d about our
carriage. We espied several women arrayed in their native costume, which
has been almost entirely abandoned for the Russian dress, and is fast
becoming a precious rarity. The men have already discarded their dress
completely for the Russian. We sent one of the women home to fetch her
Sunday gown, and purchased it on the spot. Such a wonderful piece of
work! The woman had spun, woven, and sewed it; she had embroidered it in
beautiful Turanian, not Russian, patterns, with silks,--dull red, pale
green, relieved by touches of dark blue; she had striped it lengthwise
with bands of red cotton and embroidery, and crosswise with fancy
ribbons and gay calicoes; she had made a mosaic of the back which must
have delighted her rear neighbors in church; and she had used the gown
with such care that, although it had never been washed, it was not badly
soiled. One piece for the body, two for the head, a sham pocket,--that
was all. The footgear consisted of crash bands, bast slippers, rope
cross-garters. The artists to whom I showed the costume, later on,
pronounced it an ethnographical prize.

These Tchuvashi are a small, gray-eyed, olive-skinned race, with
cheek-bones and other features like the Tatars, but less well preserved
than with the latter, in spite of their always marrying among
themselves. There must have been dilution of the race at some time, if
the characteristics were as strongly marked as with the Tatars, in their
original ancestors from Asia. Most of them are baptized into the Russian
faith, and their villages have Russian churches. Nevertheless, along
with their native tongue they are believed to retain many of their
ancient pagan customs and superstitions, although baptism is in no sense
compulsory. The priest in our friends' village, who had lived among
them, had told us that such is the case. But he had also declared that
they possess many estimable traits of character, and that their family
life is deserving of imitation in more than one particular. This village
of theirs looked prosperous and clean. The men, being brought more into
contact with outsiders than the women, speak Russian better than the
latter, and more generally. It is not exactly a case which proves
woman's conservative tendencies.

On reaching the river, and finding that no steamer was likely to arrive
for several hours, we put up at the cottage of a prosperous peasant,
which was patronized by many of the neighboring nobles, in prefe