the voice of the
yamstchik. Indeed, the capabilities of these lean, slouching, ungainly
quadrupeds are often astounding when they are under the guidance of a
man who knows how to drive them. Though such a man commonly carries a
little harmless whip, he rarely uses it except by waving it horizontally
in the air. His incitements are all oral. He talks to his cattle as he
would to animals of his own species--now encouraging them by tender,
caressing epithets, and now launching at them expressions of indignant
scorn. At one moment they are his "little doves," and at the next they
have been transformed into "cursed hounds." How far they understand and
appreciate this curious mixture of endearing cajolery and contemptuous
abuse it is difficult to say, but there is no doubt that it somehow has
upon them a strange and powerful influence.

Any one who undertakes a journey of this kind should possess a
well-knit, muscular frame and good tough sinews, capable of supporting
an unlimited amount of jolting and shaking; at the same time he should
be well inured to all the hardships and discomforts incidental to
what is vaguely termed "roughing it." When he wishes to sleep in a
post-station, he will find nothing softer than a wooden bench, unless he
can induce the keeper to put for him on the floor a bundle of hay, which
is perhaps softer, but on the whole more disagreeable than the deal
board. Sometimes he will not get even the wooden bench, for in ordinary
post-stations there is but one room for travellers, and the two
benches--there are rarely more--may be already occupied. When he
does obtain a bench, and succeeds in falling asleep, he must not be
astonished if he is disturbed once or twice during the night by people
who use the apartment as a waiting-room whilst the post-horses are being
changed. These passers-by may even order a samovar, and drink tea,
chat, laugh, smoke, and make themselves otherwise disagreeable, utterly
regardless of the sleepers. Then there are the other intruders, smaller
in size but equally objectionable, of which I have already spoken when
describing the steamers on the Don. Regarding them I desire to give
merely one word of advice: As you will have abundant occupation in the
work of self-defence, learn to distinguish between belligerents and
neutrals, and follow the simple principle of international law, that
neutrals should not be molested. They may be very ugly, but ugliness
does not justify assassinat