The little St. Petersburg gondolas that navigate the Neva have a broad and low prow, and a high-pointed stern. A more important class of vessels than the gondolas are the great struse fleets which come to St. Petersburg in summer from the interior. There are among them, Volga, Kama, Ladoga, Dwina, and Volchoff ships, with which rivers, owing to an extensive system of canals, St. Petersburg is in constant intercourse.
The peculiar build of all these vessels, which pass imder the general name of struse is this : they are enormously large, and so little labour is wasted on their construction, that they look more like productions of nature than of art. The basis of them is the large trunk of the pine, of which the strongest side branches are left, and serve as ribs to the boat. The planks that cover those ribs, are smoothed merely with the hatchet, and made fast with strong wooden pegs. The lading is covered with a roof formed of a young birch-tree, on which all the branches are left, and over this a tarpawling is sometimes thrown. Round the edge of this roof a kind of gallery runs for the convenience of the crew. The cabin of the master, made of planks roughly nailed together, and decorated with pieces of gaudy carpet and pictures of saints, is placed in the middle of the ship, dividing it thus into two parts. A pine-stem forms the mast, and supports an enormous sail, and two other pine-stems placed fore and aft are the rudders, which are generally longer than the mast. That at the prow is often grotesquely painted in all colours, with long stripes, crosses, and stars, like the hem of Iris's garment, or the tail of a peacock ; and by the arrangement of these colours it is that the birthplace of the bark is known.
The struses arrive by hundreds and thousands every summer : the fleets or caravans, as the Russians call them, have each their appointed time for leaving their places of rendezvous in the interior ; the " salt caravan" at one time, the " iron caravan" at another ; the greater part remain at St. Petersburg. Not more than six or eight hundred return with a cargo, the otliers are broken up for fuel ; many get frozen in before they arc broken up, and in the course of the winter are gradually stripped of their planks, leaving their skeleton sides erect amid the snow and ice on the banks of the Neva.
The French ambassador was one day vaunting the dexterity of the Parisian thieves to one of the grand-dukes, and related many anecdotes of their address. The grand-duke was of opinion that the St. Petersburg thieves were quite their equals ; and offered to lay a wager, that if the ambassador would dine with him the next day, he would cause his excellency's watch, signet-ring, or any other articles of his dress wliich he thought most secure, to be stolen from him before the dessert was over. The ambassador accepted the wager, and the grand-duke sent immediately to the chief of the police, desiring him to send the adroitest thief he might happen to have in custody at the time. The man was dressed in livery, instructed what to do, and promised a pardon if he accomplished his task well. The ambassador had named his watch as the particular object of attention, both for himself and the thief ; when he had got the watch, the supposed servant was to give the grand -duke a sign.