The consecration of the water, called also the Jordan festival, is particularly interesting. It takes place three times in the year, once in winter on the ice, once in spring, and once in the middle of summer. In Dorpat, a German maidservant onc« invited me most earnestly to attend this festival in these words : " To-day is Jordan, the gods are to be washed." The lower order of Germans generally honour the pictures of the saints with the name of " gods," and have taken it into their heads, that the pictures are washed, and thus consecrated by the water, whereas it is the water that is blessed by the immersion of the pictures. The winter ceremony is the most peculiar. On this occasion, on a river of the city, or if there be none, as in Odessa for example, on a neighbouring lake or pond, a circle is marked off on the ice, and surrounded by a gallery, and by birchtrees. In the midst of the circle, a square hole is broken ; the priests come from the principal church in solemn procession, with tapers, flags, and pictures, enter the birch arbour, and begin the service with incense and singing, which has a curious effect when issuing from these bowers. With a multitude of ceremonies, a cross is then dipped several times into the water which is thus made wholesome, heahng, and pure, for man and fish. And this consecration holds good not only for the water that splashes through that ice-hole, but for the water of all the springs and rivers, and all the wells in the neighbourhood. The people, however, who during the proceedings are picturesquely grouped on the high banks of the river, and the roofs of the surrounding houses, believe in the peculiar power of that particular water touched by the cross; and rush down with bottles, jugs, pails, decanters, and pots, as soon as the priests come out fi'om their temporary bower, as if they thought to catch the particular wave the cross had touched. With noise and quarrelling, jesting and shouting, they fall upon the water ; some contenting themselves with a bottleful, to carry home to drink, or wash their eyes with in the morning, while the more zealous stretch themselves along the ice, and dabble in the water like so many ducks after rain. That the north wind whistles sharj)ly all the wliile, freezing the water on hair and skin,does not at all trouble them, for it is holy water. The boys who are sent by their parents to fill their green bottles, seem to take great pleasure in drinking, pouring it over their heads and then filling again. Wiien all the tumult is over, a couple of patriarchallooking figures will seat themselves near the hole, and drink with as much edification and content as if it were a bowl of punch they were discussing.
One of the prettiest of the festivals of this description is,
THE BLESSING OF THE FRUIT.
This falls on the 6th of August, and offers such a spectacle as tlie festival of Pomona may once liave offered. I saw it to great advantag at a cousiderable convent in New Russia. A countless number of vehicles, peasants carts, kalesclies, one-horsed carriages, and teams ot" oxen, filled the gardens round the cloister. Before the lofty doors of the minor courts and flowergardens, files of fi'uit-sellers had placed themselves to supply such of the faithful as had brought no fruit from liome. Wlien the service was over, they placed themselves in double lines in the church, and those who could not find room there, drew up outside the line, stretching far among the flower-beds and tombs of the cloister-gardens. The priests then passed along the lines, sprinkling all with the healing moisture. Those who are very strict touch no fruit of any kind till this blessing has been conferred. When it is over, there is a general demolition of apples, pears, plums, &c. The children may then eat as much as they like, even infants at the breast have great apples given them, as if what had once been blessed could do no harm. The people walk in and out of the open doors of the temples, eating apples ; and the beggars get whole sacks full of plums and pears bestowed upon them. This feast comes somewhat too soon in the year for northern Russia, or the opinion of the injuriousness of the fruit before that time, might have a good eft'ect m limiting the consumption of it in an unripe state. As it is, it rather does harm, as the Russian holds all to be ripe and wholesome after the ceremony, and plucks and eats away without restraint.