the ruins of three villages, which were laid waste; two of them are entirely spept away from the face of the earth, and now bushes of nettles mark the spot on which they stood. This, in many places, was the only mark by which we could observe where houses had formerly been. It is asserted that the Russians destroyed these villages during the advance of the French Army.