62 FORESTKY in eastern RUSSIA. 



recover himself from his fright than he was immediately 

 covered with large stinging ants, mosquitoes, wasps, and 

 gad-flies, which goaded him to madness. And in the very 

 midst of his desperation, for he had begun to roll on the 

 road as the best means of mitigating his agony, up drove 

 a woman on horseback, going to the hay fields, for it 

 was early dawn, and a fine summer's morning. But 

 she, seeing the huge mountain of flesh rolling about 

 on the road as does a porpoise in the sea, was about to 

 gallop off back in alarm, thinking it something unearthly ; 

 when poor Peter, seeing her, cried " Stop, stop ! Matuska, 

 Matuska, do stop ! and for any sake take pity upon me, 

 and lend me your caftan to protect me from these 

 poisonous beasts ! " Just as she had satisfied herself that 

 it was a human being that was speaking to her, and was 

 about to render him assistance, up same gasping the three 

 men whose negligence had well nigh brought him to a still 

 more disastrous end, and who had set off full speed as soon 

 as they had discovered that horses and carriage and Barin 

 had bolted. They did their best to rectify the evils their 

 carelessness had brought about; they got back the 

 carriage, for it arrived safe and sound at the station-house. 

 They were profuse in their whining supplications for par- 

 don, and in assurance that such a thing would never occur 

 again ; but this was all too little and too late to appease 

 Peter. He returned home to give them a dose of the rod 

 just to see, he said, whether they could endure stinging 

 any better than he could. He could do that sort of thing 

 then , and it is reported that he was very fond of doing it. He 

 was a cold-blooded mortal, who never got into a passion, 

 but never forgave a wrong or a mistake, fancied or real. 

 He has left behind him a name on the Ural as much 

 abhorred as Major's is adored.' 



My friend goes on to say: — 



' Had time permitted I should have liked to have said 

 something about the habits and customs of the pure Ras- 

 sian merchant class up here, of the doings of the adminis- 



