We spent a night at Gurlova, a village midway between St. Petersburg and Narva, and became for the first time acquainted with the splendours of a Russian inn. The house was painted red and yellow, and a gallery ran round the top outside. The courts behind the house had covered porticos supported by the trunks of fir-trees running round them. A corridor also passed round the house. Such are all Russian caravanserais. From the airiness and lightness of their architecture, the Russians miglit be supposed to be inhabitants of Africa. We were the only strangers in the inn, and for the sake of company, we made common cause with the people of the house, and shared the contents of our speise j)udel with them. Among those who partook of its bounties, were two poor tailors, brothers, of the class who work for poor people in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. They had been journeying to Reval, to visit some relations, but unluckily, on their return, they had been robbed of all their httle property to the last farthing, at an inn near Narva, and were obliged slowly to work their way from inn to inn by the wayside, in order to pay their journey back to St. Petersburg. They were natives of Yaroslav, and both very handsome young people, particularly the younger, a lad of fourteen. Both were serfs, and the younger, who worked under the superintendence of his brother, sent fifty rubles as a yearly tribute to his lord ; the elder, seventy-five. They carried with them no other tools than their needles and scissors, every thing else they procured at the place where they worked ; they were then making a pair of trousers for the host. I asked the younger whether his brother was severe, and whether he ever beat him.
" Oh, no, sir! I would not stand that !" answered he. ' But sometimes I'm obliged to box his ears," remarked the elder brother, " when he reminds me too much of our mother and sisters, or is lazy at his work.' The two handsome young tailors enjoyed the good gifts of our pudel extremely, and their conversation at supper was full of spirit and humour, as that of the low Russians usually is. Many anecdotes were related, and some interesting particulars of the country were told. Among other things, I heard that the Russians of this district always put into the graves of their deceased friends, a bottle of brandy and a ladder ; the last intended for the soul to mount to heaven upon, the former to refresh it on the way. The brandy-bottles are very often stolen, but the thieves always leave the ladders. Of course it would be too cruel to rob the dead of the means of getting to heaven ; besides, that is a privilege wliich the thieves probably envy them less than their brandy-bottles.
At four o'clock the next morning, the snow again crackled beneath our sledges. It is wonderful how light the nights are, upon these snowy plains, however cloudy may be the sky. There was no moon, no star or northern light was visible, and yet it was so light that we could see every thing distinctly for forty or fifty paces round us. We could easily distinguish the different branches of the trees.
The road was remarkably uneven, and we were incessantly dashed up and down by the thousands of ukhahui in the snow. Our coaclunan was unweariedly active and careful in his guidance of our equipage through all tliese obstacles. He now drove, now led the horses, singing all the time, and pointing out to us any thing worthy of attention on the road, springing out of the sledge to hold it whenever it threatened to upset, and sitting now on the left, now on the right, to preserve tlie equilibrium. In short, he was so active, that he made us quite ashamed of our own laziness.
The forests were magnificent, and the spectacle of the trees, bowed down beneath the weight of snowy crystals on every bough, was highly pictui-esque. The groups of Russians, too, working by the wayside, fine old men, and handsome healthy youths, all covered with snow like the trees, were worthy of the pencil of a painter. When we reached the inn at Glukhova we wished for some wine ; so we broke our bottles, tossed out the wine on the table^ and chopped it to pieces with a large knife. We then threw the bits into glasses, and poured hot water on them, for the fact was, every thing in our speise pudel was frozen. The wme, butter, sausages — all was as hard as stone, and every thing had to be restored to its natural state by aid of the stove.