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.
As I proceeded eastwards I noticed a change in the appearance of the villages.