Being thus accoutred in all my armor, I sallied forth to join my companion, who, an enormous man naturally, now seemed a very Colossus of Rhodes in his own winter attire. “I think you will do,” said my friend, scanning me well over; “but you will find your feet get very cold, for all that. It takes a day or so to get used to this sleigh travelling; and, though I am only going a little beyond Samara, I shall be uncommonly glad when my journey is over.”
He was buckling on his revolver; and as we were informed that there were a great many wolves in the neighborhood, I tried to do the same; but this was an impossibility; the man who made the belt had never foreseen the gigantic proportions my waist would assume when clad in this Russian garb. I was obliged to give it up in despair, and contented myself by strapping the weapon outside my saddle-bags....
Three horses abreast, their coats white with pendent icicles and hoar-frost, were harnessed to the sleigh; the centre animal was in the shafts, and had his head fastened to a huge wooden head-collar, bright with various colors. From the summit of the head-collar was suspended a belt, while the two outside horses were harnessed by cord-traces to splinter-bars attached to the sides of the sleigh. The object of all this is to make the animal in the middle trot at a brisk pace, while his two companions gallop, their necks arched round in a direction opposite to the horse in the centre, this poor beast’s head being tightly reined up to the head-collar.
A well-turned-out troika, with three really good horses, which get over the ground at the rate of twelve miles an hour, is a pretty sight to witness, particularly if the team has been properly trained, and the outside animals never attempt to break into a trot, while the one in the shafts steps forward with high action; but the constrained position in which the horses are kept must be highly uncomfortable to them, and one not calculated to enable a driver to get as much pace out of his animals as they could give him if harnessed in another manner.
Off we went at a brisk pace, the bell dangling from our horse’s head-collar and jingling merrily at every stride of the team.
The sun rose high in the heavens; it was a bright and glorious morning, in spite of the intense cold, and the amount of oxygen we inhaled was enough to elevate the spirits of the most dyspeptic of mankind. Presently, after descending a slight declivity, our Jehu turned sharply to the right; then came a scramble and succession of jolts and jerks as we slid down a steep bank, and we found ourselves on what appeared to be a broad high-road. Here the sight of many masts and shipping, which, bound in by the icy fetters of a relentless winter, would remain embedded in the ice till the ensuing spring, showed me that we were on the Volga.
It was an animated spectacle, this frozen highway, thronged with peasants who strode beside their sledges which were bringing cotton and other goods from Orenburg to the railway. Now a smart troika would dash by us, its driver shouting as he passed, when our Jehu, stimulating his steeds by loud cries and frequent applications of the whip, would vainly strive to overtake his brother coachman. Old and young alike seemed octogenarians, their short, thick beards and moustaches being white as hoar-frost from the congealed breath.... An iron bridge was being constructed a little farther down the Volga. Here the railroad was to pass, and it was said that in two years’ time there would be railway communication, not only between Samara and the capital, but even as far as Orenburg. Presently the scenery became very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuirass beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid mass. Pillars and blocks of the shining and hardened element were seen modelled into a thousand quaint and grotesque patterns. Here a fountain, perfectly formed with Ionic and Doric columns, was reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from the diamond-like stalactites which had attached themselves to its crest. There a huge obelisk, which, if of stone, might have come from ancient Thebes, lay half buried beneath a pile of fleecy snow. Farther on we came to what might have been a Roman temple or vast hall in the palace of a Cæsar, where many half-hidden pillars and monuments erected their tapering summits above the piles of the débris. The wind had done in that northern latitude what has been performed by some violent preadamite agency in the Berber desert. Take away the ebon blackness of the stony masses which have been there cast forth from the bowels of the earth, and replace them on a smaller scale by the crystal forms I have faintly attempted to describe, and the resemblance would be striking....
The road now changed its course, and our driver directed his steeds towards the bank. Suddenly we discovered that immediately in front of us the ice had broken beneath a horse and sleigh, and that the animal was struggling in the water. The river here was fortunately only about four feet deep, so there would not be much difficulty in extracting the quadruped; but what to ourselves seemed far more important was to solve the knotty problem of how to get to land, for between our sleigh and the shore was a wide gulf, and there seemed to be no possibility of driving through it without a wetting. “Pleasant,” muttered my companion, “pleasant, very! Let us get out and have a good look round, to see if we cannot find a place where we can get across in safety.”
“I will pull you through,” observed our Jehu, with a broad grin on his lobster-colored countenance, and apparently much amused with the state of affairs.
“No, oh, son of an animal,” retorted my companion; “stay here till we return.”