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652 COXE’S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.
parts at Id.. per verft * for each horfe; and, in compenfation, are exempted from
the poll-tax, and fupplying recruits: notwithftanding thefe immunities, the price
they receive for their horfes is fo inconfiderable that they frequently produce them
with the greate(t relu€tance. ‘The inftant a traveller demands a {fupply of frefh horfes,
the yamfhics affemble in crowds, and frequently wrangle to fuch a degree, as to afford
amufement to a perfon who is not impatient to depart. ‘Their fquabbles on this oc-
cafion have ftruck all travellers who have given any account of this country. Chan-
celer, the firft Enelifhman who landed at Archangel, and went from thence to Mofcow,
could not fail to obferve this circumftance, which equally prevailed at that period as
at prefent +. ‘ Exprefle commandement was given, that poft-horfes fhould bee gotten
for him and the reft of his company, without any money. Which thing was, of all
the Ruiles in the reft of their journey, fo willingly done, that they began to quarrel,
yea, and to fight alfo, in ftriving and contending which of them fhould put their poft-
horfes to the fledde.”’
In this defcription, however, Chanceler has madea ludicrous miftake: for the obje&
of their fquabbles was not to obtain, but to decline, the honour of furnifhing him with
horfes. ‘The fame fcene is often renewed at prefent, and the poft-mafter not unufually
fettles the intricate conteft by compelling the yamfhics to draw lots. Indeed, as I have
before remarked, it is abfolutely neceflary for a foreigner, who wifhes to travel with
expedition, not only to provide himfelf with a paffport, but alfo to procure a Ruffian
foldier, who, inftead of attending to the arguments of the peafants, or waiting for the
flow mediation of the poft-mafter, fummarily decides the bufinefs by the powerful in-
terpofition of his cudgel. The boors, quickly /ilenced by this dumb mode of argumen-
tation t, find no difficulty in adjufting their pretenfions, and the horfes almoft initantly
make their appearance.
In our route through Ruffia I was furprized at the propenfity of the natives to
finging. Even the peafants who acted in the capacity of coachmen and _pottillions,
were no fooner mounted than they began to warble an air, and continued it, without
the leaft intermiflion, for feveral hours. But what ftill more aftonifhed me was,
that they performed occafionally in parts. I frequently obferved them engaged in a
kind of mufical dialogue, making reciprocal queftions and refponfes, as if chanting
(if [may fo exprefs myfelf) their ordinary converfation. The poftilions fg from the
beginning to the end ofa ftage ; the foldiers fing during their march; the countrymen
Jing amid their moft laborious occupations ; the public-houfes re-echo with theircarols;
and in a ftill evening I have frequently heard the air vibrate with the notes of the fur-
rounding villages.
An ingenious author §, long refident in Ruffia, who turned his attention to the
ftudy of the national mufic, gives the following information upon this fubject. The
general mufic that prevails among the common people in Ruffia, from the Duna to
the Amoor and the Frozen Ocean, confifts in one {pecies of fimple melody, which
admits of infinite variation, according tothe ability of the finger, or the cuftom of the
feveral provinces in this extenfive empire. The words of the fongs are moftly in
profe, and often extempore, according to the immediate invention or recollection of
* Three quarters of amile. ‘The price however has been fince increafed.
+ Hackluyt’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 247. ~ Argumentum baculinum.
§ Staehlin. See his Nacrichten von der Mufik in Rufsland, in Haygold’s Beylagen, vol, ii, p. 60 to
65; where fpecimens of this air are given.
the
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