UP THE DON AND VOLGA. 261 



which a Cossack fisherman had brought to try to sell. 

 The conductor succeeded in cheapening the fish twenty- 

 kopecks (twelve cents), and from the tremendous in- 

 terest taken in the transaction by the passengers it is 

 fair to presume not one of them had any objection to 

 the brief delay of the train. To many of them, no doubt, 

 a railway ride was one of those rare pleasures that are 

 all the better appreciated for being long drawn out. 



The chief feature at every station were women and 

 girls with heaps of watermelons, and the heart's de- 

 sire of about every passenger on the train seemed to 

 be to obtain a melon at each stopping-place for half 

 the price the venders appeared willing to take. The 

 number of melons was so ridiculously out of propor- 

 tion to the possible number of purchasers that it 

 seemed a veritable case of commercial suicide on the 

 part of the women to refuse anything that might be 

 offered. This glaring evidence of an over-stocked 

 market was not by any means lost on the passengers, 

 who would not have been Russians if it had been, and 

 just before the departure of the train every bargainer 

 would secure a melon at reduced rates and hasten 

 aboard. Between one station and another the journey 

 was a picnic of melon-eaters, who added one day's 

 contribution to an already well-defined streak of melon 

 rinds on either side of the track. 



Trees and gardens at the pleasant little station 

 houses relieved the monotony of the otherwise tree- 

 less steppe, and a leather medal should be awarded to 

 one of the station-masters who, about midway of the 

 line, had produced a flower garden that would be a 

 credit to any country. 



