n was that their
black eyes wandered like the eyes of unveiled women, and that they were
coquettishly conscious of our glances, though we were of their own sex.

We found nothing especially striking among the churches, unless one
might reckon the Tatar mosques in the list; and, casting a last glance
at Sumbeka's curious and graceful tower, we hired a cabman to take us to
the river, seven versts away.

We turned our backs upon Kazan without regret, in the fervid heat of
that midsummer morning. We did not shake its dust from our feet. When
dust is ankle-deep that is not very feasible. It rose in clouds, as we
met the long lines of Tatar carters, transporting flour and other
merchandise to and from the wharves across the "dam" which connects the
town, in summer low water, with Mother Volga. In spring floods Matushka
Volga threatens to wash away the very walls of the Kremlin, and our
present path is under water.

Fate had favored us with a clever cabman. His shaggy little horse was as
dusty in hue as his own coat,--a most unusual color for coat of either
Russian horse or _izvostchik_. The man's _armyak_ was bursting at every
seam, not with plenty, but, since extremes meet, with hard times, which
are the chronic complaint of Kazan, so he affirmed. He was gentle and
sympathetic, like most Russian cabmen, and he beguiled our long drive
with shrewd comments on the Russian and Tatar inhabitants and their
respective qualities.

"The Tatars are good people," he said; "very clean,--cleaner than
Russians; very quiet and peaceable citizens. There was a time when they
were not quiet. That was ten years ago, during the war with Turkey. They
were disturbed. The Russians said that it was a holy war; the Tatars
said so, too, and wished to fight for their brethren of the Moslem
faith. But the governor was not a man to take fright at that. He
summoned the chief men among them before him. 'See here,' says he. 'With
me you can be peaceable with better conscience. If you permit your
people to be turbulent, I will pave the dam with the heads of Tatars.
The dam is long. Allah is my witness. Enough. Go!' And it came to
nothing, of course. No; it was only a threat, though they knew that he
was a strong man in rule. Why should he wish to do that, really, even if
they were not Orthodox? A man is born with his religion as with his
skin. The Orthodox live at peace with the Tatars. And the Tatars are
superior to the Russians in this, also, that the