We turned our backs upon Kazan without regret, in the fervid heat of that midsummer morning.  We did not shake its dust from our feet.  When dust is ankle-deep that is not very feasible.  It rose in clouds, as we met the long lines of Tatar carters, transporting flour and other merchandise to and from the wharves across the “dam” which connects the town, in summer low water, with Mother Volga.  In spring floods Matushka Volga threatens to wash away the very walls of the Kremlin, and our present path is under water.

Fate had favored us with a clever cabman.  His shaggy little horse was as dusty in hue as his own coat,—­a most unusual color for coat of either Russian horse or izvostchik.  The man’s armyak was bursting at every seam, not with plenty, but, since extremes meet, with hard times, which are the chronic complaint of Kazan, so he affirmed.  He was gentle and sympathetic, like most Russian cabmen, and he beguiled our long drive with shrewd comments on the Russian and Tatar inhabitants and their respective qualities.

“The Tatars are good people,” he said; “very clean,—­cleaner than Russians; very quiet and peaceable citizens.  There was a time when they were not quiet.  That was ten years ago, during the war with Turkey.  They were disturbed.  The Russians said that it was a holy war; the Tatars said so, too, and wished to fight for their brethren of the Moslem faith.  But the governor was not a man to take fright at that.  He summoned the chief men among them before him.  ‘See here,’ says he.  ’With me you can be peaceable with better conscience.  If you permit your people to be turbulent, I will pave the dam with the heads of Tatars.  The dam is long.  Allah is my witness.  Enough.  Go!’ And it came to nothing, of course.  No; it was only a threat, though they knew that he was a strong man in rule.  Why should he wish to do that, really, even if they were not Orthodox?  A man is born with his religion as with his skin.  The Orthodox live at peace with the Tatars.  And the Tatars are superior to the Russians in this, also, that they all stick by each other; whereas a Russian, Hospodi pomilui! [Lord have mercy] thinks of himself alone, which is a disadvantage,” said my humble philosopher.

We found that we had underrated the power of our man’s little horse, and had arrived at the river an hour and a half before the steamer was appointed to sail.  It should be there lading, however, and we decided to go directly on board and wait in comfort.  We gave patient Vanka liberal “tea-money.”  Hard times were evidently no fiction so far as he was concerned, and we asked if he meant to spend it on vodka, which elicited fervent asseverations of teetotalism, as he thrust his buckskin pouch into his breast.

Descending in the deep dust, with a sense of gratitude that it was not mixed with rain, we ran the gauntlet of the assorted peddlers stationed on both sides of the long descent with stocks of food, soap, white felt boots, gay sashes, coarse leather slippers too large for human wear, and other goods, and reached the covered wharf.  The steamer was not there, but we took it calmly, and asked no questions—­for a space.