I crossed the shady alleys of the little park, in which not another person moved. A few steps through the blinding glare of an adjacent side-road, deep in white dust, brought me to the enclosure which surrounds the residence of the Nachalnik. I knocked at the little postern door. A drowsy servant opened to me, and, in answer to my enquiries, informed me that his master was asleep. Compromising for once with the valuable principle of always addressing oneself to the supreme authority, I turned away and walked to the station of the town police. But not a single officer was in attendance at headquarters; a couple of men were dozing in the guard room, outstretched upon the wooden seats. No other course was open but to arouse the Nachalnik; I returned and again knocked at the little door. It was pleasant to be offered a seat in a spacious verandah, overlooking a garden; nor was it long before the master of the house appeared. There are individuals in whom a tendency to corpulence, while it appears to dispose them favourably towards their fellow-men, has induced a provoking habit of restful satisfaction, and has built up a wall of self-possession against which nervous temperaments beat in vain. The Nachalnik was not wanting in these passive qualities; and I could not doubt that they would be exercised on the present occasion as I observed the approach of his burly form. The white tunic was partially buttoned, the hair was matted on the brow, the eyes were still heavy with sleep. I quickly apprised him of the nature and extent of our troubles; how the owners of our hired horses had broken their contracts, how the various forms of transport had been successively requisitioned, with equal failure in every case. Tartar pony men, Molokan droshky drivers, Armenian posting contractors--not a man among them could be induced to stir. Our luggage, accompanied by Wesson and Rudolph, had left that morning in a waggon of the post; we ourselves were determined to follow them, if necessary on foot. To this petulance he replied with the utmost composure, to the effect that the people were free to make their own bargains, and that he could not compel them to go. It was the familiar story, the honourable attempt to rule the East upon Western principles, the patient endeavour, rich both in humour and in pathos, to infuse the drowsy mass with the elements of vitality and make it respond to those inducements of enlightened self-interest which move the peoples of the West. In the mouth of the Nachalnik the enunciation of this principle was not without a certain vein of almost tragic irony. Himself the child of a race which has scarcely yet assimilated the motives and the restraints of civilised life, he had been transplanted from the frozen North to this burning valley; and the hot sun was already drying up those scanty springs of action which had so recently been set free. It was plain that the position could not be carried directly; but it occurred to me at that