It is popularly supposed that if you are familiar with French and German you may travel anywhere in Russia.

So far as the great cities and chief lines of communication are concerned, this may be true, but beyond that it is a delusion.

The Russian has not, any more than the West-European, received from Nature the gift of tongues.

Educated Russians often speak one or two foreign languages fluently, but the peasants know no language but their own, and it is with the peasantry that one comes in contact.

And to converse freely with the peasant requires a considerable familiarity with the language--far more than is required for simply reading a book.