A FRESH START. 3P3 



officer's servant set oS together to find a carriage-master 

 and make an agreement with him ; but we did not gain 

 mnch from the aid of the military, as the price asked 

 was exorbitant, and we could obtain no abatement. The 

 8th was spent in replenishing our exhausted stores with 

 such articles as the bazaar could supply ; but, beyond the 

 most commonplace necessaries, we found little in the shops 

 except sweetmeats, which existed in every variety, from the 

 wooden box of ' rahat-lakoum' to the gilded case of Moscow 

 candied fruits. If the supply for sale is any index to the 

 amount consumed, the baths must have a wonderful effect, 

 not only in sharpening the appetites of the inhabitants of 

 Patigorsk for sweet things, but also in strengthening their 

 digestions. 



August 9th. — In order to avoid the heat of a drive across 

 the steppe in the burning sunshine, we did not set out 

 till four o'clock in the afternoon. During the day the 

 aspect of the weather had changed, and the sky, hitherto 

 unclouded during our stay, was hidden by dark masses of 

 vapour, which, shortly before the time fixed for our start, 

 discharged themselves in pouring rain. The turn of affairs 

 Avas not pleasant, but we found consolation in the thought 

 that we might have been worse off, and that, in such 

 weather, a watertight ' tarantasse ' was luxury compared to 

 an open ' telega.' Bidding farewell once more to civilisation, 

 we drove out into the desolate and now muddy steppe. In 

 no other European country but Russia is the transition from 

 the comforts and even luxuries of the towns to the bar- 

 baric lack of roads, bridges, and every necessary of inter- 

 course, in the country, so marked. No Russian poet could 

 have written, ' God made the country, but man made the 

 town,' for such a sentiment would have seemed to his 

 countrymen to savour of the grossest imi)iety. The countr}', 

 at any rate in the steppe districts of Russia, is a wide 



