How quiet and dreamy are the three or four

villages which constitute that restful region ! They lie not far from one another, and seem to have been thrown into their respective positions by some giant hand, and ever since to have maintained those positions. In particular, one hut stands on the edge of a ravine, with one-half its bulk projecting over the declivity, but supported on three props. Within it some three or four genera- tions have spent happy, peaceful lives ; for though it looks scarcely large enough to house a chicken, it is none the less tenanted by a well-to-do peasant and his wife. Onisim Suslov is the peasant's name, and he cannot stand upright in his abode. The veranda actually overhangs the ravine, and to reach it one has with one hand to grasp the herbage, and, with the other, the gable before setting foot upon the structure itself. Another of the huts is, as it were, gummed to the side of a hill, like a swallow's nest, while three others stand close beside it, and two are situated at the bottom of the ravine.

In the village all is quiet. The doors of its solitary little dwellings stand open, but not a soul is to be seen. Only the flies circle and buzz in clusters. Were you to

enter one of the huts, you would call