UP THE DON AND VOLGA. 26^ 



j 



and variety theater. In it the guests could take their 

 choice between eating their meals in bed-rooms, as 

 cheerless as prison cells, or dining to the accompani- 

 ment of squeaking fiddles and shrill-voiced young 

 women, w T ho held forth as song-and-dance artists on a 

 stage at one end of the dining-room. 



Wondering the while which of these two evils is 

 likely to be the worst, you turn your attention to the 

 toilet arrangements in your room. There is neither 

 soap, towel, nor water. Your spirits revive, however, 

 at discovering something resembling a washstand in 

 one corner, and in answer to a few rings of the bell a 

 melancholy woman brings a pitcher of water which 

 she pours into a tin receptacle above the stand. This 

 receptacle you have made the acquaintance of in 

 other Russian hotels, and have learned that if you 

 press a treadle with your foot it squirts a jet of water 

 that is understood by the natives, but which will very 

 likely strike an unsophisticated foreigner in the face. 



Here, however, you discover that there is no treadle 

 and no visible way of getting at the water. A careful 

 search at length discloses a loose brass spigot, with the 

 thick end inside, in the bottom of the vessel. If this 

 spigot could be removed altogether, a stream of water 

 would trickle out with which you could dally in com- 

 fort. But a knob at the small end forbids this liberty, 

 and requires you to hold the wretched stopper in with 

 one hand in order that sufficient water to wet the 

 other may escape. A more ingenuous arrangement 

 to thwart the efforts of a person to wash the hands 

 and face could scarcely have been invented. 



There was to be a boat for Nijni Novgorod at nine 



