226 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



ance. When I met these gangs of female pilgrims, it 

 was one of the hottest days of the entire ride. The 

 sun seemed as fierce as in India. Yet these hardy 

 females trudged along, some with no covering, save 

 that provided by nature, on their heads ; others with 

 but a kerchief, and all apparently indifferent to its rays. 

 Many of them I met whilst halting at a post-station ; 

 and so indifferent were they to the fierce glare of the 

 sun, that had produced so demoralizing an effect on my 

 Moscow-bred companion, that when they stopped at 

 the station to regale themselves with the bread and 

 hard-boiled eggs they carried, they didn't even trouble 

 to sit in the shade. Moreover, the station-keeper, 

 when two or three of them did take shelter in front of 

 his house in the only shady spot, ordered them away 

 on the grounds that he wasn't keeping a traktir. 



Here, in the sturdy powers of endurance and the 

 great patience of these peasant wives and mothers, one 

 seemed to be in intimate touch with the real secret of 

 Russia's strength and formidableness as a military 

 power. Patience under difficulties and hardships and 

 the power to endure extreme heat and cold, and to 

 live on and be contented with the coarsest fare, were 

 traits that were written in every lineament of these 

 women's faces. Such women breed good material for 

 soldiers — soldiers capable of campaigning without 

 tents, and with the rudest of commissary departments. 

 It is on these negative virtues of her people that Rus- 

 sia will have to depend, for many a year to come, to 

 sustain her in case of conflict with any of the great 

 Western powers. Here, as I sat on the shady side of 

 the post-station, watching these women seated on the 



