180 By Stream and Sea. 



boots reaching above the knee, and the only bit of relief to 

 the sober costume was the monk's hood hanging over the 

 shoulder ready to be lifted for the purposes of warmth. 

 The troops were fully equipped, but the officers appeared in 

 a kind of undress, certainly without much of the war paint 

 one is accustomed to in reviews at home. 



It was bitterly cold waiting for an hour in the open air, 

 and I could pity the poor fellows who had been since nine 

 o'clock standing in the snow. The noon-day gun from 

 across the river startled the countless flocks of pigeons 

 which had settled down in good fellowship with the soldiers. 

 Watching these tame birds had been one of the diversions 

 during the hour of waiting, and a Russian officer explained 

 to me that the poorer classes in Russia hold the pigeon in 

 sacred reverence, allowing it to commit havoc and mischief 

 everywhere rather than destroy it, and preferring starvation 

 to a pigeon pie. 



Here let me give an instance of the courtesy a foreigner 

 meets with in Russia. From a young man in an English 

 naval officer's uniform, standing like myself in the crowd, of 

 whom I asked a question, I received a supercilious stare and 

 " Don't know." A colonel in the Russian army, who had 

 left his bureau to see the inspection, overhearing the 

 question, observing the snobbishness of the reply, and 

 learning that I was a stranger and an Englishman, attached 

 himself to me until the proceedings were over, gave me 

 information and details of every regiment that passed, and 

 when I returned him with my thanks a hearty " good morn- 

 ing," he lifted his hat and declared the honour and pleasure 

 were all on his side. Why is it one's own countrymen abroad 

 are so disagreeable ? 



The Emperor did not keep us waiting long after noon. 

 The Grand Dukes had been out and about for an hour riding 



