...gues by without some houses or, if the wind is strong, whole stteers guing up in smoke. Several oights while we were there we saw flames rising in three or four places ar . The streers ate broud, but in the fall and in rainy wearher they once. ate a sea of mud. For that...

...then covered with birch bark or sod. For this reason, they often have great fires. Not a month, nor even a week, goes by without some homes — or, if...burned down, and we were told that the same thing had happened four years earlier. When such disasters occur, the strel'tsy [troops of the tsar] and...