Manuscript Account of Travel from England to Russia and Poland in 1872

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12mo, 68 manuscript pages, plus blanks, and 8 pages of notes, bound in contemporary embossed leather backed flexible stiff wraps, entries written in English, in pencil, in a clear and legible hand. The journal is an excellent, highly literate, well written account of the author¿s impressions of Russian society and his keen observations on all aspects of life in Russia, which the author refers to as ¿the Empire of Fear.¿ The diarist, who describes himself as a Russian prince, is anonymous, although he identifies his companions. He takes a business trip to the part of Russia which is now in present day Poland. The purpose of his trip was to draw up a statement of account for the manufactory of Messrs Palin & Dunlop in Nowogrodek. Afterwards he visits the different silk and cotton manufactories in the town and also the place where Russe serge cloth is manufactured. The book only mentions business in passing. Mostly the author is concerned with describing the people and the regime of the country. Sample Quotations: ¿Wednesday, April 24, 1872 Left Windermere at 8.15 a.m. for Preston, meeting at the latter place Thomas Hatch, Margaret Hatch; James Ainscough; and Robert Sale, proceeded from thence to Hull via Leeds, arriving at 4.40 p.m. Went to Foreign Consulate for colltn of Passports; thence Granville Temperance Hotel. Left the Humber Dock Wall by steamship Cyclone at 10.50 same evening for Hamburg¿¿ After a rough passage our author and his party arrived in Hamburg after passing through customs they left Hamburg by rail at 11:30 a.m. for Perleburg, making several stops along the way, they arrived in Berlin shortly before 9 p.m. and stayed overnight at the Café Imperial. They departed Berlin by rail the next morning and arrived at the border of Poland that afternoon: ¿¿ on the boundary line of Poland, where we first encountered the numerous annoyances travelers of all descriptions are subjected to, and to which, even Russian Princes, like myself, were obliged to submit during our transit through the Custom House, but on arriving at Warsaw, I had the mortification of seeing them released in three minutes, whilst I had to struggle with every species of trickery for the space of three hours. At four o¿clock we succeeded in penetrating that land which is blessed with all the amenities attached to Russian Government, which was announced by the Russian Eagle floating over the miserable apology for a building yclept the Groche Custom House, Groche being a town of some dozen or so of dilapidated wooden erections which serve not only as shelters but also as dwellings and of which the Customs House is chief, Winding by the banks of the river Vistula ¿ the line threaded by the river bank to Nieszawa, which seemed to be a busy place for the shipment of sundry descriptions of goods and merchandize; some loading for, others unloading from the Baltic; we next came to Bobrownik, another port of the same river, & from whence two canals diverge; after this we reached Biskepia; where we stayed upwards of 20 minutes, and then proceeded to Wyrzogrod, at which place we left the Vistula, on the right & proceeded by way of Biaski & Takrodzin and reaching Warsaw at 9.20 p.m. at which place a multitude of little superfluous precautions engender a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision which seems to say, though everything is done with much silence ¿Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.¿ Such members, acting under an influence which is not in themselves, in a manner resembling the wheel-work of a clock, are called men in Russia! I say Russia, though I am in reality speaking of Poland, which is, virtually and tyrannically a part and portion of the Great Empire. The sight of these voluntary automata inspires me with a kind of fear: there is something supernatural in an individual reduced. Seller Inventory # 030492

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