nance of the foundling hospitals both at St. Petersburg and at Moscow, upon a scale unprecedented elsewhere--all consideration of their immoralizing tendency yielding to that of the constant recruitage thus supplied to the army. If any Swedish ambassador ever gave the head of the secret police so minute a description of an individual, there could be little doubt what his intentions were; in fact, the only part of the anecdote which we must at once reject is its point; to wit, the reality of his astonishment." bye.' Captain Jesse, having mixed very little in the native society, has reserved to himself the These volumes conclude with some careprivilege of unrestrained speech; and his is ful tables of Russian measurements, weights, the only recent book of any importance on and money; and what may prove to some a Russia in which such is the case; but the ad- useful vocabulary of those Russian words of vantage here is less than may be at first glance most frequent occurrence; though the uncesurmised. The sacrifices and suppressions remonious amalgamation of many words into to which the traveller, who domesticates him- one reminds us of a similar liberty taken in self with the nation, is compelled, by his a Russian-Anglo dialogue-book, where what sense of private friendship, are amply com- are supposed to be our national terms of pensated by the light he is enabled to throw greeting are thus compactly rendered: on other subjects; while the very sense of "Howdodo, makeshakehans, toyorhellt, gubisolation in a multitude, which an opposite system entails, is apt to fill the note-book with details of those petty discomforts to which, under these circumstances, the stranger is doubly exposed. Nor is this independence by any means the guarantee for right impressions or right reports. On the contrary, there are in every country a number of false anecdotes current like bad coin, which the foreigner thus situated runs the risk of pocketing, without any suspicion of their having been rejected by all others. We overheard a worthy German, who had shortly before made a journey through England, lecturing an untravelled circle on the tenacity of forms in this country, and seriously stating, among other facts, that a gentleman actually refused to help a lady out of a piece of water, where she ran every risk of being drowned, not because he could not swim, or was afraid of wetting his feet, but because he had not been introduced to her! We fancy we can detect sundry anecdotes of the same class in Captain Jesse's work; and here is one which, not being the fruit of his own observation, we have less hesitation in noticing. Speaking of the terrors of the secret police, he relates the following circumstance, We cannot part with Captain Jesse with out once more thanking him for much interesting information-more especially on the military system of Russia. It is to be hoped that, on future occasions, he will learn to keep his mess-table propensity to eternal merriment under better restraint; and if so, we think him not unlikely to earn a very respectable rank among the living classics of the United Service. Meanwhile we must turn to another author, whose name we have not yet mentioned; but who, nevertheless, has been much in our thoughts ever since we be gan our article. If some writers, from the minute accuracy of their details, have been likened to such painters as Mieris, Jan Steen, &c., M. Kohl's work on St. Petersburg is nothing less than the Daguerreotype itself. He has really given us St. Petersburg by winter and by summer by day and by night-with its Neva, canals, quays, markets, shops, and houses-each swarming with its respective population, not stiffly drawn, as if sitting for their picture, but caught in full life and movement, song, laugh, and talk-hit off in every shade and grade of mind, habit, speech, and costumeunder every aspect of feasting and fasting, buying and selling, driving and walking, idling and working, teaching and learning, baptising, marrying, and burying-and all with a truth and vivacity which it would be impossible to surpass. No doubt, when bassador, "but he is of such an age, height, and M. Kohl departs from his happy delineation appearance." The chef de police knew him not, of nature, he indulges in a few profound but promised to make inquiries. About three speculations regarding the destination of a weeks after this they met again. "Ah, bon cannon-ball, &c., and occasional elaborate jour," said the mouchard; "I have got your exemplifications of everyday truisms, which man; we have had him in prison a fortnight." sufficiently betray his nation; but these are "My man!" said the astonished diplomate; of too rare occurrence to injure the interest "what man?" "Why, the one you inquired which happened to a Swedish ambassador at Petersburg a few years ago. This gentleman, meeting the Benkendorf of his day in the street, asked him, in a casual way, whether he had heard anything of a Swede lately arrived in the capital, whom he was anxious to see on business. "I do not know his name," said the am after three weeks ago? did you not want him of the work even with us, and, of course, arrested?"-Jesse, vol. ii., p. 217. they will give it an additional value in the eyes of his own countrymen. At all events, literally heaped to the brim with the precious he has richly redeemed the promise of his metal, but as, in process of time, the goblets title-page, Petersburg in Pictures and were observed gradually to increase in capacity, Sketches,' for the work is truly a succession so that his Majesty had always more and more of the most lively pictures, all agreeing in the sum was fixed at 200 ducats-an imperial water to drink, and more and more gold to pay, general truth and style, and yet each so dis- price, after all, for a glass of water.'-Kohl, vol. tinct with individual character, that we can i., p. 37. imagine no reader likely to be so deeply in terested and gratified with its pages as a Rus- Taking us back a few weeks previous sian himself-which is more than can be said to this ceremony, and describing the vaof most modern books relating to Russia. In rious stages of thaw and symptoms of such a varied and extensive field the only decay, he says— difficulty becomes that of selection—especially as in a large octavo work of above Large holes may now be seen in the ice, seven hundred pages of the closest German while the whole surface is covered with dirty print, we find snow-water. The frozen Neva, which, when third every page marked with animated with passing sledges and busy pedesour own hieroglyphics, as worthy of a second trians, was lively enough to witness, now bereading. We must, therefore, content our-comes an oppressive sight to the city, and selves with translating such passages as bear everybody seems impatient to be rid of its foul more especially on the peculiar locality of crust. Weeks of fine and mild weather now St. Petersburg, with the addition of a few elapse, and still the Neva lies immovable. specimens from its street life. But, be it ob- Compared with wind and rain, the sun has but served, that as M. Kohl, like a true painter, occurrence hailed with joy by all Petersburg at little influence upon it-one smart shower, an has drawn chiefly from the unsophisticated this time, will do more than three days of sunmasses of the people, without being led aside shine. So long as the water remains standing to dwell upon the composite and artificial upon the ice, even when deep enough to swim features of upper life; and, as St. Petersburg a horse, passengers still venture over-its disis not the home, but the passing refuge, of appearance is a sign of the ice having both looshis favourite Mougiks and Istvostchicks, his lively description of these classes may be garded as the standard of low life throughout all the national portion of the empire. Upon the Pindaric principle we com mence with the Neva : ened itself from the shore, and become too re-runner of a speedy breaking-up...... The Neva porous to sustain the water, and is a sure foreusually breaks up between the 18th and 26th of April-the oftenest altogether on the 18th of April-i. e. ten times in a hundred years. The latest period known was on the 12th of Mayonce in a hundred years-the earliest on the 18th of March-also once in a hundred years. 'For half the year the Neva nymph is wrap-On the other hand, the Neva generally closes ped in bands of frost. Not till the middle, rarely at the beginning, of April, are the waters sufficiently warm and vigorous to burst their yoke asunder. This moment is awaited with the greatest impatience, and no sooner have the dirty ice-masses urged themselves for--Ibid. p. 38. ward, and laid bare a sufficient space of the stream's smooth surface to give passage to a boat, than the event is announced to the inha-miliar with the phenomenon of the ice-pasM. Kohl, being, as a North German, fabitants by the roar of cannon from the fortress. That instant, be it night or day, the com for the winter towards the end of November, generally on the 20th of that month-i. e. nine times in a hundred years. In 1826, it did not close till the 26th of December, and in 1805 it was frozen over as early as the 28th of October.' sage, does not describe it here. Though mandant of the fortress, in full uniform, and acattended with the utmost grandeur of sound companied by all his staff, steps into a richly- and movement, its duration is but short, the decorated gondola, in order to proceed across to river being usually cleared in about twelve the Palace, bearing with him a magnificent hours. But the departure of the river's own crystal goblet filled with the fresh Neva water, ice by no means clears away the troubles of as an offering in the name of the Spring from the city. On the contrary, by far the greatthe river-god to the Czar. The commandant announces to his sovereign that the might of the est danger and interruption now arise from winter is broken, and that a prosperous naviga- the enormous masses of ice from the Lake tion may be expected; and then pointing to his Ladoga, in the interior, which rush down the gondola moored at the quay-the first swan Neva, and, passing through St. Petersburg on upon the waters-he presents the Neva goblet, their way to the gulf, block up the river for which his Majesty immediately drains to the days and even weeks together. Lake Ladoga health and prosperity of his capital. This is the dearest glass of water drunk on the whole embraces a space of about 400 square miles. surface of the globe-the Emperor, according A great portion of its frozen surface is of to established custom, returning it to the com- course absorbed and melted in the lake, but mandant filled with gold. Formerly it was much still remains to be discharged down the Neva, while, the mouth of the lake being | mum amount for each ice-cellar, our author contracted and hemmed in with adhesive ice, gives a return of 500,000 loads, or a load large masses are kept back, and only detached apiece for each inhabitant of the metropolis. down the river long after the lake itself is Upon the whole he estimates that the concleared. Our author sets before us, with his sumption of ice does not cost St. Petersburg peculiar felicity of picture, how, when all St. less than from two to three millions of rubles Petersburg is green with fresh spring and (i. e. from 40,000l. to 60,0007.) annually— mild with balmy airs, and the Neva speckled an expense, he adds, which no other capital with countless boats of pleasure, masses of ice knows. from Lake Ladoga will be seen slowly wending their way along, bearing on their surface the fragments of a peasant's sledge, or the skeleton of some poor horse that had perished in the winter. ward. The dangers which at all times beset the imperial city, and the chances that the awful powers of nature which lie in ambush around it will one day prevail, are thus stated:'The Gulf of Finland stretches in its greatest His details as to the bridges are very curi-length in a straight line from Petersburg westous. Hitherto all plans for erecting a stone bridge strong enough to resist the violence of the ice, and yet not so heavy as to sink into the swampy foundation, have failed. The Neva is, therefore, only passed by bridges of boats, which in the winter, in order to facilitate the crossing at the main points of traffic, are placed upon the ice itself. Each bridge has its appointed officer and detachment, and during the period of thaw their labours are incessant. Such is the immense traffic over these links of the city, and the necessity of communication with the islands on which the Exchange and other important edifices stand, that the Isaac's Bridge has been known to be taken up and put down three times in one day, and as many as three-and-twenty times in one spring! Each of these occasions is of course attended with great expense, so that M. Kohl reckons that the Isaac's Bridge, in the short period of its existence, has already cost more than the massive stone bridge at Dresden, during its 300 years' span. As a proof how wisely national wants and tastes are adapted to the means most plentifully supplied them, our author dwells upon the enormous consumption of ice for household purposes in Russia : The most violent winds blow from this quarter, and the waters of the gulf are thus driven direct upon the city. Were the gulf spacious in this part, there would not be so much to apprehend; but unfortunately the shores contract immediately towards Petersburg, which lies at its innermost point; while close to the city the waters lie hemmed in and pent up in the narrow bay of Cronstadt. In addition to this, the Neva, which flows from east to west, here discharges its waters into the gulf, thus encountering the violent waves from the west in a diametrically opposite direction. The islands of the Neva delta, on which the palaces of Petersburg take root, are particularly flat and low. On their outer and uninhabited sides towards the sea they completely lose themselves beneath the waters, and even those parts which lie highest, and are consequently most peopled, are only raised from twelve to fourteen feet above the level of the gulf. A rise of fifteen feet is sufficient, therefore, to lay all Petersburg under water, and one of thirty or forty feet must overwhelm the city. 'The Russians cool all their drinks with ice -iced beverages of various descriptions are commonly sold in the streets throughout the summer-and, not satisfied with their iced water, iced wine, and iced beer, they even drink iced tea, substituting for a lump of sugar a similar portion of ice. Their short but astonishingly hot summer would spoil most of their provisions, were it not for the means the winter bequeaths them for counteracting this evil. Icehouses [or ice-cellars, as the Germans more properly call them] are therefore indispensable appendages to every house, and as common with the simple peasant in the country as with the luxurious citizen of Petersburg. In this capital there are no less than 10,000 ice-cellars, and the amount of labour requisite to fill them during the winter may be therefore imagined.' Reckoning fifty loads of ice as the mini To bring about this latter disaster nothing more is requisite than that a strong west wind should exactly concur with high water and icepassage. The ice-masses from the gulf would then be driven land ward and those of the Neva seaward, whilst, in this battle of the Titans, the marvellous city, with all its palaces and fortresses, princes and beggars, would be swallowed in the floods like Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Scarce may we speak thus lightly of the future, for in truth the danger lies so near that many a Petersburg heart quails at the thought. Their only hope lies in the improbability of these three enemies, west wind, high water, and ice passage combining against them at one and the same time. Fortunately for them there are sixty-four winds in the compass. 'Had the old Finnish inhabitants of the Neva islands made their observations and bequeathed them to their successors, the average chances would have warned them how often in a thousand years such a combination must occur. In short, we shall not be astonished to hear any day that Petersburg, which like a brilliant meteor rose from the Finnish marshes, had just as suddenly been extinguished in the same. God protect it!'-Ibid. p. 49. The hand of man, he adds, can do nothing here. New moles for keeping out the water, and new canals for carrying it off, are talked of and tried, as it were only to show the fruitlessness of such plans, and meanwhile St. Petersburg lies utterly defenceless. So insidious and unforeseen is the rise of the waters, that public means are adopted to warn the city of the danger : may be faintly conceived. But the distress of this day was surpassed, if possible, by that of the ensuing, when the retreat of the waters showed the extent of the misery. Thousands of human beings had perished; whole rows of houses which had resisted their first fury, now fell down, as their foundations were drained from beneath them;-the loss of cattle, furniture, and other property, is esti When, after a continuation of westerly mated at upwards of a hundred millions of winds, the water of the Neva is observed to roubles, or almost five millions sterling. As creep round the outermost points of the islands, a sequel to this, the public distress was wound a cannon is fired from the admiralty, and waterflags hoisted on all towers, to apprise the inha- up to its last pitch by the wasting pestilence bitants that their city is besieged by the Nereids. which ensued. Dreadful as was this visitaAs the water increases, the cannon is fired once tion, it was nevertheless tempered with meran hour. As it advances further, and inundates cy. Had the inundation happened in the the lower outskirts of the city, the alarm is spring, the shock of the ice-masses, which no sounded every quarter of an hour; when it building could have withstood, would have steals into the city itself, signals are repeated been superadded to the violence of the waevery five minutes; and in the last extremity minute guns summon, with desperate cries, ters, while the steaming exhalations from the every boat to help.' heat of the ensuing summer, would have incalculably multiplied the diseases of the surOur author proceeds to give an account of vivors. The height of this inundation is dethe dreadful inundation of the 17th Novem- signated upon the principal houses, with the ber, 1824, the worst the city had ever expe- date annexed; and our author quaintly obrienced, and the horrors of which are still in serves, God grant that the Petersburg every mouth. The waters rose so gently and house-painters may never earn another rouble innocently (unschuldig') that, in those por- by such a job. For every inch higher that tions of the city too remote to hear the sig- they place their mark, the city will have had nals, the inhabitants had no suspicion of what to pay millions more of roubles, and hundreds was going forward, and only wondered to more of families will have been thrown into see the clear shining pools of water lying in mourning.' the street thousands, therefore, continued their usual avocations, and hundreds paid for this day's work with their lives. But as soon as the waters had fairly gained possession, they threw off the mask of "The population of this city, from the highest peace. Lashed into fury by a strong west wind, and to the lowest classes, is in a state of incessant ebb and flow. The nobility of the land come bearing all opposition before them, they shot and go; foreigners arrive, settle for a period, in lengthened currents through the streets, and then return to spend their gains in their filling the cellars and lower stories, and dash- own countries, leaving new comers to supply ing upwards from the sewers under ground their places. The garrison is constantly shiftin violent-columns. Every minute now in- ing, the Chinovniks are perpetually transferred creased their force and volume. The vehi- from one government to another; while of the cles on the public stands were lifted from of servants, workmen, carpenters, stonemasons, lower classes, comprising hundreds of thousands their wheels; those horses which were de- manufacturers, &c., most are serfs, who, having serted by their owners perished miserably in only a temporary leave of absence from their their harness, and many owners who stopped masters, swarm in the capital for a time, and to save their horses perished themselves. are then as surely succeeded by hosts of others. Stone houses fell, and wooden buildings were Even the istvostchiks (the hack drivers) share lifted entire from their foundations, and with in the general spirit of circulation which pervades the empire from one end to another, and all their contents went driving about the every few months the droshky-seats will be streets. The trees in the squares hung thick found occupied by new faces from the Don, the with fugitives; cattle and horses were drag- Volga, and the Dnieper-who after a time thithged up stairs, on to a second story, and stood er disappear again. In one word, Petersburg, in landings and ante-rooms; and many fami- like every other city in Russia, is merely a place lies, whose members the waters had surprised where, for the better convenience of trade, the when apart, were doomed never to be re-dezvous, and not, like our towns, a home where various tribes of the population appoint a renunited. The flood rose for twenty-four men live and die, and families vegetate, like hours; and the horrors of the night, with the house-leek on their roofs, for centuries toevery public lamp extinguished, and no moon, gether. Every ten years the main mass of the VOL. LXIX. 29 But now, though the Neva is far from being exhausted, we must turn to another source and species of mutation. population may be considered as quite new.' Ibid. p. 119. He devotes a whole chapter to the Istvostchiks. It is calculated that in London there is one driver of a public vehicle for every sixty of the population; and that at St. Petersburg there are 600 for the same number. M. Kohl gives the aggregate at pretty nearly this ratio-namely, 8,000; and in no city, truly, is their help more requisite. The Russians are not a walking people, and, even if they were, it would help them but little in this great city, where the length of three buildings alone, separated one from the other by a narrow canal, will take a quick walker above five-and-twenty minutes-all, we need not add, on level ground. An individual, therefore, who should make a morning call in one portion of the city, take dinner in a second, and spend his evening in a third, would, without at all diverging from the regions of fashion, spend most of the day on foot. On this account, as well as from the heavy walking occasioned by the dust-like snow in winter, the real dust in summer, and the wretched pavement at all times of the year, there is no wonder that the words, Davai, istvostchik,' i. e. 'Give here, istvostchik,' are so common a sound: "This "Davai" need scarcely be repeated. In most cases it is sufficient to think it, with a searching glance from the trottoir, to have halfa-dozen sledges shoot towards you. In a moment the nose bags are pulled off, the horses reined up, and each istvostchik sits ready on his box, each alike confident of being engaged. "Whither, Sudar?" "To the admiralty?" "I'll take the Sudar for two roubles," cries one. "I for a rouble and a half," shouts another; and before you can answer, a third is at your service for half a rouble. Of course you take the cheapest, generally the worst, and resign yourself to a volley of jokes and sarcasms from the party. that a little stays behind in their own, they As there is no police regulation for the fares of the istvostchiks, the passenger is obliged to make an agreement every time. Upon the whole, however, they are very reasonable, and will drive you a number of wersts for little charges, and according also as the day is marked money. The weather greatly affects their black or red in the Greek calendar are they more or less extortionate. On a feast-day (red) they will not abate a kopek. At noon-tide also, when business is at its height, and the whole population seems driving about, they will hardly take you for two roubles where they would otherwise take you for half a one. But morning and evening they are the most obliging creatures in the world, and will often, out of sheer good temper, put you across the muddy street, from one trottoir to another, for nothing. 6 The different nationalities of the istvostchiks are easily recognisable in their different modes of driving and managing their horses. The German is the most rational-[of course]-he speaks seldom, and only communicates with his horse by means of reins or whip. The Fin sits as quiet and immoveable on his box as if he were part of it himself, repeating, in long drawn-out tones, "Nah, nah," and varying the intonation of this monosyllable according to the exigencies of the case. The Livonian's word of command is "Nua, nua," uttered only on desperate occasions, when the horse either will go the wrong way, or won't go at all. The most restless is the Pole, perpetually working up and down on his seat, whistling, hissing, and howling, cracking his whip and jingling his reins. But the most eloquent of all is the Russ. His whip he seldom uses, and generally only knocks with the handle upon the dashing-board, Most of these istvostchiks are Russians from to forewarn his horse, whom he apostrophises different governments of the empire. The rest as "Brother-little father-my beloved-my of the number are made up of Finns, Estonians, little white dove," &c., and with whom he carLivonians, Poles, and Germans. They general-ries on a continual conversation. "Come, my ly come to Petersburg little fellows from twelve to fourteen years of age; engage themselves to some master istvostchik; and when they have earned so much money for their masters' purses How now, Batuschka! why so stingy? what, just for the sake of a few kopeks, to be driven by a ragged old fellow like that!-you'll stick fast by the way with his three-legged horse. Don't trust to him; the old greybeard is a regular drunkard; he's so tipsy now he can't sit straight. He'll drive you to the butchers' shambles, and swear they are the admiralty!" Meanwhile the object of your choice laughs in his beard, and grumbles out "Nitchevoss-Nothing at all, Sudar; we shall get on very well." dove, use your feet. What's the matter? are you blind? cheer up, cheer up. There lies a stone-mind what you are about-don't you see it ?-all right-bravo-hop-hop-keep to the |