CHAPTER XXXIV
THE OLD JEWWe halted for the night at a small town, with some five or six thousand inhabitants as I judged, of whom three-fourths appeared to be Jews. Compared with the villages we had passed, the place was a flourishing one; and seemed quiet enough, though here again, as at Wilna and Riga, there was something ominous in the air. Nearly all the business was in the hands of the Jews; and their shops and houses, poor enough, according to civilized notions, were far and away more prosperous looking than those of their Russian neighbors; while their synagogue was the most imposing block in the town, which is not saying much, perhaps.
We put up at the best inn in the place, where we found fresh horses waiting us, as we had done at a village half-way on our day's march, under the
