The "Chouvaliki," another well-known gang, are mainly peasants, but they come also from the Moscow government, being settled in the districts of Veresisk and Mozhaisk. It would be very peculiar in America to see a band of farmers starting off on begging and marauding trips, but this happens in Russia, and the Chouvaliki are of this class. In the census of Russia they are put down as peasants, and they do pretend to work a part of the year, but they are known from Moscow to the Don as the begging Chouvaliki. They go on the road twice a year, and exploit by preference the governments of Tamboff, Voronesh, and so on down to the Don. The Russians call them brigands, and tell frightful stories about their robberies, but the Goriouns spoke of them merely as beggars, and I fancy this is what they are. On returning from their trips, which last sometimes several weeks, they spend in one orgy all the money they have taken in. It is in White Russia, and above all in the government of Vitebsk, farther north, that the tramps form these beggars' organizations. During my journey through the Vitebsk government I heard of them right and left, and it is this district that contributes largely to the criminal population of St. Petersburg. The rich Ukraine is also a notorious haunt. At Kharkoff, for instance, I got into a regular nest of them, called "Tchortoff Gniezda" (Nest of Devils). They live there in dirty little cabins and underground caves, a close community with its ataman and common funds. They start out in the morning on their begging trips, and return at night for debauches, those who have been most successful inviting their _rakli_, or pals, to celebrate with them. There is a careful division, or _douban_, of all the spoils taken in during the day, and each one receives his share, minus the contribution to the common tribe. In Kazan, the Tatar town on the Volga, there is an artel of beggars whose origin goes back to the taking of Kazan by Ivan IV, and they are known all over Russia as the "Kazanskia Sieroty" (the Kazan Orphans). Although Mussulmans, they beg "in the name of Christ" ("Radi Krista"). They will beg even from other beggars if they do not belong to their organization, and consider everybody their prey who is not an "Orphan." They can only be compared to the tramps who exploit the governments of Samara and Saratoff, and those coming from fifteen villages of the districts of Saransk and Insarsk, in the government of Penza. These last, although officially peasants, are all organized into narrow begging corporations, and call themselves "Kalousni," which comes from their dialect word _kalit_, meaning "to reap," or, as they would say, "to beg." In Moscow, on the other hand, the generic dialect term for beggars is "Zvonary," which comes from _zvonit_, also meaning "to beg."