ome versts from the Don," continues Madame de Hell, "our unlucky
star threw us into the hands of a drunken driver, who, after losing his
way, and jolting us over ditches and ploughed fields, actually brought
us back in sight of the dreadful bridge, the thought of which still made
us shudder. We would fain have persuaded ourselves that we were
mistaken, but the truth was beyond dispute; there before us rolled the
Don, and yonder stood Axai, the village through which we had passed
after reseating ourselves in the britchka. Conceive our indignation at
having floundered about for two hours only to find ourselves again at
our point of departure! The sole resource we could think of was to pass
the night in a peasant's cabin, but our abominable coachman, whom the
sight of the river had suddenly sobered, and, perhaps, the fear of a
sound thrashing, threw himself on his knees, and so earnestly implored
us to try the road again, that we consented. The difficulty was, how to
get back into the road, and many a false start was made before we
effected it. In crossing a ditch the carriage was so violently shaken,
that the coachman and our dragoman were thrown from their seats, the
latter falling upon the pole in such a way that he was not easily
extricated. His cries for help, and his grimaces when my husband and the
Cossack had set him on his feet, were so desperate, that one might have
supposed half his bones to be broken, though, in reality, he had
sustained only a few bruises. As for the yemshik, he picked himself up
very composedly, and climbed into his seat again as if nothing unusual
had befallen him. From the quiet way in which he resumed the reins, one
might have thought that he had just risen from a bed of roses; such is
the uniform apathy of the Russian peasant!"

They spent a week with their friends at Taganrog, and thence proceeded
to Odessa, the great commercial entrepot of the Euxine. In one night the
grim blasts of the Ural had swept away all that October had spared. The
weather was still sunny when they arrived on the shores of the Sea of
Azov; but next day the sky wore that sombre chilly hue which always
precedes the _metels_, or snow-storms. All nature seemed to be prepared
for the reception of winter--that eternal ruler of the North. Its advent
was indicated by the thin ice-crust that covered the beach, the harsh
winds, the frost bound soil, and the increasing lurid gloom of the
atmosphere; symptoms which made our t