Great and Little Nefka ; and though there are few rivers that may not be said to benefit the cities built upon their banks, yet it may safely be said, that there is no city more indebted to its river than the Palmyra of the North. From the interior of the empire the Neva brings to her capital the native abundance of the land ; food for man, and for the animals dependent on man, materials for clothing, housing, and warming him. At her mouth she receives the luxuries of foreign regions, and conveys them not only to the noble palaces on her own banks, but, by means of an extensive system of inland navigation, she transports them into the most central provinces of the vast Russian empire. She furnishes the first necessary of life, in the highest perfection, to the citizens of St. Petersburg, who are without any other supply of water, for a pure spring is not to be met with for many leagues around. She makes their soup, and prepares the very best of tea and coffee for them. She yields an abundance of fish for their banquets, and does not disdain to render them even the most menial services ; she washes their bodies and their linen, and winding through their city in a multitude of canals, carries away all its impurities. The water of the Neva is as daily a topic with those that dwell on its banks, as the water of the Nile is to the Egyptians ; and this is the less surprising, as the Neva is a source, not only of delight and enjoyment to the people of St. Petersburg, but also one of constant anxiety, and sometimes of terror.
The northern winter imprisons the lovely nymph of the Neva in icy bands for six months in the year. It is seldom till after the beginning of April that the water acquires sufficient warmth to burst her prison. The moment is always anxiously expected, and no sooner have the dirty masses of ice advanced sufficiently to display as much of the bright mirror of the river as may suffice to bear a boat from one side to the other, than the glad tidings are announced to the inhabitants by the artillery of the fortress. At that moment, be it day or night, the commandant of the fortress, arrayed in all the insignia of his rank, and accompanied by the officers of his suite, embarks in an elegant gondola, and repairs to the emperor's palace which lies immediately opposite. He fills a large crystal goblet with the water of the Neva, and presents it to the emperor as the first and most precious tribute of returning spring. He informs his master that the force of winter has been broken, that the waters are free again, that an active navigation may now again be looked for, and points to his own gondola, as the first swan that has swum on the river that year. He then presents the goblet to the emperor, who drinks it off to the health of the dear citizens of his capital. There is not ju'obably on the face of the globe, another glass of water that brings a better piice, for it is customary for the emperor to fill the goblet with ducats before he returns it to the commandant. Such at least was the custom ; but the goblet was found to have a sad tendency to enlarge its dimensions, so that the cmpennbegan to perceive that he had every year a larger dose of water to drink, and a greater number of ducats to pay for it. At last he thought it higli time to compromise matters with his commandant, who now receives on each occasion a fixed sum of 200 ducats. Even this, it must be admitted, is a truly imperial fee for a draught of water, but the compromise is said to have effectually arrested the alarming growth of the goblet.