two. It is near the ground, and if it upsets, it is safer than when it
is going. Its speed over the boulders is immense. Its driver is good,
and good-humored. The carts, wagons, drays, as well as droskies, have
a peculiar harness for the horse. The eminent characteristic of the
establishment is a sort of harness or yoke, about four or five feet
above the animal's shoulders. This is not peculiar to Russia, but it
is here developed in a higher degree. It rests on the shafts, and
somehow, as I believe (_loquor non inexpertus_), the horse has freer
motion and an easier draught under this yoke. It does not strain him
about the vitalities like our harness. He seems to run loosely as under
a canopy of green, though many of the yokes are thus painted with
emblems and owners' names on them.
While watching a caravan of these yokes which do not oppress, I
had occasion to look through a long line of them, fifty in number,
carrying the rye-flour in sacks across the city, and discovered another
peculiarity. There is a stout rope from the horse's shoulders to the
front axle, which extends some two feet out of the hub to hold these
extra traces. The strain seemed to be upon these traces as much as
upon the shafts; and just as I was driving in a hurried way--for our
driver was dashing at the usual pace--one of our wheels came off and
rolled a rod, and down we were! Thanks to the good gray team and some
promptitude, we escaped harm; while sympathies all about from the
gathered crowd showed that there was much kindness upon the street....
What sights to our unaccustomed eyes are on every side as we drive!
Little Tartar children dressed in green; the soldiers with heavy coats
and long spears, from the tribes of the Don, the Cossack of history;
hussars of red, gay uniform; Caucasian soldiers, with dresses as gay
as the Spahis of Algiers,--with the various large-breeched natives, in
top-boots, or with red shirts only covered by a dark vest,--add to the
spectacle.
The avenues are wide, and lined with high yellow buildings, palaces,
and government edifices, all proportionate to the immense empire of the
two continents. The signs look quaint with their peculiar lettering,
and the houses, which rarely have doors in front, are unusual in their
aspect. The sheet-iron roofs painted green and red; the police in
their green uniform and sword; the rivers and canals, full of strange
craft darting about in active business, some from far inland, laden
with grain, and some bearing passengers over the Neva and under its
bridges,--all these odd pictures contribute to keep us on the alert. We
drive along the Neva, whose splendid avenues and quays are one. They
are lined by the same yellow buildings, where the families of the royal
house reside. Then we cross the Neva on a pontoon bridge, called the
Troutsen, from which a splendid view is had of the spreading waters of
the river,--bounded at one end by the elegant edifice of the Commercial
Exchange. In winter the river is used for races upon the ice.
Then we turn into Alexandria Park, and admire the villas of the
merchant princes upon the lagoons into which the Neva is divided.
From the rounding point we perceive the Finland Gulf, Cronstadt, and
Peterhoff, and all the points which we passed on our route hither.
Then we turn into the Zoological Gardens, where white bears and young
cubs, wolves, and walruses, along with thousands of pleasure-seekers,
together enjoy the brilliant mimic scenes till midnight. There we found
(for fifteen cents only) a splendid theatre, out-doors, and famous dogs
and monkeys performing, followed by a ballet in pantomime, in which
Greeks and Turks play parts, and in which the heroes and heroines of
the former are lifted through a gorgeous display of many-colored lights
into clouds of glory, amidst the cheers of the populace, which never
forgets that Turkey is its natural foe, and that Constantinople is its
natural if not national capital....
Upon our drive we notice some fine triumphal arches--copied after the
classic models and those of other countries--and other monuments, but
none equals the superb Alexander column, erected in 1832. It is a
solid shaft of red granite, the greatest monolith of the world. It is
based on an enormous block of red granite. There is an angel on the
summit. The monument is one hundred and fifty-four feet high, and has
a noble and inspiring grace and grandeur. Other statues to Peter and
Catherine, besides statues to soldiers and poets, make every square
of this grand city monumental. There is also an equestrian statue of
Nicholas. The horse is like that of General Jackson's in Lafayette
Square, Washington, and stands upon his hind legs only. It is so much
more elegantly and gracefully posed that I could not but compare it to
the disadvantage of our own favorite charger.
On no day have we failed to find something about Peter the Great! In
"the summer gardens" there is an old palace, where are sacred relics
of his handiwork, such as chairs, cabinets, and Chinese designs. The
kitchen and bathroom have tiles of the old Dutch style, which he
greatly affected. The chimney is as huge as the room. Within is a
prison, where he is said to have kept his personal enemies, without
benefit of habeas corpus or clergy. It looks gloomy, and the grating
seems to be peculiarly adapted to a jail; but it is not very likely
that Peter would have enjoyed such society in his own favorite home....
The drives in the parks are beautiful. Therein is a lovely palace where
lived the Princess Dagmar before she became empress. The armory here
forms a museum of wonderful interest, for it has gifts of untold value
from Spain to Persia and beyond. Every kind of gun, sword, and dagger
is here; and those from the conquered sheiks and khans of Asia shine
resplendent in jewels by the mass. The saddle-cloths from the Orient,
and especially the presents from the Shah of Persia, are the richest
known to any collection in the world. Among the manifold things here
to be seen are the lock and key found near the site of the temple of
Jerusalem; the jewelry of the harem of the Khan of Khiva,--a wonderful
collection for female adornment; Chevalier Bayard's cuirass; a spear
which opens after it enters the body; an alarm clock which shoots
off a gun to awaken the sleeper; the flags taken in the Hungarian
insurrection of 1849; the baton of Schamyl, the Circassian chief, who
fought Russia so many years; the emeralds, by the quantity, which the
Shah of Persia sent to the Czar; the "horse furniture" of the Indian
sheiks, and a circular knife which they used to hurl, which cut your
head off before you could say your little prayer; and as a proper
apex to this collection of curious gifts and gems, worth alone sixty
millions of rubles, the sword of Mazeppa, the brave hetman of the
Poles, who will never cease to ride through histrionic and historic
dangers on that fierce untamed charger of the desert!...
If you would find in full perfection the richest in all respects of
all the palaces in the world, I suppose the Winter Palace would be
that superlative edifice. Since the attempt to blow it up as the royal
people were about to dine it has been closed. I made an effort, through
Colonel Hoffman, our chargé d'affaires, to obtain an entrance for the
Americans now stopping here, but vainly. Recent events forbade. The
Czar himself will not go into it again. It is shut for two years. This
was a disappointment, but it was partly compensated for by admission to
the "Hermitage," which is a part or a neighbor to the Winter Palace.
But the Hermitage seems to be enough for all our time.
All the "masters," old and young, native and foreign, are in profusion
here, as well as specimens of the exhaustless mineral glories of Russia
and Siberia in every form of carved beauty and tasteful grace. Museums
of ancient statuary, coins, jewels, and intaglios, illustrating every
age and phase of history, and, as a climax of interest, the relics
of the city of Kertch and other palaces in the Greek colonies of two
thousand years ago,--now in southern Russia,--are here. This exhibition
supplements General Cesnola's Cyprian antiquities, and would add fresh
interest to our home museum. Upon these Greek relics are found such
dresses, worn by the ancient Scythians, as our drosky-drivers now wear,
and bas-reliefs on these old vases show horses managed exactly as my
former Ohio constituent, Rarey, used to quell the worst "Cruisers" of
the equestrian world.
But, as a small American boy remarked at the end of our six hours'
promenade through these corridors, "We feel two thousand years old
ourselves, we have travelled so much and so far."
Do you ask, is Peter the Great to be found at the Hermitage? Surely, he
is everywhere. Here are his lathes, tools and knives, and _plaques_,
or disks of copper and ivory, cut by his own hand. Here, too, is his
measuring-staff, which was a foot taller than any one in our party, and
that of his valet, a foot taller than Peter! How could he be such a
warrior, statesman, mechanic, and architect, ruling such an immense and
incongruous people so well, and make so many knick-knacks with his own
hand and out of his own mechanical contrivance? This conundrum puzzles
the brain. We are curious to know the secret of Peter's power, and of
the glamour of grandeur around this giant of Muscovite history and
modern civilization....
The staircase of this palace of the Hermitage has no equal in its size
and proportion. Outside, there are immense black colossal porphyry
figures bearing up the portico, each an Atlas itself. They are emblems
of the eighty millions of subjects, which from every rank uphold this
extended empire. With its sixty millions of farmers, now free; its
seven millions of villagers, its one million of gentry, nobles, and
officers, and its four millions of military men and their families, it
would seem that the vast edifice of the Russian power would be stable,
supported by such Atlantean shoulders. Is it really so? Time will tell.
For the welfare of all it is to be wished that there was more comfort
and elevation among these vast masses of men.
A VISIT TO FINLAND.
DAVID KER.
[Finland is now Northern Russia, and the Finns are classed as
Russians; but it is so only in autocratic decrees and tax-lists.
The Finns cannot, by any governmental metamorphosis, be
transformed into Russians, and their land will still retain its
individuality. In winter it lies deep within the domain of the
ice-king. How it appears in summer is described in the following
record of travel.]
"Why don't you go to Imatra?" asks my friend P---- as we lean over
the side of the Peterhof steamer and watch the golden domes of St.
Petersburg rising slowly from the dull gray level of the Gulf of
Finland. "Now that you've seen a bit of Central Russia, that's the next
thing for you to do. Go to Imatra, and I'll go too."
"And where on earth is Imatra?" ask I, innocently.
"Oh, come! you don't mean to say you've never heard of Imatra? Why,
everybody knows it. Let's go there next week."
Nevertheless, it so happens that I have _not_ heard of Imatra,--an
ignorance probably shared by most people out of Russia, and perhaps not
a few in it. But I am destined to a speedier acquaintance than I had
anticipated with the famous waterfall (or "foss," as the natives call
it), which, lying forty miles due north of the Finnish port of Viborg,
close to the renowned "Saima Lake," attracts the amateur fishermen of
St. Petersburg by scores every summer....
Accordingly, behold all our preparations made,--knapsacks packed,
tear-and-wear garments put in requisition, many-colored Russian notes
exchanged (at a fearful discount) for dingy Finnish silver,--and at
half-past ten on a not particularly bright July morning we stand on the
deck of the anything but "good ship" "Konstantin," bound for Viborg.
Despite her tortoise qualities as a steamer, however (which prolong
our voyage to nearly nine hours), the vessel is really luxurious in
her accommodations; and were her progress even slower, the motley
groups around us (groups such as only Dickens could describe or Leech
portray) would sufficiently beguile the time,--jaunty boy-officers
in brand-new uniforms, gallantly puffing their _papirossi_ (paper
cigarettes) in defiance of coming nausea, and discussing the merits
of the new opera loud enough to assure every one within earshot that
they know nothing whatever about it; squat Finnish peasants, whose
round, puffy faces and thick yellow hair are irresistibly suggestive
of over-boiled apple-dumplings; gray-coated Russian soldiers, with
the dogged endurance of their race written in every line of their
patient, stolid, unyielding faces; a lanky Swede, whose huge cork hat
and broad collar give him the look of an exaggerated medicine-bottle;
the inevitable tourist in the inevitable plaid suit, struggling with
endless convolutions of fishing-tackle and hooking himself in a fresh
place at every turn; three or four pale-faced clerks on leave, looking
very much as if their "overwork" had been in some way connected with
cigars and bad brandy; a German tradesman from Vasili-Ostroff (with the
short turnip-colored moustache characteristic of Wilhelm in his normal
state), in dutiful attendance on his wife, who is just completing her
preparations for being comfortably ill as soon as the vessel starts;
and a fine specimen of the real British merchant, talking vehemently
(in a miraculous dialect of his own invention) to a Russian official,
whose air of studied politeness shows plainly that he does not
understand a word of his neighbor's discourse.
Directly we go off the rain comes on, with that singular fatality
characteristic of pleasure-trips in general, arising, doubtless,
from the mysterious law which ordains that a man shall step into a
puddle the instant he has had his boots blacked, and that a piece of
bread-and-butter shall fall (how would Sir Isaac Newton have accounted
for it?) with the buttered side downward. In a trice the deck is
deserted by all save two or three self-devoted martyrs in mackintosh,
who "pace the plank" with that air of stern resolution worn by an
Englishman when dancing a quadrille or discharging any other painful
duty. The scenery throughout the entire voyage consists chiefly of
fog, relieved by occasional patches of sand-bank; and small wonder if
the superior attractions of the well-spread dinner-table detain most
of our fellow-sufferers below. What is this first dish that they offer
us? _Raw salmon_, by the shade of Soyer! sliced thin and loaded with
pepper. Then follow soup, fried trout, roast beef, boiled ditto, slices
of German sausage, neck of veal and bacon, fried potatoes and cabbage.
Surely, now, "Hold, enough!" Not a bit of it: enter an enormous
plum-pudding, which might do duty for a globe at any provincial school;
next, a dish of rice and preserve, followed by some of the strongest
conceivable cheese; finally, strawberries and bilberries, with cream
and sugar _ad libitum_. Involuntarily I recall the famous old American
story of the "boss" at a railway refreshment-room who demanded fifty
cents extra from a passenger who stuck to the table after all the
rest had dined and gone away. "Your board says, 'Dinner, three dollars
and fifty cents!'" remonstrated the victim.--"Ah! that's all very well
for reasonable human bein's with one stomach apiece," retorted the
Inexorable; "but when a feller eats _as if there were no hereafter_,
we've got to pile it on!"
As we pass Cronstadt the fog "lifts" slightly, giving us a momentary
glimpse of the huge forts that guard the passage,--the locked door
which bars out Western Europe. There is nothing showy or pretentious
about these squat, round-shouldered, narrow-eyed sentinels of the
channel; but they have a grim air of reserved strength, as though
they could be terribly effective in time of need. Two huge forts now
command the "southern channel," in addition to the four which guarded
it at the time of the Baltic expedition during the Crimean war; and the
land-batteries (into which no outsider is now admitted without special
permission) are being strengthened by movable shields of iron and other
appliances of the kind, for which nearly one million roubles (one
hundred and fifty thousand pounds) have been set apart. The seaward
approaches are commanded by numerous guns of formidable calibre, and
far away on the long, level promontory of the North Spit we can just
descry a dark excrescence,--the battery recently constructed for
the defence of the "northern passage." Thus, from the Finnish coast
to Oranienbaum a bristling line of unbroken fortification proclaims
Russia's aversion to war, and the gaping mouths of innumerable cannon
announce to all who approach, with silent eloquence, that "L'empire
c'est la paix." It is a fine political parable that the Western
traveller's first glimpse of Russian civilization should assume the
form of a line of batteries, reminding one of poor Mungo Park's
splendid unconscious sarcasm, when, while wandering helplessly in the
desert, he came suddenly upon a gibbet with a man hanging in chains
upon it; "Whereupon," says he, "I kneeled down and gave hearty thanks
to Almighty God, who had been pleased to conduct me once more into a
Christian and civilized country."
[The steamboat journey ended at the Finnish port of Viborg,
eighty miles by land from St. Petersburg, and now accessible
by rail.]
"We must breakfast early to-morrow, mind," says P----, as we settle
into our respective beds, "for a march in the sun here is no joke, you
bet!"
"Worse than in Arabia or South America?" ask I with calm scorn.
"You'll find the north of Russia a pretty fair match for both at this
season. Do you happen to know that one of the hottest places in the
world is Archangelsk on the White Sea? In summer the pitch melts off
the vessels like butter, and the mosquitoes are so thick that the men
on board the grain-ships fairly burrow into the corn for shelter.
Good-night! Sharp six to-morrow, mind!"
Accordingly, the early daylight finds us tramping along the edge of
the picturesque little creek (dappled here and there with wood-crowned
islets) in order to get well into our work before the sun is high
in the sky, for a forty-mile march, knapsack on shoulder, across a
difficult country, in the heat of a real Russian summer, is not a thing
to be trifled with, even by men who have seen Turkey and Syria. A
sudden turn of the road soon blots out the sea, and we plunge at once
into the green silent depths of the northern forest.
It is characteristic of the country that, barely out of sight of one
of the principal ports of Finland, we are in the midst of a loneliness
as utter as if it had never been broken by man. The only tokens of
his presence are the narrow swath of road running between the dim,
unending files of the shadowy pine-trees, and the tall wooden posts,
striped black and white like a zebra, which mark the distance in versts
from Viborg, the verst being two-thirds of a mile.
To an unpractised eye the marvellous smoothness and hardness of this
forest highway (unsurpassed by any macadamized road in England) might
suggest a better opinion of the local civilization than it deserves;
for in this case it is the soil, not the administration, that merits
all the credit. In granite-paved Finland, as in limestone-paved
Barbadoes, Nature has already laid down your road in a way that no
human engineering can rival, and all you have to do is to smooth it to
your own liking.
And now the great panorama of the far North--a noble change from the
flat unending monotony of the Russian steppes--begins in all its
splendor. At one moment we are buried in a dark depth of forest,
shadowy and spectral as those which haunt us in the weird outlines
of Retzsch; the next minute we burst upon an open valley, bright
with fresh grass, and with a still, shining lake slumbering in the
centre, the whole picture framed in a background of sombre woods. Here
rise giant boulders of granite, crested with spreading pines,--own
brothers, perhaps, of the block dragged hence eighty years ago from
which the greatest of Russian rulers still looks down upon the city
that bears his name; there, bluffs of wooded hill rear themselves
above the surrounding sea of foliage, and at times the roadside is
dotted with the little wooden huts of the natives, whence wooden-faced
women, turbaned with colored handkerchiefs, and white-headed children,
in nothing but a short night-gown with a warm lining of dirt, stare
wonderingly at us as we go striding past. And over all hangs the clear,
pearly-gray northern sky.
One hour is past, and still the air keeps moderately fresh, although
the increasing glare warns us that it will be what I once heard a
British tourist call "more hotterer" by and by. So far, however, we
have not turned a hair, and the second hour's work matches the first
to an inch. As we pass through the little hamlet which marks the first
quarter of our allotted distance we instinctively pull out our watches:
"Ten miles in two hours! Not so bad, but we must keep it up."
So we set ourselves to the third hour, and out comes the sun--bright
and beautiful and destroying as Homer's Achilles:
"Bright are his rays, but evil fate they send,
And to sad man destroying heat portend."
Hitherto, despite the severity of our pace, we have contrived to keep
up a kind of flying conversation, but now grim silence settles on our
way. There is a point in every match against time when the innate
ferocity of man, called forth by the exercises which civilization has
borrowed from the brute creation, comes to the front in earnest,--when
your best friend becomes your deadly enemy, and the fact of his being
one stride in advance of you is an injury only to be atoned by blood.
Such is the precise point that we have reached now; and when we
turn from exchanging malignant looks with each other, it is only to
watch with ominous eagerness for the coming in sight of the painted
verst-posts, which somehow appear to succeed one another far more
slowly than they did an hour ago.
By the middle of the fourth hour we are marching with coats off and
sleeves rolled up, like amateur butchers; and although our "pace" is
as good as ever, the elastic swing of our first start is now replaced
by that dogged, "hard-and-heavy" tramp which marks the point where
the flesh and the spirit begin to pull in opposite directions. Were
either of us alone, the pace would probably slacken at once, and each
may safely say in his heart, as Condorcet said of the dying D'Alembert,
"Had I not been there he _must_ have flinched!"
But just as the fourth hour comes to an end (during which we have
looked at our watches as often as Wellington during the terrible
mid-day hours that preceded the distant boom of the Prussian cannon)
we come round a sharp bend in the road, and there before us lies
the quaint little log-built post-house (the "half-way house" in
very truth), with its projecting roof and painted front and striped
doorposts; just at which auspicious moment I stumble and twist my foot.
"You were right to reserve _that_ performance to the last," remarks
P----, with a grin, helping me to the door; and we order a _samovar_
(tea-urn) to be heated, while we ourselves indulge in a scrambling wash
of the rudest kind, but very refreshing nevertheless.
Reader, did you ever walk five miles an hour for four hours together
over a hilly country, with the thermometer at eighty-three degrees in
the shade? If so, then will you appreciate our satisfaction as we throw
aside our heavy boots, plunge our swollen feet into cold water, and,
with coats off and collars thrown open, sit over our tea and black
bread in that quaint little cross-beamed room, with an appetite never
excited by the best _plats_ of the Erz-Herzog Karl or the Trois Frères
Provençaux. Two things, at least, one may always be sure of finding in
perfection at a Russian post-station: tea is the one; the other I need
not particularize, as its presence does not usually become apparent
till you retire to rest" (?).