Memories of the Neva. 171 



strongly seasoned with mud. Next morning there was no 

 change, and when it was found that night fell and the mid- 

 night of the Red-letter day had arrived without a sign of frost, 

 the superstitious surprise was general. During the evening 

 a wretched, half-hearted kind of snow fell, but it seemed 

 ashamed of the dirty thoroughfares upon which it alighted, 

 and, soon changing to sleet, subsided into the normal 

 rain. 



The ceremony of blessing the waters was to have taken 

 place at eleven o'clock in the morning, but, as the dense 

 crowds assembled to witness it found to their discomfort, 

 there was a delay of nearly two hours. To only a few was 

 the cause of the stoppage known. The first stage in the 

 blessing of the waters is a service in the chapel of the 

 Winter Palace, attended by the members of the Imperial 

 Family. When this was concluded, and before the second 

 part was begun, the Emperor received intelligence that 

 Marshal Berg, the ex-Governor of Poland, whom he held 

 in high esteem, was dying. The Czar at once ordered his 

 carriage and hurried to the General's house, where he was 

 informed that the gallant old soldier had breathed his 

 last. 



Opportunities were afforded me of viewing the ceremony 

 from one of the windows of the palace, a privilege I 

 remembered with longing when, preferring to see what a 

 Russian crowd was like, I was buffeted and squeezed, and 

 nearly poisoned with rancid sheepskins and garlic perfumes. 

 The discomfort, after all, was scarcely compensated for by 

 the experience purchased. A crowd is a crowd all the 

 world over. The Russian rough, however, is a superior 

 being to his English brother, for the simple reason that the 

 Russian, like the German, police stand no nonsense with 

 him. If he is offensive, or supposed to be so, they knock 



