We whiled away the time by chaffering with the persistent Tatar venders for things which we did not want, and came into amazed possession of some of them.  This was a tribute to our powers of bargaining which had rarely been paid even when we had been in earnest.  We contrived to avoid the bars of yellow “egg soap” by inquiring for one of the marvels of Kazan,—­soap made from mare’s milk.  An amused apothecary had already assured us that it was a product of the too fertile brain of Baedeker, not of the local soap factories.  May Baedeker himself, some day, reap a similar harvest of mirth and astonishment from the sedate Tatars, who can put mare’s milk to much better use as a beverage!

In the hope of obtaining a conversation-lesson in Tatar, we bought a Russo-Tatar grammar, warranted to deliver over all the secrets of that gracefully curved language in the usual scant array of pages.  But the peddler immediately professed as profound ignorance of Tatar as he had of Russian a few moments before, when requested to abate his exorbitant demands for the pamphlet.

By the time we had exhausted these resources one o’clock had arrived.  The steamer had not.  The office clerk replied to all inquiries with the languid national “saytchas” which the dictionary defines as meaning “immediately,” but which experience proves to signify, “Be easy; any time this side of eternity,—­if perfectly convenient!” Under the pressure of increasingly vivacious attacks, prompted by hunger, he finally condescended to explain that the big mail steamer, finding too little water in the channel, had “sat down on a sand-bank,” and that two other steamers were trying to pull her off.  “She might be along at three o’clock, or later,—­or some time.”  It began to be apparent to us why the success of the Fair depends, in great measure, on the amount of water in the river.

Our first meal of bread and tea had been eaten at seven o’clock, and we had counted upon breakfasting on the steamer, where some of the best public cooking in the country, especially in the matter of fish, is to be found.  It was now two o’clock.  The town was distant.  The memory of the ducks, the size of a plover, and other things in proportion, in which our strenuous efforts had there resulted, did not tempt us to return.  Russians have a way of slaying chickens and other poultry almost in the shell, to serve as game.

Accordingly, we organized a search expedition among the peddlers, and in the colony of rainbow-hued shops planted in a long street across the heads of the wharves, and filled chiefly with Tatars and coarse Tatar wares.  For the equivalent of seventeen cents we secured a quart of rich cream, half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a couple of pounds of fine raspberries, and a large fresh wheaten roll.  These we ate in courses, as we perched on soap-boxes and other unconventional seats, surrounded by smoked fish, casks of salted cucumbers, festoons of dried mushrooms, “cartwheels” of sour black bread, and other favorite edibles, in the open-fronted booths.  A delicious banquet it was,—­one of those which recur to the memory unbidden when more elaborate meals have been forgotten.