Excerpt from With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem
The journey of the Russian peasants to Jerusalem has never been described before in any language, not even in Russian. Yet it is the most significant thing in the Russian life of to-day. In the story lies a great national epic.
The adventure of which I tell was unique and splendid, a thing of a lifetime. Whatever happens to me 011 my wanderings over the world in the coming years, I have little doubt that even when I am old and grey I shall look back to it as the most wonderful thing I ever found on the road, the most extraordinary procession I ever stepped into. It has also been a great discovery. Jerusalem is a place of disillusion for the tourist who would like to feel himself a pilgrim, but here in the peasant world is a new road and indeed a new Jerusalem.
Portions of this work have appeared serially, the Prologue in the English Review, the story of the journey to Jerusalem, and of the Caravan to the River Jordan in Harper's Magazine. To the editors of these periodicals I desire to tender acknowledgment.
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
