The River
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come the people from the province of Grodno.
You can recognize the Grodno people by their carts. The carts have coverings made of checked and striped material stretched over a basket-work frame.
This homespun material is used for the festival dresses of the peasant women.
In the province of Grodno the peasant women make such cloth.
They offer it at sixty copecks an arshin at the relief points on the road:
Even in the extremity of their need they will not part with it for less than sixty copecks.
And with this precious material they now cover their carts!
All goes to ruin!
This is a twice-humbled people.
—First of all, good man, there came through our province fugitives from other places. They ruined us: dug up our
