Hunting in Many Lands 



on their property, as well as on the adjoining 

 estates. 



Peschalkino boasts a painted country tavern 

 of two stories, the upper of which, with side 

 entrance, we occupied, using our own beds and 

 bed linen, table and table linen, cooking and 

 kitchen utensils; in fact, it was a hotel where 

 we engaged the walled-in space and the brick 

 cooking stove. As to the huntsmen and the 

 dogs, they were quartered in the adjacent un- 

 painted log-house peasant village — just such 

 villages as are seen all over Russia, in which a 

 mud road, with plenty of mud, comprises all 

 there is of streets and avenues. After having 

 arranged our temporary domicile, and having 

 carefully examined horses and dogs to see how 

 they had endured the journey, we made ready 

 to accept a dinner invitation at the country 

 place of our new members. Horses were put 

 to the brake, called by the Russians Ameri- 

 kanka (American), and we set out for a drive 

 of sixteen versts over a mud road to enjoy 

 the well-known Slav hospitality so deeply en- 

 grafted in the Ponamaroff family. 



I said road, but in reality it scarcely merits 

 the name, as it is neither fenced nor limited in 

 width other than by the sweet will of the trav- 



i6o 



