CHAPTER XVI. 



UP THE DON AND VOLGA. 



SMOTHERING, as best we may, a sense of remorse 

 and ingratitude at the necessity of leaving in the 

 hands of a Sevastopol horse dealer, the gallant little 

 horse that had carried me more than a thousand 

 miles across the Russian steppes, in the hottest part of 

 the year, in six weeks, — June 20 to August n, — the 

 reader is invited to glide with us over the surface of 

 Russia, eastward and northward, to take a peep at the 

 great fair of Nijni Novgorod. It seems good to get off 

 the dreary road, to get away from the heat and fatigue 

 and the meager food of the Russian road, to find one's 

 self aboard a Black Sea steamer, eating good dinners, 

 and sleeping in a fairly comfortable bed. All things 

 go by comparison, and though the little Sevastopol 

 steamer was by no means an Atlantic grayhound in the 

 matter of size, accommodation, or speed, the change 

 to its breezy deck from a Cossack saddle and a tired 

 mustang, was a jump over a hundred years of progress 

 in the path of civilization. 



We touched at Yalta and Kertch, and in three days 

 and a half landed at Taganrog. I stayed at Taganrog 

 over night, and carried away one vivid impression. It 

 was the sign of a barber's shop, opposite my hotel, 

 Englished, and it read : " Room for shaving cutting 

 hairs and bleed." Our way to Nijni is up the winding 



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