vernor, Count Tolstoy, all the difficulties which we should otherwise have met with in procuring horses were done away. Our present hosts, when they invited us to Yaroslav, had promised to bespeak Count Tolstoy's good offices for us, and to beg him to furnish us with the means of proceeding through his government. On arriving, therefore, at Tver, I sent a note to the Governor, applying for an order for horses, and his secretary immediately came and said that everything should be done for our accommodation, and that he would return in the morning, when all would be ready for our departure. Accordingly, as soon as we were dressed in the morning, the secretary appeared, bringing with him the requisite papers from the Governor, who, hę said, had also desired him, as we were foreigners, to place at our disposal a courier to enforce his orders on the road. This kind offer we gladly accepted, and the courier's activity and attention were of the utmost use, to say nothing of the uniform which he wore, and which carried no small authority in itself. As we had no place for him about the carriage, he preceded us in the tilèga, or light waggon, with a pair of horses, which is always used on such occasions in Russia.

We gave him two hours' start, in order that he might have time to get horses ready for us at every stage, and about eleven o'clock we set out ourselves. We travelled for about sixteen miles-in the course of which we changed horses without a minute's unnecessary delay-along the great Moscow road, being driven throughout at a steady gallop of more than twelve miles an hour. This pace was kept up for some time after quitting the main road, the bye road into which we struck being at first pretty good. We soon came to the bank of the Volga, which we followed for some miles; and we then crossed to the left side of the river by a floating bridge, and immediately afterwards found ourselves at the end of our second stage. Here and everywhere else we found horses in readiness-thanks to our valuable courier in advance. The stages varied in length from fourteen to thirty-four versts (the verst you will remember to be about three quarters of a mile). We were posting with eight horses, viz. two for the courier and six for ourselves; but the expense was not ruinous. A half

penny per horse per verst, which was the price, with about eightpence a stage for the drivers, brought the whole cost to something less than sixpence a mile.

After quitting the second station, we were obliged to proceed for some miles at a foot's pace. The road lay through a marshy forest of stunted unhealthy-looking birch and fir; while a small misty rain, which began to fall, was completely in accordance with the desolate scene through which we were passing; and a more dreary picture could not easily be conceived than that which presented itself in this part of our journey. The road was what in America would have been called a corduroy road, consisting of logs of wood laid across side by side, and by no means evenly placed. The pleasure of jolting over this species of causeway for some miles you may easily imagine. At length, however, we got into an open country and into a better road. The weather at the same time improved, and by eight o'clock at night we had a bright full moon over our heads with a cloudless sky, which accompanied us to the end of our journey.

We had no inns upon the road; but about seven o'clock, at a village where we changed horses, we supped in an isba, or peasant's house, where we were supplied with cream and hot water for our tea, and with cups to drink it out of. This accommodation is to be had in almost every village, and from sixpence to tenpence is the usual charge. For tea and sugar, and indeed for everything else, not excepting bread, the traveller must depend upon himself. Unless he be a Russian born, he will not be able to eat the black rye-bread of the peasants.

The samăvar, or Russian urn, heated with charcoal, which is found in every house from the highest to the lowest in this country, is an excellent invention, insuring good tea, since the water is always boiling, and the teapot, being placed on the top, is kept quite hot.

We proceeded all night upon our journey, and about two o'clock in the morning we came to a river, which it was necessary to cross by a floating bridge. The leaders were taken off, there not being room for them with the carriage upon the bridge, which was small and narrow.

The river being shallow at the edge, the bridge could not be

brought quite close to the bank, and we therefore had to drive through water for about the length of the carriage to reach it; and then, there being no proper gangway for the wheels to run up, the bridge formed a high step or block against which they rested. The four wheelers either could not or would not draw us over this obstacle, and, after two or three vain jerks, they refused the collar altogether. We could not get out of the carriage without stepping into water up to our knees, which, in a frosty September night, we did not feel inclined to do. The bridge was so narrow that, if the leaders had been put to again, and had succeeded by a sudden spring in forcing the carriage upon the bridge, the horses probably would not have been able to stop it in time to prevent our running across into the river on the other side, where the water was deep. We, therefore, remained stationary for about half an hour, when the ferryman, who had gone for assistance to a village, returned, bringing with him about twenty peasants, who took off the horses, and, with the aid of levers, soon placed us on the floating bridge.

Nothing can exceed the ready good will with which a Russian peasant gives his assistance in case of need, especially where, as in this case, he is remote from great towns and great roads. These people were called up in the middle of the night, and they were employed up to their knees in water for some time in raising the wheels over the obstacle; but they continued the whole time in the most perfect good humour, and there was none of the swearing and abuse of one another, which would, in many countries, have been heard on a similar occasion. They apparently considered that they were merely rendering an ordinary service to their neighbour the ferryman; and, after we had crossed the river, they only solicited through him a trifle, in addition to his ordinary charge, for their assistance. The people commonly address each other as brat, or brother, and their superiors use the same term in speaking to them; indeed, a master, in giving an order to his servant, often calls him brother.

In about four hours after crossing the river, about sunrise, we reached the town of Kashine, where, however, we made ro stop, but passed through and changed horses a verst or two

E

further on. Kashine is a very old town, built in a straggling manner on steep broken ground, intersected by ravines. It once possessed a kremlin, and was strongly fortified. Like all ancient Russian towns, it is filled with churches, and the various views of it which presented themselves to us in the early morning were extremely singular and picturesque. When we stopped to change horses, we breakfasted, in the same manner as we had supped the night before, at the house of a peasant, who furnished us with hot water and cream-the latter being a luxury to be met with almost everywhere in Russia.

At the next station we overtook our courier, who had horses ready to take us to the town of Ouglitch. He had already given us his services for about a hundred miles, and he offered to proceed, if we liked, to Yaroslav. However, we considered that it would be unnecessary to take him farther, as M-'s uncle, to whose house we were going, had promised to order horses to be in readiness for us at every stage in his Government, which we had now entered. We therefore dismissed our courier with a small recompence for his services, and, proceeding on our road, reached Ouglitch about one o'clock. Before we entered the town we crossed the Volga, for the third time since the commencement of our journey, on a floating bridge. We drove, as we had been directed, to the house of the Gorodnitch, an officer who is, I believe, at the head of the town police, as the name seems to imply. This gentleman, who spoke French, gave us the agreeable information that he had received the promised instructions from the Governor, and that he had horses prepared for us; inviting us at the same time into his house until they were ready. The horses, however, did not appear for more than an hour, and it was nearly three o'clock before we were able once more to set out, having still nearly eighty miles between us and Yaroslav.

Ouglitch, like Kashine, is a very old town; it contains about four thousand inhabitants, and there are no less than twenty-four churches, besides two convents. None of the churches, however, appeared to be as handsome as some of those which we had passed at Kashine.

The first stage from Ouglitch was thirty-four versts, and the

road, for a great part of the distance, lay through a heavy sand. The horses were knocked up before they had finished their work, and during the latter part of the stage the istvostchik got down from the box and stood upon the pole, leaning with his back against the edge of the footboard; his object being to get closer to the horses, that his whip might have more power. We found horses awaiting us at the end of the first and second stages from Ouglitch; but at the last station, before reaching Yaroslav, those which had been ordered for us had, owing to some mistake, been sent away, and we were detained there in the dark more than an hour. The Starosta, or head man of the village, whose duty it was to furnish horses for us, went from house to house to procure them, and they came, one by one, miserable-looking animals, no bigger than ponies, until at last six were collected; after which the ceremony of arranging where each was to go, and of putting them to, occupied no small time.

The

In travelling in Russia, the traces, which are ropes, belong to the carriage, and not to the harness of the horses. collars have a leather loop on each side, to which the traces are tied, and the istvostchiks are very particular in seeing that they are of the proper length, and in placing the horses as close as possible to their work, and in the early part of a stage one usually has a stoppage or two to adjust a trace or a polepiece, which does not exactly please the fastidious eye of the istvostchik. On this occasion we were rather more than the usual time in putting to the horses, and we had rather more than the average number of stoppages in the course of the first three versts after we had started; but this was not wonderful with a team of six peasants' horses, no two of which, in all probability, had ever been in harness together before, and some of which appeared at first inclined strongly to object to their new occupation. There seemed, however, to be a mutual understanding between the peasants who drove us and their beasts. Whether the latter were stimulated by the hopes of a feed of corn if they behaved well, as were their drivers by the prospect of a navodka or drink-money, I do not know; but after a short time we all got on exceedingly well together, and were driven, as had been the case everywhere, quite as fast as