Yeraslave also is a town of some good fame for the commodities of hides,
tallow, and corn, which it yields in great abundance. Cakes of wax are
there also to be sold, although other places have greater store; this
Yeraslave is distant from Moscow about two hundred miles, and betwixt
them are many populous villages. Their fields yield such store of corn,
that in conveying it towards Moscow, sometimes in a forenoon, a man shall
see seven hundred or eight hundred sleds going and coming, laden with
corn and salt fish; the people come a thousand miles to Moscow to buy
that corn, and then carry it away upon sleds; and these are those people
that dwell in the north parts, where the cold is so terrible that no corn
doth grow there, or, if it spring up, it never comes to ripeness. The
commodities that they bring with them are salt fish, skins, and hides.