But the immediate foreground was occupied with something more attractive than this. The wharves, the space between them, and all the ground round about were fairly heaped with fruit: apples in bewildering variety, ranging from the pink-and-whiteskinned "golden seeds" through the whole gamut of apple hues; round striped watermelons and oval cantaloupes with perfumed orange-colored flesh, from Astrakhan; plums and grapes. After wrestling with these fascinations and with the merry _izvostchiki_, we set out on a little voyage of discovery, preparatory to driving out to the famous kumys establishments, where we had decided to stay instead of in the town itself. Much of Samara is too new in its architecture, and too closely resembles the simple, thrifty builders' designs of a mushroom American settlement, to require special description. Although it is said to have been founded at the close of the sixteenth century, to protect the Russians from the incursions of the Kalmucks, Bashkirs, and Nogai Tatars, four disastrous conflagrations within the last forty-five years have made way for "improvements" and entailed the loss of characteristic features, while its rank as one of the chief marts for the great Siberian trade has caused a rapid increase in population, which now numbers between seventy-five and eighty thousand. One modern feature fully compensates, however, by its originality, for a good many commonplace antiquities. Near the wharves, on our way out of the town, we passed a lumber-yard, which dealt wholly in ready-made log houses. There stood a large assortment of cottages, in the brilliant yellow of the barked logs, of all sizes and at all prices, from fifteen to one hundred dollars, forming a small suburb of samples. The lumber is floated down the Volga and her tributaries from the great forests of Ufa, and made up in Samara. The peasant purchaser disjoints his house, floats it to a point near his village, drags it piecemeal to its proper site, sets it up, roofs it, builds an oven and a chimney of stones, clay, and whitewash, plugs the interstices with rope or moss, smears them with clay if he feels inclined, and his house is ready for occupancy. Although such houses are cheap and warm, it would be a great improvement if the people could afford to build with brick, so immense is the annual loss by fire in the villages. Brick buildings are, however, far beyond the means of most peasants, let them have the best will in the world, and the ready-made cottages are a blessing, though every peasant is capable of constructing one for himself on very brief notice, if he has access to a forest. But forests are not so common nowadays along the Volga, and, as the advertisements say, this novel lumber-yard "meets a real want." When the Samarcand railway was opened, a number of these cottages, in the one-room size, were placed on platform cars, and to each guest invited to the ceremony was assigned one of these unique drawing-room-car coupes.