The post-station is generally kept by a government official: a samovar or tea-urn can be obtained from him, for the use of which he expects a few copecks; and this, with the addition of black bread and salt, is all that can be procured during the whole route: it is therefore absolutely necessary to provide oneself with everything that is needful, such as bread, meat, tea, &c., and in very long journeys a cooking apparatus. If the traveller does not take spoons, cups, and plates, let him be very careful to wash those he finds at the station, or he may swallow some little animal and transgress the Gentoo laws, besides which entire confidence cannot be placed in the mode of their being purified. I remember taking tea at a certain monastery. There were many ladies and gentlemen at the abbot’s party; and, to make it more pleasant, his reverence proposed our adjourning to a summerhouse in the garden to eat ices. The young monks or novices were to act as servitors, and they stood behind some bushes near the place where we sat. I confess my relish for the refreshment was somewhat taken away when I saw them lick the spoons and wipe them: I could not warn my friends, but I took good care not to make use of them myself. But in regard to travelling in Russia, I am sure that those who have done so in the summer time will well remember the miserable nights passed _en route_, the myriads of mosquitoes, rising like a brown cloud from the marshy grounds, allowing no rest, to which the excessive heat formed no agreeable addition. In Archangel the English sailors suffered so dreadfully from the bites of these insects that they were frequently obliged to go to the hospital: they used to declare that “it was worse than in the West Indies.” The winter journeys, notwithstanding the extreme cold, are infinitely more pleasant. The people at the post-stations are generally civil, and are much obliged for a small gratuity. As for the poor yemstchicks or drivers, they are overcome with gratitude at a trifling present of a few copecks at the end of each post. I remarked that the inhabitants of the villages belonging to the crown, through which we passed, appeared more comfortably lodged and far more at their ease than those who were the property of private landowners: perhaps their less degraded look was owing to their enjoying upon the whole more freedom than those who are ground down to the dust by the tyranny of the petty noblesse. The crown peasants pay a poll-tax to the Emperor.