‘The Caravans generally set out about twelve, both in the night and day, except in the heat of summer. In the winter, between St. Petersburg and Moscow, they usually travel seventy wersts[78] (about forty-seven English miles) in twenty-four hours, but from Moscow to Zaritzen only forty or fifty wersts: in summer their stages are shorter. Great part of the last-mentioned road being through an uninhabited country, makes the Carriers cautious not to jade their horses. Every time they set out, the conductors ought to count the loads. When necessity requires that the Caravan should be drawn within fences, or into yards, the heads of the waggons ought to stand towards the door in regular order, and a guard, who will keep a better watch than an ordinary carrier, should be set over it: for want of this precaution, whole Caravans in Russia have been sometimes consumed by fire. It is most eligible to stop in the field, where the usual method is to form the Carriages into a ring, and bring the horses, as well as the men, within it, always observing to keep in such a position as best to prevent an attack, or repulse an enemy. ‘The Khalmucks on the banks of the Volga are ever ready to embrace an opportunity of plundering and destroying passengers; therefore, when there is any occasion to travel on those banks, which should be avoided as much as possible, an advance guard of at least four Cossacks is of great use, especially to patrole in the night; it is not often practised, but I found it indispensably necessary when I travelled on those banks.... ‘A hundred carriages take up two-thirds of a mile in length, so that, when no horseman is at hand to spread the alarm, the rear might be easily carried off. They have not even a trumpet, horn, or other instrument for this purpose; they trust in providence, and think any care of this kind unnecessary, though the neglect has sometimes proved of fatal consequence.’ In this primitive style he set forth on his trading venture to Persia, taking with him a clerk, a Russian, as menial servant, a Tartar boy, and a soldier, by way of guard. He had ‘a convenient sleeping-waggon’ for himself, and another for his clerk--the Russ, the Tartar, and the soldier evidently having to shift as the drivers of the twenty loads of goods (consisting of thirty-seven bales of English cloth) did. It is interesting to follow out this little venture. The caravan started on the 1st of September, 1743, and ten days afterwards he set out to join it, which he did at Tver, arriving at Moscow on the 20th of September.