Here he looked about him, saw the Great Bell, &c. received no little hospitality, and repaired the defects of his caravan, starting again on the 24th of September, and his instructions to his limited suite were to avoid all occasion of dispute, and, should such unfortunately arise, he should be informed of it, in order that he might deal with it according to the best of his judgment. But he went among the Tartars without any misadventure, noting some very curious facts, until he came to Tzaritzin, on the Volga, whence he proposed to commence his somewhat perilous journey by water, to the Caspian Sea. He arrived at Tzaritzin on the 9th of October, but, as there was not the same pushing and driving in business then as now, he stopped there for a month to recruit, and hire a vessel. He succeeded in getting one, such a thing as it was, but then he only paid a nominal sum for it. As he justly observes: ‘The reader will imagine that forty roubles[79] cannot purchase a good vessel; however, this price produced the best I could find. Their decks were only loose pieces of the barks of trees; they have no knees, and but few beams: hardly any pitch or tar is used, in place of it are long slips of bark, which they nail over the gaping seams, to prevent the loose and bad corking (caulking) from falling out. Instead of iron bolts, they have spikes of deal with round heads. The method of keeping them clear of water is by a large scoop, which is suspended by the beam over the well-way, and through a scuttle at a proper height they scoop out the water with great facility.’