my memory as a pure delight; in company with
certain other fragments of church music heard in that land, as among the
most beautiful upon earth.

I may as well tell at once the whole story of the food, so far as we
explored its intricate mysteries. We were asked if we wished to take the
_table d'hote_ breakfast in the establishment. We said "yes," and
presented ourselves promptly. We were served with beefsteak, in small,
round, thick pieces.

"What queer beefsteak!" said one of our Russian friends. "Is there no
other meat?"

"No, madam."

We all looked at it for several minutes. We said it was natural, when
invalids drank from three to five bottles of the nourishing kumys a day,
that they should not require much extra food, and that the management
provided what variety was healthy and advisable, no doubt; only we would
have liked a choice; and--what queer steak!

The first sniff, the first glance at that steak, of peculiar grain and
dark red hue, had revealed the truth to _us_. But we saw that our
Russian friends were not initiated, and we knew that their stomachs were
delicate. We exchanged signals, took a mouthful, declared it excellent,
and ate bravely through our portions. The Russians followed our example.
Well--it was much tenderer and better than the last horseflesh to
which we had been treated surreptitiously; but I do not crave horseflesh
as a regular diet. It really was not surprising at a kumys
establishment, where the horse is worshiped, alive or dead, apparently,
in Tatar fashion.

That afternoon we made it convenient to take our dinner in town, on the
veranda of a restaurant which overlooked the busy Volga, with its mobile
moods of sunset and thunderstorm, where we compensated ourselves for our
unsatisfactory breakfast by a characteristically Russian dinner, of
which I will omit details, except as regards the soup. This soup was
_botvinya_. A Russian once obligingly furnished me with a description of
a foreigner's probable views on this national delicacy: "a slimy pool
with a rock in the middle, and creatures floating round about." The rock
is a lump of ice (_botvinya_ being a cold soup) in the tureen of
strained _kvas_ or sour cabbage. _Kvas_ is the sour, fermented liquor
made from black bread. In this liquid portion of the soup, which is
colored with strained spinach, floated small cubes of fresh cucumber and
bits of the green tops from young onions. The solid part of the soup,
served on a platt