Russians, whether they have
ever seen it or not, Matushka Volga (dear Mother Volga) is a complete
system of faith. Certainly her services in building up and binding
together the empire merit it, though the section thus usually referred
to comprises only the stretch between Nizhni Novgorod and Astrakhan,
despite its historical and commercial importance above the former town.

But Kazan! A stay there of a day and a half served to dispel our
illusions. We were deceived in our expectations as to the once mighty
capital of the imperial Tatar khans. The recommendations of our Russian
friends, the glamour of history which had bewitched us, the hope of the
Western for something Oriental,--all these elements had combined to
raise our expectations in a way against which our sober senses and
previous experience should have warned us. It seemed to us merely a
flourishing and animated Russian provincial town, whose Kremlin was
eclipsed by that of Moscow, and whose university had instructed, but not
graduated, Count Tolstoy, the novelist. The bazaar under arcades, the
popular market in the open square, the public garden, the shops,--all
were but a repetition of similar features in other towns, somewhat
magnified to the proportions befitting the dignity of the home port of
the Ural Mountains and Siberia.

The Tatar quarter alone seemed to possess the requisite mystery and
"local color." Here whole streets of tiny shops, ablaze with
rainbow-hued leather goods, were presided over by taciturn,
olive-skinned brothers of the Turks, who appeared almost handsome when
seen thus in masses, with opportunities for comparison. Hitherto we had
thought of the Tatars only as the old-clothes dealers, peddlers,
horse-butchers, and waiters of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Here the
dignity of the prosperous merchants, gravely recommending their really
well-dressed, well-sewed leather wares, bespoke our admiration.

The Tatar women, less easily seen, glided along the uneven pavements now
and then, smoothly, but still in a manner to permit a glimpse of short,
square feet incased in boots flowered with gay hues upon a green or
rose-colored ground, and reaching to the knee. They might have been
houris of beauty, but it was difficult to classify them, veiled as they
were, and screened as to head and shoulders by striped green _kaftans_
of silk, whose long sleeves depended from the region of their ears, and
whose collar rested on the brow. What we could discer