In its early days Samara was one of the outposts of Russian colonisation, and had often to take precautions against the raids of the nomadic tribes living in the vicinity; but the agricultural frontier has since been pushed far forward to the east and south, and the province was until lately, despite occasional droughts, one of the most productive in the Empire.  The town is the chief market of this region, and therein lies its importance.  The grain is brought by the peasants from great distances, and stored in large granaries by the merchants, who send it to Moscow or St. Petersburg.  In former days this was a very tedious operation.  The boats containing the grain were towed by horses or stout peasants up the rivers and through the canals for hundreds of miles.  Then came the period of “cabestans”—­unwieldly machines propelled by means of anchors and windlasses.  Now these primitive methods of transport have disappeared.  The grain is either despatched by rail or put into gigantic barges, which are towed up the river by powerful tug-steamers to some point connected with the great network of railways.

When the traveller has visited the Cathedral and the granaries he has seen all the lions—­not very formidable lions, truly—­of the place.  He may then inspect the kumyss establishments, pleasantly situated near the town.  He will find there a considerable number of patients—­mostly consumptive—­who drink enormous quantities of fermented mare’s-milk, and who declare that they receive great benefit from this modern health-restorer.

What interested me more than the lions of the town or the suburban kumyss establishments were the offices of the local administration, where I found in the archives much statistical and other information of the kind I was in search of, regarding the economic condition of the province generally, and of the emancipated peasantry in particular.  Having filled my note-book with material of this sort, I proceeded to verify and complete it by visiting some characteristic villages and questioning the inhabitants.  For the student of Russian affairs who wishes to arrive at real, as distinguished from official, truth, this is not an altogether superfluous operation.

When I had thus made the acquaintance of the sedentary agricultural population in several districts I journeyed eastwards with the intention of visiting the Bashkirs, a Tartar tribe which still preserved—­so at least I was assured—­its old nomadic habits.  My reasons for undertaking this journey were twofold.  In the first place I was desirous of seeing with my own eyes some remnants of those terrible nomadic tribes which had at one time conquered Russia and long threatened to overrun Europe—­those Tartar hordes which gained, by their irresistible force and relentless cruelty, the reputation of being “the scourge of God.”  Besides this, I had long wished to study the conditions of pastoral life, and congratulated myself on having found a convenient opportunity of doing so.