Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

156 THE BANKS OF THE VOLGA.

CHAP. XXXIL*

THE BANKS OF THE VOLGA. — RUSSIAN COACHMEN IN MOUNTAIN

ROADS. KOSTROMA. —FERRY ON THE VOLGA. ACCIDENT IN A

FOREST.BEAUTY OF THE WOMEN. CIVILISATION INJURIOUS.

ROUSSEAU JUSTIFIED.ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD SAR-

MATIAN. ELEGANCE, INDUSTRY, AND HUMILITY OF THE PEA

SANTS. THEIR MUSIC. — NATIONAL MUSIC DANGEROUS TO

DESPOTISM.THE ROAD TO SIBERIA. — A PICTURE OF RUSSIA. —

EXILES ON THE ROAD.

Our road follows the eourse of the Volga. Yesterday I crossed that river at Yaroslaf, and I have re-crossed it to-day at Kunitcha. In many places its two banks differ in physical aspect. On one side stretches an immense plain level with the water, on the other, the bank forms an almost perpendicular Avail, sometimes a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet high. This rampart or natural embankment, which extends a considerable way backwards from the river before it again loses itself in gradual slopes upon the plain, is clothed with osiers and birch, and^is broken from distance to distance by the river's tributaries. These water-courses form deep furrows in the bank, which they have to pierce in order to reach the mighty stream. The bank is quite a mountain chain, and the furrows are real valleys, across which the road parallel to the Volga is carried.

* Written at Yourewetch Powolskoi, a small town between Yaroslaf and Nijni Novgorod.