During the few moments when the work of keeping my balance and preventing my baggage from being lost did not engross all my attention, I speculated on the possibility of inventing a boat-carriage, to be drawn by some amphibious quadruped.
Fortunately our two lean, wiry little horses did not object to being used as aquatic animals.

They took the water bravely, and plunged through the mud in gallant style.

The telega in which we were seated--a four-wheeled skeleton cart--did not submit to the ill-treatment so silently.

It creaked out its remonstrances and entreaties, and at the more difficult spots threatened to go to pieces; but its owner understood its character and capabilities, and paid no attention to its ominous threats.

Once, indeed, a wheel came off, but it was soon fished out of the mud and replaced, and no further casualty occurred.
The horses did their work so well that when about midday we arrived at a village, I could not refuse to let them have some rest and refreshment--all the more as my own thoughts had begun to turn in that direction.
The village, like villages in that part of the country generally, consisted of two long parallel rows of wooden houses.