MY INTERPRETER RETURNS. 231 



the custom from time immemorial in that part of the 

 country. Some treated me with brusque inhospitality ; 

 others endeavored to convince me of the superior ad- 

 vantages of traveling by post. With my own horse I 

 could only ride forty or fifty versts a day, whilst by 

 changing horses at every stanitza I might make more 

 than a hundred, etc. 



It was with the utmost difficulty that hay or oats 

 were to be procured, except by bribery in the form of 

 exorbitant prices. Texas and I were true soldiers of 

 fortune these memorable days, and on down through 

 the Crimea. To-day a feast, to-morrow a famine, for- 

 sooth, though feasts came to him oftener than to his 

 rider, since oats were nearly always to be obtained by 

 means of extra money, whilst decent human food was 

 out of the question except in a city. There were times 

 when Texas had to dine the best he could off the 

 scanty tufts of wire-grass on the droughty Crimean 

 steppe, whilst his master, because he also was not 

 herbivorous, came in for no dinner at all. 



The post-boys or yemchiks, at the station-houses, 

 were an improvement on their employers, the " Ka- 

 zans," in their demeanor, regarding a person riding 

 his own horse, as a curiosity rather than a dangerous 

 innovation. The chief concern of the yemchicks was 

 largess for looking after Texas. One evening a yem- 

 chick looked after him so well that he, in conjunction 

 with a nest of outraged wasps, created something of 

 a circus in the yard. The yemchik tied him to a 

 sleigh that had been standing in a corner untouched 

 since the previous winter. On the under side of the 

 sleigh, unknown to the yemchik, a colony of wasps 



