Then we started for the hay meadows, which were about ten miles distant. On the road we met other peasants in carts bound for the same destination. They all gravely took off their hats to each other. After an hour and a half’s drive we arrived at the Moscow River, on the bank of which there is a tea-shop. Tea-shops exist all over Russia. The feature of them is that you cannot buy spirits there. We stopped and had tea. Everybody was brought a small teapot for tea and a huge teapot of boiling water, and very small cups, and everybody drank about four or five cups out of the saucer. They eat the sugar separately, and do not put it into the cup. Then we crossed the river on a floating bridge, and driving past a large white Byzantine monastery arrived at the green hay meadows on the farther river bank towards sunset. Then the haymaking began. The first step which was taken was for vodka bottles to be produced and for everybody to drink vodka out of a cup. Then there was a great deal of shouting and an immense amount of abuse. “It doesn’t mean anything,” Feodor said. “We curse each other and make it up afterwards.” Then they drew lots for the particular strip they should mow; each man carrying his scythe high over his shoulder. (“Don’t come too near,” said Feodor; “when men have taken drink they are careless with scythes.”) When the lots were drawn they began mowing. It was a beautiful sight to see the mowing in the sunset by the river; the meadows were of an intense soft green; the sky all fleecy and golden to the west, and black with a great thundercloud over the woods to the east, lit up with intermittent summer lightnings. The mowers were all in different coloured shirts—scarlet, blue, white, and green. They mowed till the twilight fell and the thundercloud got near to us. Then Feodor came and made our cart into a tent by tying up the shafts, putting a piece of matting across them, and covering it with hay, and under this he made beds of hay. We had supper. Feodor said his prayers, and prepared to go to sleep, but changed his mind, got up, and joined some friends in a neighbouring cart. Three children and a deaf and dumb peasant remained with me. The peasants who were in the neighbouring tent were drunk; they began by quarrelling, then they sang for about four hours without stopping; then they talked. Feodor came back about half an hour before it was light, and slept for that brief space. I did not sleep at all. I wasn’t tired, and the singing was delightful to hear: so excessively characteristic of Russia and so utterly unlike the music of any other country, except that of Mongolia. What strikes me most about it is in the first place the accuracy with which the parts are taken, and in the second place the curious rhythm, and the close, ending generally on the dominant. The children chattered for some time about mushroom gathering, and the deaf and dumb man told me a lot by signs, and then they went to sleep.