The men bowed low as they approached the count; on his part he urged them to stand upright and regard him as their friend. They halted directly in front of him, and then the bearer of the bread spoke in dignified tones as follows:
"We come, most noble master, to give the welcome of our village, and present you such food as we can offer, according to the ancient custom of our country."
In a few kindly words the count thanked them for their hospitality, and wished that their lives would be prosperous and happy. Then he cut a slice out of the loaf of bread and ate it, after dipping it in the salt. Next he drank a glass of the water, pouring it from the pitcher with his own hands. When he had finished he again thanked the men for their hospitality, and asked them to give his good wishes to all the people. This ended the ceremony, and the count was then at liberty to enter the carriage that stood waiting, and ride to his house, some distance back from the river.
Doctor Bronson explained that bread and salt have a prominent place in Russian ceremonials, not only of welcome, but at weddings and on other occasions. The bread is invariably the rye or black bread of the country, and the guest to whom it is offered would show great rudeness if he declined to partake of it. A knife lies on the top of the loaf; the guest himself cuts the loaf, and must be careful to dip the slice in the salt before placing it in his mouth.
In their descent of the Volga, our friends passed a succession of villages on either bank, and occasionally a town or city of importance. The day after leaving Kazan they stopped at Simbirsk, the capital of the province of the same name, and the centre of a considerable trade. It is on the right bank of the river, and has a population of twenty-five or thirty thousand.
About a hundred miles farther down the Volga is Samara, which generally resembles Simbirsk, but is larger, and possesses a more extensive commerce. A railway extends from Samara to Orenburg, on the frontier of Siberia. On the other side of the Volga Samara is connected with the railway system which has its centre at Moscow. With railway and river to develop its commerce, it is not surprising that the place is prosperous, and has grown rapidly since the middle of the century.
Mr. Hegeman told the youths that many Swiss and Germans were settled along this part of the Volga, and he pointed out some of their villages as the boat steamed on her course. The Government allows them perfect freedom in religious matters, and they have an excellent system of schools which they manage at their own expense and in their own way. In other respects they are under the laws of the Empire, and their industry and enterprise have had a beneficial effect upon their Muscovite neighbors. The first of these settlers came here more than a hundred years ago; their descendants speak both German and Russian, and form quite an important part of the population.
Larger than Simbirsk and Samara rolled into one is Saratov, about a hundred miles below the city we have just described. It contains nearly a hundred thousand inhabitants; its houses are well built and spacious, and its streets are unusually broad, even for Russia. Our friends took a carriage-ride through the city, visited several of its sixteen or eighteen churches, and passed an hour or more in one of the factories devoted to the manufacture of leather goods.
Frank and Fred thought the churches were fully equal to those of any other Russian city they had seen, with the exception of a few of the most celebrated, and they greatly regretted their inability to make a fuller inspection of the place. But they consoled themselves with the reflection that they had seen the principal cities of the Empire, and the smaller ones could not offer many new and distinctive features.