of blinding dust, almost as troublesome as
that of Tsaritzin; but on the whole, the place is less unclean than
one might expect from a population made up of Russians, Tartars,
Calmucks, Persians, Armenians and Jews.

The Volga and the hundred channels which constitute its delta,
and the northern shores of the Caspian Sea into which they flow,
yield more fish than the coasts of Norway and Newfoundland put
together. The nets employed in catching them would, if laid side
by side on the ground in all their length, extend over a line of
40,000 versts, or twice the distance from St. Petersburg to Tashkend
and back. The annual produce of these Astrakhan fisheries--sturgeon,
sterlet, salmon, pike, shad, etc.--amounts to 10,000,000 puds of
fish (the pud thirty-six English pound weight) of the value of
20,000,000 roubles, the herrings alone yielding a yearly income
of 4,000,000 roubles. With the exception of the caviare, which is
sold all over the world, the produce of these fisheries, salted
or pickled, is destined for home consumption, and travels all over
the empire, although as far as I have been, I have found everywhere
the waters equally well-stocked by nature with every description
of fish; a provident dispensation, since the Russian clergy, like
the Roman Catholic, are indefatigable in their promotion of what
they call "the Apostles' trade," by their injunction of 226 fast
or fish days throughout the year.

The Delta of the Volga and the Caspian Sea lie twenty-five metres
below the level of the Black Sea.

The city of Astrakhan, placed on the left bank of the main channel
of the Delta, and, as I said, 150 versts above its anchorage, becomes
like an island in the midst of a vast sea when the Volga comes down
in its might with the thaw of the northern ice in late spring;
and most of its lowest wards would be overwhelmed were it not for
the dikes that encompass it like a town in Holland.

The eight principal branches and the hundred minor channels and
outlets of the Delta, breaking up the land into a labyrinth of
hundreds of islets, are then blended together in one watery surface,
out of which only the crests of these islets emerge with isolated
villages, with log-huts and long whitewashed buildings, and high-domed
churches, all dammed and diked up like the town itself--Tartar
villages, Calmuck villages, Cossack villages, all or most of them
fishers' homes and fishing establishments--a population of 20,000
to 30,000 s