k. It was well
enough going up, but in descending the sleigh sometimes endeavored to
go ahead of the horses. Once we came near going over a perpendicular
bank sixty or eighty feet high. Had we done so, our establishment
would have not been worth fifty cents a bushel at the bottom of the
bank.

Back from the Volga on this part of the route there were many villages
of Cheramess, a people of Tartar descent who preserve many of their
ancient customs. They are thoroughly loyal to Russia, and keep the
portrait of the emperor in nearly every cottage. In accordance with
their custom of veiling women they hang a piece of gauze over the
picture of the empress. While changing horses, we were beset by many
beggars, whose forlorn appearance entitled them to sympathy. I
purchased a number of blessings, as each beggar made the sign of the
cross over me on receiving a copeck. Russian beggars are the most
devout I ever saw, and display great familiarity with the calendar of
saints. One morning at Kazan I stood at my hotel window watching a
beggar woman soliciting alms. Several poorly dressed peasants gave her
each a copeck or two, and both giver and receiver made the sign of the
cross. One decrepid old man gave her a loaf of bread, blessing it
devoutly as he placed it in her hands. So far as I saw not a single
well dressed person paid any attention to the mendicant. 'Only the
poor can feel for the poor.'

[Illustration: BEGGARS IN KAZAN.]

We encountered a great deal of merchandise, carried invariably upon,
one-horse sleds. Cotton, and wool in large sacks were the principal
freight going westward, while that moving toward Kazan was of a
miscellaneous character. The yemshicks were the worst I found on the
whole extent of my sleigh ride. They generally contented themselves
with the regulation speed, and it was not often that the promise of
drink-money affected them. I concluded that money was more easily
obtained here than elsewhere on the route. Ten copecks were an
important item to a yemshick in Siberia, but of little consequence
along the Volga.

[Illustration: THE IMMERSION.]

Villages were numerous along the Volga, and most of them were very
liberally supplied with churches. We passed Makarief, which was for
many years the scene of the great fair of European Russia. Fire and
flood alike visited the place, and in 1816 the fair was transferred to
Nijne Novgorod. One of the villages has a church spire that leans
considerably tow