Therein is his
glory--and, perhaps, his weakness. Therefore, an attempt has been
made, wherever corruptions, slang, and so forth, appear in the
original, to render them through the nearest English equivalents.
While this has its obvious dubieties and disadvantages, any other
course would have smacked of prettification--a fate which such a
book as "Yama" surely does not deserve.
PART ONE
CHAPTER I.
A long, long time ago, long before the railroads, the stage-
drivers--both government and private--used to live, from
generation to generation, at the very farthest confine of a large
southern city. And that is why the entire region was called the
Yamskaya Sloboda--the Stage-drivers' Borough; or simply Yamskaya,
or Yamkas--Little Ditches, or, shorter still, Yama--The Pit. In
the course of time, when hauling by steam killed off
transportation by horses, the mettlesome tribe of the stage-
drivers little by little lost its boisterous ways and its brave
customs, went over into other occupations, fell apart and
scattered. But for many years--even up to this time--a shady
renown has remained to Yama, as of a place exceedingly gay, tipsy,
brawling, and in the night-time not without danger.
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