these so-called “playful” tendencies are greatly exaggerated.  Though I have travelled hundreds of miles at night on lonely roads, I was never robbed or in any way molested.  Once, indeed, when travelling at night in a tarantass, I discovered on awaking that my driver was bending over me, and had introduced his hand into one of my pockets; but the incident ended without serious consequences.  When I caught the delinquent hand, and demanded an explanation from the owner, he replied, in an apologetic, caressing tone, that the night was cold, and he wished to warm his fingers; and when I advised him to use for that purpose his own pockets rather than mine, he promised to act in future according to my advice.  More than once, it is true, I believed that I was in danger of being attacked, but on every occasion my fears turned out to be unfounded, and sometimes the catastrophe was ludicrous rather than tragical.  Let the following serve as an illustration.

I had occasion to traverse, in company with a Russian friend, the country lying to the east of the river Vetluga—­a land of forest and morass, with here and there a patch of cultivation.  The majority of the population are Tcheremiss, a Finnish tribe; but near the banks of the river there are villages of Russian peasants, and these latter have the reputation of “playing pranks.”  When we were on the point of starting from Kozmodemiansk a town on the bank of the Volga, we received a visit from an officer of rural police, who painted in very sombre colours the habits and moral character—­or, more properly, immoral character—­of the people whose acquaintance we were about to make.  He related with melodramatic gesticulation his encounters with malefactors belonging to the villages through which we had to pass, and ended the interview with a strong recommendation to us not to travel at night, and to keep at all times our eyes open and our revolver ready.  The effect of his narrative was considerably diminished by the prominence of the moral, which was to the effect that there never had been a police-officer who had shown so much zeal, energy, and courage in the discharge of his duty as the worthy man before us.  We considered it, however, advisable to remember his hint about keeping our eyes open.

In spite of our intention of being very cautious, it was already dark when we arrived at the village which was to be our halting-place for the night, and it seemed at first as if we should be obliged to spend the night in the open air.  The inhabitants had already retired to rest, and refused to open their doors to unknown travellers.  At length an old woman, more hospitable than her neighbours, or more anxious to earn an honest penny, consented to let us pass the night in an outer apartment (seni), and this permission we gladly accepted.  Mindful of the warnings of the police officer, we barricaded the two doors and the window, and the precaution was evidently not superfluous, for almost as soon as the