From Erivan Dr Wagner started for the far-famed Armenian convent of Eshmiadzini; his journey enlivened, or at least saved from complete monotony, by the eccentricities of his Cossack attendant. Ivan, warmed by a glass of _wodha_, and no way affected by the jolting, which to his master was martyrdom, basked in the morning sun, and chanted a ditty of the Don, from time to time turning round his mustached physiognomy, and looking at the doctor as for applause. An active, cunning fellow, with a marvellous facility for making himself understood, even by people of whose language he knew not a syllable, Dr Wagner was, upon the whole, well contented with him, although utterly unable to break him of stealing. He never left his night's quarters without booty of some kind, although his master always warned the host to keep a sharp eye upon his fingers. But when anything was to be pilfered, the Don-Cossack's sleight of hand threw into the shade that of the renowned Houdin himself. Even from the wretched Jesides, who have scarcely anything to call their own, he carried off a pot of buttermilk rather than depart empty-handed. "Carefully as I locked away from him my little stock of travelling money, he nevertheless found some inexplicable means of getting at it. At last I adopted the plan of counting it every evening before his eyes, and making him answerable for all deficiencies. Still, from time to time, something was missing, and Ivan employed his utmost eloquence to convince me of the culpability of the Armenian drivers whom I occasionally had in my service. I never could catch him in the fact; but one evening I examined his clothes, and found a packet of silver rubles in a secret pocket. Whereupon the Cossack, with a devout grimace, which sat comically enough upon his sly features, held up his ten fingers in the air, and swore, by all the saints of the Russian calendar, that he had economised the sum out of his wages, and had hidden it for fear of an attack by robbers."