Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1874 — The Couriers of the Czar. [ARTICLE]

The Couriers of the Czar.

The Russian couriers, or pony expressmen, or mail-carriers, as you may choose to call them, travel neither on foot nor on horseback. You will fiqd that in this matter, as in almost every custom and habit of every people, nature compels man to alter his arrangements to suit her conditions. In Tartary they have fine horses, great wide deserts, and splendid' 1 roads and- naturally, the couriers there are mounted: in England, where the roads are bad, running through boga and marshes, the old couriers were footmen ; in Russia, -where snow lies on the ground nearly the whole year, sleighs are used by the couriers. The “ Couriers of the Czar,” as the mail-carriers are called, travel with great rapidity. Fresh horses and drivers are ready at stations every twenty mile# apart; but the couriers themselves sleep in the sleighs, and travel from one end of a mail route to the other. Special messengers of the Czar, on public business, travel by these same routes, and with even greater rapidity than the mail-carriers. During the Crimean war there occurred an incident illustrating the severity of this service. The Russian General, Prince MentchikoS, who defended Sebastopol, had oeeasion, during the siege of that city, to send an important message to the Czar at St. Petersburg; and ordered a faithful officer to be his messenger, giving him directions not to halt or delay . until lie stood before the Czat, and, above .all, not to lose sight of the precious message which he bore. Away went the officer in a sleigh belonging to the Czar’s couriers. At the end of each twenty miles he found fresh horses awaiting him; these were quickly harnessed to his sleigh, in place of the weary animals, and the servants and stable-men would cry out: “Your Excellency, the horses are j ready.” “Away then!” the officer would say to the driver; and ofi" lie would go again at the mosj rapid pace of which the horses were capable. Riding in this way for several days and nights, suffering with cold and pursued by wolves in the forests, the officer, weary with watching his dispatches, day and night, at length reached the palace of the Czar and was immediately ushered into his presence. He had no sooner handed the Emperor the letter of the General than the ~messengex..sank into a chair and fell fast asleep in the royal presence—an offense which, in some ages, would have been punishable with instant death. When lie had finished reading the dispatch the Czar wished to ask the officer a question but found he could not awaken him. The attendants called to him, touched and shook him, all in vain; and at last one declared the poor fellow was dead. The Czar was- much grieved thereat, and went to the officer and examined his pulse, put his ear down to his side and declared he could hear his heart thumping. He was only asleep. But he soon found that the exhausted officer could not be aroused by the usual means. At length the Czar, stooping down, cried in his ears: “Your Excellency, the horses are ready.” At the sound of these words, which he had heard every twenty miles of his journey, and the only ones which he had listened to for days, the faithful officer sprang to his feet and cried; “ Away then!” Instead of driver and horses lie found the Czar before him laughing heartily at his confusion and dismay. You may be sure bis offense was forgotten; instead of being punished for sleeping when his work was done the officer was rewarded for his faithfulness. — From “ The Pony Express ,” in St. Nicholas for September.