32 SIBERIA 



sufficiently warm, but in winter the thermometer 

 sometimes registers 63° Fahr. below zero. It fre- 

 quently happens that a hard spell of frost during 

 the night will imprison a merchant ship in the 

 harbour, and then the services of the ice-breaker 

 are required to open a passage to the Baltic. 

 Shipping is on the increase, and steamers sail from 

 Riga to most parts of Europe. The people of Riga 

 take life easily, as, in fact, they do in nearly all 

 parts of the Empire. It may be that the frequent 

 saints' days and holidays have something to do with 

 this. It was a holiday when, two days jafter my 

 arrival in Riga, I took train for the capital through 

 Livonia. The train progressed at the leisurely rate 

 of about 12 or 14 miles an hour, causing me to 

 speculate whether either the driver or the engine 

 had been affected by the holiday. Foot-passengers 

 crossed and re-crossed the line, contemptuously in- 

 different to the approaching train, as though it were 

 a country road. 



We stopped at Yuryeff, formerly Dorpat, a fine 

 agricultural centre with one or two going agricul- 

 tural concerns. The province is partly German, and 

 the town still contains the once so famous university. 

 Nearing St. Petersburg we passed one of the Czar's 

 palaces, that of Peterhof, which looked very pretty 

 from the railway line. The Znamensk farm near 

 Peterhof is noted for enormous numbers of pheasants 

 in a semi-wild state, which belong to the Czar. 



We arrived at St. Petersburg early in the morning. 

 An isvostchik, in the quaint, old-fashioned garb of 

 his class, shouted and whipped his horses into a 

 break-neck pace, while the small wheels of the drosky 

 raced over the round stones with which the broad 

 streets of the capital are paved. I held on to my 

 luggage, though with difficulty, while the driver tried 

 to make a fresh bargain with me. Failing, he drove 



