Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/86

tory from east to west? can I not derive therefrom food enough in all conscience to satisfy me? I should rather think it is you who have not enough to eat, possessing so small a portion of the globe as you do, and having daily to contend for it."

The kingdom of Kazan, with the city and fortress of the same name, is situated on the further bank of the river Volga, nearly seventy miles below Lower Novogorod. The king of this province can raise an army of thirty thousand men, principally foot soldiers, amongst whom the Czeremissi and Czubaschi are the most skilful archers. They say that the Czubaschi excel in the art of navigation. The city of Kazan is sixty German miles distant from the principal fortress of Viatka. These Tartars are more civilized than the rest, in as much as they cultivate their lands, live in houses, and carry on various branches of merchandize. But Vasiley, Prince of Moscow, has so subjugated them, as to bring their kings entirely under his sway; which undertaking was the less difficult, not only from the convenient position of the rivers, which flow from Moscow into the Volga, but also from the commercial intercourse, which they could not dispense with. The people of Kazan formerly had a king named Chelealeck, who died, leaving a wife named Nursulta, without children, and she was taken to wife by one Abrahemin, who by this means gained possession of the kingdom. Abrahemin had by her two sons, named Machmedemin and Abdelatiw; by a former wife, named Batmassasolta, however, he had had a son named Alega, who, upon the death of his father, succeeded as the first-born to the throne. But as he was not entirely obedient to the commands of the Prince of Moscow, he was on a certain occasion made drunk at a festival by some of the councillors of the Prince of Moscow, whom he had sent thither to watch the disposition of the king, and who in that state placed him in a carriage, as if with the intention of conveying him home; but on that