Given in Loving Memory of
Raymond Bralslin Montgomery
Scientist, R/V Atlantis maiden voyage
2 July - 26 August, 1931
Woods Hole Oceano 'graphic Institution
Physical Oceanographer
1940-1949
Non-Resident Staff
1950-1960
Visiting Committee
III/' 1962-1963
Corporation Member
1970-1980
Faculty, New York University
1940-1944
Faculty, Brown University
1949-1954
Faculty, Johns Hopkins University
1954- 1961
Professor of Oceanography,
Johns Hopkins University
1961-1975
ENTRANCE TO A FIORD.
HALF HOURS
IN THE FAR NORTH
ILiit amfo Snofo anfc fa
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK:
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. THE ISLAND
II. THE DESERT
III. THE PEOPLE
ICELAND.
PAGE
3
23
39
NORTHERN RUSSIA.
I. THROUGH THE BALTIC
II. CRONSTADT
III. ST. PETERSBURG
IV. MOSCOW .
V. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS .
OO
. 66
. 75
. 99
115
GREENLAND.
I. THE COAST
II. FREDERIKSHAAB
III. HOLSTEINBORG
IV. GODHAVEN
131
. 161
160
CONTENTS.
ORKNEY.
I. SCENEBT OP THE GROUP . . .171
H. OCCUPATION OP THE PEOPLE . ...
SHETLAND.
* Tj^-wTmr . I"/
n. PAIH ISLE AND POULA .
ARCTIC SEAS.
nig
I. SEARCH POR PRANKLIN . .
n. SEARCH POR FRANKLIN .. ****
9.4ft
HI. SEARCH FOR FRANKLIN . . .
NORWAY.
1. THS LAND 263
U. THE NATIVES AT HOME ... 278
III. THE NATIVES ABROAD . . 2 *"
TV. DAT AND NIGH* .
LIST OF ILLUSTEATIOXS.
ENTRANCE TO A FIORD
REYKJAVIK, THE CAPITAL OF ICELAND .
MOUNT HECKLA .....
THE GREAT GEYSER
THE STROKR ......
THE RIVER JOKULSA ....
THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER
LANDSCAPE IN THE DESERT .
AN "!NN" ON THE TRACK
TRAVELLING IN ICELAND
INTERIOR OF A HOUSE .
BIRD- CATCHING . .
FISHING-SMACK .....
ELSINEUR
THE DROSKY ......
RUSSIAN VOSTICK, BEGGAR, AND PRIEST
ON THE NEVA IN WINTER .
Frontispiece.
PAGE
7
11
17
21
25
29
33
36
41
44
49
-57
59
69
73
79
X LJST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAQB
THE MAMMOTH /
THE CZAR AND KABL 91
MAP OP ST. PETERSBURG AND THE IBLANDS 96
PEASANTS' HOUSES 97
RUSSIAN TEA-SELLEKS ... .... 100
THE CATHEDRAL OP ST. BASIL . . , . .103
THE GREAT BELL OP Moscow 106
Moscow 107
A RUSSIAN SUMMEB CARRIAGE 119
WORKMEN AT DINNER ........ 12j
THE SPITZBEROEN ICK-STRKAM . . . . . .136
INHABITANTS OP GREENLAND . . . . .139
ESKIMO HUTS 143
THE INTERIOR IN SUMMEB 146
SEAL-HUNTING ON ICK-FIELDS . ... 149
DANISH SETTLEMENT AT HOLSTMNBORO .... 163
THE HALO , . 156
THE DOG-SLEDGE , . . 159
THE AURORA BOREALIS ....... 163
HUNTING THE SEAL 165
THE WALRUS 167
THE STKNNTS STONES . . . . . . .176
A Piers' HOUSE 177
EGG-GATFBRING . . . . . . . .187
AN OKXNET FARMHOUSE ....... 191
GOU, AND BOY OP THE BETTER C/LA8e 200
THE FISHERMAN'S GALLOP . . . . . .203
TH COAST 207
THE CRADLE OF NOBS 210
HOMES OP THE POORER CLASS . . . . . .213
SHETLAND FISHING-BOAT . . . . . 216
WHALERS IN BAFFIN'S BAT ....... 222
WINTER IN WELLINGTON CHANNEL . . . 226
DRAGGING BOJT > CROSS ICE-FIELDS . 228
OST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
POLAR BEARS ......... 2.3 v
THE EDGE or A PACK ........ 233
BUMMBB IN LANCASTER JSOUND . . . . . . 24 s.
AN ESKIMO VILLAGE ........ 245
DISCOVERY AT THE KoSfl CAIRN ...... 251
ARCTIC BIBDS ....... t 2o7
AMONG THB ISLANDS ........ 26
ENTBANCB TO A FIOKD ........ 260
A FlORD 8EBN PROM ABOVE ....... 272
A COAST G-LACIBB ......... 275
A NORWEGIAN CARRIAOB ....... 279
PEASANTS AND MINISTER ....... 28i
AT THE HEAD o^ THE NORD FIORD . . * . 285
NORWEGIAN DANCE ........ 28*
AN HOUR AFTER Mnnneii* , . . . 299
THE EAOLB ......,.. 104
MounTAnr BCOZBY , Kl
ICELAOT).
ICELAND.
CHAPTER I,
THE ISLAND.
I HA YE certainly, In ail niy wanderings, never sailed
over a more desolate and stormy sea than that
which lies between Great Britain and Iceland. In the
voyages both out and home we were constantly beset
by violent gales. Only once were we cheered by the
sight of a ship, and she was scudding with close-reefed
sails before a pitiless storm. Day after day there was
the same sweltering of the waters, the same threatening
sky and warning barometer.
The evening we left Liverpool everything promised
well. The sun set in great beauty over the Isle of Man.
The distant horizon was dimly hedged in by the purple
coast of Ireland, and on th? calm sea a largf fleet of
herring-boats with drooping sails shot their nets in the
4 ICELAND.
glowing light. Removed from all comparison with the
leviathans of the Mersey, our little steamer grew upon
as tfll we had almost forgotten the hesitation we at
first felt to encounter the North Atlantic in such a tiny
craft.
As night closed, a stormy petrel hovered about us ;
but all on sky and sea appeared so calm and peaceable,
and the big solemn barometer seemed so confident of fine
weather, that we derided our little enemy as a hopeless
lunatic who should be bound over to keep the peace
towards us. However, Mother Carey's envoy, as usual,
knew more than we did of what the winds and waves
were meditating, and though at night the barometer
hastened to rectify his prognostic, and courageously
threw a somersault from fair to foul, he was hardly-
in time to " assist ' at the commencement of the
strife.
In the morning after leaving port, we passed the south
end of Islay, and saw its beetling crags lashed by spin-
drift as the grey swirls of rain-cloud were rent for a
moment by the rising gale. That was our last sight of
land till we made Iceland after five days severe buffeting
with the wind and sea. For a day or two the gale canie
roaring up after us
" With all
Its stormy crests that smoked against the sky,"
and bore us bravely on into the dark waste of waters,
walled by mist, which lay beyond ; and I confess this part
of our voyage was very enjoyable. It was most pleasing
THE ISLAND.
to watch the graceful gliding of the great waves, which
one moment ready to topple on the head of the seaman
lashed to the wheel, noiselessly slid below us to dash
out beneath the bows in a broad glittering carpet of
foam.
When we had been carried hopelessly beyond any
harbour of refuge, far out near Rockhall, the following
gale ceased, and after a short interval of tumbled repose
we encountered a " whole gale " right in our teeth, which
compelled us to " lie to " for many hours in a sea as
wildly tumultuous as it -has ever been my lot to en
counter.
The little ship, fought bravely. At one moment, reared
on her hind legs, she menaced the coming seas ; at the
next, almost standing on her head, she dived into the
deep trough which divided them, and again rolling from
side to side, nearly sent her funnel and masts overboard.
She certainly met most of the rollers fiercely, but occa-
sionally a great seahorse with a crest of foam would rise
and strike her such a blow that every fibre of her frame
trembled. It was as if old Tor was trying to beat us
back from his ancient realm with heavy strokes of his
mighty hammer.
How the heart leaps when that terrible crash comes
overhead caused by a heavy sea on deck ! For a time
the ship appears completely crushed by the blow, and
unable again to rise from the trough into which she
sinks. But up she comes again, as buoyant as a cork,
and you breathe more freely till you instinctively know
O ICELAND.
that it is time for another alarm. The regular rhythm
of the waves is very remarkable. For hours I could tell
within a second or two in what direction the ship would
next pitch, and how the approaching wave would strike
her.
At last, on the afternoon of the fifth day, the sailors
discovered land in what seemed to us landsmen a thick
itorm cloud.
A high bank of darkness to the north blended sea and
sky, but gradually out of this blackness indistinct forms
of rocks became perceptible. At first they appeared no
more than denser portions of the darkness, but at last,
from the shroud-like covering, tremendous precipices,
rising at a bound from the foaming breakers beneath,
could be clearly made out, their summits crowned by
snow and their high valleys filled with glancing ice-
streams. As the flying clouds were borne rapidly across
their precipitous faces, and the ocean swell broke hoarsely
on their base, a more inhospitable or dangerous looking
coast could not well be imagined.
We sailed between the Westmann Islands and the
southern coast of Iceland. The islands referred to are
volcanic masses thrown out into the sea, and linked
together by low reefs over which the foaming breakers
were driving madly.
Here we first encountered the whale, which is so
common an inhabitant of these seas. On our way home
thirty of them were at one time visible from the deck.
In mist and rain, with a strong southerly breeze and
THE ISLAND. 9
rising sea, we ran along a lee shore, low, dark, and
precipitous, where no place of refuge could be found for
a luckless ship unable to hold her own. Our sixty
horses worked away bravely, but if they had become
restive there is little doubt what the result would have
been.
Occasionally we caught a glimpse of the jagged and
pinnacled hills of the interior, their size and gloomy
character enhanced by their covering of clouds ; but
generally a low-lying, black, lifeless shore, guarded by
projecting reefs and fiercely beaten by surf, was what
we alone saw during this our first introduction to Ice-
land. We had *o steer a good deal by the fitful light of
the breakers, out and in, keeping them in sight.
"We passed the " Smoky Cape " after sunset, and well
it deserves its name. Against its iron face, round its
basaltic columns, and deep into its wild caverns, the
waves, urged on by the southern gale, broke themselves
into fragments of foam, and shot up in long tongues of
brilliant white. There could not have been a more
imposing or appropriate welcome to a land we had all
pictured as the abode of storm, ice, and fire. I involun-
tarily repeated the well-known lines
" A waste land where no one comes,
Or hath come since the making of the world."
If I had seen nothing more of Iceland than that gloomy
picture, I should have carried away a very different im-
pression of it from what I received a few days afterwards,
10
ICELAND.
when I rode along the same coast and saw it steeped in
the brightest sunshine, and when these same weird-like
hills stood out clear and purple against a sky as trans-
parent as any Italian one.
Nowhere is the traveller . more dependent on weather
than in Iceland. Having to live in wooden churches
or tents without fire, the existence of sunshine or rain
makes all possible difference to his comfort. The
climate generally deals in extremes, and if not over-
whelmed with ruthless rain, you are baked in sun-
shine.
We had one day's experience of the true orthodox rain
of the country, and I should never care again to be ex-
posed to it. Cold sleety rain and wind, which pierced
even to one's very marrow, was not the best discipline
for a preserved meat dinner innocent of fire, and a
bivouac under dripping canvass. But when the sun poured
forth in splendour over the splintered rocks and wonder-
fully coloured hills, lighting up the icy summits of the
Jokulls with a golden haze, and pencilling the clouds with
the most delicate tints of beauty, and filling the green
valleys with light and colour, and the air with that elas-
ticity and joy known to every traveller in Switzerland,
then the rain and the wind were forgotten in the all-
pervading pleasure of existence.
It is to its volcanos that Iceland owes its chief and
mos* characteristic feature. In no part of the world is
Buch dire destruction or such terrible evidence of thii
fearful agency seen.
THE ISLAND.
11
Most of the greater mountains have been, or are still,
volcanos ; and in truth the whole island owes its birth to
volcanic upheaval. So rough, so wild and rugged, is the
land, that it appears like a fragment torn from the bottom
MOUXT HECKLA.
of the deep, and elevated above the waves by some con-
vulsion of nature.
Heckla is the volcano best known, because it lies to
the south of the island, and can be seen by passing shipS|
12 ICELAND.
but it is very far from being the most destructive of the
" Eruptors " of Iceland. On an average, there has been
an explosion somewhere in the island every thirteen
years, and several of these have been unsurpassed for
their violent and devastating effects.
It is very remarkable that in a land where bravery
and enterprise have never been wanting, a region some
3,000 square miles in extent, lying in the south-east
corner of the island, should never have been penetrated
by man. In that wild and untrodden desert stand some
of the most destructive craters.
Age after age, wave upon wave of burning lava has
been poured over it, earthquakes have rent it and tor-
mented it, without the eye of man ever resting on its
mysteries. From out of this solitude, perfect seas of
molten lava have, at various times, flowed over the
pastures and laboriously cultivated fields of the wretched
inhabitants. Considerable hills have been thrown up,
water-courses cut deep in the hills filled full to the
brim, and long reels and islands cast far out into the
sea.
One stream is 50 miles long, 15 miles broad, and
600 feet deep ; and it has been calculated that one volcano
in that wilderness threw out, during one eruption, fifty
to sixty millions of cubic yards of material ! Into the
inhabited regions alone a greater bulk than Mont Blano
was projected !
The accounts which have been handed down of this
event present to us a picture too terrible almost to?
THE ISLAND. 18
belief. With a widespread destruction of the land, the
depths of the sea were invaded, and the fish (the Ice-
landers' chief means of subsistence) driven from the shore.
The flames broke out even through the waves in the line
of movement, and the sea was covered with pumice for
150 miles.
A thick canopy hung over the island for a year, and
the winds carried the ashes over Europe, Africa, and
America. The very sun was darkened, and showed only
as a ball of fire, while frightful hurricanes, hail-storms,
thunder and lightning added their horrors, and famine
and pestilence still further reduced the number of those
who survived the catastrophe.
The great lava streams are inconceivably wild. A
sight of one is a sufficient reward for crossing the ocean.
A more complete " abomination of desolation ' cannot
else be found.
To describe such a stream as like a billowy sea arrested
in its wildest frenzy and turned into stone, would give
but a faint notion of the fretted turbulent twistings, deep
rents and chasms, threatening pinnacles, and overhanging
crests of dull cindery lava, which, ghost-like, stretch to
the horizon.
Sometimes extraordinary swirls in the rock show how
the viscous mass was moved while it cooled. Large
corrugated surfaces thus frequently occur, and occa-
sionally they even assume patterns like a tesselated
pavement.
Sometimes you pass over broad domes that ring to the
14 ICELAND.
tread, and beneath subterranean chambers stretch to a
great distance, which might serve as dens for all the wild
beasts of the forest. Hidden from the summer sun,
banks of ice and snow lie in some of these caves all the
year round ; and small holes, into which a horse's foot
is apt to slide, are a constant source of danger to the
traveller.
The persistent heat of these masses of lava is evidenced
by the fact, that many years after their effusion they con-
tinue hot and smoking.
Such sterile, howling wildernesses are what Rachel
would have fitly termed " a sublime horror." Hardly a
trace of life in animal or plant is met with.
The lowest lichens and a weather-beaten grey moss
sear the rocks with faint traces of colour, and at long
intervals an eagle, or one of the apoplectic ravens which
haunt these solitudes, may flit noiselessly past, their dark
shadow gliding like an evil spirit over the barren rocks.
Not another sign of life exists, and, in truth, the absence
of insect life is one of the most curious and striking
features of the country. Except in some of the valleys
by the side of rivers, where hungry gnats abound, there
is hardly a winged insect to be seen.
No bees or butterflies fill the air with their busy hum,
or pass glittering down the breeze. There are no hedge-
rows or copses " melodious with tune," no little birds
impetuous with song. On the moors the melancholy cry
of the plover may at intervals be heard, but the thrush and
starling and corncrake never come in all that silent land.
THE ISLAND. 15
Among the grass and stones few worms or little insects
meet your eye. I saw no beetle, or spider, or snail.
The very house-fly did not visit our tent; and certain
heavy and light cavalry, so common in the houses of more
southern lands, are, so far as I could learn, prudently
indifferent to so cold and unpromising a field of industry
and enterprise as is presented to them in Iceland.
Everywhere a strange silence reigns, like that of the
Great Desert. Over head and under foot everything
wears the lifeless silence of desolation. It is in winter
that the echoes are aroused, and then, with the hurri-
cane " travelling in the greatness of his strength," and
the ice artillery, the long valleys and iron hills shout
again.
Craters of all sizes are very commonly met with.
Occasionally, a lew yards from the road, you can look
down a black funnel into an unknown abyss ; sometimes
an unfathomable lake occupies an old vent ; and I have
heard of filled-up craters serving as sheep-folds. But it
is not lava alone which is projected from the subter-
ranean chambers of Iceland. Hot mud, boiling water,
liquid sulphur, are at different places thrown up ; and it
is especially in those valleys, where the discoloured
sloughs of sulphur smudge the ground and streak the hill-
side, and where the vapours of boiling cauldrons con-
stantly fill the air, that you fully realise your near
approach to the "ignes suppositi," and feel disposed to
examine suspiciously all the hollows and lurking places
for the befitting genius.
IC2LANO.
The hot springs of Iceland have been for ages cele-
brated, and some of them, have even ranked among the
seven wonders of the world. I was so fortunate as to
witness a very successful performance of the Great
Geyser (i.e. Gusher), and congratulate myself on the
same, as in his old age he is becoming less fond of display,
and has even remained gloomy and taciturn while Prince
Napoleon and his photographers and painters and mathe-
maticians were standing ready for days to picture,
measure, and immortalise him.
Geysers are very common in Iceland. They may be
frequently seen steaming away like energetic pots in the
plains, and waving their white flags in the breeze. Some-
times they obligingly throw their hot water into the icy
lakes, and doubtless thereby gladden the cold toes of the
fish ; sometimes they bubble and boil deep down below
ground, in dark holes of unpleasant aspect.
In the valley of " Hawk-dale," where the Geyser
presides, it is said above one hundred hot springs are
found ; but only a few of them are in any way remarkable.
Most of these are placed on the slope of a low hill of slaty
tuffa, which rises to a height of about three hundred feet
above the valley ; and from the summit of this hill a most
beautiful view is got, not only of the boiling springs below,
but also of the long green valley, with its many rivers
and purple ridges of bordering hills, immediately beyond
which towers the double cone of Heckla, and the range of
dome-shaped Jokiills on either side.
Near the base of this hill there is a most beautiful,
THE GREAT GEYSEK.
C
THE ISLAND. 19
delicately tinted cavern, with bossy walls, full to the brim
with boiling water, which is as clear as crystal, and
entirely devoid of taste or smell. This is the favourite
cooking-pot of travellers. It makes admirable tea ; and
we anchored in its depths sundry tin cans and sausages,
whose flavour afterwards seemed exquisite to our hungry
palates.
This fountain was at one time the chief eruptor, but
after an sarthquake it ceased to play, and made over
the performance to the Great Geyser, which then began.
The " Great Geyser " has built up for itself a truncated
conical mound, by the deposit of the silicious material so
largely held in suspension by its waters.
On the summit of this mound stands the saucer-shaped
basin, in the centre of which the crater or pipe opens.
The basin is about four feet deep at the edge of the
crater, but shallows gradually to the lip. It measures
above seventy feet across, and the pipe is about ten feet in
diameter, and perfectly smooth within, where it has been
polished by the constant rush of the boiling water. The
basin is always full, except for a short interval after an
eruption, when it is emptied, and then you can walk into
the edge of the crater, over the hot stone, and look down
the pipe at the fiercely boiling flood, filling gradually up
again to its old level.
When full the basin looks very beautiful, from the
clearness of the water and the deep blue colour of the
pipe. The water is always boiling, and large bubbles of
air rise to the surface from the unknown regions below.
20 ICELAND.
The interior of the basin is rough, like cerebral coral
or cauliflower, and plants thrown into the water become
covered by silicious encrustation,
We witnessed a grand display, after many false alarms,
during which an abortive attempt was apparently made
by the master of the ceremonies to gratify us. With a
slight tremor of the earth, and considerable groaning and
sighing, a water-column, or rather, I should say, a sheaf
of columns, rose higher and higher out of the basin.
These columns partially sank again and again, but con-
tinued at each renewed effort to gain greater altitude,
till, with a final attempt, a maximum of about one hundred,
feet was reached. This height was only maintained for
a few seconds, and down like a telescope the whole
mass sank, the entire period consumed in the display
being seven minutes and a half.
The explosion was accompanied by so much steam, that
the water- column was greatly concealed; still it was a very
wonderful and gratifying spectacle. As throb after throb
raised the dome of water higher and higher, the excite-
ment among the spectators was, as may be believed, very
great.
At one tune the Geyser is said to have been much
more powerful than in our day, and to have risen
between three and four hundred feet every six hours ;
but that was in his hot and fiery youth : he is now old
and feeble, and gradually builds up a flinty tomb, which
one day will enclose him as similar formations have done
not a few of his brethren.
THE ISLAND.
21
The Lesser Geyser erupts at short intervals, but to no
great height; while the "Strokr" (i.e. "Churn"), the
remaining hot spring of chief interest in this locality, is
of such an excitable disposition that he can be roused to
activity by a trick, and made to contribute to the amuse-
ment of every passer.
THE STROKE.
At a depth of twelve feet from the surface, this Geyser,
when quiescent, pursues his boiling trade with not a little
sound and fury ; but as his throat is very narrow, it can
easily be closed, and so our friend choked. This ignoble
act is achieved by throwing in a few shovelfuls of sod.
Naturally enough, he warmly resents such liberties being
2*2 ICELAND.
taken with his windpipe, and thus no sooner has the
guide hurled in the proper dose, than, like a man with
quinsy, the Strokr hisses and splutters, gasps and
grumbles, till he can no longer contain himself, and
up it all comes, boiling water, steam, and earth, in explo-
sion after explosion, till the whole "ingesta" have been
got quit of, and his pipe is again clear.
After many efforts and much excitement, he appears
for a moment to calm, but again, apparently after
thinking over it, he cannot brook the recollection, and
at it he goes, almost as energetically as ever. He is a
great performer is this Strokr ; he would, I am sure,
make the fortune of any showman who could tame and
carry him to the Palace at Sydenham. On the whole, I
think that if the water were clear, the eruption of the
Strokr is more graceful, as it is nearly as high, as that of
the Great Geyser.
ICELAND.
CHAPTER II.
THE DESERT.
HPHE central deserts of Iceland are unexplored. A man
must be bold, and singularly favoured by weather,
to investigate their mysterious recesses and to return
with life.
One region, part wild tumbled snow and glacier moun-
tains, part plains of bristling lava, is as unknown as the
heart of Africa. The glimmer of silver peaks has been
seen from afar across an impassable arm of lava, the
confines of the great sea of molten matter have been
skirted, but those billows of black ragged stone have
never been traversed even in the old adventuresome days
of Iceland.
Sometimes violent shocks and a rising column of black
cloud warn distant settlers that volcanic fires are still
23 '
24 ICELAND.
active in the heart of that fearful wilderness ; then the
one great river Jokuisa, which flows from its mysterious
depths, is tinged with volcanic ash, and swollen with
melted snows ; then, too, the night sky gleams scarlet
over some unvisited, unknown, yawning crater, which is
pouring forth its flood of molten rock.
This sea of lava sweeps up to the roots of a chain of
snow mountains perfectly unexplored, themselves vol-
anos ready to toss aside their mantles of white and
spread destruction for miles round.
To the west of this vast region of lava and snow lies
an upland desert of black sparkling sand, stretching
completely across the island. This sand is volcanic,
-and has been deposited during outbursts of the neigh-
bouring mountains, when the clouds rain down sand
till the ground is covered many feet deep, and every
particle of vegetation is destro} T ed. I had an oppor-
tunity of observing a cutting made by a stream in this
district, and I found traces of three several depositions
of volcanic dust, the last as much as thirteen feet deep.
Vegetation advances in Iceland with none of that
rapidity with which it covers the flanks of Vesuvius,
and sand in Iceland is many hundreds of years old
before it becomes covered with a scanty growth of
marram and moss campion.
Part of this elevated table-land of desert is studded
with countless lakes of all shapes and sizes, disconnected,
landlocked ; some, quiet tarns of crystal clear water
others winding among the hills, ruffled and tossed iuta
THE DESER1. 27
angry waves by the cutting blasts which howl over the
waste. This wild region is utterly barren. The hills
are bare, exposed stone, broken into angular fragments
and torn into gullies by the melting snows of spring.
The elevated plains are masses of splintered trap and
black mud, into which a horse will flounder to its belly.
The dales are occasionally grey with moss, and partially
clothed with stunted willow.
But every spring thaw helps to destroy the little
amount of vegetation which exists, as the icy water tears
down the hill-slopes and rips up the moss, or bears
away the sandy soil in which the willow found root.
It must not be thought that a mossy, willowy bottom
is common. You may travel all day without coming to
one, but a few do exist, known only to certain individuals
who haunt the waste during the summer, gathering the
lichen islandicus, or seeking swans.
This region bears some resemblance to the Siberian
tundras, but it is more barren. The tundras are moss-
covered, and nourish herds of reindeer; but the heidis
of the centre of Iceland could not support any quadruped.
For the most part this desert is devoid of living crea-
tures, for birds will not frequent spots where there is no
vegetation.
Wherever a morass of moss, blaeberry, and willow is
to be found, however, multitudes of wild fowl congregate.
The lakes teem with red-fleshed Alpine trout and magni-
ficent char, and where the fish are, there are to be found
the swan and the diver.
8 ICELAND.
Swans breed in considerable numbers among these
lakes, unmolested except by a hardy native who may
venture into the wilds to shoot them for their feathers.
The swan is of only one species, the cygnus musicus :
some naturalists have asserted that another species is to
be found in the island, but the natives are very positive
that one kind only visits the island, and certainly amongst
those which I saw, I noticed none but the hoopers.
Glorious, indeed, is the note, shrill as a trumpet-call,
uttered by this majestic bird, when the labours of incu-
bation are completed, and it sings its paean of triumph
over its fledgelings.
The swans generally are in pairs in a lake : among
these tarns it is rare to find more than one couple to
each sheet of water. An attempt on the part of a second
pair to intrude is resented as an intrusion, the swans
regarding the lake as an Englishman regards his house
as a castle. But this is not the case always. I counted
some eighteen swans on the great lake in the Vatnsdalr ;
but there the sheet was extensive. Perhaps the reason
of the tenacity of the swans on the Arnarvatn lieidi to
their rights is the scarcity of provender, and they may
be aware that what is enough for two would be starving
for four.
Another bird frequenting these lakes, also in couples,
is the Great Northern Diver, a magnificent fellow in
gorgeous metallic glitter of green and black, his wings
and back sprinkled with white, and his breast of spotless
purity. The size of the bird is great, his neck and head
THE LESEBT.
29
well proportioned, the latter narrow and armed with a
pointed dark-coloured bill, and furnished with bright
crimson eyes, like rubies.
The diver is a heavy bird, and a clumsy walker ; but
he flies well, though low, rising when alarmed from his
lone dark pool with a weird cry, mingled with gulping
whoops, like the laughter of a fiend. The diver is a very
powerful swimmer, and it is difficult for a boat to keep
THE GREAT NORTHERN DIYER.
up with him. He laughs at a storm, dancing like a cork
on the waters, plunging through the waves and appearing
on the other side with a fish in his mouth, which he
swallows with a toss of his head.
In the neighbourhood of the lakes where there is ve^e-
O O
tation the whimbrel stands on his long legs, uttering his
wild sad cry, and seeming quite unconcerned if you
80 ICELAND.
present your gun. Have him we must, for we depend
entirely for provisions in these wastes on what we shoot ;
and whimbrel, though stringy and tasteless, is not to be
despised when little else is to be got.
Ah ! we have disturbed a covey of ptarmigans. They
looked like grey stones, crouching so unconcernedly on
the ground as we rode by. But the ptarmigan is sure
before long to give notice of his presence, for he is proud
of his voice, and one might pass within a few feet of the
bird without noticing him, but for his tell-tale call rio,
r io, r io which has given him his name in Iceland of
Rjupr.
We catch the zick-zack of the snipe in yon morass,
and the ceaseless melancholy pipe of the golden plover
sounds from every stony hill around the tarn. Just here
there is abundance of life ; a gun-shot beyond the top of
the rise you will not see or hear a bird. If you are
lucky, you will catch sight of the great snowy owl, like
a snow-ball, sailing by, uttering its solemn note. Its
haunts are somewhere among the unvisited, unknown
recesses of the vast Jokiills which close the view on the
south.
Here, close to us, is a little snow bunting, sitting
wagging its tail and cheeping ; lucky bunting that you
are ! had the owl but seen you, you would not be
perched so unconcernedly there. How tame the little
being is, or rather how stupid ; you have only to steal
up softly whilst it is occupied cheeping, and you can
catch it in your hand. These rocks around us harbour
THE DESEBT. 81
countless buntings, bnt their nests are BO far in among
the crevices that it is a difficult matter to obtain an
egg-
Have done with the birds : let us take a glance at the
flora of this wild spot. This is scanty. The very moss
in some places is turned black as coal by the icy trick-
lings from the snow, and it is only where there is a dry
sheltered spot that any flowers can blossom. There are
a few.
The pale blue butterwort, on its sickly leaves, trembles
timorously in the piercing blasts which roll over the
Jokiills, and yet bravely endures them. I do not think
the little flower has as cheerful a hue here as in the
south. It seems blanched with cold.
The grass of Parnassus is also to be found, but the
little bullet heads are not yet unfolded. On a southern
slope of volcanic ash a scanty growth of creeping azalea
may be discovered, and a few varieties of heath which I
cannot identify just now, as they have not yet flowered.
In the marsh at the head of this tarn, in which my
poor ponies are wading after the young willow-tops, I
find the bog whortle and the blaeberry, now coming
into flower ; and I light upon a bunch of Burtsia
alpina, its rich plum- coloured flowers just beginning to
open.
On the lava rocks, especially when old, may be seen
masses of pale Dryas octopetala a glorious flower, with
its eight delicate milky petals and its sunny eye. No
where have I seen this plant in such perfection as in
82 ICELAND.
Iceland ; the blossoms are larger there than I have sews
in the Alps or the Pyrenees, but probably the volcanic
constituents of the rock on which it lives are those oest
suited for its development.
We may find a few saxifrages also, but one flower,
which is sure to attract the eye, is the dwarf campion,
of all gradations of colour, from pure snow-white to
carmine pink, in dense masses of little blossoms, studding
the sand, and growing where nothing else can grow.
Brave, bonny little plant ! I have become attached to it
from association, as it has cheered my eye, wearied with
the unrelieved monotony of black wastes for miles and
miles in Iceland.
It was impossible to cross this desert in a day, and I
was obliged to obtain a guide to direct me to some spot
where I could encamp for the night, and where there was
sufficient herbage for the support of my ponies. We were
in the saddle for the greater part of the day, winding
among barren stony hills, traversing rolling swells of
exposed trap, trotting over sandy sweeps, skirting brist-
ling barriers of lava, and threading our way among
countless sheets of pale milky water, holding snow in
solution, and not sufficiently warm to become trans-
parent.
At last, about six o'clock in the evening, we reached a
lake about three miles long and a mile wide, on which
my guide kept a boat for the purpose of fishing. He led
us to a node of rock, covered with moss, at the foot o*
which was a heap of brushwood, which he had sent
THE DESERT.
33
thither some days before, on the backs of ponies, to
serve him as fuel when he came to spend a week in
fishing.
LANDSCAPE IN THE DESERT.
Our teeth were chattering with cold, and our whole
frames shivering, though we were well on in the summer
within a day or two of the end of June ; we were glad
84 ICELAND.
enough accordingly to secure some of this wood and to
make a fire. We had a couple of tents, and these were
soon erected, though we had considerable difficulty in
obtaining a suitable site, as the mossy ground was covered
with lumps like enormous mole-hills as close together as
they could stand. If we left the immediate neighbour-
hood of the rock just mentioned, we found ourselves in a
quaking bog ; and if we ascended the hill-side, we came
upon bare stone on which we could not fix our tents,
there being no possibility of driving in the pegs.
And now I must give an idea of the scene from the
rise above this tarn, as viewed at midnight, when I made
the sketch.
Imagine, then, the lake, bright as a mirror, reflecting
the .blue-green of the sky, which was kindled with the
beams of the sun, now touching the sea in the north,
which is invisible to us as some miles of rolling waste
intervene. The middle distance is the Heidi, swell on
swell of stone and sand, of a deep umber hue, deepening
into black. Just at the lake-edge my little tent stands
out a flake of white against the sombre ground. Ah ! you
think there was moss where I pitched it. True ; but the
moss on these wastes is not green, but ash grey. My
little flag, an admiral of the white pennant, charged with
a red cross, is the only point of bright colour to relieve
the monotony of the tints.
Over the last swell of the desert, where the umber ia
becoming purple with distance, rises with one start a
mighty dome of ice, raised on precipitous flanks of trap,
THE DESERT. 35
black when you are near them, but tinted the sweetest
violet in the distance. The mighty pile of snow and ice
rises from these abrupt scarps with a gentle curve, un-
dinted to the very summit, looking soft and downy as a
swan's breast. As the sun rests on the glittering heap it
blushes to the tenderest rose and sparkles like a precious
gem. The scene is entrancingly lovely.
Far off behind this Jokiill, which by the way is called
Eirek's Jokiill, stretches another Lang Jokiill like a
thread of white cloud, resting on the horizon, and lost in
the distance of the south-east. To our right, Eirek's
Jokiill throws out a spur of precipitous rock, jauntily
tapped with snow, and beyond that rises the cone of
Strutur, an extinct volcano. To the north-west, as the
air is BO clear, we can catch sight of the marvellous
Baula, a mountain which is considered one of the won-
ders of Iceland, as it is a perfect cone, running to a point,
3,500 feet high, with so rapid a slope that snow never
rests on it.
The great central wilderness is, as I have already
stated, almost entirely unexplored. Three "tracks" alone
cross it throughout the length of the island, and the
country right and left of these tracks is quite unknown.
When I speak of a track, I do not mean a road. Roada
there are none in Iceland, no, not even paths. A track-
way over a waste is simply formed by piling three or
four stones on the top of a rock. This is called a vardr.
From this point an experienced eye can detect another
vardr, perhaps on the horizon. Often I could not 866
36
ICELAND.
them, but the Icelander has the eye of an eagle, and he
detects one immediately.
The horses have then to make the best of their way
from one vardr to another, wriggling among stones,
floundering into mud-bogs, picking their way among
splinters of trap or lava, often making the most cornpli-
AN " INN " ON THE TRACK.
cated windings to reach a spot on the horizon of a hill
which you could strike with an Enfield.
The reason of the country being so unexplored is just
this : if you lose your track in these wastes, God help
you ! you are lost. The compass will not guide you
correctly, for the needle does not always act when you
THE DESEKT.
87
are crossing igneous rock. You may wander for days
before you reach grass, and if your ponies die you will
hardly be able to reach a place of safety on foot.
The Icelanders had, and in some parts have still, a
conviction that the recesses of these wilds are inhabited
by a race of men of their own stock, but slightly differing
from them in their language and in their dress. They
call these people Utlegumennir, and there are some
curious stories told about them.
They are supposed to be the descendants of outlaws
and robbers, who in old times haunted these deserts, and
who having discovered fertile valleys in the heart of the
wilderness, are content to reside there, and inherit a
feeling of enmity against the coast-dwellers, who expelled
their ancestors from the community of their fellow-men.
These people are said to be sadly deficient in iron, and
to shoe their horses with horn. They are thought to have
made their appearance occasionally when merchant ships
have entered the fiords to trade with the natives.
Of course the existence of this race is a possibility, but
I cannot say anything for its probability. When we
consider that the population of Iceland is only 68,000,
and that it is a third larger than Ireland, and that this
population is confined to the coast and to the banks of
the rivers just above their entrance into the friths, it
leaves ample room for a colony in the heart of the
country to live undisturbed.
About two o'clock at night if I may call it "night"
when it is light, the sun just beginning to struggle up
88 ICELAND.
the sky again, and Eirek's Jokiill still bathed in his
beams we turned into our tents for the night, putting
four guides into a little horseman's tent, 5 ft. 6 in. by
8 ft. 6 in., which was close enough packing to keep them
warm.
Storm and rain came on, and we had a miserable night,
the water pouring over the floor of our tents and soaking
all our bedding. We were somewhat aching and rheu-
matic when we crawled forth the next morning to a
breakfast on cold boiled plover and char. But travelling
is a succession of pleasures and pain, of comfort and
discomfort, of enjoyment and annoyance, and we moat
take all as it cornea.
ICELAND.
CHAPTER in.
THE PEOPLE.
fPHERE is no hotel in Iceland, always excepting the
miserable pot-house which does duty at the capital.
The churches are the hostelries, and the clergy, miserably
poor though they be, are the public exponents of a hospi-
tality which is a national virtue. You sleep and eat, and
may even smoke at your ease, in the churches. The
clergy join you, if you wish it, at such festivity, and
frequently the meal, or its choicest portion, is their con-
tribution.
The churches are ridiculously- small buildings. The
one which formerly stood at Tingvalla one of the great
sights of the island, from being the seat of the old
Athling or open-air Parliament was only twenty-five
feet by ten, and when the clergyman was in the pul[it his
4.0 ICELAND.
head was above the rafters ! The new .church at tha
place mentioned is on a somewhat larger scale than its
predecessor ; but many sacred edifices, I was informed,
still exist in the island, not larger than the old church
referred to. The people are so widely scattered, that it is
difficult in stormy weather to fill even these diminutive
buildings.
The clergy possess incomes varying generally from
61. to 10L a year, exclusive of a few trifling fees, and
they have a house and farm besides. They work at
their farms as hard as the meanest of their parishioners ;
and, as a rule, are not very much elevated above them in
intelligence or learning. To this remark, however, there
have been, and still are, many notable exceptions.
It is not an uncommon thing for the traveller to find
an entertainment set out for his acceptance on the altar of
the church in which he resides, and in the dark evenings
to have the large candles on the altar lit for his use. We
did not stand in need of such aid, as we carried our own
tent and commissariat ; but for those who trust to church
accommodation and clergy entertainers, it is a common,
but at first a somewhat startling, event.
The Icelanders are Lutherans, and very strict, and
they are somewhat bigoted. I believe that there is one
solitary Romanist in the island, and for his benefit, as
well as for the good of the French fishermen who
annually frequent the coast for a few months, there are
two Roman Catholic priests at Reykjavik all the year
round, and a very agreeable gentleman whom we mot,
THE PEOPLE.
and who is designated by the ambitious title of "Prefet
Apostolique du Pole Nord," visits them yearly to see that
their duty is rightly performed.
The mode of travelling in Iceland is somewhat eccen-
tric and not a little fatiguing. The ground is so encum-
bered with masses of stone, and the distances from place
to place so great, that a pedestrian has no chance ; and
TRAVELLING IN ICELAND.
as railways and even highways are unknown, the short-
limbed, big-headed, shaggy, intelligent pony of the
country is made to carry everybody and everything that
requires transport. There are some seventy thousand of
these most useful animals on the island, and their sure-
footedness is such that the traveller soon learns to dash.
42 ICELAND.
at full speed, like a native, across ground bristling with
countless stones that razor-like project from the surface,
ready to mutilate him grievously if he fall upon them.
The only roads are mere tracks, under two feet broad,
made by the various generations of ponies, and left
entirely to the care of snow-drift and glacier. These,
partly covered with stones, wind zig-zag between the
greater rock-masses, and ford innumerable bridgeless
rivers, that in short but fierce courses roll down " pale
from the glaciers " to lake or sea. Wherever there :s
soil the path eats its way into the ground, and thus a
high turf bank stands up on either side, thickly studded
with rough stones ; and in avoiding contact with such
fracturing and dislocating agencies, feats of horsemanship
have to be performed which leave most unpleasant
impressions on bone and muscle when repose is sought
after your ten hours' scamper.
The ponies are so diminutive, and the traveller is
generally so enveloped in coats, plaids, and capes, that
the moving mass appears at a little distance all man and
no pony. When things look ugly, the only alternative is
to shut the eyes and hold the breath, and if the reins are
left loose, your intelligent bearer will soon extricate you
from all difficulty.
Each traveller has two ponies for his own use, and two
for each guide and load of baggage, so that the number of
animals accompanying even a small party is very con-
siderable. The relays are driven by lash and cry, in a
wild surging wave before ; and as the flying column windf
THE PEOPLE. 4.3
round the shoulder of a mountain, or flits tike a cloud
across valleys where no other living thing is seen, a
momentary life and animation is imparted to scenes other-
wise often singularly unattractive.
Except potatoes, and a few other hardy vegetables, no
crops come to maturity in Iceland, and corn is never sown*
Truly
"No products here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel the soldier and his sword.'*
The sea is the Icelander's great storehouse. From it he
obtains the chief staple of his diet and the main item of
his export. Providence has, in the seething shoals of
every species of fish which frequent these seas, compen-
sated in a great measure for the sterility of the land. A
few hours, in the proper season, suffices to fill a boat with
magnificent fish, and the whole population, men, women,
and children, abjectly worship the cod, who is here undis-
puted king.
Every house near the coast is redolent of cod. The
eaves are festooned with their bodies, the doorways are
straitened by them, the children cut their teeth on them,
and the very ponies love and eat them. Stacks
veritable stacks of cod, roped and thatched like peats in
Scotland meet you by the highways, and ships freighted
with them sail for the delectation of Catholic countries.
These Icelanders are the veritable Ichthyophagi. It ia
only after seeing a native develop ths hidden mysteries of
a cod's head that you become aware of how much
ICELAND.
"curious eating' 1 it affords. Many boat-loads of cod
from these distant seas find their way to the London
market, whose wealth attracts the products of the whole
known world.
INTERIOR OF A HOUSE.
If Mr. Cod was aware of what an interest the Icelander
has in his welfare, I doubt not he would feel deeply
.gratified. He little thinks, as he rubs his cold nose on
THE PEOPLE. 45
the tangle, and gazes with his glassy unimaginative eye
at the inviting bait, how many firesides up-stairs are
rendered warm at the expense of himself and his rela-
tions.
Besides fish, the Icelander feeds on milk-curd (similar
to that used by the Arabs and Kaffirs), occasionally rye-
bread and mutton, and, on rare occasions, potatoes,
and even coffee. Notwithstanding their unvaried and
not very wholesome diet, the Icelanders are large,
strong, flaxen-haired, and healthy-looking men. Their
houses cannot certainly contribute to their healthful-
ness, as they are built apparently with the sole object
of excluding light and air, and imprisoning every fetid
effluvium.
Violent epidemics, very similar in their nature and
malignancy to those which devastated our own country
during the Middle Ages, have, within recent times,
swept over the land ; and now leprosy, such as is seen
throughout the East, is a common disease. As the
whole population of the island is below 70,000, an
epidemic produces a most terrible effect on the native
society.
There are no tradesmen, properly so called, in Iceland,
and there are no village schools. The distances between
the farms make both impossible. " In the nights of
winter," however, " when the cold north winds blow and
the long howling of the wolves is heard amidst the snow,"
the farmer acts in turn the part of tailor, shoemaker,
smith, and carpenter, and so carefully instructs his
46 ICEIAND.
children, that the whole population are said to be very
efficiently educated.
The Icelanders are true Scandinavians of the unmixed
sangre-bleu. They speak the pure Norse, from which
some 60 per cent, of our own language is derived. In
their honesty, truthfulness, hospitality, maritime enter-
prise, courage, and humble piety, we British are fain to
trace some of our most cherished national traits, and
from them undoubtedly we obtained our ideas of repre-
sentative parliaments, trial by jury, and other honoured
institutions.
In manners, the Icelanders are quiet, subdued, and
contented. Music and dancing are said to be almost
unknown ; we certainly saw no evidence of either art
being practised. The long, dawnless winter nights, when
the sun is replaced by the pale reflection of the stars from
snow and ice, or the flashing coruscations of the Aurora
wandering from horizon to zenith in brilliant tints of
evanescent glory, must give a complexion to the thoughts
and dispositions as it moulds the habits and occupations
of men.
So frigid and inhospitable a climate must cramp the
conception and harden the temperament. How different
are the external influences which surround the Icelander
from those affecting the Italian, Egyptian, or Indian ! And
yet that the grand scenes of the North are well fitted to
fire the imagination, and develop the more thoughtful
faculties, is well evinced in the Eddas and Sagas of the
many Icelandic writers. It is now well understood that
THE PEOPLE. 47
mot a few of those wild, fanciful German legends which
we value so much, are but translations of Icelandic tales ;
and we know that histories and poems were written in
Iceland long before we, in Great Britian, had emerged
from barbarism.
Much of the domestic history of Iceland is an account
of contests waged with physical evils ; and when we thus
see men successfully contending with storm and pestilence,
with volcanos and earthquakes, with long seasons of
darkness, with enow and ice, with a land " whose
stones are iron, and whose hills are brass," almost cut
off from intercourse with other nations, and having
but few natural resources on which to fall back, we
cannot but award them our highest admiration and
respect.
Their love of country is proverbial, notwithstanding
" the small mercies " for which they have to be thankful.
So true is it that
* The shuddering tenant of the Frigid Zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease ;
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more."
The discomfort of a residence in Iceland is much en-
hanced by the want of fuel. The springs of hot water
would be most providential institutions in such a land
if the inhabitants turned them to economic uses. There
are no trees, unless the pigmy willows and birch, some
i8 ICELAND.
few inches high, which are found in a few spots, and
ambitiously called "forests," are to be so designated.
There is little or nc turf also ; yet there is no lack of
wood, though no ship or human hand brings it to their
shores.
The Gulf-Stream sweeps part of the coast, assuaging in
a most notable degree the severity of their climate. It
also bears to them, from the long circuit of its stately
march, innumerable trees of many species with roots and
branches attached, and logs of valuable wood, gnawed by
the sea, to brighten the hearth and build their log houses
firm against the storm.
Game is very plentiful in Iceland. With salmon and
sea-trout in the streams, and teal, snipe, golden plover,
ptarmigan, wild goose, and wild swan on the fiords and
moors, the sportsman need never be at a loss ; not to
speak of the countless flocks of sea-birds which frequent
the coast, from the " Great Northern Diver " to the little
fat puffin, which only needs to be shorn of its feathers,
have a wick passed through his body, and be set on end
in a saucer, in order to form a brilliant light for th&
household.
Besides fish, there are exported from Iceland, wool,
eider-down feathers, knitted things in great numbers, and
sulphur. The whole public annual income of the island
is but 3,000/., and the Government expends fully twice
that sum upon it, so that the connection is not a very
profitable one for the mother country.
I would add that of the many natural beauties of the
BIRD-CATCHING.
E
I
THE PEOPLE. 61
country, none struck me more than the wonderfully
diversified shape and colour of the mountains.
Some are sharp, like needles, others form regular cones,
others stand out in long splintered ridges, " bitten into
barrenness by the hunger of the north wind," or tor-
mented into great rough masses of tumbled rock, and
so present an infinite variety of beautiful objects in the
landscape.
The colouring, too, especially in the morning and even-
ing, is really extraordinary. Not only are the varieties
of shade great, bat they are most brilliant and intense:
deep brown and black, relieved by many degrees of green
and grey, with dashes of purple, orange, and even rose
and red. These, combined for the most part in the most
harmonious hues, and reflected by an atmosphere of the
most dazzling clearness, far surpass the artist's power of
imitation.
Some of the mountain masses rise dark and desolate
without soil or trace of vegetation. They look like great
beams of iron binding the land together. Others spring,
a glorious glittering pyramid of snow and ice, from the
blue sea or the green grassy plain. Yet, with all this-
and we intensely enjoyed it how inexpressibly we
admired our own dear land, when, after seeing so much
barren sterility, we found ourselves travelling through the
harvest fields of Aberdeenshire, and saw " the swathes of
its corn glowing and burning from field to field," and
looked into the peaceful homesteads and orchards, full to
overflowing with the generous fruits of the earth, and saw
02 ICELAND.
again the " bosky knowes," brilliant with purple heatiies,
rise up amidst glades of tangled wild flowers and soft-
creeping moss 1 Truly it seemed " a generous land,
gilded with corn, and fragrant with deep grass ; bright
with capricious plenty, and laughing from vale to vfefc 80
iifal fulness kiad aad
NORTHERN KUSSIA.
]S T OKTHEKN KUSSIA.
CHAPTER I.
THROUGH THE BALTIC.
.
I HAVE little to say about it. The fact is that almost
all voyages out of sight of land are much the same.
In every ship there is the same sort of steward and
passengers ; the same bustle for berths at starting ; the
same running about through the cabin and on deck, with
hat-boxes, carpet-bags, and new portmanteaus, getting
settled down.
The same smells too ! blame me not for dwelling on
them most notable facts are they, inasmuch as the nose
conveys to the soul fully as much information regarding
the external world as any other of the senses. Hence
there is a seashore smell ; a highland moor smell ; a
coach smell ; a first, second, and third class smell ; a
church smell ; "a subtle smell which spring unbinds," as
55
66 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
Wordsworth well knew, having had the advantage of a
large poetic nose to perceive it. No man feels himself
abroad until he has inhaled the smell of the " salle a
manger" or the " Speise Saal." And thus no man
realizes that he is at sea until he has felt the smell of the
cabin, and of those submarine cells called state-rooms
an aroma which stands alone, a product of sea and
land, ye't nothing else on sea or land having a scent,
like it!
Then there are much about the same kind of waves on
every sea, that is to say, on ordinary occasions ; for
when put to it by a gale of wind, I would back the
Atlantic, anywhere between Cape Race and Cape Clear,
against all the treasures of the great deep, for breaking,
topping, sweeping, roaring blue seas. The North Sea is
not, indeed, to be despised, especially when it fights with
the winds, as Duncan did with the Dutch over the
Dogger-bank ; but the Baltic, though ambitious, and
often seriously angry, has all the testiness of a fresh-
water lake, but wants the grand majesty, the mountain-
swing of the real old Ocean. It is fierce and furious, not
awful and overwhelming like the Atlantic.
Our passengers were, of course, divided between the
whole and the sick, with various species under this last
genus, from those possessing a solemn gravity and
pensive meditativ.eness, down to a solitary inert mass of
helpless agony, unconscious apparently of every existence
except that of the steward, whose name was feebly
ottered, by day and night, in spasmodic intervals. I have
THROUGH THE BALTIC.
ever had the good fortune to be among the whole and
hearty.
Our good ship, I may add, was the Admiral, sailing
from Hull ; and our good captain, than whom a worthier
FISHIXG-SMACK.
man or more experienced sailor sails not the sea, was
Brown.
We took seven days to St. Petersburg. Remember
that fact ere ye thoughtlessly venture to peep into Russia.
The most interesting spectacle on the North Sea was
5 NORTHiftX RUSSIA.
fishing-smacks. We passed several out of sight of land.
They trawl over those endless banks for months, consign-
ing their cargoes from time to time to vessels which
convey them to British or continental markets, but the
same crew always remaining in the smack. There they
lie, pitching and tossing, reefing and tacking, hauling and
trawling, lying to and bearing away, night and day,
through mist, and spit, and salt sea-foam, with wet
nets, wet fish, wet sails, wet ropes, wet clothes, wet
skies!
How cosy and comfortable is any returned convict, or
inhabitant of one of our well-regulated prisons, compared
with these poor fellows ! We would recommend " Four
months' fishing on the North Sea," as a sentence to be
passed upon all those genteel criminals who. would miss
the theatre and comfortable tavern. It would cool their
passions, improve their health, cultivate their good habits,
or kill them.
After three days, we saw in the distant horizon a few
specks, and were told that they represented Jutland ;
then, by-and-by, came the Olrnan light ; then, some ten
hours after, the Skagen lighthouse, marking a low line of
sands, on which we counted five old wrecks ; then,
twelve hours farther, with occasional peeps of misty
streaks which were called dry land, the hitherto almost
unseen shores began to come nearer. In a few hours we
could see corn-fields, and trees, and then houses, both on
the Swedish and Danish coast, but no scenery worth
remarking, until at last, right ahead, at some distance, we
THROUGH THE BALTIC.
59
saw a large square building, which we were told was the
Castle of Kronberg, by Elsineur.
We anchored for an hour at Elsineur to take in a
pilot; and landed in honour of Hamlet.
I saw nothing very noticeable about this classic spot,
except excellent cherries and some good cherry cordial ;
also two tug-boats, representing the genius and the
influence of Shakspere in this harbour of prose the one
being called Hamlet, and the other Ophelia! We were
6C NORTHERN RUSSIA.
surprised at finding Elsineur neither "wild," "stormy,"
nor " steep," but a quiet little wooden town, full of fish
and sailors ; with its old castle, half a mile off, riting
from the very margin of the sea, and wearing the look
more of a decayed palace than of a warlike fortress. One
would think from its appearance that it is fit for little
more than firing royal salutes.
A few hours after passing Elsineur, the sea widens out
again until Copenhagen is reached, sweeping round the
margin of an ample bay. The day we first saw it was
lovely, the sea a dead calm, and the waters alive with
vessels.- Various buildings were pointed out as we
leisurely surveyed the city while landing our pilot; but I
eaw only the two batteries before which the British fleet
poured their broadsides, sixty years ago, for three hours,
during the hottest fight ever witnessed by Nelson ; and I
also saw more clearly than these the little man himself,
putting the telescope to his blind eye, and turning it
through the smoke towards Parker and his No. 39 signal,
ordering the hero to withdraw his ships from the terrific
combat. I need only say, that every man of us got up
his "Nelson and the North," to the best of his ability,
and with becoming patriotism.
Away we went out of the Cattegat and up the Baltic,
passing the long island of Gothland, flat and shaped like
a tombstone seen sideways ; on, across the Gulf of
Bothnia, with sunsets of surpassing glory, and skies red
and fiery from the west up to the zenith, and down to the
eastern horizon, which glowed as if with sunrise ; on we
THROUGH THE BALTIC.
went rolling and pitching away with a quarter wind, and
all sail set, the right paddle now buried in the sea, and
apparently dying of suffocation, the steam giving ft
wheezing groan as if in sympathy, then, after a roll to
port, lightly capping the top of the foaming billows, while
the opposite paddle was struggling for existence; the
persevering and strong engine all the while doing its duty
with an air of dignified respectability, but greatly wanting
in zeal ; on, passing the time with the usual routine of
meals and conversation, enlivened by the screams of two
pigs who paraded the main-deck, and received daily a
powerful scrubbing from the sailors, while a sheep, tawny
with coal dust, contemplated the scene in peace ; on w
went, with a fresh breeze and broken sea, passing several
cold and dreary lighthouses and lightships, until, one
morning, we were told that a few scratches on the
horizon were Cronstadt.
Then came Sir Charles Napier's farthest point of
observation, Tamboukin lighthouse, until, finally, we
bravely advanced towards the dreaded forts, which did not
presume to stop our progress, until we blew off our steam,
and anchored close to the pier in the busy harbour. So
ended our voyage.
Before getting into the little steamer which conveys us
to St. Petersburgh, twenty miles up " the firth," let me
tell you a short adventure of one of the passengers, the
Bussian Lieutenant K y, who left us at Cronstadt. The
story has been told before, but I will tell it in as nearly
as possible the words of the Lieutenant, and as I
62 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
took it down at the time in my note-book. I may add
that, like most educated Russians, the Lieutenant spoke
excellent English.
"The Diana frigate, of which I was an officer, was
commanded by Admiral Pontaveen. We anchored on
the 23rd of December 1855, in the harbour of Sinoda, in
Japan. We had on board about 500 of a crew. About
half-past nine in the morning we were surprised to see
the boats afloat which we had sent on shore, and which
had been all drawn up on the beach. But, immediately,
our surprise was still greater, in seeing wooden houses
floating past us 1
" We guessed at once that an earthquake beneath and
around us was taking place. Our conjectures were, alas I
too true. It proved to be a very fearful earthquake, and
continued for seven hours, or until half-past four in the
afternoon. During this dreadful time our frigate was
swept out of and into the bay by the sea. Anchors were
of no use, for land and sea were changing places. We were
now on the ground, and the next moment afloat, and
again on shore, swinging back and forward, guns break-
ing loose, killing some, and terrifying all. Our keel was
torn off and our rudder lost. At last we were suddenly
swept up from the outer bay into an inner harbour.
Having reached it, we were seized by the waves as by a
whirlpool, and the frigate spinned round and round forty-
fi.ve times in thirty minutes !
" It was awful, more especially as nothing whatever
could be done to save us. No one could guess what the
THROUGH THE BALTIO. 68
next minute would bring forth. We were, of course,
unable to save a single life of the poor people, except that
of an old woman whom we seized as she was sweeping
past us on the roof of her wooden house.
" After the earthquake ceased, we found the ship leaking
so much that we landed all her guns as speedily as
possible, wrapped a sail round her to try and stop the
leak, and then in our miserably disabled state endea-
voured to navigate her to a harbour not far off where
we could refit. But our misfortunes were not ended !
" We had no sooner entered the open sea than a violent
gale arose, and at night too. All now seemed over with
us and our poor ship. We tried to hold her fast, or at
least check her way, by dropping two anchors. But
early in the morning we descried, about a cable's length
to leeward, a wild and rocky coast, up whose steep
precipices the sea was dashing its spray. One small
nook of white sand, among the rocks, was at last seen.
" A boat was sent on shore with a rope ; its crew
managed to land and to fasten it. By this means we got
the rest of the crew on shore, at first, by tying round
each man a line which was conveyed to the party on
shore, who hauled him to land, half drowned, through the
surf. But we improved upon this by anchoring a boat
immediately outside the breakers, and thus the drag
through the water was shorter. Thus every man of our
500 got on shore in safety.
"Next day the gale ceased, and the frigate, to our
nurprise, still rode a.t her anchors. . Was it possible yet
64 NORTHEBN BUSS1A.
to save the good ship ? It was resolved to make the
attempt. We were able to collect very speedily 100
Japanese junks to tow her into a safe harbour. The
junks were all made fast, the ship's anchors raised, and
away they rowed, towing her, when, suddenly, down she
went, head foremost, to the bottom, like a stone 1 Well,
we all went on shore again, and I must here say, that
from first to last we were most kindly treated by the
Japanese. Onr numbers may possibly have awed them ;
but it is but fair to give them all credit for what they did,
and did so well.
" What now was to be done ? We resolved at once to
build a schooner. Everything had to be extemporized,
but so heartily did we work, that from the time we cut
down the first tree to build our craft, until she was afloat,
was only four mouths. The admiral (as noble a fellow as
ever lived, and, by the way, married to an English lady,
which, of course, accounts for his excellence!) set sail
with as many of the crew as he could stow away, for the
river Amoor, distant about 1,300 miles. In her voyage
the schooner was obliged to pass through the British
Fleet. So little idea had good John Bull that a Russian
admiral was near him, that, on perceiving the approach of
the unknown vessel, supposing, of course, that in those
distant seas she was one of their own, he even showed a
light, while another ship hailed her to ' keep off.' The
admiral was ready to throw his valuable charts and also
his despatches overboard, had he been taken. Bat he
escaped into the 'Amoor/
THEOUGH THE BALTIC. 65
'The next division of the shipwrecked crew chartered an
American ship, and escaped the British. The tnird and
last division, of which I was one, tried to escape, but
were captured by the British man of war the Baraccoota.
I remained a prisoner of war for about a year, visiting
various ports in India, and I was treated with such
courtesy and kindness that, to tell the truth, I would
have no objections to be again taken prisons/ by a ship
of the British navy ! At all events, I shall never forget
my generous friends and the Baraccoota." Such wai
the story of the Russian lieutenant.
NOETHEEN EUSSIA.
CHAPTER II.
CEONSTADT.
is nothing very imposing about Cronstadt I
-- mean in the sense in which Gibraltar, or Quebec, or
any such mountain fortresses are imposing. But to a skilled
eye the soldier lying on the ground behind a bush with
an Enfield rifle, is much more awing than a huge Goliath
with his spear boastfully challenging the armies of Israel ;
and so these forts, built on low islands, or rising out of
the water like three-storied cotton-factories, have a firm,
dogged, business look about them. They are evidently
built for guns, and for nothing else, to knock down every-
thing, and to defy anything to return the compliment.
And so with great respect we first passed Fort Alex-
ander, rising out of the sea on our left, and Peter Vahki
on an island to the right (a narrow channel intervening),
66
CRONSTADT. 07
with the Risbank between it and the opposite shore ; and
then with a respect increasing with the forts and their
number of guns, we sailed past Fort Constantino backing
Alexander, and Fort Menschikoff in the rear of all.
It is quite evident that no fleet, unless cased in iron,
could run the gauntlet, first between Alexander and Peter
Vahki, and then past Constantine and Menschikoff, with
hundreds of guns on the shore supporting them. But no
one doubts the certainty of their destruction during the
war, had Sir Charles Napier attacked the island of
Cronstadt from the rear. But the water was too shallow
for anything but gun and mortar boats, and of course
there were none provided, until the Czar had time to
make any attempt in the rear impracticable.
It is not difficult to understand the relative positions of
Cronstadt and St. Petersburg. The Neva empties its
waters into a shallow firth about twenty miles long and,
as far as I remember, two or three miles broad. The
entrance of the firth is guarded by the island and docks
of Cronstadt, which is connected with the opposite shore to
our right in going to the capital by two small fortified
islands. The water is too shallow to admit of any vessels,
but those of a light draught, reaching the anchorage at
Cronstadt (except by one passage close to the forts), or
of going beyond that point to St Petersburg, which ifl
twenty miles up the firth.
The port of Cronstadt is therefore a busy place, with
all sorts and sizes of shipping in its docks, and a goodly
array of ships of war lying side by side, with their rig
68 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
ging down, in the navy dock, and looking by no means
imposing.
The confusion for more than an hour at Cronstadt,
after we were moored near the wharf, and before we got
ourselves and our baggage transferred to the small
steamer which conveyed us to St. Petersburg, cannot
be described. The grey-coated and large -booted men who
came on board from the custom-house, seemed portraits
from the Illustrated News of the Crimean Russian soldiers
come alive.
Once they were on board, there arose such a medley of
sounds from the roar of steam ; the Babel of Russian ; the
rushing to and fro with papers ; the meeting of friends ;
the searching for luggage ; the affectionate kisses between
Russian men and old friends among our passengers ; the
roaring out questions and answers by everybody; and
everybody apparently frantic with haste, or some mys-
terious burthen, that it was an immense relief when the
steam of our small vessel was choked in the boiler, and
with rapid paddle we skimmed through the shipping, and
between long poles which marked the passage, and were
off for the capital. To the right, along the wooded bank
we could discern white houses thickly scattered, and we
heard that this was the fashionable summer retreat of the
citizens who could afford a country cottage. The left-
hand shore is low, wooded, and without the slightest
interest.
As we rapidly approached St. Petersburg, one of the
most magnificent rainbows I eve" beheld spanned the sky
on
S
XD
CKONSTADT. 71
before us from horizon to horizon. Behind us was
another resplendent sunset, with the mighty orb like a
globe of molten gold, slowly descending amidst gorgeous
colours of amethyst, emerald, and gold, until a single star
of light rested for a moment, like a glittering diamond on
a cushion of gleeming ruby, and then disappeared, while
we held our breath with wonder, and a hundred suns then
danced before our eyes. Already were the gilt domes of
St. Isaac's Church and of the Admiralty reflecting the
last rays of evening above a low fringe of forest.
In about two hours after leaving Cronstadt, on our
taking a sudden turn to the left, we entered the Neva.
When made fast to the landing-wharf on the shores of
the Neva, and before the custom-house, the first thing
unquestionably which strikes one as new and quite Rus-
sian, that is to say, like what we have heard of Russia
from our picture-books, are the droskies they are
thoroughly national, and long may they continue so !
The drosky is a low four-wheel, with two seats sup-
ported by old-fashioned, hanging leather springs that
make large semicircles behind. The one seat behind is
for the driven, a small one above his knees before for the
driver. Two persons of small bulk can cram themselves
into the seat, but if one of the occupants happens to be a
"portly man i' faith," he or his neighbour must suffer
grievously.
Every driver or Vostick is dressed in exactly the same
national costume the large blue dressing-gown, or kaftan,
reaching to the boots, and tied round the waist with
72 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
sash, while a low-crowned black felt hat and turned-up
brim covers a head, the back of which has thick reddish-
brown hair, arrested by the scissors as it touches the coat,
while the front is adorned by a face with cocked nose,
large mouth, and a general dusty, turnipy, and, on the
whole, stolidly kind expression.
There is a myth about shepherds being able to distin-
guish one sheep from another by the expression of their
countenances. We don't believe James Hogg himself,
after marking the idiosyncrasies of all the black or
white faces on Ettrick, would ever be able to discover
the difference between one Vostick (Isvostchik) and
another.
When the traveller, for the first time, hazards his per-
son in one of those small droskies, and his driver securing
a rein in each hand, gets off with rapid speed along the
quays and streets of St. Petersburgh, he has entered on a
new experience in locomotion, unless he has had some
personal knowledge, as I have had, of the corduroy roads
of America.,
Those streets, those memorable streets, surely leave
impressions never to be obliterated. They are all paved
with small stones, and seldom level, but descending in the
centre, along which is an open water-course. But the
holes in that pavement 1 the roughness of those stones 1
the rattle, plunges, knocks endured ! while following a
swift- trotting horse and remorseless Vostick in a drosky,
forms an element of sight-seeing in hot weather which
every traveller should carefully consider before he leavei
CRONSTADT.
73
home. Every bone, thew, muscle, and sinew of his
frame must be in perfect order to undergo this ordeal.
Rascally-looking Cossack police on their small horses
and with their long spears, galloped past ; Greek priests
with their black robes and broad-brimmed hats, and hair
down their back, moved along ; and various other types
A VOSTICK.
A BEGGAR.
A PRIEST.
of humanity never seen before. But the eye feebly took
in the panorama of a new country. The whole soul was
concentrated on the bones of the body, and all natural
emotions of gratitude for our safe arrival, and wonder at
finding one's-self in Russia, began to dawn only when the
drosky was left with a bound of delighted deliverance, as
74 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
it stopped at Dom Felinson's Anglitzke, Nabroshne (so
the words sounded to me), which meant, as I afterwards
learned, Miss Benson's English Quay, being the comfort-
able pension to which we were recommended, and into
which we gladly entered.
:N T ORTHEBN EUSSIA.
CHAPTER III.
ST. PETERSBURG.
SIGHT-SEEING in a new country is a necessity, a
doom: the city must be "done." Yet I maintain
that it is a serious bore to do it in hot weather, and such
weather we experienced in Russia when the air was at
what seemed the boiling-point, with the pavement like a
furnace, not a cloud in the sky, and the sun fierce and
intolerable.
Where is the man who, in such circumstances, has not
felt a nervous shiver, in spite of all his curiosity, as he
stood at the hotel door, " Murray " in hand, about to pace
it till dinner time through palaces, museums, churches,
streets, and squares ? After all is finished with a late
dinner, the irresistible doom still remains to spend the
evening at Tivoli, the " gardens," or some of those places
75
76 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
attached to every continental city, with crowds of people,
coloured lamps, bands of music, chairs in the open air,
waiters rushing to and fro with white aprons, and serving
coffee, ices, or anything to refresh the languid nerves,
or cool the parched throat; but all this must be " done,"
there is no help for it.
"Why did you come abroad unless to see all that
was to be seen ? ' asks the new traveller, up to any-
thing.
It is possible, however, slightly to mitigate this
heavy, imperious duty.
Beware, first of all, of an enthusiastic, able-bodied,
patient, determined sight-seer, who desires to obtain
accurate information about everything, who is always
discovering national peculiarities " things one never sees
at home " who takes notes, asks innumerable questions,
replies to which no memory can retain were it desirable
to do so, and who insists on seeing everything in the
museum down to the last Emperor's stocking, or in the
palaces down to the Emperor's kitchen. Neither body
nor spirit of ordinary mould can stand him this amount
of excessive culture.
Then again, if possible, never take a guide. Yet how
seldom is it possible to get quit of that attached incubus
with shabby-genteel sui'tout, gloves, and polished old hat.
Who on going abroad ever thinks of the trials that await
him with "commissionaires " or " valets de place 1" Can
any man recall the architectural glories of the famous old
continental towns, without the presence of a "commission-
ST. PETERSBURG. 77
cire/' mingling itself in memory with the beautiful, like a
patch on a royal robe.
After considerable experience, we advise the solitary
stroll through the town ; the discovery of sights for one's-
self; the enjoyment of freedom; the delight of calm, un-
disturbed observation ; the power to gaze into shop
windows without being waited for, or of sitting alone in
a cathedral, without an arm and finger of a guide com-
pelling your eyes to follow their directions. Only be
assured that everywhere human beings may be found who
will tell you all you wish to know, in every place where
you wish to wander, and where you seek to feel rather
than to know.
The language, alas ! that in Kussia is a fearful demand.
French and German go far, but when Russ is required,
you must get Mr. Schaff to accompany you. But let this
be the last resource of desperation. Fortunately for us,
we had a perfect guide in one of our travelling companions
who knew Bussia and the Russians.
Now, I will not trouble my readers by dragging them
after me through all the sights of St. Petersburg and
Moscow ; this would be almost as bad as driving through
their streets in a drosky. Let me just give an abridged
catalogue of the chief things which I saw.
In St. Petersburg I visited the principal churches,
specially St. Isaac's, great in granite, magnificent in
malachite, and hoary in nothing save superstition ; with
the Kazan church draped with innumerable banners
taken in war never did an English flag form a part io
78 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
any such collections ! with keys of many fortresses,
the baton of Davoust, dropped in his cold race from
Moscow to Paris.
I .COLUMN OF ALEKC
7.MINT.
MAP OF ST. PETERSBURG AND THE ISLANDS.
Russian and oriental, and there is no stroll so interesting
as through those interminable arcades, perfectly sheltered
from the rain, and admitting as much daylight from above
as is desirable, with the open warehouses, containing
every article bought and sold over a counter in Russia,
and swarming with the most motley assemblage of buyers '
and sellers to be anywhere seen.
ST. PETERSBURG.
97
The drive through the is 1 and s was to me peculiarly
interesting from its endless extent, the presence of uncul-
tivated, untouched nature, with her Neva streams and
quiet Baltic inlets, and primeval trees, and peasant-houses,
as rude as if in a distant forest ; while everywhere are as
unexpectedly met with, the country seats and beautiful
cottages of wealthy citizens, and here and there cafes and
PEASANTS HOrSES.
theatres, and scenes of gay amusement, as false and
gaudy as in the Champs-Elysees. On the whole, wild
nature has the best of it.
But perhaps the finest feature in St. Petersburg is the
noble Neva ! The hotels are filthy ; the police, villains ;
the droskies, tortures ; the palaces, shams ; the natives,
ugly ; but the Neva seems to redeem all ! It flows on,
98 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
deep, pure, rapid, proud, and majestic ; whether one
gazes on its waters flowing beneath sun-set, crosses
them in the light and painted ferry-boats, quafis them,
or bathes in them, one is in no case disappointed.
But why should we express any astonishment that
this great capital should in any respect disappoint us ?
The wonder rather is that such a city has risen in such a
country in so short a time. Old General Wilson told me
that he had, when a child, been spoken to by " Catherine
the Great," whom he distinctly remembered, and she was
married to Peter the Third, the grandson of Peter the
First, who founded St. Petersburg.
NOBTHEBN EUSSIA.
CHAPTER IV.
MOSCOW.
I LONGED to see the real old capital of Russia. Yet I
had no preconceived idea of it in my mind, except
that of an undefined picture of a mysterious old Kremlin,
with flames and smoke surrounding it, and Napoleon
beginning his terrible march from the unexpected cold.
I was happy, therefore, to find myself in the train, which
was snorting along its iron path en route to the Kremlin.
I have little to say about the journey. It occupies
about eighteen hours, the distance being 400 miles.
The line is as straight as an arrow, and quite as unin-
teresting. It passes through a forest as prosaic as a few
brooms stuck in a marsh. No tunnel darkens it ; no
cutting flanks it. Not a town is seen, along its course ;
for though a few are stations, yet the station-house alone
100
NORTHERN RUSSIA.
is visible. I would have liked to have stopped at Tver,
on one of the branches of the Volga, and the starting
point of the steam navigation down that noble river.
The route is extremely comfortable by the railway to
Moscow, the carriages, as everywhere else, being far
superior to those in Britain, especially the second class.
The officials are most civil. The refreshment rooms are
equal to any in Europe, and the tea unrivalled.
RUSSIAN TEA-SELLERS.
I cannot mention its name without expressing my
thankful acknowledgment for this one unmatched Kussian
luxury. The Russian tea, or " Tchai," is the product, I
have been told, of provinces in China too far north to be
able to supply the European markets through the southern,
ports of the Empire. It is conveyed overland to Russia,
MOSCOW. 101
packed in skins, which are seen in the tea-shops, in
parcels ahout a yard square. It is consequently more
expensive than our tea, its price varying from 8s. to
upwards of 20s. the pound. But a much smaller quantity
is required to make a cup, or rather a tumbler, as it is
only in such that tea is served in Russia. It is the
universal and most refreshing beverage, and costs to the
drinker, as far as I remember, about 6d. a glass. In
some of the " Tractirs '" or restaurants of Moscow, such
as the famous one near the Exchange, about forty pounds'
weight of tea are consumed daily.
The food supplied at the principal railway stations had
nothing which I could discover very peculiar about it,
except its general excellence. The Russian dishes, par
excellence, must be demanded by the traveller before they
can be obtained.
In the best restaurants of Moscow, where one sees two
friends eating with their spoons out of one tureen, he
naturally assumes that this is a national rather than an
individual custom ; and, when dining out, he may pro-
bably be startled by his iced soup with cold salmon in it.
But along the railway he is not reminded by the cooking
of his distance from France or England, except by the
high charges for wine above the former, and by the
abundance of time granted at every station for meals, as
compared with the latter.
Next to tea, the common drink is excellent beer, or
"piva," and a sour but not unpleasant acid decoction?
void of alcohol, called quota.
102 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
The supplies of fruit are neither cheap nor tempting.
Most of it comes from the south.
The stoppages on the railway are frequent and long.
But a walk an.d saunter refresh the system, and I saw
several really nice-looking young ladies, who were in the
same carriage with us, employ these seasons of repose to
smoke their cigarettes, which they did with such grace
as unfortunately to tempt both strangers and foreigners to
follow their bad example.
I found myself early in the forenoon in the busy
parlour of Mr. Billo, well known to all travellers to Mos-
eow as a most civil landlord.
" To the Kremlin ! ' was the first and anxious desire
of our party. So to the Kremlin we went.
How shall I describe it ? for it is unquestionably one
of the most remarkable, odd, out-of-the-way, like-nothing-
else spots I have ever visited, and indeed the thing to be
Been in Moscow, if not in Russia.
The first sign of the Kremlin, as we walked along the
street towards it, was a high whitewashed wall, with
Tartar-like embrasures, and separated from the town by
an open boulevard. Beyond this nothing was visible;
until, on passing through a gateway, behind which was a
very small chapel, which seemed from its lamps, its
pictures, and crowded worshippers to be some " holy
place," we entered on what seemed a busy town. This
was the " Kitai Gorod " or Chinese city.
Proceeding along the narrow crowded street, we de-
bouched into a vast oblong space, half a mile or so in
MOSCOW.
103
length, and about half this or less in breadth. This wa&
the krasnoi ploscliad (red place).
The one side was bounded, opposite to us, and also to
the right, by another high whitewashed wall, with towers.,
which contained the Kremlin proper ; the other side by
THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. BASIL.
the back of the low houses of the great bazaar. The end!
to the left was occupied by that most fantastical and
indescribable of all buildings, that compound of twenty
domes of different shapes and sizes, of stairs, and chapels,
and mass of colour, blue, green, yellow, white, red, and
gilt ; that Tartar-like Chinese Pagoda (ridiculous were it
104 NOBTUEKN RUSSIA.
not so venerated), and the venerable Basil, the Cathedral
of St. Basil or Basiliki Blagennci.
Nearly opposite this church is the sacred entrance to
the Kremlin, by the Holy Gate or the " Spass vorota."
Over it there hangs, under a glass, and before a lamp
which burns from age to age, a picture of the Saviour.
From various traditions, which need not here be enume-
rated, every passenger, high and low, from the Emperor
to the serf, must keep off his hat as he passes through
this covered archway, which leads upwards, by a slight
ascent of a few yards, to the acropolis and capital of
Moscow. So have passed many a stately procession,
many a weary pilgrim, many a conqueror and soldier
from conquests extending from Paris to Persia, and from
the Volga to the Amoor.
Bareheaded, I found myself at last on the stone plateau
of the old Kremlin. Anxious to get a bird's-eye view of
the whole before examining any of its details, I directed
my steps at once to the highest point in the city, the
summit of the high tower of " Ivan Valiki," or Long
John.
But I could not help pausing as I recalled an early
dream which, along with many others, was suggested
by a dear old book I have long since lost sight of, called
Ten Wonders of the World, a dream now realised in
the "Great Bell of Moscow." There it lay, the " Tzar
Kolokoi," or King of Bells, a huge inverted cup, twenty-
one feet high, and upwards of sixty feet in circumference,
whose very metal is worth 850,000, and with a piece
MOSCOW.
105
out of its side which leaves a door open for easy access
to the curious who wish to visit its ample interior.
What a tongueless mouth ! What a dead thunderer ! But
we must ascend the tower. We first pass a huge bell
THE GREAT BELL OF MOSCOW.
which in size looks like the eldest son or wife of the dead
one below, weighing about sixty-four tons, and requiring
three men to swing its clapper ; then up another storey,
meeting about fifty more bells, diminishing in size as the
106 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
summit of the tower is reached yet the least of them
great.'
When the summit is at last attained, let a cursory
glance only be given at the Kremlin below, and at Moscow
beyond, through the clear, transparent, and brilliant
atmosphere, and then, perhaps, for the first time, one
feels amply repaid for coming so far to gaze on such a
peculiar and wonderful spectacle.
Immediately below is the flat summit of the low hill
which is properly called the Kremlin or fortress, and
which occupies about a mile square. Rising out of this
flat plateau, and without apparent order, but closely
grouped together, are about sixty gilded domes, marking
the oldest and most revered churches in Russia with
palaces for metropolitans, bishops, and czars, old as the
Tartars, and modern as Nicholas ; with treasuries,
arsenals, and nunneries. And then there are the walls
of all the buildings whitewashed with snowy whiteness,
topped with coloured roofs of every hue ; the vacant spots
and small squares dividing the closely-packed buildings,
occupied by thronging worshippers, soldiers, monks, nuns,
and pilgrims, all clearly denned in their many shadows
in the pure atmosphere ; while the visible portion of the
wall, which bounds the view on two sides, is so singularly
picturesque in old, curious watch-towers, mouldering
turrets, all covered with coloured tiles all making up a
most remarkable picture. But when the eye passed from
the more immediate objects beneath, and took in the
rude panorama beyond, the spectacle was magnificent.
2
C
GO
O
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MOSCOW. 109
On one side, the river Moskwa curled itself like a snake,
one of its bends being immediately under the Kremlin
walls. Farther away, a few miles to the right, rose a low
ridge of hills or steep wooded banks, called the Sparrow
Hills, whose base was washed by the river, from which
the whole city first burst upon the gaze of Napoleon and
his army ; and after visiting the scene, I can hardly
imagine a more imposing view of a vast city.
In turning to the other side, to gaze on the city from
the summit of the tower, what can be finer ? It covers a
great area for its population (which is only about 500,000),
chiefly owing to the fact of most of the houses standing
apart, and having gardens attached to them.
The characteristic feature unquestionably of the city is
its churches. How many there are of those I know not
(it is said 600), for I tried in vain to count them. But
as each has several copper-covered, gilded, or ornamental
domes (generally five), with high gilded crosses, and these
everywhere glittering in the sun, mingling with the green
of the trees and the white of their houses, all form a
most brilliant and singular panorama, spread over a great
area. Add to this the domes of great monasteries, such
as the Seminoff and Donskoi (sacred to the Don Cos-
sacks), which gleam to right and left beyond the city, on
the banks of the Moskwa, and the brilliant impression
which the gazer receives from the summit of Ivan Valiki
as deepened.
It is a spectacle which one never tires of, and few
travellers grudge the toil of a second ascent, at least, in
110 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
even the hottest weather, to have the splendid vision re-
newed.
Before leaving this " standpoint," the mystery of the
walls within walls around the Kremlin is explained.
These hut represent the defences built at different timef
as the town extended beyond the "fortress," which occu-
pied the summit of the highest point, for hill it can hardly
be called, in the original Muscovite settlement of tha
fourteenth century.
Perhaps the reader asks, whether "the great fire" of
1812, which roasted the French out of the capital into
the frost, has not altered the features of the city ?
I could see no evidences of the fire, nor were any
changes in the town pointed out between what it was and
is, which enabled me in the least degree to realise its
effects. The Kremlin was saved. But the line of retreat
which Napoleon himself was obliged to follow, in order
to pass with his staff from the Kremlin to the Palace of
Petrovski, in the northern suburbs, and from whence he
gazed on the tremendous conflagration, is easily traced,
and from its detour, indicates a great area of fire, which
barred his progress by the more direct route. Nor has
it in reality been ascertained with any certainty how the
fire originated.
Many of the romantic stories told about it have been
denied. The Emperor Alexander repeatedly declared
that he had never sanctioned it ; and the then Governor
of Moscow, Bostopchin, who was thought to have first
at hia own palace on fire, published a pamphlet, asserting
MOSCOW. Ill
fhat the whole thing was accidental ! Whatever glory,
therefore, has been attributed to the Russians, for thia
supposed grand sacrifice, has been thrust upon them by
others, but rejected by themselves.
But we must descend from Long John and examine the
Kremlin, its churches, nunneries, palaces, treasury.
Impossible ! The mere catalogue of its curiosities
would occupy pages. We should be compelled to dege-
nerate into the " Look now before you, and here you
see,*' &c., of the penny showman. Yet, without doubt,
a collection of objects are here congregated expressive of
the history and rise of Russia.
The palaces are extremely interesting. The New
Palace has the most magnificent suite of apartments I
have ever seen. The St. George's, Alexander's, St.
Andrew's, St. Catherine's, in which the knights of those
several orders are invested, are finer than any in St.
Petersburg, and are not surpassed by any in the world.
The old Tartar palace, with its low-roofed small apart-
ments, almost closets, its narrow screw staircase to tha
council-chamber, its thrones, beds, arabesque and fantas-
tic ornaments on the walls of trees with birds, and fruits,
squirrels, mice, painted in every colour, are all thoroughly
Oriental and Moorish. It was from the roof of this palace
that Napoleon first beheld Moscow, from within the walls ;
and the view is superb.
The treasury, again, is a world in itself of national
curiosities. It contains, among other provincial wonders,
crowns 01 ail her emperors, and those of the several
112 NORTHERN RUSSIA.
countries they have conquered, including the crown and
sceptre (broken, too !) of Poland ; crowns dating as far
back as the twelfth century, and all sparkling with
clusters of jewels of immense value and splendour. The
thrones, too, are there one of massive silver, all en-
riched with jewels on which successive czars have sat,
most of them uncomfortably, I doubt not ; and huge
gilded chariots, like those in old pictures of Lo*4 Mayor's
shows, with wheels and harness suited to a menagerie,
in which these bears of the north have driven ; and the
clothes, which these same czars have worn on State
occasions ; with things innumerable, including Napo-
leon's camp-bed, and the chair which Charles XII. used
at the battle of Pultowa.
In passing out of this treasury, 900 cannon taken in
war are seen arranged in the Place d'Armes. The most
of them were taken from the French, in their retreat, by
their victorious but barbarous pursuers I need hardly
say, that no specimens of English cannon are there.
These are guns too rare to be found in foreign arsenals.
" Our national vanity is great ! " laments the foreigner,
It may be so, but I trust our national gratitude is greater,
Wellington never lost a gun.
But I am forgetting the Kremlin. What else have we
to see there ? Why, the valet de place tells us we " have
seen nothing ; " and that, too, after pacing for hours,
under oppressive heat " up-stairs, down-stairs, and in
my lady's chamber."
We have yet to see, he says, the Palace of the Patri-
MOSCOW. 118
arch, with its venerable public halls ; and the House ?f
the Holy Synod, with its ancient library ; and its htJls
with the two great silver kettles, and thirty silver jars,
in which the holy oil, or " wir," is manufactured, having
as its elixir vita drops of the oil from the flask used by
Mary Magdalene when she anointed Christ's feet. This
is sent to every part of the empire, to anoint infants
when baptized, fro
