But Master Chanceler (seeing himself held in this suspense with long and vain expectation and thinking that of intention to delude him, they posted the matter off so often) was very instant with them to perform their promise, which if they would not do he told them that he would depart and proceed in his voyage. So that the Muscovites (although as yet they knew not the mind of their king) yet fearing the departure indeed of our men, who had such wares and commodities as they greatly desired, they at last resolved to furnish our people with all things necessary, and to conduct them by land to the presence of their king. And so Master Chanceler began his journey, which was very long and most troublesome, wherein he had the use of certain sledges which in that country are very common, for they are carried themselves upon sledges, and all their carriages are in the same sort, the people almost not knowing any other manner of carriage, the cause whereof is the exceeding hardness of the ground, congealed in the winter time by the force of the cold, which in those places is very extreme and horrible, whereof hereafter we will say something. But now, they having passed the greater part of their journey, met at last with the sledgeman (of whom I spake before) sent to the king secretly from the justices or governors, who by some ill-hap had lost his way, and had gone to the seaside which is near to the country of the Tartars, thinking there to have found our ship. But having long erred and wandered out of his way, at the last in his direct return, he met, as he was coming, our Captain on the way. To whom he by-and-by delivered the Emperor’s letters, which were written to him with all courtesy, and in the most loving manner that could be: wherein express commandment was given that post horses should be gotten for him and the rest of his company without any money. Which thing was of all the Russians in the rest of their journey so willingly done, that they began to quarrel, yea, and to fight also in striving and contending which of them should put their post-horses to the sled: so that after much ado, and great pains taken in this long and weary journey (for they had travelled very near fifteen hundred miles), Master Chanceler came at last to Moscow, the chief city of the kingdom, and the seat of the king, of which city, and of the Emperor himself, and of the principal cities of Muscovy, we will speak immediately more at large in this discourse. OF MUSCOVY, WHICH IS ALSO CALLED RUSSIA.