Memories of the Neva. 167 



been assured that in the suburbs the snow was thicker and 

 better packed than we could reasonably expect it to be in 

 the busy thoroughfares of the town. 



Sleighing with one horse is very well in its way, but if 

 you would take the amusement in its major form you must 

 have, at the lowest computation, three steeds, and all the 

 better if you can make the number four or six. In our case we 

 contented ourselves with a troika. The horses were a capital 

 match as to colour and size, black as ravens, possessed 

 of long flowing tails and manes, arched necks, and fiery 

 nostrils, and each was of that long, slender, wiry build to be 

 seen nowhere in such perfection as in Russia. The middle 

 horse stood in the broad, bulging shafts, carrying the arched 

 bar and bells over his head; the two outer animals ran almost 

 loose, one slight trace alone attaching them to the sledge. 



Muffled up considerably above the chin, trussed and 

 stuffed and tucked in beneath the furs and rugs, away we 

 went. The Nevski Perspective was full of sleighs ; it had 

 been full of sleighs all the day. The excitement was exhil- 

 arating indeed, as the low-lying vehicles shot here and there 

 with the lights streaming upon them, the lively choruses 

 of the sleigh bells doing their best to make common cause 

 with their louder-tongued fraternity of the church belfries. 

 It would seem that services were being held in many places 

 of worship, for as we darted by we could catch sight of 

 illuminated interiors and masses of empty sleighs around 

 the entrances. In the Nevski three miles long though it 

 is the sleighs were countless. Every specimen of the 

 delightful little vehicle was out. Tearing and raging, 

 thoroughbred steeds snorted in your ear, and passed on 

 like a flash of thought, escaping collisions only by a 

 hair's-breadth, but never harming or coming to harm. Who 

 the occupants were the rapidity of the pace concealed, 



