The Russian Gipsies--Midnight drives--Gipsy singing--Its
fascination--The consequences of a late night--An unconventional
luncheon--Lord Dufferin's methods--Assassination of Alexander
II--Stürmer--Pathetic incidents in connection with the murder of the
Emperor--The funeral procession and service--Details concerning--The
Votive Church--The Order of the Garter--Unusual incidents at the
Investiture--Precautions taken for Emperor's safety--The Imperial
train--Finland--Exciting salmon-fishing there--Harraka
Niska--Koltesha--Excellent shooting there--Ski-running--"Ringing the
game in"--A wolf-shooting party--The obese General--Some incidents--A
novel form of sport--Black game and capercailzie--At dawn in a
Finnish forest--Immense charm of it--Ice-hilling or "Montagnes
Russes"--Ice-boating on the Gulf of Finland.
In my day there were two or three restaurants on the islands formed
by the delta of the Neva, with troupes of singing gipsies attached to
them. These restaurants did a roaring trade in consequence, for the
singing of the gipsy choirs seems to produce on Russians the same
maddening, almost intoxicating effect that the "skirl o' the pipes"
does on those with Scottish blood in their veins.
Personally, I thought that one soon tired of this {150} gipsy
singing; not so my Russian friends--it appeared to have an
irresistible attraction for them. I always dreaded the consequences
when some foolish person, usually at 1 or even 2 a.m., proposed a
visit to the gipsies, for all the ladies present would instantly jump
at the suggestion, and I knew full well that it entailed a forcible
separation from bed until six or possibly seven next morning.
Troikas would at once be sent for. A troika is a thing quite apart.
Its horses are harnessed as are no other horses in the world, since
the centre horse trots in shafts, whilst the two outside horses, the
"_pristashkui_" loose save for long traces, gallop. Driving a troika
is a special art. The driver stands; he has a special badge,
peacock's feathers set in a round cap; he has a special name,
"_yamshchik_," and he charges quite a special price.
To my mind, the drive out to the islands was the one redeeming
feature of these expeditions. Within the confines of the city, the
pace of the troikas was moderate enough, but as the last scattered
houses of the suburbs merged into the forest, the driver would call
to his horses, and the two loose horses broke into a furious gallop,
the centre horse in shafts moving as swiftly as any American trotter.
Smoothly and silently under the burnished steel of the starlit sky,
they tore over the snow, the vague outlines of the fir trees whizzing
past. Faster and faster, until the wild excitement of it made one's
blood tingle within one, even as the bitter cold made one's cheeks
tingle, as we raced through the {151} keen pure air. That wild
gallop through the forest was perfectly glorious. I believe that on
us sons of the North real cold has the same exhilarating effect that
warmth and sunshine have on the Lotos-eating dwellers by the blue
Mediterranean.
The troika would draw up at the door of a long, low, wooden building,
hidden away amongst the fir trees of the forest. After repeated
bangings at the door, a sleepy-eyed Tartar appeared, who ushered one
into a great gaunt, bare, whitewashed room, where other little
yellow, flat-faced, Tartar waiters were lighting countless wax
candles, bringing in many slim-shouldered, gold foil-covered bottles
of champagne, and a samovar or two, and arranging seats. Then the
gipsy troupe strolled in, some twenty-five strong; the younger
members passably good-looking, with fine dark eyes, abundant
eyelashes, and extremely indifferent complexions. The older members
of the company made no attempt at coquetry. They came muffled in
woollen shawls, probably to conceal toilet deficiencies, yawning
openly and undisguisedly; not concealing their disgust at being
robbed of their sleep in order to sing to a pack of uninteresting
strangers, to whom, incidentally, they owed their entire means of
livelihood. Some ten swarthy, evil-faced, indeterminate males with
guitars filled up the background.
One of the younger members of the troupe would begin a song in waltz
time, in a curious metallic voice, with a ring in it of something
Eastern, {152} barbaric, and utterly strange to European ears, to the
thrum of the guitars of the swarthy males in the background. The
elderly females looked inexpressibly bored, and hugged their woollen
shawls a little closer over their heads. Then the chorus took up the
refrain. A tempest of wild, nasal melody arose, in the most perfect
harmony. It was metallic, and the din was incredible, but the effect
it produced on the listeners was astounding. The old women, dropping
their cherished shawls, awoke to life. Their dull eyes sparkled
again, they sang madly, frenetically; like people possessed. The
un-European _timbre_ of the voices conduced doubtless to the effect,
but the fact remains that this clamour of nasal, metallic voices,
singing in exquisite harmony, had about it something so novel and
fresh--or was it something so immemorially old?--that the listeners
felt absolutely intoxicated.
On the Russians it acted like hypnotism. After the first song, they
all joined in, and even I, the dour and unemotional son of a Northern
land, found myself, as words and music grew familiar, shouting the
bass parts of the songs with all the strength of my lungs. The
Russian language lends itself admirably to song, and the excess of
sibilants in it is not noticeable in singing.
These Russian gipsies, like the Austrian bands, produced their
effects by very simple means. They harmonised their songs
themselves, and they always introduced a succession of "sixths" or
"thirds"; emphasising the "sixth" in the tenor part.
{153}
One can, however, have too much of a good thing. I used to think
longingly of my far-off couch, but there was no tearing Russians away
from the gipsies. The clock ticked on; they refused to move. The
absorption of much champagne has never afforded me the smallest
amusement. The consumption of tea has also its limits, and my
longed-for bed was so far away! The really staggering figure one had
to disburse as one's share for these gipsy entertainments seemed to
me to be a very long price to pay for a sleepless night.
Once a fortnight the "Queen's Messenger" left Petrograd at noon, on
his return journey to London. On "Messenger mornings" we had all to
be at the Embassy at 9 a.m. punctually. One morning, after a
compulsory vigil with the gipsies, I was awakened by my servant with
the news that it was close on nine, and that my sledge was already at
the door. It was impossible to dress in the time, so after some
rapid ablutions, I drew the long felt boots the Russians call
"Valinki" over my pyjamas, put on some heavy furs, and jumped into my
sledge. Lord Dufferin found me writing hard in the steam-heated
Chancery, clad only in silk pyjamas, and with my bare feet in
slippers. He made no remark, but I knew that nothing ever escaped
his notice. By noon we had the despatches finished, the bags sealed
up, the "waybill" made out, various precautionary measures taken as
to which it is unnecessary to enlarge, and the Messenger left for
London. I called to the {154} hall porter to bring me my furs, and
told him to order my sledge round. "His Excellency has sent your
sledge home," said the porter, with a smile lurking round the corners
of his mouth. "Then call me a hack sledge." "His Excellency hopes
that you will give him the pleasure of your company at luncheon."
"But I must go home and dress first." "His Excellency's orders were
that you are to go as you are," answered the grinning porter. Then I
understood. Nothing is ever gained by being shy or self-conscious,
so after a hasty toilet, I sent for my heavy fur "shuba." Furs in
Russia are intended for use, not ornament, and this "shuba" was an
extremely weighty and voluminous garment, designed to withstand the
rigours of the North Pole itself. A glance at the mirror convinced
me that I was most indelicately _décolleté_ about the neck, so I
hooked the big collar of the "shuba" together, and strode upstairs.
The heat of this fur garment was unendurable, but there was nothing
else for it. Certainly the legs of my pyjamas protruded below it, so
I congratulated myself on the fact that they were a brand-new pair of
very smart striped mauve silk. My bare feet too were encased in
remarkably neat Persian slippers of green morocco. Lady Dufferin
received me exactly as though I had been dressed in the most
immaculate of frock-coats. Her children though, gazed at my huge fur
coat, round-eyed with astonishment, for neither man nor woman ever
comes into a Russian house with furs on--an {155} arrangement which
would not at all suit some of my London friends, who seem to think
that furs are designed for being shown off in hot rooms. The
governess, an elderly lady, catching sight of my unfortunate pyjama
legs below the fur coat, assumed a highly scandalised attitude, as
though she could scarcely credit the evidence of her eyes. (I repeat
that they were exceptionally smart pyjamas.)
During luncheon Lord Dufferin made himself perfectly charming, and I
did my best to act as though it were quite normal to sit down to
one's repasts in an immense fur coat.
The Ambassador was very susceptible to cold, and liked the house
heated to a great temperature. That day the furnace-man must have
been quite unusually active, for the steam hissed and sizzled in the
radiators, until the heat of that dining-room was suffocating.
Conscious of my extreme _décolletage_, I did not dare unhook the
collar of my "shuba," being naturally of a modest disposition, and
never, even in later years at Colombo or Singapore, have I suffered
so terribly from heat as in that Petrograd dining-room in the depths
of a Russian winter. The only cool thing in the room was the
governess, who, when she caught sight of my bare feet, froze into an
arctic iceberg of disdain, in spite of my really very ornamental
Persian slippers. The poor lady had obviously never even caught a
glimpse of pajamas before. After that episode I always came to the
Embassy fully dressed.
{156}
Another instance of Lord Dufferin's methods occurs to me. We had a
large evening party at the Embassy, and a certain very pushing and
pertinacious English newspaper correspondent did everything in his
power to get asked to this reception. For very excellent reasons,
his request was refused. In spite of this, on the night of the party
the journalist appeared. I informed Lord Dufferin, and asked what he
wished me to do about it. "Let me deal with him myself," answered
the Ambassador, and going up to the unbidden guest, he made him a
little bow, and said with a bland smile, "May I inquire, sir, to what
I owe this most unexpected honour?" Then as the unhappy
newspaper-man stuttered out something, Lord Dufferin continued with
an even blander smile, "Do not allow me, my dear sir, I beg of you,
to detain you from your other doubtless numerous engagements"; then
calling me, he added, "Will you kindly accompany this gentleman to
the front door, and see that on a cold night like this he gets all
his warm clothing." It was really impossible to turn a man out of
your house in a more courteous fashion.
There was another plan Lord Dufferin used at times. All despatches,
and most of our private letters, were sent home by hand, in charge of
the Queen's Messenger. We knew perfectly well that anything sent
from the Embassy through the ordinary mails would be opened at the
Censor's office, and copies taken. Ministries of Foreign Affairs
{157} give at times "diplomatic" answers, and occasionally it was
advisable to let the Russian Government know that the Ambassador was
quite aware that the assurances given him did not quite tally with
the actual facts. He would then write a despatch to London to that
effect, and send it by mail, being well aware that it would be opened
and a copy sent to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this
indirect fashion, he delicately conveyed to the Russian Government
that he had not been hoodwinked by the rather fanciful statements
made to him.
I was sitting at luncheon with some friends at a colleague's house on
Sunday, the fateful 1st of March, 1881 (March 13, new style).
Suddenly our white-headed old Chancery messenger burst
unceremoniously into the room, and called out, "The Emperor has been
assassinated!" We all jumped up; the old man, a German-speaking
Russian from the Baltic Provinces, kept on wringing his hands, and
moaning, "Unser arme gute Kaiser! unser arme gute Kaiser!" ("Our poor
dear Emperor!") We hurried to the Embassy as fast as we could go, and
found the Ambassador just stepping into his carriage to get the
latest news from the Winter Palace. Lady Dufferin had not seen the
actual crime committed, but she had heard the explosion of the bomb,
and had seen the wounded horses led past, and was terribly upset in
consequence. She was walking along the Catherine Canal with her
youngest daughter when the Emperor's carriage {158} passed and the
first bomb was thrown. The carriage was one of Napoleon III's
special armoured coaches, bought after the fall of the Second French
Empire. The bomb shattered the wheels of the carriage, but the
Emperor was untouched. He stepped out into the snow, when the second
bomb was thrown, which blew his legs to pieces, and the Emperor was
taken in a private sledge, in a dying condition, to the Winter
Palace. The bombs had been painted white, to look like snowballs.
Ten minutes later one of the Court Chamberlains arrived. I met him
in the hall, and he informed me, with the tears streaming down his
face, that all was over.
That Chamberlain was a German-Russian named Stürmer, and he was the
very same man who thirty-four years later was destined, by his gross
incompetence, or worse, as Prime Minister, to bring the mighty
Russian Empire crashing in ruins to the ground, and to drive the
well-intentioned, irresolute Nicholas II, the grandson of the
Sovereign for whom he professed so great an affection, to his
abdication, imprisonment, and ignominious death.
There was a Queen's Messenger due in Petrograd from London that same
afternoon, and Lord Dufferin, thinking that the police might give
trouble, desired me to meet him at the station.
The Messenger refused to believe my news. He persisted in treating
the whole thing as a joke, so I ordered my coachman to drive through
the great {159} semi-circular place in front of the Winter Palace.
That place presented a wonderful sight. There were tens of thousands
of people, all kneeling bare-headed in the snow, in close-packed
ranks. I thought the sight of those serried thousands kneeling
bare-headed, praying for the soul of their dead Emperor, a strangely
moving and beautiful spectacle. When the Messenger saw this, and
noted the black and yellow Imperial flag waving at half-mast over the
Palace, he no longer doubted.
The Grand Duke Vladimir had announced the Emperor's death to the vast
crowds in the traditional Russian fashion. The words "death" or
"die" being considered ill-omened by old-fashioned Russians, the
actual sentence used by the Grand Duke was, "The Emperor has bidden
you to live long." ("Gosudar Imperator vam prikazal dolga jit!")
The words conveyed their message.
The body of the Emperor having been embalmed, the funeral did not
take place for a fortnight. As the crow flies, the distance between
the Winter Palace and the Fortress Church is only about half a mile;
it was, however, still winter-time, the Neva was frozen over, and the
floating bridges had been removed. It being contrary to tradition to
take the body of a dead Emperor of Russia across ice, the funeral
procession had to pass over the permanent bridges to the Fortress, a
distance of about six miles.
Lady Dufferin and I saw the procession from the corner windows of a
house on the quays. On {160} paper it sounded very grand, but like
so many things in Russia, it was spoilt by lack of attention to
details. The distances were kept irregularly, and many of the
officials wore ordinary civilian great-coats over their uniforms,
which did not enhance the effect of the _cortège_. The most striking
feature of the procession was the "Black Knight" on foot, followed
immediately by the "Golden Knight" on horseback. These were, I
believe, meant to typify "The Angel of Death" and "The Angel of the
Resurrection." Both Knights were clad in armour from head to foot,
with the vizors of their helmets down. The "Black Knight's" armour
was dull sooty-black all over; he had a long black plume waving from
his helmet. The "Golden Knight," mounted on a white horse, with a
white plume in his helmet, wore gilded and burnished armour, which
blazed like a torch in the sunlight. The weight of the black armour
being very great, there had been considerable difficulty in finding a
man sufficiently strong to walk six miles, carrying this tremendous
burden. A gigantic young private of the Preobrajensky Guards
undertook the task for a fee of one hundred roubles, but though he
managed to accomplish the distance, he fainted from exhaustion on
reaching the Fortress Church, and was, I heard, two months in
hospital from the effects of his effort.
We were able to get Lady Dufferin into her place in the Fortress
Church, long before the procession arrived, by driving across the ice
of the {161} river. The absence of seats in a Russian church, and
the extreme length of the Orthodox liturgy, rendered these services
very trying for ladies. The Fortress Church had been built by a
Dutch architect, and was the most un-Eastern-looking Orthodox church
I ever saw. It actually contained a pulpit! In the north aisle of
the church all the Emperors since Peter the Great's time lie in
uniform plain white marble tombs, with gilt-bronze Russian eagles at
their four corners. The Tsars mostly rest in the Cathedral of the
Archangel, in the Moscow Kremlin. I have before explained that Peter
was the last of the Tsars and the first of the Emperors. The
regulations for Court mourning in Petrograd were most stringent. All
ladies had to appear in perfectly plain black, lustreless woollen
dresses, made high to the throat. On their heads they wore a sort of
Mary Queen of Scots pointed cap of black crape, with a long black
crape veil falling to their feet. The only detail of the funeral
which struck me was the perfectly splendid pall of cloth of gold.
This pall had been specially woven in Moscow, of threads of real
gold. When folded back during the ceremony it looked exactly like
gleaming waves of liquid gold.
A memorial church in old-Russian style has been erected on the
Catherine Canal on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated. The
five onion-shaped domes of this church, of copper enamelled in
stripes and spirals of crude blue and white, green and yellow, and
scarlet and white, may possibly {162} look less garish in two hundred
years' time than they do at present. The severely plain Byzantine
interior, covered with archaic-looking frescoes on a gold ground, is
effective. The ikonostas is entirely of that vivid pink and
enormously costly Siberian marble that Russians term "heavy stone."
Personally I should consider the huge sum it cost as spent in vain.
Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, in those days, of course, Prince and
Princess of Wales, represented Great Britain at Alexander II's
funeral, and remained in Petrograd a month after it.
A week after the funeral, the Prince of Wales, by Queen Victoria's
command, invested Alexander III with the Order of the Garter. As the
Garter is the oldest Order of Chivalry in Europe, the ceremonies at
its investiture have 570 years of tradition behind them. The
insignia, the star, the ribbon, the collar, the sword, and the actual
garter itself, are all carried on separate, long, narrow cushions of
red velvet, heavily trimmed with gold bullion. Owing to the deep
Court mourning, it was decided that the investiture should be
private. No one was to be present except the new Emperor and
Empress, Queen Alexandra, the Grand Master and Grand Mistress of the
Russian Court, the members of the British Embassy, and the Prince of
Wales and his staff. This, as it turned out, was very fortunate.
The ceremony was to take place at the Anitchkoff Palace on the
Nevsky, which Alexander III inhabited throughout his reign, as {163}
he preferred it to the huge rambling Winter Palace. On the appointed
day, we all marched into the great Throne room of the Anitchkoff
Palace, the Prince of Wales leading the way, with five members of his
staff carrying the insignia on the traditional long narrow velvet
cushions. I carried nothing, but we made, I thought, a very
dignified and effective entrance. As we entered the Throne room, a
perfectly audible feminine voice cried out in English, "Oh, my dear!
Do look at them. They look exactly like a row of wet-nurses carrying
babies!" Nothing will induce me to say from whom the remark
proceeded. The two sisters, Empress and Queen, looked at each other
for a minute, and then exploded with laughter. The Emperor fought
manfully for a while to keep his face, until, catching sight of the
member of the Prince of Wales's staff who was carrying his cushion in
the peculiarly maternal fashion that had so excited the risibility of
the Royal sisters, he too succumbed, and his colossal frame quivered
with mirth. Never, I imagine, since its institution in 1349, has the
Order of the Garter been conferred amid such general hilarity, but as
no spectators were present, this lapse from the ordinary decorum of
the ceremonial did not much matter. The general public never heard
of it, nor, I trust, did Queen Victoria.
The Emperor Alexander III was a man of great personal courage, but he
gave way, under protest, to the wishes of those responsible for his
personal safety. They insisted on his always using {164} the
armour-plated carriages bought from Napoleon III. These coaches were
so immensely heavy that they soon killed the horses dragging them.
Again, on railway journeys, the actual time-table and route of the
Imperial train between two points was always different from the
published time-table and route. Napoleon III's private train had
been purchased at the same time as his steel-plated carriages. This
train had been greatly enlarged and fitted to the Russian gauge. I
do not suppose that any more sumptuous palace on wheels has ever been
built than this train of nine vestibuled cars. It was fitted with
every imaginable convenience. Alexander III sent it to the frontier
to meet his brother-in-law the Prince of Wales, which was the
occasion on which I saw it.
During the six months following Alexander II's assassination all
social life in Petrograd stopped. We of the Embassy had many other
resources, for in those days the British business colony in Petrograd
was still large, and flourished exceedingly. They had various
sporting clubs, of some of which we were members. There was in
particular the Fishing Club at Harraka Niska in Finland, where the
river Vuoksi issues from the hundred-mile-long Lake Saima.
It was a curious experience driving to the Finnish railway station in
Petrograd. In the city outside, the date would be June 1, Russian
style. Inside the station, the date became June 13, European style.
In place of the baggy knickerbockers, {165} high boots, and fur caps
of the Russian railwaymen, the employees of the Finnish railway wore
the ordinary uniforms customary on European railways. The tickets
were printed in European, not Russian characters, and the fares were
given in marks and pennies, instead of in roubles and kopecks. The
notices on the railway were all printed in six languages, Finnish,
Swedish, Russian, French, English, and German, and my patriotic
feelings were gratified at noting that all the locomotives had been
built in Glasgow. I was astonished to find that although Finland
formed an integral part of the Russian Empire, there was a Custom
House and Customs examination at the Finnish frontier.
Finland is a country of endless little hills, and endless forests,
all alike bestrewn with huge granite boulders; it is also a land of
endless rivers and lakes. It is pretty in a monotonous fashion, and
looks wonderfully tidy after Russia proper. The wooden houses and
villages are all neatly painted a chocolate brown, and in spite of
its sparse population it seems very prosperous. The Finns are all
Protestants; the educated classes are mostly Swedish-speaking, the
others talking their own impossible Ural-Altaic language. At the
extremely comfortable club-house at Harraka Niska none of the
fishermen or boatmen could talk anything but Finnish. We all had
little conversation books printed in Russian and Finnish, but we
usually found the language of signs more {166} convenient. In later
years, in South America, it became my duty to interview daily the
Legation cook, an accomplished but extremely adipose female from Old
Spain. I had not then learnt Spanish, and she understood no other
tongue, so we conversed by signs. It is extremely derogatory to
one's personal dignity to be forced to imitate in succession a hen
laying an egg, a sheep bleating, or a duck quacking, and yet this was
the only way in which I could order dinner. No one who has not tried
it can believe how difficult it is to indicate in pantomime certain
comestibles, such, for instance, as kidneys, liver and bacon, or a
Welsh rarebit.
The fish at Harraka would not look at a fly, and could only be hooked
on a phantom-minnow. The fishing there was very exciting. The big
fish all lay where Lake Saima debouched into the turbulent Vuoksi
river. There was a terrific rapid there, and the boatmen, who knew
every inch of the ground, would head the boat straight for that
seething white caldron of raging waves, lashing and roaring down the
rocky gorge, as they dashed up angry spurts of white spray. Just as
it seemed that nothing could save one from being hurled into that mad
turmoil of leaping waters, where no human being could hope to live
for a minute, a back-current shot the boat swiftly across to the
other bank. That was the moment when the fish were hooked. They
were splendid fighters, and played magnificently. These Harraka fish
were curiously {167} uniform in size, always running from 18 to 22
lb. Though everyone called them salmon, I think myself that they
were really bull-trout, or _Salmo ferox_. A salmon would have had to
travel at least 400 miles from salt water, and I do not believe that
any fish living could have got up the tremendous Imatra waterfall,
some six miles lower down the Vuoksi. These fish invariably had lice
on them. In Great Britain sea-lice on a salmon are taken as a
certain indication that the fish is fresh-run. These fish cannot
possibly have been fresh-run, so I think it probable that in these
great lakes there may be a fresh-water variety of the parasite.
Another peculiarity of the Harraka fish was that, though they were
excellent eating, they would not keep above two days. I have myself
caught eleven of these big fellows in one day. During June there was
capital grayling fishing in the lower Vuoksi, the fish running large,
and taking the fly readily, though in that heavy water they were apt
to break off. There were plenty of small trout too in the Vuoksi,
but the densely-wooded banks made fishing difficult, and the water
was always crystal-clear, and needed the finest of tackle.
I spent some most enjoyable days at Koltesha, a small English
shooting-club of ten members, about twenty miles out of Petrograd.
During September, for one fortnight, the marshes round Koltesha were
alive with "double-snipe." This bird migrates in thousands from the
Arctic regions to {168} the far South, at the approach of autumn.
They alighted in the Koltesha marshes to recruit themselves after
their journey from the North Pole, and owing to circumstances beyond
their control, few of them continued their journey southward. This
confiding fowl has never learnt to zig-zag like the other members of
the snipe family, and they paid the penalty for this omission by
usually proceeding to the kitchen. A "double-snipe" is most
delicious eating. The winter shooting at Koltesha was most
delightful. The art of "ski-walking" had first to be learnt, and on
commencing this unaccustomed method of locomotion, various muscles,
which its use called into play for the first time, showed their
resentment by aching furiously. The ground round Koltesha being
hilly was admirably adapted for coasting on ski. It was difficult at
first to shoot from the insecure footing of ski, and the unusual
amount of clothing between one's shoulder and the stock of one's gun
did not facilitate matters. Everything, however, can be learnt in
time. I can claim to be the pioneer of ski on the American
Continent, for in January, 1887, I brought over to Canada the very
first pair of ski ever seen in America. I used to coast down the
toboggan slides at Ottawa on them, amidst universal derision. I was
told that, however useful ski might be in Russia, they were quite
unsuited to Canadian conditions, and would never be popular there, as
the old-fashioned "raquettes" were infinitely superior. Humph! _Qui
vivra verra!_
{169}
Koltesha abounded in black game, "ryabchiks," or hazel-grouse, and
ptarmigan. Russian hares turn snow-white in winter, and are very
difficult to see against a snowy background in consequence. It is
almost impossible to convey on paper any idea of the intense delight
of those days in the sun and the cold, when the air had that
delicious clean smell that always goes with intense frost, the dark
fir woods, with their purple shadows, stood out in sharp contrast to
the dazzling sheet of white snow, and the sunlight gilded the patches
of oak and birch scrub that climbed down the hollows of the low
hills. One returned home glowing from head to foot. We got larger
game too by "ringing them." The process of "ringing" is as follows.
No four-footed creature can travel over the snow without leaving his
tracks behind him. Let us suppose a small wood, one mile in
circumference. If a man travels round this on ski, and if the track
of any animal crosses his trail, going _into_ the wood, and this
track does not again come _out_ of the wood, it is obvious that that
particular animal is still taking cover there. Measures to drive him
out are taken accordingly. We got in this way at Koltesha quite a
number of elks, lynxes, and wolves.
The best wolf-shooting I ever got was at the invitation of the
Russian Minister of Finance. Great packs of these ravenous brutes
were playing havoc on his estate, two hundred miles from Petrograd,
so he invited a large shooting party to his {170} country house. We
travelled down in a private sleeping-car, and had over twenty miles
to drive in rough country sledges from the station. One of the
guests was an enormously fat Russian General, a perfect mammoth of a
man. As I was very slim in those days, I was told off as this
gigantic warrior's fellow-passenger. Although he took up nine-tenths
of the sledge, I just managed to creep in, but every time we
jolted--and as the track was very rough, this was pretty
frequently--I got 250 lb. of Russian General on the top of me,
squeezing the life out of me. He was a good-natured Colossus, and
apologised profusely for his own obesity, and for his instability,
but I was black and blue all over, and since that day I have felt
profound sympathy for the little princes in the Tower, for I know
what being smothered with a feather-bed feels like.
The Minister's country house was, as are most other Russian country
houses, a modest wooden building with whitewashed rooms very scantily
furnished. The Minister had, however, thoughtfully brought down his
famous Petrograd chef, and I should judge about three-quarters of the
contents of his wine-cellar. We had to proceed to our places in the
forest in absolute silence, and the wolf being an exceedingly wary
animal with a a very keen sense of smell, all smoking was rigorously
prohibited.
It was nice open scrubland, undulating gently. The beaters were
skilful and we were very lucky, {171} for after an interminable wait,
the entire pack of wolves rushed down on us. A wolf is killed with
slugs from a smooth-bore. I personally was fortunate, for I got
shots at eight wolves, and six of them felt disinclined for further
exertions. I still have a carriage-rug made of the skins of the
wolves I killed that day. The banging all round meanwhile was
terrific. In two days we accounted for fifty-two of these pests. It
gave me the utmost pleasure killing these murderous, bloodthirsty
brutes; far more than slaying an inoffensive bear. Should a bear
encounter a human being in the course of his daily walks, he is
certainly apt to hug him to death, as a precautionary measure. He is
also addicted to smashing to a jelly, with one blow of his powerful
paws, the head of a chance stranger. These peculiarities apart, the
bear may be regarded as practically harmless. It is otherwise with
the wolf.
Some of the British Colony were fond of going to Finland for a
peculiar form of sport. I use the last word dubiously, for to kill
any game birds during the breeding season seems a curiously
unsportsmanlike act. Circumstances rather excused this. It is well
known that black game do not pair, but that they are polygamous.
During the breeding season the male birds meet every morning at dawn
on regular fighting grounds, and there battle for the attentions of
the fairer sex. These fighting grounds are well known to the
keepers, who erect there in early autumn conical shelters of fir
{172} branches. The birds become familiar with these shelters
(called in Russian "shagashki") and pay no attention to them. The
"gun" introduces himself into the shelter not later than midnight,
and there waits patiently for the first gleam of dawn. He must on no
account smoke. With the first grey streak of dawn in the sky there
is a great rushing of wings in the air, and dozens of male birds
appear from nowhere; strutting up and down, puffing out their
feathers, and hissing furiously at each other in challenge. The grey
hens meanwhile sit in the surrounding trees, watching, as did the
ladies of old at a tournament, the prowess of their men-folk in the
lists. The grey hens never show themselves, and make no sound; two
things, one would imagine, contrary to every instinct of their sex.
A challenge once accepted, two males begin fighting furiously with
wings, claws, and beaks. So absorbed are the birds in their combat,
that they neither see nor hear anything, and pay no attention to a
gun-shot. Should they be within reach of the "shagashka," that is
the time to fire. It sounds horribly unsportsmanlike, but it must be
remembered that the birds are only just visible in the uncertain
dawn. As dawn matures into daylight, the birds suddenly stop
fighting, and all fly away simultaneously, followed by the grey hens.
I never would kill more than two as specimens, for this splendid bird
is such a thing of joy in his breeding plumage, with his glossy dark
blue satin coat, and white velvet waistcoat, that there {173} is some
excuse for wanting to examine him closer. Ladies, too, loved a
blackcock's tail or wings for their hats. It was also the only way
in which this curious and little-known phase of bird life could be
witnessed.
The capercailzie is called in Russian "the deaf one." Why this name
should be given to a bird of abnormally acute hearing seems at first
sight puzzling. The explanation is that the male capercailzie in the
breeding season concludes his love-song with a peculiar "tchuck,
tchuck," impossible to reproduce on paper, moving his head rapidly to
and fro the while. During this "tchuck, tchuck," the bird is deaf
and blind to the world. The capercailzie hunter goes out into the
forest at about 1 a.m. and listens intently. As soon as he hears a
capercailzie's song, he moves towards the sound very, very
cautiously. When within half a mile of the bird, he must wait for
the "tchuck, tchuck," which lasts about two minutes, before daring to
advance. The "tchuck" over, he must remain absolutely motionless
until it recommences. The snapping of a twig will be enough to
silence the bird and to make it fly away. It will be seen then that
to approach a capercailzie is a difficult task, and one requiring
infinite patience. Once within shot, there is no particular fun in
shooting a sitting bird the size of a turkey, up at the top of a
tree, even though it only appears as a dusky mass against the faint
beginnings of dawn.
The real charm of this blackcock and capercailzie shooting was that
one would not otherwise have {174} been out in the great forest at
break of day.
To me there was always an infinite fascination in seeing these great
Northern tracts of woodland awakening from their long winter sleep.
The sweetness of the dawn, the delicious smell of growing things, the
fresh young life springing up under one's feet, all these appealed to
every fibre in my being. Nature always restores the balance of
things. In Russia, as in Canada, after the rigours of the winter,
once the snow has disappeared, flowers carpet the ground with a
rapidity of growth unknown in more temperate climates. These Finland
woods were covered with a low creeping plant with masses of small,
white, waxy flowers. It was, I think, one of the smaller
cranberries. There was an orange-flowering nettle, too, the leaves
of which changed from green to vivid purple as they climbed the
stalk, making gorgeous patches of colour, and great drifts of blue
hepaticas on the higher ground. To appreciate Nature properly, she
must be seen at unaccustomed times, as she bestirs herself after her
night's rest whilst the sky brightens.
In Petrograd itself the British Colony found plenty of amusement. We
had an English ice-hill club to which all the Embassy belonged. The
elevation of a Russian ice-hill, some forty feet only, may seem tame
after the imposing heights of Canadian toboggan slides, but I fancy
that the pace travelled is greater in Russia. The ice-hills were
always built in pairs, about three hundred yards apart, with two
parallel runs. Both hills {175} and runs were built of solid blocks
of ice, watered every day, and the pitch of the actual hill was very
steep. In the place of a toboggan we used little sleds two feet
long, mounted on skate-runners, which were kept constantly sharpened.
These travelled over the ice at a tremendous pace, and at the end of
the straight run, the corresponding hill had only to be mounted to
bring you home again to the starting-point. The art of steering
these sleds was soon learnt, once the elementary principle was
grasped that after a turn to the left, a corresponding turn to the
right must be made to straighten up the machine, exactly as is done
instinctively on a bicycle. A wave of the hand or of the foot was
enough to change the direction, the ice-hiller going down head
foremost, with the sled under his chest.
Longer sleds were used for taking ladies down. The man sat
cross-legged in front, whilst the lady knelt behind him with both her
arms round his neck. Possibly the enforced familiarity of this
attitude was what made the amusement so popular.
We gave at times evening parties at the ice-hills, when the woods
were lit up with rows of Chinese lanterns, making a charming effect
against the snow, and electric arcs blazed from the summits of the
slides. To those curious in such matters, I may say that as
secondary batteries had not then been invented, and we had no dynamo,
power was furnished direct by powerful Grove two-cell batteries. One
night our amateur electrician was {176} nearly killed by the brown
fumes of nitrous acid these batteries give off from their negative
cells.
We had an ice-boat on the Gulf of Finland as well. It is only in
early spring, and very seldom then, that this amusement can be
indulged in. The necessary conditions are (1) a heavy thaw to melt
all the snow from the surface of the ice, followed by a sharp frost;
(2) a strong breeze. Nature is not often obliging enough to arrange
matters in this sequence. We had some good sailing, though, and
could get forty miles an hour out of our craft with a decent breeze.
Our boat was of the Dutch, not the Canadian type. I was astonished
to find how close an ice-boat could lay to the wind, for obviously
anything in the nature of leeway is impossible with a boat on
runners. Ice-sailing was bitterly cold work, and the navigation of
the Gulf of Finland required great caution, for in early spring great
cracks appeared in the ice. On one occasion, in avoiding a large
crack, we ran into the omnibus plying on runners between Kronstadt
and the mainland. The driver of the coach was drunk, and lost his
head, to the terror of his passengers, but very little damage was
done. It may be worth while recording this, as it is but seldom that
a boat collides with an omnibus.
It will be seen that in one way and another there was no lack of
amusement to be found round Petrograd, even during the entire
cessation of Court and social entertainments.
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