"Not at all," was the reply. "The money is paid at each station to the smotretal, or station-master. It is paid in advance, or may be given to the driver at the end of the ride."
"A stranger must run a great risk of being cheated," said Fred; "the station-master could make the distance out much greater than it really is, and thus turn a dishonest penny very often."
"By no means can he do so," Mr. Hegeman answered, "if the stranger is on his guard. At every station there is an official certificate framed and hung up, showing the distance to the next station in both directions; the most enterprising efforts of the smotretal to cheat the traveller can be frustrated by a study of this document.
"And now for the means of conveyance," continued Mr. Hegeman. "Every station is required to keep a certain number of horses and drivers, and it must also have a stipulated number of wheeled carriages for summer, and sledges for winter use. The wheeled carriage is called a telega; it is a rough sort of a wagon on wooden springs, and gives a great deal of jolting to the mile. A ride of a thousand miles in a telega may be guaranteed to cure a very bad case of dyspepsia or kill the patient, and in some cases it might do both. The horses are driven at a breakneck speed, and the traveller finds himself tossed from side to side till he is bruised like a rolled orange. The telega is changed, along with the horses, at every station; the traveller and his baggage must be transferred, as the carriage and horses return to the station whence they came."
"It must be very disagreeable to make these changes," remarked one of the youths, "especially at night or in a storm."
A TARANTASSE.
"It is, indeed," was the reply; "and to obviate this the Russians have a vehicle called a tarantasse, which is larger, better made, and in every way more comfortable than the telega. A traveller going on a long journey, and able to afford the expense, buys a tarantasse at starting, and sells it at the end of his ride. He thus avoids the necessity of changing at every station; and if he has a servant to attend to the payments and other matters, he can sleep through the night with comparative comfort.
"We started from Stratensk in a telega, as we could not find a tarantasse for sale or hire, and changed at the next station. Luckily for us, the smotretal had a tarantasse, which we hired as far as Stratensk, about sixty miles from our starting-point. It was old, and somewhat rickety, but it was better than nothing at all, and we gladly engaged it.