The poor owner of a few dozen serfs dispensed, of course, with the elaborate commissariat department, and contented himself with such modest fare as could be packed in the holes and corners of a single tarantass.
It will be well to explain here, parenthetically, what a tarantass is, for I shall often have occasion to use the word.

It may be briefly defined as a phaeton without springs.

The function of springs is imperfectly fulfilled by two parallel wooden bars, placed longitudinally, on which is fixed the body of the vehicle.

It is commonly drawn by three horses--a strong, fast trotter in the shafts, flanked on each side by a light, loosely-attached horse that goes along at a gallop.

The points of the shafts are connected by the duga, which looks like a gigantic, badly formed horseshoe rising high above the collar of the trotter.