This done, he had no wish to return to the City of Constantinople, and intending to breakfast on the bank of the Volga near the wharf, he settled his bill and left the inn.

By way of precaution, Michael Strogoff went first to the office of the steam-packet company, and there made sure that the Caucasus would start at the appointed hour.
As he did so, the thought for the first time struck him that, since the young Livonian girl was going to Perm, it was very possible that her intention was also to embark in the Caucasus, in which case he should accompany her.
The town above with its kremlin, whose circumference measures two versts, and which resembles that of Moscow, was altogether abandoned.
Even the governor did not reside there.

But if the town above was like a city of the dead, the town below, at all events, was alive.
Michael Strogoff, having crossed the Volga on a bridge of boats, guarded by mounted Cossacks, reached the square where the evening before he had fallen in with the gipsy camp.

This was somewhat outside the town, where the fair of Nijni-Novgorod was held.

In a vast plain rose the temporary palace of the governor-general, where by imperial orders that great functionary resided during the whole of the fair, which, thanks to the people who composed it, required an ever-watchful surveillance.
This plain was now covered with booths symmetrically arranged in such a manner as to leave avenues broad enough to allow the crowd to pass without a crush.
Each group of these booths, of all sizes and shapes, formed a separate quarter particularly dedicated to some special branch of commerce.