Of the Court of Baatu, and our Entertainment there.
On that part of the Volga where we arrived, they have lately built a new
village, in which there is a mixed population of Russians and Tartars,
established for the service of the ferry, that they may transport
messengers going to and from the court of Baatu, as he always remains on
the east side of the Volga. Neither does he ever travel any farther north,
in summer, than to the place where we arrived on that river, and was even
then descending towards the south. From January till August, he and all the
other Tartars ascend by the banks of rivers towards the cold regions of the
north, and in August they begin again to return. From the place where we
came to the Volga, is a journey of five days northward to the first
villages of the Greater Bulgaria, and I am astonished to think how the
Mahometan religion should have travelled thither; as from Derbent, on the
extreme borders of Persia, it is thirty days journey to pass the desert and
ascend along the Volga into Bulgaria, and in the whole track there are no
towns, and only a few villages where the Volga falls into the Caspian; yet
these Bulgarians[1] are the most bigotedly attached to the religion of
Mahomet, of any of the nations that have been perverted to that diabolical
superstition.
The court of Baatu having already gone towards the south, we passed down
the stream of the Volga in a bark from the before mentioned village, to
where his court then was; and we were astonished at the magnificent
appearance of his encampment, as his houses and tents were so numerous, as
to appear like some large city, stretching out to a vast length; and there
were great numbers of people ranging about the country, to three or four
leagues all around.
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