The Russian Gipsies—Midnight drives—Gipsy singing—Its fascination—The consequences of a late night—An unconventional luncheon—Lord Dufferin's methods—Assassination of Alexander II—Stürmer—Pathetic incidents in connection with the murder of the Emperor—The funeral procession and service—Details concerning—The Votive Church—The Order of the Garter—Unusual incidents at the Investiture—Precautions taken for Emperor's safety—The Imperial train—Finland—Exciting salmon-fishing there—Harraka Niska—Koltesha—Excellent shooting there—Ski-running—"Ringing the game in"—A wolf-shooting party—The obese General—Some incidents—A novel form of sport—Black game and capercailzie—At dawn in a Finnish forest—Immense charm of it—Ice-hilling or "Montagnes Russes"—Ice-boating on the Gulf of Finland.
In my day there were two or three restaurants on the islands formed by the delta of the Neva, with troupes of singing gipsies attached to them. These restaurants did a roaring trade in consequence, for the singing of the gipsy choirs seems to produce on Russians the same maddening, almost intoxicating effect that the "skirl o' the pipes" does on those with Scottish blood in their veins.
Personally, I thought that one soon tired of this
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gipsy singing; not so my Russian friends—it appeared to have an irresistible attraction for them. I always dreaded the consequences when some foolish person, usually at 1 or even 2 a.m., proposed a visit to the gipsies, for all the ladies present would instantly jump at the suggestion, and I knew full well that it entailed a forcible separation from bed until six or possibly seven next morning.
Troikas would at once be sent for. A troika is a thing quite apart. Its horses are harnessed as are no other horses in the world, since the centre horse trots in shafts, whilst the two outside horses, the "pristashkui" loose save for long traces, gallop. Driving a troika is a special art. The driver stands; he has a special badge, peacock's feathers set in a round cap; he has a special name, "yamshchik," and he charges quite a special price.
To my mind, the drive out to the islands was the one redeeming feature of these expeditions. Within the confines of the city, the pace of the troikas was moderate enough, but as the last scattered houses of the suburbs merged into the forest, the driver would call to his horses, and the two loose horses broke into a furious gallop, the centre horse in shafts moving as swiftly as any American trotter. Smoothly and silently under the burnished steel of the starlit sky, they tore over the snow, the vague outlines of the fir trees whizzing past. Faster and faster, until the wild excitement of it made one's blood tingle within one, even as the bitter cold made one's cheeks tingle, as we raced through the
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keen pure air. That wild gallop through the forest was perfectly glorious. I believe that on us sons of the North real cold has the same exhilarating effect that warmth and sunshine have on the Lotos-eating dwellers by the blue Mediterranean.
The troika would draw up at the door of a long, low, wooden building, hidden away amongst the fir trees of the forest. After repeated bangings at the door, a sleepy-eyed Tartar appeared, who ushered one into a great gaunt, bare, whitewashed room, where other little yellow, flat-faced, Tartar waiters were lighting countless wax candles, bringing in many slim-shouldered, gold foil-covered bottles of champagne, and a samovar or two, and arranging seats. Then the gipsy troupe strolled in, some twenty-five strong; the younger members passably good-looking, with fine dark eyes, abundant eyelashes, and extremely indifferent complexions. The older members of the company made no attempt at coquetry. They came muffled in woollen shawls, probably to conceal toilet deficiencies, yawning openly and undisguisedly; not concealing their disgust at being robbed of their sleep in order to sing to a pack of uninteresting strangers, to whom, incidentally, they owed their entire means of livelihood. Some ten swarthy, evil-faced, indeterminate males with guitars filled up the background.
One of the younger members of the troupe would begin a song in waltz time, in a curious metallic voice, with a ring in it of something Eastern,
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barbaric, and utterly strange to European ears, to the thrum of the guitars of the swarthy males in the background. The elderly females looked inexpressibly bored, and hugged their woollen shawls a little closer over their heads. Then the chorus took up the refrain. A tempest of wild, nasal melody arose, in the most perfect harmony. It was metallic, and the din was incredible, but the effect it produced on the listeners was astounding. The old women, dropping their cherished shawls, awoke to life. Their dull eyes sparkled again, they sang madly, frenetically; like people possessed. The un-European timbre of the voices conduced doubtless to the effect, but the fact remains that this clamour of nasal, metallic voices, singing in exquisite harmony, had about it something so novel and fresh—or was it something so immemorially old?—that the listeners felt absolutely intoxicated.
On the Russians it acted like hypnotism. After the first song, they all joined in, and even I, the dour and unemotional son of a Northern land, found myself, as words and music grew familiar, shouting the bass parts of the songs with all the strength of my lungs. The Russian language lends itself admirably to song, and the excess of sibilants in it is not noticeable in singing.
These Russian gipsies, like the Austrian bands, produced their effects by very simple means. They harmonised their songs themselves, and they always introduced a succession of "sixths" or "thirds"; emphasising the "sixth" in the tenor part.
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One can, however, have too much of a good thing. I used to think longingly of my far-off couch, but there was no tearing Russians away from the gipsies. The clock ticked on; they refused to move. The absorption of much champagne has never afforded me the smallest amusement. The consumption of tea has also its limits, and my longed-for bed was so far away! The really staggering figure one had to disburse as one's share for these gipsy entertainments seemed to me to be a very long price to pay for a sleepless night.
Once a fortnight the "Queen's Messenger" left Petrograd at noon, on his return journey to London. On "Messenger mornings" we had all to be at the Embassy at 9 a.m. punctually. One morning, after a compulsory vigil with the gipsies, I was awakened by my servant with the news that it was close on nine, and that my sledge was already at the door. It was impossible to dress in the time, so after some rapid ablutions, I drew the long felt boots the Russians call "Valinki" over my pyjamas, put on some heavy furs, and jumped into my sledge. Lord Dufferin found me writing hard in the steam-heated Chancery, clad only in silk pyjamas, and with my bare feet in slippers. He made no remark, but I knew that nothing ever escaped his notice. By noon we had the despatches finished, the bags sealed up, the "waybill" made out, various precautionary measures taken as to which it is unnecessary to enlarge, and the Messenger left for London. I called to the
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hall porter to bring me my furs, and told him to order my sledge round. "His Excellency has sent your sledge home," said the porter, with a smile lurking round the corners of his mouth. "Then call me a hack sledge." "His Excellency hopes that you will give him the pleasure of your company at luncheon." "But I must go home and dress first." "His Excellency's orders were that you are to go as you are," answered the grinning porter. Then I understood. Nothing is ever gained by being shy or self-conscious, so after a hasty toilet, I sent for my heavy fur "shuba." Furs in Russia are intended for use, not ornament, and this "shuba" was an extremely weighty and voluminous garment, designed to withstand the rigours of the North Pole itself. A glance at the mirror convinced me that I was most indelicately décolleté about the neck, so I hooked the big collar of the "shuba" together, and strode upstairs. The heat of this fur garment was unendurable, but there was nothing else for it. Certainly the legs of my pyjamas protruded below it, so I congratulated myself on the fact that they were a brand-new pair of very smart striped mauve silk. My bare feet too were encased in remarkably neat Persian slippers of green morocco. Lady Dufferin received me exactly as though I had been dressed in the most immaculate of frock-coats. Her children though, gazed at my huge fur coat, round-eyed with astonishment, for neither man nor woman ever comes into a Russian house with furs on—an
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arrangement which would not at all suit some of my London friends, who seem to think that furs are designed for being shown off in hot rooms. The governess, an elderly lady, catching sight of my unfortunate pyjama legs below the fur coat, assumed a highly scandalised attitude, as though she could scarcely credit the evidence of her eyes. (I repeat that they were exceptionally smart pyjamas.)
During luncheon Lord Dufferin made himself perfectly charming, and I did my best to act as though it were quite normal to sit down to one's repasts in an immense fur coat.
The Ambassador was very susceptible to cold, and liked the house heated to a great temperature. That day the furnace-man must have been quite unusually active, for the steam hissed and sizzled in the radiators, until the heat of that dining-room was suffocating. Conscious of my extreme décolletage, I did not dare unhook the collar of my "shuba," being naturally of a modest disposition, and never, even in later years at Colombo or Singapore, have I suffered so terribly from heat as in that Petrograd dining-room in the depths of a Russian winter. The only cool thing in the room was the governess, who, when she caught sight of my bare feet, froze into an arctic iceberg of disdain, in spite of my really very ornamental Persian slippers. The poor lady had obviously never even caught a glimpse of pajamas before. After that episode I always came to the Embassy fully dressed.
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Another instance of Lord Dufferin's methods occurs to me. We had a large evening party at the Embassy, and a certain very pushing and pertinacious English newspaper correspondent did everything in his power to get asked to this reception. For very excellent reasons, his request was refused. In spite of this, on the night of the party the journalist appeared. I informed Lord Dufferin, and asked what he wished me to do about it. "Let me deal with him myself," answered the Ambassador, and going up to the unbidden guest, he made him a little bow, and said with a bland smile, "May I inquire, sir, to what I owe this most unexpected honour?" Then as the unhappy newspaper-man stuttered out something, Lord Dufferin continued with an even blander smile, "Do not allow me, my dear sir, I beg of you, to detain you from your other doubtless numerous engagements"; then calling me, he added, "Will you kindly accompany this gentleman to the front door, and see that on a cold night like this he gets all his warm clothing." It was really impossible to turn a man out of your house in a more courteous fashion.
There was another plan Lord Dufferin used at times. All despatches, and most of our private letters, were sent home by hand, in charge of the Queen's Messenger. We knew perfectly well that anything sent from the Embassy through the ordinary mails would be opened at the Censor's office, and copies taken. Ministries of Foreign Affairs
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give at times "diplomatic" answers, and occasionally it was advisable to let the Russian Government know that the Ambassador was quite aware that the assurances given him did not quite tally with the actual facts. He would then write a despatch to London to that effect, and send it by mail, being well aware that it would be opened and a copy sent to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this indirect fashion, he delicately conveyed to the Russian Government that he had not been hoodwinked by the rather fanciful statements made to him.
I was sitting at luncheon with some friends at a colleague's house on Sunday, the fateful 1st of March, 1881 (March 13, new style). Suddenly our white-headed old Chancery messenger burst unceremoniously into the room, and called out, "The Emperor has been assassinated!" We all jumped up; the old man, a German-speaking Russian from the Baltic Provinces, kept on wringing his hands, and moaning, "Unser arme gute Kaiser! unser arme gute Kaiser!" ("Our poor dear Emperor!") We hurried to the Embassy as fast as we could go, and found the Ambassador just stepping into his carriage to get the latest news from the Winter Palace. Lady Dufferin had not seen the actual crime committed, but she had heard the explosion of the bomb, and had seen the wounded horses led past, and was terribly upset in consequence. She was walking along the Catherine Canal with her youngest daughter when the Emperor's carriage
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passed and the first bomb was thrown. The carriage was one of Napoleon III's special armoured coaches, bought after the fall of the Second French Empire. The bomb shattered the wheels of the carriage, but the Emperor was untouched. He stepped out into the snow, when the second bomb was thrown, which blew his legs to pieces, and the Emperor was taken in a private sledge, in a dying condition, to the Winter Palace. The bombs had been painted white, to look like snowballs.
Ten minutes later one of the Court Chamberlains arrived. I met him in the hall, and he informed me, with the tears streaming down his face, that all was over.
That Chamberlain was a German-Russian named Stürmer, and he was the very same man who thirty-four years later was destined, by his gross incompetence, or worse, as Prime Minister, to bring the mighty Russian Empire crashing in ruins to the ground, and to drive the well-intentioned, irresolute Nicholas II, the grandson of the Sovereign for whom he professed so great an affection, to his abdication, imprisonment, and ignominious death.
There was a Queen's Messenger due in Petrograd from London that same afternoon, and Lord Dufferin, thinking that the police might give trouble, desired me to meet him at the station.
The Messenger refused to believe my news. He persisted in treating the whole thing as a joke, so I ordered my coachman to drive through the great
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semi-circular place in front of the Winter Palace. That place presented a wonderful sight. There were tens of thousands of people, all kneeling bare-headed in the snow, in close-packed ranks. I thought the sight of those serried thousands kneeling bare-headed, praying for the soul of their dead Emperor, a strangely moving and beautiful spectacle. When the Messenger saw this, and noted the black and yellow Imperial flag waving at half-mast over the Palace, he no longer doubted.
The Grand Duke Vladimir had announced the Emperor's death to the vast crowds in the traditional Russian fashion. The words "death" or "die" being considered ill-omened by old-fashioned Russians, the actual sentence used by the Grand Duke was, "The Emperor has bidden you to live long." ("Gosudar Imperator vam prikazal dolga jit!") The words conveyed their message.
The body of the Emperor having been embalmed, the funeral did not take place for a fortnight. As the crow flies, the distance between the Winter Palace and the Fortress Church is only about half a mile; it was, however, still winter-time, the Neva was frozen over, and the floating bridges had been removed. It being contrary to tradition to take the body of a dead Emperor of Russia across ice, the funeral procession had to pass over the permanent bridges to the Fortress, a distance of about six miles.
Lady Dufferin and I saw the procession from the corner windows of a house on the quays. On
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paper it sounded very grand, but like so many things in Russia, it was spoilt by lack of attention to details. The distances were kept irregularly, and many of the officials wore ordinary civilian great-coats over their uniforms, which did not enhance the effect of the cortège. The most striking feature of the procession was the "Black Knight" on foot, followed immediately by the "Golden Knight" on horseback. These were, I believe, meant to typify "The Angel of Death" and "The Angel of the Resurrection." Both Knights were clad in armour from head to foot, with the vizors of their helmets down. The "Black Knight's" armour was dull sooty-black all over; he had a long black plume waving from his helmet. The "Golden Knight," mounted on a white horse, with a white plume in his helmet, wore gilded and burnished armour, which blazed like a torch in the sunlight. The weight of the black armour being very great, there had been considerable difficulty in finding a man sufficiently strong to walk six miles, carrying this tremendous burden. A gigantic young private of the Preobrajensky Guards undertook the task for a fee of one hundred roubles, but though he managed to accomplish the distance, he fainted from exhaustion on reaching the Fortress Church, and was, I heard, two months in hospital from the effects of his effort.
We were able to get Lady Dufferin into her place in the Fortress Church, long before the procession arrived, by driving across the ice of the
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river. The absence of seats in a Russian church, and the extreme length of the Orthodox liturgy, rendered these services very trying for ladies. The Fortress Church had been built by a Dutch architect, and was the most un-Eastern-looking Orthodox church I ever saw. It actually contained a pulpit! In the north aisle of the church all the Emperors since Peter the Great's time lie in uniform plain white marble tombs, with gilt-bronze Russian eagles at their four corners. The Tsars mostly rest in the Cathedral of the Archangel, in the Moscow Kremlin. I have before explained that Peter was the last of the Tsars and the first of the Emperors. The regulations for Court mourning in Petrograd were most stringent. All ladies had to appear in perfectly plain black, lustreless woollen dresses, made high to the throat. On their heads they wore a sort of Mary Queen of Scots pointed cap of black crape, with a long black crape veil falling to their feet. The only detail of the funeral which struck me was the perfectly splendid pall of cloth of gold. This pall had been specially woven in Moscow, of threads of real gold. When folded back during the ceremony it looked exactly like gleaming waves of liquid gold.
A memorial church in old-Russian style has been erected on the Catherine Canal on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated. The five onion-shaped domes of this church, of copper enamelled in stripes and spirals of crude blue and white, green and yellow, and scarlet and white, may possibly
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look less garish in two hundred years' time than they do at present. The severely plain Byzantine interior, covered with archaic-looking frescoes on a gold ground, is effective. The ikonostas is entirely of that vivid pink and enormously costly Siberian marble that Russians term "heavy stone." Personally I should consider the huge sum it cost as spent in vain.
Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, in those days, of course, Prince and Princess of Wales, represented Great Britain at Alexander II's funeral, and remained in Petrograd a month after it.
A week after the funeral, the Prince of Wales, by Queen Victoria's command, invested Alexander III with the Order of the Garter. As the Garter is the oldest Order of Chivalry in Europe, the ceremonies at its investiture have 570 years of tradition behind them. The insignia, the star, the ribbon, the collar, the sword, and the actual garter itself, are all carried on separate, long, narrow cushions of red velvet, heavily trimmed with gold bullion. Owing to the deep Court mourning, it was decided that the investiture should be private. No one was to be present except the new Emperor and Empress, Queen Alexandra, the Grand Master and Grand Mistress of the Russian Court, the members of the British Embassy, and the Prince of Wales and his staff. This, as it turned out, was very fortunate. The ceremony was to take place at the Anitchkoff Palace on the Nevsky, which Alexander III inhabited throughout his reign, as
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he preferred it to the huge rambling Winter Palace. On the appointed day, we all marched into the great Throne room of the Anitchkoff Palace, the Prince of Wales leading the way, with five members of his staff carrying the insignia on the traditional long narrow velvet cushions. I carried nothing, but we made, I thought, a very dignified and effective entrance. As we entered the Throne room, a perfectly audible feminine voice cried out in English, "Oh, my dear! Do look at them. They look exactly like a row of wet-nurses carrying babies!" Nothing will induce me to say from whom the remark proceeded. The two sisters, Empress and Queen, looked at each other for a minute, and then exploded with laughter. The Emperor fought manfully for a while to keep his face, until, catching sight of the member of the Prince of Wales's staff who was carrying his cushion in the peculiarly maternal fashion that had so excited the risibility of the Royal sisters, he too succumbed, and his colossal frame quivered with mirth. Never, I imagine, since its institution in 1349, has the Order of the Garter been conferred amid such general hilarity, but as no spectators were present, this lapse from the ordinary decorum of the ceremonial did not much matter. The general public never heard of it, nor, I trust, did Queen Victoria.
The Emperor Alexander III was a man of great personal courage, but he gave way, under protest, to the wishes of those responsible for his personal safety. They insisted on his always using
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the armour-plated carriages bought from Napoleon III. These coaches were so immensely heavy that they soon killed the horses dragging them. Again, on railway journeys, the actual time-table and route of the Imperial train between two points was always different from the published time-table and route. Napoleon III's private train had been purchased at the same time as his steel-plated carriages. This train had been greatly enlarged and fitted to the Russian gauge. I do not suppose that any more sumptuous palace on wheels has ever been built than this train of nine vestibuled cars. It was fitted with every imaginable convenience. Alexander III sent it to the frontier to meet his brother-in-law the Prince of Wales, which was the occasion on which I saw it.
During the six months following Alexander II's assassination all social life in Petrograd stopped. We of the Embassy had many other resources, for in those days the British business colony in Petrograd was still large, and flourished exceedingly. They had various sporting clubs, of some of which we were members. There was in particular the Fishing Club at Harraka Niska in Finland, where the river Vuoksi issues from the hundred-mile-long Lake Saima.
It was a curious experience driving to the Finnish railway station in Petrograd. In the city outside, the date would be June 1, Russian style. Inside the station, the date became June 13, European style. In place of the baggy knickerbockers,
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high boots, and fur caps of the Russian railwaymen, the employees of the Finnish railway wore the ordinary uniforms customary on European railways. The tickets were printed in European, not Russian characters, and the fares were given in marks and pennies, instead of in roubles and kopecks. The notices on the railway were all printed in six languages, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, French, English, and German, and my patriotic feelings were gratified at noting that all the locomotives had been built in Glasgow. I was astonished to find that although Finland formed an integral part of the Russian Empire, there was a Custom House and Customs examination at the Finnish frontier.
Finland is a country of endless little hills, and endless forests, all alike bestrewn with huge granite boulders; it is also a land of endless rivers and lakes. It is pretty in a monotonous fashion, and looks wonderfully tidy after Russia proper. The wooden houses and villages are all neatly painted a chocolate brown, and in spite of its sparse population it seems very prosperous. The Finns are all Protestants; the educated classes are mostly Swedish-speaking, the others talking their own impossible Ural-Altaic language. At the extremely comfortable club-house at Harraka Niska none of the fishermen or boatmen could talk anything but Finnish. We all had little conversation books printed in Russian and Finnish, but we usually found the language of signs more
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convenient. In later years, in South America, it became my duty to interview daily the Legation cook, an accomplished but extremely adipose female from Old Spain. I had not then learnt Spanish, and she understood no other tongue, so we conversed by signs. It is extremely derogatory to one's personal dignity to be forced to imitate in succession a hen laying an egg, a sheep bleating, or a duck quacking, and yet this was the only way in which I could order dinner. No one who has not tried it can believe how difficult it is to indicate in pantomime certain comestibles, such, for instance, as kidneys, liver and bacon, or a Welsh rarebit.
The fish at Harraka would not look at a fly, and could only be hooked on a phantom-minnow. The fishing there was very exciting. The big fish all lay where Lake Saima debouched into the turbulent Vuoksi river. There was a terrific rapid there, and the boatmen, who knew every inch of the ground, would head the boat straight for that seething white caldron of raging waves, lashing and roaring down the rocky gorge, as they dashed up angry spurts of white spray. Just as it seemed that nothing could save one from being hurled into that mad turmoil of leaping waters, where no human being could hope to live for a minute, a back-current shot the boat swiftly across to the other bank. That was the moment when the fish were hooked. They were splendid fighters, and played magnificently. These Harraka fish were curiously
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uniform in size, always running from 18 to 22 lb. Though everyone called them salmon, I think myself that they were really bull-trout, or Salmo ferox. A salmon would have had to travel at least 400 miles from salt water, and I do not believe that any fish living could have got up the tremendous Imatra waterfall, some six miles lower down the Vuoksi. These fish invariably had lice on them. In Great Britain sea-lice on a salmon are taken as a certain indication that the fish is fresh-run. These fish cannot possibly have been fresh-run, so I think it probable that in these great lakes there may be a fresh-water variety of the parasite. Another peculiarity of the Harraka fish was that, though they were excellent eating, they would not keep above two days. I have myself caught eleven of these big fellows in one day. During June there was capital grayling fishing in the lower Vuoksi, the fish running large, and taking the fly readily, though in that heavy water they were apt to break off. There were plenty of small trout too in the Vuoksi, but the densely-wooded banks made fishing difficult, and the water was always crystal-clear, and needed the finest of tackle.
I spent some most enjoyable days at Koltesha, a small English shooting-club of ten members, about twenty miles out of Petrograd. During September, for one fortnight, the marshes round Koltesha were alive with "double-snipe." This bird migrates in thousands from the Arctic regions to
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the far South, at the approach of autumn. They alighted in the Koltesha marshes to recruit themselves after their journey from the North Pole, and owing to circumstances beyond their control, few of them continued their journey southward. This confiding fowl has never learnt to zig-zag like the other members of the snipe family, and they paid the penalty for this omission by usually proceeding to the kitchen. A "double-snipe" is most delicious eating. The winter shooting at Koltesha was most delightful. The art of "ski-walking" had first to be learnt, and on commencing this unaccustomed method of locomotion, various muscles, which its use called into play for the first time, showed their resentment by aching furiously. The ground round Koltesha being hilly was admirably adapted for coasting on ski. It was difficult at first to shoot from the insecure footing of ski, and the unusual amount of clothing between one's shoulder and the stock of one's gun did not facilitate matters. Everything, however, can be learnt in time. I can claim to be the pioneer of ski on the American Continent, for in January, 1887, I brought over to Canada the very first pair of ski ever seen in America. I used to coast down the toboggan slides at Ottawa on them, amidst universal derision. I was told that, however useful ski might be in Russia, they were quite unsuited to Canadian conditions, and would never be popular there, as the old-fashioned "raquettes" were infinitely superior. Humph! Qui vivra verra!
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Koltesha abounded in black game, "ryabchiks," or hazel-grouse, and ptarmigan. Russian hares turn snow-white in winter, and are very difficult to see against a snowy background in consequence. It is almost impossible to convey on paper any idea of the intense delight of those days in the sun and the cold, when the air had that delicious clean smell that always goes with intense frost, the dark fir woods, with their purple shadows, stood out in sharp contrast to the dazzling sheet of white snow, and the sunlight gilded the patches of oak and birch scrub that climbed down the hollows of the low hills. One returned home glowing from head to foot. We got larger game too by "ringing them." The process of "ringing" is as follows. No four-footed creature can travel over the snow without leaving his tracks behind him. Let us suppose a small wood, one mile in circumference. If a man travels round this on ski, and if the track of any animal crosses his trail, going into the wood, and this track does not again come out of the wood, it is obvious that that particular animal is still taking cover there. Measures to drive him out are taken accordingly. We got in this way at Koltesha quite a number of elks, lynxes, and wolves.
The best wolf-shooting I ever got was at the invitation of the Russian Minister of Finance. Great packs of these ravenous brutes were playing havoc on his estate, two hundred miles from Petrograd, so he invited a large shooting party to his
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country house. We travelled down in a private sleeping-car, and had over twenty miles to drive in rough country sledges from the station. One of the guests was an enormously fat Russian General, a perfect mammoth of a man. As I was very slim in those days, I was told off as this gigantic warrior's fellow-passenger. Although he took up nine-tenths of the sledge, I just managed to creep in, but every time we jolted—and as the track was very rough, this was pretty frequently—I got 250 lb. of Russian General on the top of me, squeezing the life out of me. He was a good-natured Colossus, and apologised profusely for his own obesity, and for his instability, but I was black and blue all over, and since that day I have felt profound sympathy for the little princes in the Tower, for I know what being smothered with a feather-bed feels like.
The Minister's country house was, as are most other Russian country houses, a modest wooden building with whitewashed rooms very scantily furnished. The Minister had, however, thoughtfully brought down his famous Petrograd chef, and I should judge about three-quarters of the contents of his wine-cellar. We had to proceed to our places in the forest in absolute silence, and the wolf being an exceedingly wary animal with a a very keen sense of smell, all smoking was rigorously prohibited.
It was nice open scrubland, undulating gently. The beaters were skilful and we were very lucky,
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for after an interminable wait, the entire pack of wolves rushed down on us. A wolf is killed with slugs from a smooth-bore. I personally was fortunate, for I got shots at eight wolves, and six of them felt disinclined for further exertions. I still have a carriage-rug made of the skins of the wolves I killed that day. The banging all round meanwhile was terrific. In two days we accounted for fifty-two of these pests. It gave me the utmost pleasure killing these murderous, bloodthirsty brutes; far more than slaying an inoffensive bear. Should a bear encounter a human being in the course of his daily walks, he is certainly apt to hug him to death, as a precautionary measure. He is also addicted to smashing to a jelly, with one blow of his powerful paws, the head of a chance stranger. These peculiarities apart, the bear may be regarded as practically harmless. It is otherwise with the wolf.
Some of the British Colony were fond of going to Finland for a peculiar form of sport. I use the last word dubiously, for to kill any game birds during the breeding season seems a curiously unsportsmanlike act. Circumstances rather excused this. It is well known that black game do not pair, but that they are polygamous. During the breeding season the male birds meet every morning at dawn on regular fighting grounds, and there battle for the attentions of the fairer sex. These fighting grounds are well known to the keepers, who erect there in early autumn conical shelters of fir
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branches. The birds become familiar with these shelters (called in Russian "shagashki") and pay no attention to them. The "gun" introduces himself into the shelter not later than midnight, and there waits patiently for the first gleam of dawn. He must on no account smoke. With the first grey streak of dawn in the sky there is a great rushing of wings in the air, and dozens of male birds appear from nowhere; strutting up and down, puffing out their feathers, and hissing furiously at each other in challenge. The grey hens meanwhile sit in the surrounding trees, watching, as did the ladies of old at a tournament, the prowess of their men-folk in the lists. The grey hens never show themselves, and make no sound; two things, one would imagine, contrary to every instinct of their sex. A challenge once accepted, two males begin fighting furiously with wings, claws, and beaks. So absorbed are the birds in their combat, that they neither see nor hear anything, and pay no attention to a gun-shot. Should they be within reach of the "shagashka," that is the time to fire. It sounds horribly unsportsmanlike, but it must be remembered that the birds are only just visible in the uncertain dawn. As dawn matures into daylight, the birds suddenly stop fighting, and all fly away simultaneously, followed by the grey hens. I never would kill more than two as specimens, for this splendid bird is such a thing of joy in his breeding plumage, with his glossy dark blue satin coat, and white velvet waistcoat, that there
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is some excuse for wanting to examine him closer. Ladies, too, loved a blackcock's tail or wings for their hats. It was also the only way in which this curious and little-known phase of bird life could be witnessed.
The capercailzie is called in Russian "the deaf one." Why this name should be given to a bird of abnormally acute hearing seems at first sight puzzling. The explanation is that the male capercailzie in the breeding season concludes his love-song with a peculiar "tchuck, tchuck," impossible to reproduce on paper, moving his head rapidly to and fro the while. During this "tchuck, tchuck," the bird is deaf and blind to the world. The capercailzie hunter goes out into the forest at about 1 a.m. and listens intently. As soon as he hears a capercailzie's song, he moves towards the sound very, very cautiously. When within half a mile of the bird, he must wait for the "tchuck, tchuck," which lasts about two minutes, before daring to advance. The "tchuck" over, he must remain absolutely motionless until it recommences. The snapping of a twig will be enough to silence the bird and to make it fly away. It will be seen then that to approach a capercailzie is a difficult task, and one requiring infinite patience. Once within shot, there is no particular fun in shooting a sitting bird the size of a turkey, up at the top of a tree, even though it only appears as a dusky mass against the faint beginnings of dawn.
The real charm of this blackcock and capercailzie shooting was that one would not otherwise have
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been out in the great forest at break of day.
To me there was always an infinite fascination in seeing these great Northern tracts of woodland awakening from their long winter sleep. The sweetness of the dawn, the delicious smell of growing things, the fresh young life springing up under one's feet, all these appealed to every fibre in my being. Nature always restores the balance of things. In Russia, as in Canada, after the rigours of the winter, once the snow has disappeared, flowers carpet the ground with a rapidity of growth unknown in more temperate climates. These Finland woods were covered with a low creeping plant with masses of small, white, waxy flowers. It was, I think, one of the smaller cranberries. There was an orange-flowering nettle, too, the leaves of which changed from green to vivid purple as they climbed the stalk, making gorgeous patches of colour, and great drifts of blue hepaticas on the higher ground. To appreciate Nature properly, she must be seen at unaccustomed times, as she bestirs herself after her night's rest whilst the sky brightens.
In Petrograd itself the British Colony found plenty of amusement. We had an English ice-hill club to which all the Embassy belonged. The elevation of a Russian ice-hill, some forty feet only, may seem tame after the imposing heights of Canadian toboggan slides, but I fancy that the pace travelled is greater in Russia. The ice-hills were always built in pairs, about three hundred yards apart, with two parallel runs. Both hills
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and runs were built of solid blocks of ice, watered every day, and the pitch of the actual hill was very steep. In the place of a toboggan we used little sleds two feet long, mounted on skate-runners, which were kept constantly sharpened. These travelled over the ice at a tremendous pace, and at the end of the straight run, the corresponding hill had only to be mounted to bring you home again to the starting-point. The art of steering these sleds was soon learnt, once the elementary principle was grasped that after a turn to the left, a corresponding turn to the right must be made to straighten up the machine, exactly as is done instinctively on a bicycle. A wave of the hand or of the foot was enough to change the direction, the ice-hiller going down head foremost, with the sled under his chest.
Longer sleds were used for taking ladies down. The man sat cross-legged in front, whilst the lady knelt behind him with both her arms round his neck. Possibly the enforced familiarity of this attitude was what made the amusement so popular.
We gave at times evening parties at the ice-hills, when the woods were lit up with rows of Chinese lanterns, making a charming effect against the snow, and electric arcs blazed from the summits of the slides. To those curious in such matters, I may say that as secondary batteries had not then been invented, and we had no dynamo, power was furnished direct by powerful Grove two-cell batteries. One night our amateur electrician was
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nearly killed by the brown fumes of nitrous acid these batteries give off from their negative cells.
We had an ice-boat on the Gulf of Finland as well. It is only in early spring, and very seldom then, that this amusement can be indulged in. The necessary conditions are (1) a heavy thaw to melt all the snow from the surface of the ice, followed by a sharp frost; (2) a strong breeze. Nature is not often obliging enough to arrange matters in this sequence. We had some good sailing, though, and could get forty miles an hour out of our craft with a decent breeze. Our boat was of the Dutch, not the Canadian type. I was astonished to find how close an ice-boat could lay to the wind, for obviously anything in the nature of leeway is impossible with a boat on runners. Ice-sailing was bitterly cold work, and the navigation of the Gulf of Finland required great caution, for in early spring great cracks appeared in the ice. On one occasion, in avoiding a large crack, we ran into the omnibus plying on runners between Kronstadt and the mainland. The driver of the coach was drunk, and lost his head, to the terror of his passengers, but very little damage was done. It may be worth while recording this, as it is but seldom that a boat collides with an omnibus.
It will be seen that in one way and another there was no lack of amusement to be found round Petrograd, even during the entire cessation of Court and social entertainments.