As we move southward, our surroundings alter very perceptibly. A genial warmth and a rich summer blue replace the cold gray sky of the north; the banks begin to rise higher, and to clothe themselves with thick patches of bush, and even trees, instead of the coarse prairie grass; while at every halting place the little wooden jetty is heaped with perfect mounds of splendid grapes, sold at three cents per pound, by men in shirtsleeves--phenomena which, to us who are fresh from the furred wrappings and snow-blocked streets of Moscow, have a rather bewildering effect. But the most striking sight is (to our friend Allfact at least) the huge masses of coal which now fuel the steamer instead of the split logs of the Volga. "You see Russia's richer than her neighbors think," remark I. "On the Don alone there are 16,000 square miles of the finest anthracite, which leaves only two per cent. of ashes in burning." "Sixteen thousand square miles!" cries the statistician, whipping out his note-book. "Why on earth doesn't she use it, then, instead of destroying all that valuable timber?" "Well, you see, the railways are not completed yet; but when they are I can promise you that Russia will cut out England altogether in supplying Constantinople and the Levant." One by one the little villages slip by us: Alexandrosk, the first sign of which is the glitter of its gilded church-tower; Nikolaievo, with its black marble monument to the late Crown Prince; Konstantirovskoë, the birthplace of Prince Potemkin, brightest and most worthless of Russian favorites, who "lived like an emperor and died like a dog." They are all vary much of one pattern: substantial log-cabins, curiously painted, with little palisaded gardens in front, and red-shirted men sitting smoking at their doors, alternating with little wickerwork hovels daubed with mud, which look very much like hampers left behind by a monster picnic. Gangs of lean dogs (the pest of every Cossack village) are sniffing hungrily about, while scores of sturdy wenches, with berry-brown arms and feet, and sunburnt children clothed only in short pinafores lined with dirt, run to stare at the wonderful fire-breathing vessel as she comes gliding in. The sun is just dipping below the horizon as we reach Semi-Karakorskaya, and anchor for the night as usual; for to navigate the Lower Don in the dark is beyond the power of any pilot afloat. Here a Cossack official,[L] whose acquaintance we have made on board, proposes to us to land and be presented to the "Ataman," or chief of the tribe, with the certainty of seeing something worth looking at. The offer is joyfully accepted, and five minutes later we are scrambling up the steep, crumbling bank--in the course of which feat Allfact slips and rolls bodily down into the river. [Footnote L: The "Army of the Don," though now an integral part of Russia, is still officered to a great extent by its own people.]