50 SECOND TRIP TO RUSSIA 



only too glad to hear, that before giving me an engagement, 

 the Grand Duke wished to try me in a manner which would 

 settle the question one way or the other. While waiting 

 about three weeks for this trial to take place, I stayed with 

 " Dick" in a Russian hotel on the Nevsky, and saw a good deal 

 of St. Petersburg. This city, which is on the banks of the 

 broad and deep Neva (Figs. 11 and 12), has immensely wide 

 streets, of which the most fashionable is probably the Bolshaya 

 Morskaya (Fig. 13). The houses are large and lofty, but 

 the too liberal use of stucco on their outside gives them an 

 air of pretence to initiated eyes. St. Petersburg has over a 

 million inhabitants, who are pretty thickly crowded together, 

 and as its site is on flat ground almost on the level of the 

 sea, its drainage is so imperfect that everyone tries to live 

 out of it, until the cold of the seven months' winter allays 

 the activity of disease bacteria. H.I.M. the Tzar generally 

 spends the summer at Livadia in the Crimea, and rich people 

 betake themselves to the country, Tzarskoe Selo, Krasnoe 

 Selo, Peterhof, or to the island of Krestofsky, which is on the 

 other side of the river, and which for the greater part belongs 

 to Prince Beloselsky. This fine old sportsman generously 

 gave the local polo club the ground on which their members 

 play. The leading spirits of the club are Prince Serge 

 Beloselsky, who is the old prince's son ; Mr. Tamplin, who 

 used to be well known with the Brighton Harriers ; and 

 Davey, who is the old prince's groom, and who provides his 

 employer's firstborn with horse-knowledge. Davey is an 

 old Melton Mowbray man, and is a thoroughly capable hunt- 

 ing groom. He takes his young prince to Pau, and sees that 

 no bones are broken and no wrong horses bought. When I 

 said tentatively to him : " Why not Leicestershire ? " he shook 

 his head and smiled. Prince Serge is very amiable. When 

 I first had the pleasure of meeting him, he was very English. 

 He had a set of boxing gloves hung up in his room. He 



