Of the existence of bears we had one convincing glimpse. We drove off, one morning, in a drizzling rain, to picnic on a distant estate of our host, in a "red" or "beautiful" forest (the two adjectives are synonymous in Russian), which is composed entirely of pines. During our long tramp through a superb growth of pines, every one of which would have furnished a mainmast for the largest old-fashioned ship, a bear stepped out as we passed through a narrow defile, and showed an inclination to join our party. The armed Russian and Mordvinian foresters, our guides and protectors, were in the vanguard; and as Misha seemed peaceably disposed we relinquished all designs on his pelt, consoling ourselves with the reflection that it would not be good at this season of the year. We camped out on the crest of the hill, upon a huge rug, soft and thick, the work of serfs in former days, representing an art now well-nigh lost, and feasted on nut-sweet crayfish from the Volga, new potatoes cooked in our gypsy kettle, curds, sour black bread, and other more conventional delicacies. The rain pattered softly on us, --we disdained umbrellas,--and on the pine needles, rising in hillocks, here and there, over snowy great mushrooms, of a sort to be salted and eaten during fasts. The wife of the priest, who is condemned to so much fasting, had a wonderfully keen instinct for these particular mushrooms, and had explained to us all their merits, which seemed obscure to our non-fasting souls. Our Russian forester regaled us with forest lore, as we lay on our backs to look at the tops of the trees. But, to my amazement, he had never heard of the _Leshi_ and the _Vodyanoi_, the wood-king and water-king of the folk-tales. At all events, he had never seen them, nor heard their weird frolics in the boughs and waves. The Mordvinian contributed to the entertainment by telling us of his people's costumes and habits, and gave us a lesson in his language, which was of the Tatar-Finnish variety. Like the Tchuvashi and other tribes here on the Volga, the Mordvinians furnish pleasurable excitement and bewilderment to ethnographists and students of religions.