e Volga silt up far
beyond the choked-up lands of the Delta, encroaching with a steady
inroad on the depths of the waves; the Steppe everywhere widening
as the sea dwindles, and suggesting the thought that the whole
region that is now Steppe must in remote ages have been sea, and
that whatever is now sea, must in time become Steppe.

Indeed, it seems not impossible to calculate how many years or
centuries it may take for the sands of the Volga, aided by those of
the Ural and the Emba on the eastern, and of the Kuma, the Terek,
and the Kur or Kura, with its tributary the Aras, on the western
shore, to fill up the land-locked Caspian, though its extreme depth,
according to the Gazetteers, is 600 feet, and the area covered by
it probably exceeds 180,000 square miles, a surface as large as
that of Spain.

Kasan, once the residence of a redoubted horde, was probably, under
Tartar sway, in a great measure a mere encampment, chiefly a city of
tents; for whatever the guide-books may say, there is no positive
evidence of its present buildings belonging to a date anterior to
the Russian Conquest.

Its situation probably recommended itself to the Tartars chiefly
on the score of strength; for although it stands high above the
river, its present distance from it is at least three miles, and
it is surrounded by a sandy and marshy plain, intersected by the
channels of the Kasana river, erratic water-courses which may have
proved sufficient obstacles to the onset of an invader, but which
raise no less serious hindrances to the conveyance of goods from
the landing-place to the town; an inconvenience hitherto not removed
by the tramway, as it as yet only carries passengers.

Kasan is on the main line of communication between Central Russia
and Siberia.

The travellers bound to that bourne embark here on steamers that go
down the Volga as far as its confluence with the Kama, a tributary
stream, and thence ascend the Kama, which is navigable all the
way to Perm. From Perm a railway runs up to the Pass of the Ural
mountains to Ekaterinenburg, probably to be in course of time continued
to Tiumen, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, the Baikal Lake, the Chinese
frontier at Kiakhta, the banks of the Amoor, and the shores of
the Pacific Ocean.

Along this route it is calculated that some L3,000,000 worth of
merchandise are brought yearly from Siberia down the Kama and up
the Volga to the Nijni-Novgorod fair.

Kasan is a highly flourishing city.