Welsh Journals

changed trains, and by midday on Sunday had reached Witebsk. With scarcely time to get anything to eat they were put aboard another train, which, after a night journey, brought them to Orel on Monday 13 November. The countryside through which they passed provided considerable variety, from some of the finest woodland they had ever seen to immense wastes, totally devoid of bushes or hedges, stretch- ing away to the south and east. At other times they noticed hundreds of acres of wheat and an abundance of hemp, with herds of domestic animals everywhere. Many churches dotted the landscape, but roads were very scarce and those that they did see were unpaved and deep in mud. At one stop they had sufficient time to visit a church, which was very beautiful, with its hundreds of candles, and listened to a sermon of which, not unnaturally, they did not understand a single word. A burial service was in progress and they were struck by the method of carrying the body in its coffin swinging from a pole. By Tuesday 14 November they reached Kursk, a large town, but they were so tired with the journey that they did not feel like looking around, and were soon on their way once more. On Wednesday afternoon they were transferred to droskies, which took them the rest of the way to Seminafka, about 200 miles from Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, leaving them, according to Evan Williams's estimate, about 1,900 miles from Riga and 3,000 miles from home, but with the one consolation of finding the houses better than they had expected. Evan Williams resumed his account in a letter written on Christmas Day 1871, when he had had time to form some more definite impressions of the country. Once again he emphasised the unenclosed nature of the land, lacking gates, hedges or anything to distinguish one piece of property from the next; there were few roads, only footpaths; the land had a permanent grey look about it, and although the crops were good, the hay did not compare with that in Wales. He found the men servile and submissive, provided that they were kept in their places and not encouraged to be forward, in fact, the Welsh and English were treated very much as superior beings. The Russians were not particularly healthy, and close to they smelled pretty strongly; in addition they were inveterate thieves. They dressed in shirts and woollen trousers, over which they wore a large sheepskin coat reaching almost to the ground. They used old rags instead of socks, and their boots were made from some basket like stuff which they tied on with cords. They lived like animals in houses dug out of the earth and gave Williams the impression that they had never had a wash in their lives. The women he found difficult to distinguish from the men. They wore large boots which reached as far as the knee, cloaks which hung to the ground, kerchiefs on their heads and most of the time they were in rags. Williams and his fellow Welshmen tried one Russian girl as housekeeper, but had to get rid of her because she was so unhealthy. They replaced her with a married woman but refused to let her husband enter the house. Wooden houses had been put up for the Welsh and English, and some stone ones were in process of construction which they eventually would take over. There were three pits at Seminafka, two of which brought up the coal in buckets and the third by engine and carriage. Small trams were used not unlike