2i6 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



hotel 'bus — we drove off in a capacious sledge for the 

 Hotel d'Europe (Gostinitza Klee), where we supped, had 

 a warm bath, and went to bed. 



March 7. 



On Sunday, the 7th of March, we went to see the fair, 

 as it was the last day of a great Kussian feast. We found 

 it much like a fair anywhere else in the world in general 

 appearances. The ice-slide was kept up with great vigour, 

 and afforded much fun to large, densely-packed crowds of 

 Russians and others. 



The handsome horses, also, of the private sledges — 

 black, of the Ukraine breed, with long flowing tails and 

 cropped or uncropped manes — were alone worth seeing. 



The racing sleds, of which we saw a few, with one of 

 these fine animals in each, are driven, even in crowded 

 streets, at a spanking pace, the driver holding each rein 

 in one hand, w^th outstretched arms wide apart. The 

 racing takes place on the ice of the Neva, in a large 

 circular space enclosed with planks. As they are to take 

 place next Sunday we do not expect to have the oppor- 

 tunity of seeing them. 



Numerous booths, with mountebanks, swings, circular 

 ' Eide-in-the-rings,' etc., were closely studded over the 

 open ground where the fair is held. Eed and white 

 bladders, sold on the ground, were cut adrift and, 

 singly or in bunches, were to be seen floating away 

 before the gentle east wind at immense heights, to drop, 

 perhaps, in the Baltic or much further west. A Russian 

 crowd is always, I believe, a merry, good-natured one, 

 and I was surprised to see so few drunken people. 



We saw also the interior of a church attached to the 

 fort, and witnessed a service of the Russian Church in 



St. Isaacs— the 'heathen worship of God,' as Mr. 



Seebohm's agent, who accompanied us, called it. It was 

 certainly a strange sight, with the bowing the forehead 



