On the other hand the pace was so slow that running off the rails would have been merely an amusing episode, and even a collision could scarcely have been attended with serious consequences.

Happily things are improving, even in this outlying part of the country.

Now there is one train daily, and it goes at a less funereal pace.
From Kalatch, at the Don end of the line, a steamer starts for Rostoff, which is situated near the mouth of the river.

The navigation of the Don is much more difficult than that of the Volga.

The river is extremely shallow, and the sand-banks are continually shifting, so that many times in the course of the day the steamer runs aground.