EFFORTS FOR SMALL RESULTS. THE AMUSEMENTS OF DESPOTISM. KRONSTADT.

-

RUSSIAN CUSTOM-HOUSE.

GLOOMY ASPECT

OF NATURE. RECOLLECTIONS OF ROME. - ENGLISH POETICAL NAME FOR SHIPS OF WAR. — OBJECT OF PETER THE GREAT.THE FINNS. BATTERIES OF KRONSTADT. -ABJECT CHARACTER

OF THE LOWER CLASSES OF RUSSIAN EMPLOYÉS. INQUISITIONS OF THE POLICE, AND THE CUSTOM-HOUSE.

IN THE MANNERS OF
NORTHERN PEOPLE.

FELLOW-TRAVELLERS,

SUDDEN CHANGE

FICKLENESS OF

As we approached Kronstadt,—a sub-marine fortress of which the Russians are justly proud, -the Gulf of Finland suddenly assumed an animated appearance. The imperial fleet was in motion and surrounded us on all sides. It remains in port, icelocked during more than six months of the year; but during the three months of summer the marine cadets are exercised in nautical manœuvres, between St. Petersburg and the Baltic. After passing the fleet we again sailed on an almost desert sea; now and then, only, enlivened by the distant apparition of some merchant vessel, or the yet more infrequent smoke of a pyroscaph, as steam-boats are learnedly called in the nautical language of some parts of Europe.

The Baltic sea, by the dull hues of its unfrequented waters, proclaims the vicinity of a continent depopulated under the rigours of the climate. The barren

114

THE RUSSIAN MARINE

shores harmonise with the cold aspect of the sky and water, and chill the heart of the traveller.

No sooner does he arrive on this unattractive coast than he longs to leave it; he calls to mind, with a sigh, the remark of one of Catherine's favourites, who, when the Empress complained of the effects of the climate of Petersburg upon her health, observed, "It is not God who should be blamed, Madame, because men have persisted in building the capital of a great empire in a territory destined by nature to be the patrimony of wolves and bears."

My travelling companions have been explaining to me, with much self-satisfaction, the recent progress of the Russian marine. I admire this prodigy without magnifying it as they do. It is a creation, or rather a re-creation of the present emperor's. This prince amuses himself by endeavouring to realise the favourite object of Peter I., but however powerful a man may be, he is forced sooner or later to acknowledge that nature is more powerful still. So long

as Russia shall keep within her natural limits, the Russian navy will continue the hobby of the emperors and nothing more!

During the season of naval exercises, I am informed that the younger pupils remain performing their evolutions in the neighbourhood of Kronstadt, while the more advanced extend their voyages of discovery as far as Riga, and sometimes even to Copenhagen.

As soon as I found that the sole object of all this display of naval power which passed before my eyes, was the instruction of pupils, a secret feeling of ennui extinguished my curiosity.

LORD DURHAM'S OPINION OF IT.

115

All this unnecessary preparation which is neither the result of commerce nor of war, appears to me a mere parade. Now, God knows, and the Russians know, whether there is any pleasure in a parade! The taste for reviews in Russia is carried beyond all bounds, and here, before even landing in this empire of military evolutions, I must be present at a review on the water. But I must not laugh at this. Puerility on a grand scale appears to me a monstrous thing, impossible except under a tyranny, of which it is, perhaps, the most terrible result! Everywhere, except under an absolute despotism, men, when they ́ make great efforts, have in view great ends; it is only among a blindly abject people that the monarch may command immense sacrifices for the sake of trifling results.

The view of the naval power of Russia, gathered together for the amusement of the Czar, at the gate of his capital, has thus caused me only a painful impression. The vessels which will be inevitably lost in a few winters, without having rendered any service, suggest to my mind images not of the power of a great country, but of the useless toils to which the poor unfortunate seamen are condemned. The ice is a more terrible enemy to this navy than foreign war. Every autumn after the three months' exercise, the pupil returns to his prison, the plaything to its box, and the frost begins to wage its more serious war upon the imperial finances. Lord Durham once remarked to the Emperor himself, with a freedom of speech which wounded him in the most sensitive part, that the Russian ships of war were but the playthings of the Russian sovereign.

As regards myself, this childish Colossus by no means predisposes me to admire what I may expect to see in the interior of the empire. To admire Russia in approaching it by water, it is necessary to forget the approach to England by the Thames. The first is the image of death; the last, of life,

On dropping anchor before Kronstadt, we learned that one of the noble vessels we had seen manoeuvering around us had just been lost on a sand bank. This shipwreck was dangerous only to the captain, who expected to be cashiered, and, perhaps, punished yet more severely. Prince K said to me privately, that he would have done better to have perished with his vessel. Our fellow-traveller the Princess L- had a son attached to the unlucky ship. She was placed in a situation of painful suspense, until news of his safety was brought to her by the governor of Kronstadt.

The Russians are incessantly repeating to me that it is requisite to spend at least two years in their country before passing a judgment upon it; so difficult is it to understand.

But though patience and prudence may be necessary virtues in those learned travellers who aspire to the glory of producing erudite works, I, who have been hitherto writing only for my friend and myself, have no intention of making my journal a work of labour. I have some fear of the Russian customhouse, but they assure me that my écritoire will be respected.

Nothing can be more melancholy than the aspect of nature in the approach to St. Petersburg. As one advances up the Gulf, the flat marshes of Ingria

terminate in a little wavering line drawn between the sky and the sea; this line is Russia. It presents the appearance of a wet lowland, with here and there a few birch trees thinly scattered. The landscape is void of objects, and colours; has no bounds, and yet no sublimity. It has just light enough to be visible; the grey mossy earth well accords with the pale sun which illumines it, not from overhead, but from near the horizon, or almost indeed from below,-so acute is the angle which the oblique rays form with the surface of this unfavoured soil. In Russia the finest days have a blueish dimness.

If the nights are

marked by a clearness which surprises, the days are clothed with an obscurity which saddens.

Kronstadt, with its forest of masts, its substructures, and its ramparts of granite, finely breaks the monotonous reverie of the pilgrim, who is, like me, seeking for imagery in this dreary land. I have never seen, in the approaches to any other great city, a landscape so melancholy as the banks of the Neva. The campagna of Rome is a desert, but what picturesque objects, what past associations, what light, what fire, what poetry, if I might be allowed the expression, I would say, what passion animates this religious land. To reach St. Petersburg, you must pass a desert of water framed in a desert of peat earth; sea, shore, and sky, are all blended into one mirror, but so dull, so tarnished, that it reflects nothing.

The thought of the noble vessels of the Russian navy, destined to perish without having ever been in action, pursues me like a dream.

The English, in their idiom, which is so poetical when it relates to maritime subjects, call a vessel of