There was a couple who spoke bad French to each other out of refinement, but who relapsed into Russian when they had really something interesting to say. There was a student who played the pianoforte with astonishing facility and amazing execution; there were the elder sisters of the small children, who also played the pianoforte in exactly the same way as young people play it in England--that is to say, with convulsive jerks over the difficult passages and uninterrupted insistence on the loud pedal and a foolish bass. The grown-up members of the party played “Vindt” all day. When we arrived at Kazan I got out to look at the town. It also possesses a Kremlin with white walls and crenelated towers and old churches, a museum which contains the most uninteresting and heterogeneous collection of objects imaginable, and a large monastery. It is the most stagnant-looking city I have ever seen. The Volga beyond Nijni is considerably broader. It is never less than 1200 yards in breadth, and from Nijni onwards, on the right bank of the river, there is a range of lofty hills, mostly wooded, but sometimes rocky and grassy, which go sheer down into the river. The left bank is flat, and consists of green meadows. Below Kazan it is joined by the river Kama, and becomes a mighty river, never less than three-quarters of a mile in breadth. These facts could be derived quite easily and more abundantly from a handbook of geography. “What does the Volga look like?” is the question, I suppose, people wish to have answered. My answer to that is that in various parts of its course the Volga reminds me of almost every river I have ever seen, from the Dart to the Liao-he and from the Neckar to the Nile. Below Kazan its aspect is gloomy and sombre, a great stretch of broad brown waters, a wooded mountainous bank on one side, a monotonous plain on the other. But if the weather is fine--and it was gloriously fine after we reached Kazan--the effects of light on the great expanse of water are miraculous. It is at dawn that one sees the magic of these waters; at dawn and at sunset that the great broad expanse, turning to gold or to silver according as the sky is crimson, mauve, or rosy and grey, has a mystery and majesty of its own. We met other steamers on the way, but during the whole voyage from Nijni to Astrakan we only passed two small sailing boats.