lls and
nearer green valleys, in which nestled villages under caps of thatch,
encircled by red-brown fences cleverly wattled of long boughs. In one
hollow we passed through a village of the Tchuvashi, a Turkish or
Finnish tribe, which was stranded all along the middle Volga in
unrecorded antiquity, during some of the race migrations from the
teeming plateaux of Asia. The village seemed deserted. Only a few small
children and grannies had been left at home by the harvesters, and they
gazed curiously at us, aroused to interest by the jingling harness with
its metal disks, and the bells clanging merrily from the apex of the
wooden arch which rose above the neck of our middle horse.

The grain closed in upon us. We plucked some ears as we passed, and
found them ripe and well filled. The plain seemed as trackless as a
forest, and our postboy suspected, from time to time, that he had lost
his way among the narrow roads. A few peasant men whom we encountered at
close quarters took off their hats, but without servility, and we
greeted them with the customary good wishes for a plentiful harvest,
"_Bog v pomozh_" (God help), or with a bow. The peasant women whom we
met rarely took other notice of us than to stare, and still more rarely
did they salute first. They gazed with instinctive distrust, as women of
higher rank are wont to do at a stranger of their own sex.

Although the grain was planted in what seemed to be a single vast field,
belonging to one estate, it was in reality the property of many
different peasants, as well as of some proprietors. Each peasant had
marked his plot with a cipher furrow when he plowed, and the outlines
had been preserved by the growing grain. The rich black soil of the
fallow land, and strips of turf separating sections, relieved the
monotony of this waving sea of gold.

The heat was intense. In our prone position, we found it extremely
fatiguing to hold umbrellas. We had recourse, therefore, to the device
practiced by the mountaineers of the Caucasus, who, in common with the
Spaniards, believe that what will keep out cold will also keep out heat.
We donned our heavy wadded pelisses. The experiment was a success. We
arrived cool and tranquil, in the fierce heat, at the estate of our
friends, and were greeted with fiery reproaches for not having allowed
them to send one of their fifteen or twenty carriages for us. But we did
not repent, since our conduct had secured for us that novel ride and a