with all things necessary, and to conduct them by land to the
presence of their king. And so Master Chanceler began his journey,
which was very long and most troublesome, wherein he had the use of
certain sledges which in that country are very common, for they are
carried themselves upon sledges, and all their carriages are in the
same sort, the people almost not knowing any other manner of
carriage, the cause whereof is the exceeding hardness of the ground,
congealed in the winter time by the force of the cold, which in
those places is very extreme and horrible, whereof hereafter we will
say something. But now, they having passed the greater part of
their journey, met at last with the sledgeman (of whom I spake
before) sent to the king secretly from the justices or governors,
who by some ill-hap had lost his way, and had gone to the seaside
which is near to the country of the Tartars, thinking there to have
found our ship. But having long erred and wandered out of his way,
at the last in his direct return, he met, as he was coming, our
Captain on the way. To whom he by-and-by delivered the Emperor's
letters, which were written to him with all courtesy, and in the
most loving manner that could be: wherein express commandment was
given that post horses should be gotten for him and the rest of his
company without any money. Which thing was of all the Russians in
the rest of their journey so willingly done, that they began to
quarrel, yea, and to fight also in striving and contending which of
them should put their post-horses to the sled: so that after much
ado, and great pains taken in this long and weary journey (for they
had travelled very near fifteen hundred miles), Master Chanceler
came at last to Moscow, the chief city of the kingdom, and the seat
of the king, of which city, and of the Emperor himself, and of the
principal cities of Muscovy, we will speak immediately more at large
in this discourse.