1 68 By Stream and Sea. 



almost as much as the costly sables, but as the elegantly- 

 painted equipages whisked abreast of us silver laughter 

 sounded like sweet music. Next came the humble sleigh 

 with a family party packed in after the manner of the 

 suburban . Cockney on Sunday afternoons and holidays. 

 Then the dapper turn-out of the "swell, or the solid high- 

 set family sledge of some " vitch " or " off." 



We had not proceeded a mile down this thoroughfare of 

 thoroughfares before we discovered that we had another 

 lesson to unlearn. Is it not a proverb that the Russian 

 drosky, or sledge-driver, is the most reckless of Jehus, and 

 that neither life nor limb is safe in his hands ? To be sure, 

 as the Isvostchik strides his queer perch, takes a rein in each 

 outstretched hand, bends forward his body, and shouts and 

 gesticulates, he looks uncommonly dangerous ; to be sure, 

 also, when at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour you 

 glide before, athwart, behind, and between other sledges 

 going at a rate equal to your own, it looks a most dangerous 

 business. Notice, however, that all comes right that the 

 beautiful horses which approaching from behind touch you on 

 the shoulder, or breathe into your ear, never bite, never run 

 you down, never , wince, never falter ; that the driver pulls 

 up short and sharp and sure at a yard's distance j and that, 

 above everything, the horses, notwithstanding their appear- 

 ance of fire and rage, are perfectly trained and docile, and 

 the drivers as careful as any passenger with robust nerves 

 would wish them to be. 



At last we reach the banks of the famous Neva. We 

 have passed by acres of palaces, through long, straight, 

 well-lighted streets, and now debouch from the rear of the 

 Czar's winter residence upon the so-called quay. There is 

 a roadway slanting across the icebound river. Its course is 

 marked out by fir trees planted at frequent intervals, and 



