128 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



The writer's preconceived idea of rural Russia was, 

 that it would be found a country very poor as to ready 

 money, but, nevertheless, a rude plenty in the matter 

 of iiorse-feed and coarse food. The first proposition 

 turned out to be singularly correct, and rye bread was 

 tolerably plenty, but it was occasionally impossible to 

 get a feed of oats for our horses, and I doubt whether 

 Texas had a half-dozen feeds of decent hay on the whole 

 journey. The " hay ' was almost invariably nothing 

 but weeds ; and, in striking contrast to the American 

 custom of supplying it to a traveler's horse in gener- 

 ous armfuls, a pair of scales would be brought forth, 

 and u skoolka pfund ? " (how many pounds?) would be 

 the question. And, regardless of its glaring worthless. 

 ness, the amount called for would be weighed as critically 

 as though it were the most precious and valuable com- 

 modity, the veriest pinches being deducted to avoid 

 over-weight. A particularly annoying advantage that 

 was as often as not taken of us, in the bargain, was to 

 select the moldiest and most utterly worthless armfuls 

 that could be found, with the choice of that or nothing 

 at all. The idea seemed to be to take advantage of 

 strangers, to dispose of what they couldn't very well 

 get rid of to regular customers. 



In the matter of food, they were, almost without ex- 

 ception, abominably lazy, and reluctant to put them- 

 selves to extra trouble, even for the sake of earning 

 money. Milk was easy to obtain, for the reason that 

 no trouble was required beyond fetching it out of the 

 cellar ; and it was often of excellent quality and accept- 

 ably cold. A suggestion to cook a chicken, or even to 

 fry us eggs, invariably brought a positive negative as to 



