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From time to time he sought a change of scene, and then arranged with his friends to drive in a three-horse carriage, drawn by fresh horses, forty versts away to the seat of a landed proprietor, where for three days the fun was fast enough. Then they returned, put up with Tushin, or waked the sleepy town. In these festivals all class distinctions were lost.
The Chinese farmers, it should also be observed in passing, fully realize the importance of land rolling and harrowing. It is no uncommon sight to see a man driving a three-horse harrow. It is also said that for hundreds of years the Chinese have practised a suitable rotation of crops and have known the value of leguminous plants. Nankou Pass, China. I shall have to go back to Peking some time.
The driver's seat was up high, and the top of the van stuck over and made a little roof for it; and on the side of the van was a picture of two lions, and the lions in the picture were about as big as real lions. And behind that van came another three-horse van like the first, with lions painted on the side.
But I was reassured when informed that the crowd was simply composed of curious idlers, who were following their usual habits in coming down to see the travellers land. The sun was going down. I at once hired a three-horse chaise, and made off forthwith, for I was not without apprehensions, seeing I had been told I might very likely encounter highwaymen.
Suddenly away flash wig and beard and false-face, the pantaloons are stripped off with the same movement, the actor stoops for the reins lying on the horse's neck, and James Rivers, the greatest three-horse rider in the world, nimbly capers on the broad pad, and kisses his hand to the shouting and cheering spectators as he dashes from the ring past the braying and bellowing brass-band into the dressing-room!
As we were waiting our green-coated friend got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six. The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the hills were floating in mist, and there was a sharp shower.
The clumsy three-horse omnibuses Madeleine-Bastille crowded inside and out with passengers and with their neatly uniformed drivers and conductors, so different in appearance and manner from our own slovenly street-car rowdies, were endeavouring to breast a perfect sea of fiacres which, like a swarm of mosquitoes, appeared to be trying to go in every direction at once, their drivers vociferating torrents of vituperous abuse on every man, woman or beast unfortunate enough to get in their way.
Men who were their peers also contended on chargers and pairs and three-horse teams. A certain Quintus Vitellius, a senator, fought as a gladiator. All kinds of wild beasts and kine were slain by the wholesale, among them a rhinoceros and a hippopotamus, then seen for the first time in Rome. Many have described the appearance of the hippo and it has been seen by many more.
The door was softly opened by an invisible hand, and they entered and passed through a dark passage and out into a stable-yard behind the house. Under a shed they found a troika, or three-horse sleigh, with the horses ready harnessed, in charge of a man dressed as a mujik.
On the following day, after the contract was signed, Nekhludoff, with an unpleasant feeling of having left something undone, seated himself in the "dandy" three-horse team and took leave of the peasants, who were shaking their heads in doubt and dissatisfaction. Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself he could not tell why, but he felt sad, and was ashamed of something.
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