have no local knowledge regarding the exact position of sand-banks and
deep pools.

Good serviceable fellows are those Cossacks who drag the steamer off
the sand-banks, and are often entertaining companions. Many of them can
relate from their own experience, in plain, unvarnished style,
stirring episodes of irregular warfare, and if they happen to be in
a communicative mood they may divulge a few secrets regarding their
simple, primitive commissariat system. Whether they are confidential
or not, the traveller who knows the language will spend his time
more profitably and pleasantly in chatting with them than in gazing
listlessly at the uninteresting country through which he is passing.

Unfortunately, these Don steamers carry a large number of free
passengers of another and more objectionable kind, who do not confine
themselves to the deck, but unceremoniously find their way into the
cabin, and prevent thin-skinned travellers from sleeping. I know too
little of natural history to decide whether these agile, bloodthirsty
parasites are of the same species as those which in England assist
unofficially the Sanitary Commissioners by punishing uncleanliness;
but I may say that their function in the system of created things is
essentially the same, and they fulfil it with a zeal and energy beyond
all praise. Possessing for my own part a happy immunity from their
indelicate attentions, and being perfectly innocent of entomological
curiosity, I might, had I been alone, have overlooked their existence,
but I was constantly reminded of their presence by less happily
constituted mortals, and the complaints of the sufferers received a
curious official confirmation. On arriving at the end of the journey
I asked permission to spend the night on board, and I noticed that the
captain acceded to my request with more readiness and warmth than I