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

250VISIT TO KAZAN ABANDONED.

without yet more deeply injuring other hearts also worthy of compassion, is to associate ourselves in the designs of Providence, and to enlarge the kingdom of heaven.

The night was far advanced when we left the gypsies; stormy clouds, which swept over the plain, had suddenly changed the temperature. The long, deserted streets of the fair were filled with ponds of water, through which our horses dashed without relaxing their speed ; fresh squalls, bringing over black clouds, announced more rain, and drove the water, splashed aside by the horses, in our faces. " Summer is at last gone," said my cicerone. " I feel you are only too right," I answered; " I am as cold as if it were winter." I had no cloak : in the morning we had been suffocated with the heat; on returning to my room, I was freezing. I sat down to write for two hours, and then retired to rest in the icy fit of fever. In the morning, when I wished to get up, a vertigo seized me, and I fell again on my couch, unable to dress myself.

This annoyance was the more disagreeable, as I had intended leaving on that very day for Kazan: I wished at least to set my foot in Asia; and with this view had engaged a boat to descend the Volga, whilst my feldjäger had been directed to bring my carriage empty to Kazan, to convey me back to Nijni by land. However, my zeal had a little cooled after the governor of Nijni had proudly displayed to me plans and drawings of Kazan. It is still the same city from one end of Eussia to another: the great square, the broad streets, bordered with diminutive houses, the house of the governor, with ornamented