Very often, crews, walking past Zheguli under the pretext of guarding sailing ships, disembarked somewhere near a settlement and got to the nearest tavern; incredible drunkenness began there, the most outrageous revelry, and it often happened that the drunken crew, having settled on their boats in a state bordering on unconsciousness, began, for no apparent reason, to fire from cannons, not at all realizing at whom and for what purpose this firing was being directed.
The land zemstvo police were more useful for the cause in all respects and acted much more effectively against robbers. She organized heavy raids on them and quite often achieved results that the grunt crew had never even dreamed of. Actually, the cessation of robberies at UKeguli began with the rabbi of the steamship, i.e., approximately from 1845; but, however, in 1847, 9 more ships were robbed. Of course, this was also low, but compared to the previous one, it was completely low. A year later, it was possible to destroy the very nests of robbers, and then there was such silence that during the entire navigation period there was not a single case of robbery of ships, “of which,” as the general report for this year says, “there was no example before.” Bandits of robbers were eradicated, and the isolated robbers degenerated into petty thieves and fugitives without a passport. The common peasantry, which in the past had given peace to gangs of robbers, was by no means inclined to make peace with individual thieves and vagabonds; Having reached significant prosperity by the half of the present century, it was even more willing to take an active part in the capture of the Oeglys and thieves. Since the destruction of serfdom and the contingent of whites there was no longer anyone to replenish, and therefore the Zhegulevskie robberies and robberies moved at that time to the region of betrayal and sailing at least one in a boat along the Veguli is now as safe as taking a long walk of 800 along the Zhegulevskie forests.
As for the mineral wealth of the eguli, described by Pallas during his trip to the Samara bow in 1769, they consist mainly of mountain limestone; In addition, there is a lot of sulfur and salty springs in the mountains. In the past, between the villages of Shiryaeva and Podgornaya, there was even a cheese factory that produced over 400 pounds of pure cheese annually. To this day, there are cases of gold prospecting in Zheguli, which, however, always remain fruitless; The reason for them is the pyrite found in the mountains, which looks like gold, although there is nothing in common with it. Currently, many villages of Keguley make their living by burning lime, which is sent in significant quantities to Samara, Saratov and other lower cities; Especially a lot of it is mined in the Shiryaevsky Gully and in Morkvashi.
Zhegulevsve forests also represent significant wealth. They spread orderly and majestically along the peaks and ravines of Ukeguli, capturing vast spaces. In these forests you can find all kinds of tree species: you see tall oaks there, and thick grand lindens, and pines, decorating the exposed rocks and terraces; you find maple and aspen in abundance;
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— 98 closer to the shore, spreading willows and alders rustle with their wide crowns; There is also a tall elm there, and at the very bottom various bushes are intertwined so that you can hardly get through them.
It’s nice to take a walk in the summer through the Kegulevsky forest in the cool shade of its dense foliage. It’s good to admire the magnificent wide views of the Volga from the top of the wild Zhegulevsky rocks; the distances are spread out there in front of you across an immense space. With great interest you can hunt in Zheguli along the local forests and ravines for the permanent inhabitants of these forests: brown bear, vulture, wolf, fox and hare. Along the very banks of the great river, you can easily carry out a different type of hunting: there, in the reeds and backwaters, huge flocks of wild ducks and snipe live.
In view of the fact that the reader and I, in our journey along the Volga from Nizhny, reached Samara and the fact that in all the provinces we have covered, and partly in those neighboring them, the largest contingent of the foreign population is the Mordovians, we consider it not superfluous to say a few words about this tribe.
Mordovians essentially belong to the Wonderful, or Finnish tribe, and under this general name we mean a large group of tribes, of which the main ones are Erzya and Moksha. Erzya is more numerous, all concentrated in the southern part of the Nizhny Novgorod and north-eastern parts of the Simbirsk province; Moksha is a tribe extremely scattered throughout all the provinces where the Mordovians live; in “Ш и [Х въкь” it was known under the name Burtasov.