Finding that Piotr’s eloquence had received lengthy inspiration, we bore him off, in the middle of his peroration, to the river, where we took possession of a boat with a chronic leak, and a prow the exact shape of a sterlet’s nose reversed.  But Piotr swore that it was the stanchest craft between Astrakhan and Rybinsk, and intrepidly took command, steering with a long paddle, while four alert young peasants plied the oars.  Piotr’s costume consisted of a cotton shirt and brief trousers.  The others added caps, which, however, they wore only spasmodically.

A picnic without singing was not to be thought of, and we requested the men to favor us with some folk-songs.  No bashful schoolgirls could have resisted our entreaties with more tortuous graces than did those untutored peasants.  One of them was such an exact blond copy of a pretty brunette American, whom we had always regarded as the most affected of her sex, that we fairly stared him out of countenance, in our amazement; and we made mental apologies to the American on the spot.

“Please sing ‘Adown dear Mother Volga,’” the conversation ran.

“We can’t sing.”  “We don’t know it.”  “You sing it and show us how, and we will join in.”

The Affected One capped the climax with “It’s not in the mo-o-o-ode now, that song!” with a delicate assumption of languor which made his comrades explode in suppressed convulsions of mirth.  Finally they supplied the key, but not the keynote.

“Give us some vodka, and we may, perhaps, remember something.”

Promises of vodka at the end of the voyage, when the danger was over, were rejected without hesitation.  We reached our breakfast-ground in profound silence.

Fortunately, the catch of sterlet at this stand had been good.  The fishermen grilled some “in their own fat,” by salting them and spitting them alive on peeled willow wands, which they thrust into the ground, in a slanting position, over a bed of glowing coals.  Anything more delicious it would be difficult to imagine; and we began to revise our opinion of the sterlet.  In the mean time our boatmen had discovered some small, sour ground blackberries, which they gallantly presented to us in their caps.  Their feelings were so deeply wounded by our attempts to refuse this delicacy that we accepted and actually ate them, to the great satisfaction of the songless rogues who stood over us.

Our own fishing with a line resulted in nothing but the sport and sunburn.  We bought a quantity of sterlet, lest the fishermen at the camp where we had planned to dine should have been unlucky, placed them in a net such as is used in towns for carrying fish from market, and trailed them in the water behind our boat.