A large proportion of them can read and write, and occasionally one meets among them men who have a keen desire for knowledge.

Several times I encountered peasants in this region who had a small collection of books, and twice I found in such collections, much to my astonishment, a Russian translation of Buckle's "History of Civilisation." How, it may be asked, did a work of this sort find its way to such a place?
If the reader will pardon a short digression, I shall explain the fact.
Immediately after the Crimean War there was a curious intellectual movement--of which I shall have more to say hereafter--among the Russian educated classes.

The movement assumed various forms, of which two of the most prominent were a desire for encyclopaedic knowledge, and an attempt to reduce all knowledge to a scientific form.

For men in this state of mind Buckle's great work had naturally a powerful fascination.
It seemed at first sight to reduce the multifarious conflicting facts of human history to a few simple principles, and to evolve order out of chaos.

Its success, therefore, was great.