At the inn of Glukhova, the hfe, bustle, and tumult announced the proximity of a large capital. In some of the rooms gentlemen were singing for the amusement of the ladies ; they were German instrumentmakers, returning to St. Petersburg after a visit to Riga. In another room, a whole party of noisy Russian coachmen and drivers were talking and quarrelhng together. The Russian waiters and servants were nmning in and out, now serving one guest, now another, and now snatching up their balalaikas to divert themselves with a tune. In the midst of a group of noisy quarrelhng fellows, sat an old man, singing, in aloud monotonous voice, some Russian chm-ch melodies, from a book which he told me was an extract from the Bible. In the courtyard, a Finlander was dancing and playing extraordinary melodies, on an instrument which I had never seen before. He called it a dutka. It resembled both in appearance and sound a clarionette, but the tones were less harmonious and more nasal ; it was something between a clarionette and a bagpipe.
I was not a little surprised by the conduct of a distinguished young Russian, with whom I became acquainted here. I saw him smoking a cigar, and as I wished to smoke a pipe I asked him where he had lighted it. He pointed to the obros, the holy picture, before which a sacred light was always kept burning. I could not imagine that he had hghted his cigar at this lamp, and asked him to explain. He took my pipe, and lighted it immediately, while he laughingly remarked that it did not at all affect his conscience, and that he knew the difference between religion and superstition. Such follies, he said, were quite out of fashion among the young nobility. To confess the truth, thought I, the superstition of my poor rough coachman, who crosses himself every morning, and who never passes an obros without reverential obeisance, pleases me better than the fashionable nonchalance of this young spiig of nobihty.
At Glukhova we had thoroughly entered Russia, and were so completely surrounded by Russian life that I must break off a nan-ative which would no longer bear reference to the German Baltic provinces, and devote the remainder of this part of my work to such descriptions and remarks ou the country and its inhabitants, as may convey a more perfect picture to the mind of the reader.
NATURAL PHENOMENA OF THE BALTIC.
Travellers who mount their kalesch at Memel, and changing horses from station to station on the road to St. Petersburg, fly swiftly through Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, judge very unfavourably of these provinces. They imagine themselves driving through a wilderness of alternate forest, marsh, and desert. Here and there they see a sohtary and uninviting house, lying alone in the frowning forest, and the inhabitants, muffled in their gray sheepskins, pass them without exciting interest. All tlie peculiar and interesting modes of life hidden in those forests, and moving within those houses, all the remarkable natural beauties of those woods and by-paths, are unknown to them ; and as contempt is easier than investigation, they rejoice when, seated at a luxurious table in St. Petersburg, they can turn their backs finally on the Baltic provinces.
Flora and her associates have indeed been rather sparing in their gifts towards these countries. The landscape is always flat and low, and the vegetation somewhat monotonous. The inhabitants, too, take little pains to adorn the exterior, either of their persons or dwellings ; but this country has, notwithstanding, charms and beauties of its own.
The country inhabited by the Lettes and Esthonians lies between the fifty-fifth and sixtieth degrees of north latitude. Their winter is six months long, and very cold and stormy. Their summer i^ short and hot. The autumn is dreary, rainy, and dirty ; and a spring scarcely exists. Both the air and the soil of these countries have a great disposition to dampness. ■ Whether on account of the marshy nature of the ground, or a predisposition of the air, it often drizzles for days and weeks together, without either clearing up or coming to a regular down-pour. Everything seems to be mixed up together ; even rain and snow often fall at the same time. The Germans have invented the expression " Es schlackerC for this chaotic sort of weather.
The climate of the Baltic provinces partakes both of Russia and of Northern Germany. In winter, when in Russia every road is hard, and the ice palaces firm in their foundations, there is here a continual alternation of rain and snow, and perpetual com)laints are heard of the instability of the snow-roads. In the dark months of October and November, impenetrable clouds for ever conceal the sky, and night and day are scarcely distinguishable from each other.