Memories of the Neva. 175 



blessed. It was handed to the Emperor, and he, having 

 sipped thereof, returned it to the priest filled with half- 

 imperials — one of the two golden coins in the .Russian 

 currency. Then, with a bunch of evergreen — hyssop, it was 

 said, but myrtle apparently — the bystanders on the platform 

 were sprinkled, chanting meanwhile proceeding from the 

 choir. At this time the priests, the Imperial and Royal 

 personages, and the candles, crucifix, and other glittering 

 objects used in the ceremony, were hemmed in by a ring 

 of banners planted on the ground, reminding one most 

 forcibly of some of the pictures of Arthurian times, a fancy 

 all the more natural inasmuch as some of the banners had 

 been reduced, by battle or age, to dingy rags. 



The waters blessed, the procession, always glittering and 

 stately, returned slowly to the palace, while the fort over 

 the water thundered a salute of 101 guns. In past times 

 the people used to plunge into the river, and mothers 

 craved no higher boon than to immerse their little ones 

 in the icy flood. So many persons were drowned or frozen 

 that the practice was discontinued, and now the devotees 

 only pressed anxiously forward to carry away bottles full of 

 the sacred fluid from this their Jordan, and carefully preserve 

 it in their households. They believe the blessed waters of 

 the Neva will stave off calamity and cure disease. 



Thanks chiefly to the eccentric and effective method 

 pursued by Peter the Great in his desire to give his country 

 rank in the maritime world, every Russian schoolboy, though 

 ignorant of other things, is certain to know that he must be 

 proud of the Russian navy. At an early age the lad is 

 taken to the cottage down by the banks of the Neva, and 

 informed that long, long ago the great Czar lived there, in 



