During luncheon Lord Dufferin made himself perfectly charming, and I did my best to act as though it were quite normal to sit down to one's repasts in an immense fur coat.
The Ambassador was very susceptible to cold, and liked the house heated to a great temperature. That day the furnace-man must have been quite unusually active, for the steam hissed and sizzled in the radiators, until the heat of that dining-room was suffocating. Conscious of my extreme décolletage, I did not dare unhook the collar of my "shuba," being naturally of a modest disposition, and never, even in later years at Colombo or Singapore, have I suffered so terribly from heat as in that Petrograd dining-room in the depths of a Russian winter. The only cool thing in the room was the governess, who, when she caught sight of my bare feet, froze into an arctic iceberg of disdain, in spite of my really very ornamental Persian slippers. The poor lady had obviously never even caught a glimpse of pajamas before. After that episode I always came to the Embassy fully dressed.
Another instance of Lord Dufferin's methods occurs to me. We had a large evening party at the Embassy, and a certain very pushing and pertinacious English newspaper correspondent did everything in his power to get asked to this reception. For very excellent reasons, his request was refused. In spite of this, on the night of the party the journalist appeared. I informed Lord Dufferin, and asked what he wished me to do about it. "Let me deal with him myself," answered the Ambassador, and going up to the unbidden guest, he made him a little bow, and said with a bland smile, "May I inquire, sir, to what I owe this most unexpected honour?" Then as the unhappy newspaper-man stuttered out something, Lord Dufferin continued with an even blander smile, "Do not allow me, my dear sir, I beg of you, to detain you from your other doubtless numerous engagements"; then calling me, he added, "Will you kindly accompany this gentleman to the front door, and see that on a cold night like this he gets all his warm clothing." It was really impossible to turn a man out of your house in a more courteous fashion.
There was another plan Lord Dufferin used at times. All despatches, and most of our private letters, were sent home by hand, in charge of the Queen's Messenger. We knew perfectly well that anything sent from the Embassy through the ordinary mails would be opened at the Censor's office, and copies taken. Ministries of Foreign Affairs give at times "diplomatic" answers, and occasionally it was advisable to let the Russian Government know that the Ambassador was quite aware that the assurances given him did not quite tally with the actual facts. He would then write a despatch to London to that effect, and send it by mail, being well aware that it would be opened and a copy sent to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this indirect fashion, he delicately conveyed to the Russian Government that he had not been hoodwinked by the rather fanciful statements made to him.
I was sitting at luncheon with some friends at a colleague's house on Sunday, the fateful 1st of March, 1881 (March 13, new style). Suddenly our white-headed old Chancery messenger burst unceremoniously into the room, and called out, "The Emperor has been assassinated!" We all jumped up; the old man, a German-speaking Russian from the Baltic Provinces, kept on wringing his hands, and moaning, "Unser arme gute Kaiser! unser arme gute Kaiser!" ("Our poor dear Emperor!") We hurried to the Embassy as fast as we could go, and found the Ambassador just stepping into his carriage to get the latest news from the Winter Palace. Lady Dufferin had not seen the actual crime committed, but she had heard the explosion of the bomb, and had seen the wounded horses led past, and was terribly upset in consequence. She was walking along the Catherine Canal with her youngest daughter when the Emperor's carriage passed and the first bomb was thrown. The carriage was one of Napoleon III's special armoured coaches, bought after the fall of the Second French Empire. The bomb shattered the wheels of the carriage, but the Emperor was untouched. He stepped out into the snow, when the second bomb was thrown, which blew his legs to pieces, and the Emperor was taken in a private sledge, in a dying condition, to the Winter Palace. The bombs had been painted white, to look like snowballs.
Ten minutes later one of the Court Chamberlains arrived. I met him in the hall, and he informed me, with the tears streaming down his face, that all was over.
That Chamberlain was a German-Russian named Stürmer, and he was the very same man who thirty-four years later was destined, by his gross incompetence, or worse, as Prime Minister, to bring the mighty Russian Empire crashing in ruins to the ground, and to drive the well-intentioned, irresolute Nicholas II, the grandson of the Sovereign for whom he professed so great an affection, to his abdication, imprisonment, and ignominious death.
There was a Queen's Messenger due in Petrograd from London that same afternoon, and Lord Dufferin, thinking that the police might give trouble, desired me to meet him at the station.
The Messenger refused to believe my news. He persisted in treating the whole thing as a joke, so I ordered my coachman to drive through the great semi-circular place in front of the Winter Palace. That place presented a wonderful sight. There were tens of thousands of people, all kneeling bare-headed in the snow, in close-packed ranks. I thought the sight of those serried thousands kneeling bare-headed, praying for the soul of their dead Emperor, a strangely moving and beautiful spectacle. When the Messenger saw this, and noted the black and yellow Imperial flag waving at half-mast over the Palace, he no longer doubted.
The Grand Duke Vladimir had announced the Emperor's death to the vast crowds in the traditional Russian fashion. The words "death" or "die" being considered ill-omened by old-fashioned Russians, the actual sentence used by the Grand Duke was, "The Emperor has bidden you to live long." ("Gosudar Imperator vam prikazal dolga jit!") The words conveyed their message.
The body of the Emperor having been embalmed, the funeral did not take place for a fortnight. As the crow flies, the distance between the Winter Palace and the Fortress Church is only about half a mile; it was, however, still winter-time, the Neva was frozen over, and the floating bridges had been removed. It being contrary to tradition to take the body of a dead Emperor of Russia across ice, the funeral procession had to pass over the permanent bridges to the Fortress, a distance of about six miles.
Lady Dufferin and I saw the procession from the corner windows of a house on the quays. On paper it sounded very grand, but like so many things in Russia, it was spoilt by lack of attention to details. The distances were kept irregularly, and many of the officials wore ordinary civilian great-coats over their uniforms, which did not enhance the effect of the cortège. The most striking feature of the procession was the "Black Knight" on foot, followed immediately by the "Golden Knight" on horseback. These were, I believe, meant to typify "The Angel of Death" and "The Angel of the Resurrection." Both Knights were clad in armour from head to foot, with the vizors of their helmets down. The "Black Knight's" armour was dull sooty-black all over; he had a long black plume waving from his helmet. The "Golden Knight," mounted on a white horse, with a white plume in his helmet, wore gilded and burnished armour, which blazed like a torch in the sunlight. The weight of the black armour being very great, there had been considerable difficulty in finding a man sufficiently strong to walk six miles, carrying this tremendous burden. A gigantic young private of the Preobrajensky Guards undertook the task for a fee of one hundred roubles, but though he managed to accomplish the distance, he fainted from exhaustion on reaching the Fortress Church, and was, I heard, two months in hospital from the effects of his effort.
We were able to get Lady Dufferin into her place in the Fortress Church, long before the procession arrived, by driving across the ice of the river. The absence of seats in a Russian church, and the extreme length of the Orthodox liturgy, rendered these services very trying for ladies. The Fortress Church had been built by a Dutch architect, and was the most un-Eastern-looking Orthodox church I ever saw. It actually contained a pulpit! In the north aisle of the church all the Emperors since Peter the Great's time lie in uniform plain white marble tombs, with gilt-bronze Russian eagles at their four corners. The Tsars mostly rest in the Cathedral of the Archangel, in the Moscow Kremlin. I have before explained that Peter was the last of the Tsars and the first of the Emperors. The regulations for Court mourning in Petrograd were most stringent. All ladies had to appear in perfectly plain black, lustreless woollen dresses, made high to the throat. On their heads they wore a sort of Mary Queen of Scots pointed cap of black crape, with a long black crape veil falling to their feet. The only detail of the funeral which struck me was the perfectly splendid pall of cloth of gold. This pall had been specially woven in Moscow, of threads of real gold. When folded back during the ceremony it looked exactly like gleaming waves of liquid gold.
A memorial church in old-Russian style has been erected on the Catherine Canal on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated. The five onion-shaped domes of this church, of copper enamelled in stripes and spirals of crude blue and white, green and yellow, and scarlet and white, may possibly look less garish in two hundred years' time than they do at present. The severely plain Byzantine interior, covered with archaic-looking frescoes on a gold ground, is effective. The ikonostas is entirely of that vivid pink and enormously costly Siberian marble that Russians term "heavy stone." Personally I should consider the huge sum it cost as spent in vain.
Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, in those days, of course, Prince and Princess of Wales, represented Great Britain at Alexander II's funeral, and remained in Petrograd a month after it.
A week after the funeral, the Prince of Wales, by Queen Victoria's command, invested Alexander III with the Order of the Garter. As the Garter is the oldest Order of Chivalry in Europe, the ceremonies at its investiture have 570 years of tradition behind them. The insignia, the star, the ribbon, the collar, the sword, and the actual garter itself, are all carried on separate, long, narrow cushions of red velvet, heavily trimmed with gold bullion. Owing to the deep Court mourning, it was decided that the investiture should be private. No one was to be present except the new Emperor and Empress, Queen Alexandra, the Grand Master and Grand Mistress of the Russian Court, the members of the British Embassy, and the Prince of Wales and his staff. This, as it turned out, was very fortunate. The ceremony was to take place at the Anitchkoff Palace on the Nevsky, which Alexander III inhabited throughout his reign, as he preferred it to the huge rambling Winter Palace. On the appointed day, we all marched into the great Throne room of the Anitchkoff Palace, the Prince of Wales leading the way, with five members of his staff carrying the insignia on the traditional long narrow velvet cushions. I carried nothing, but we made, I thought, a very dignified and effective entrance. As we entered the Throne room, a perfectly audible feminine voice cried out in English, "Oh, my dear! Do look at them. They look exactly like a row of wet-nurses carrying babies!" Nothing will induce me to say from whom the remark proceeded. The two sisters, Empress and Queen, looked at each other for a minute, and then exploded with laughter. The Emperor fought manfully for a while to keep his face, until, catching sight of the member of the Prince of Wales's staff who was carrying his cushion in the peculiarly maternal fashion that had so excited the risibility of the Royal sisters, he too succumbed, and his colossal frame quivered with mirth. Never, I imagine, since its institution in 1349, has the Order of the Garter been conferred amid such general hilarity, but as no spectators were present, this lapse from the ordinary decorum of the ceremonial did not much matter. The general public never heard of it, nor, I trust, did Queen Victoria.
The Emperor Alexander III was a man of great personal courage, but he gave way, under protest, to the wishes of those responsible for his personal safety. They insisted on his always using the armour-plated carriages bought from Napoleon III. These coaches were so immensely heavy that they soon killed the horses dragging them. Again, on railway journeys, the actual time-table and route of the Imperial train between two points was always different from the published time-table and route. Napoleon III's private train had been purchased at the same time as his steel-plated carriages. This train had been greatly enlarged and fitted to the Russian gauge. I do not suppose that any more sumptuous palace on wheels has ever been built than this train of nine vestibuled cars. It was fitted with every imaginable convenience. Alexander III sent it to the frontier to meet his brother-in-law the Prince of Wales, which was the occasion on which I saw it.
During the six months following Alexander II's assassination all social life in Petrograd stopped. We of the Embassy had many other resources, for in those days the British business colony in Petrograd was still large, and flourished exceedingly. They had various sporting clubs, of some of which we were members. There was in particular the Fishing Club at Harraka Niska in Finland, where the river Vuoksi issues from the hundred-mile-long Lake Saima.
It was a curious experience driving to the Finnish railway station in Petrograd. In the city outside, the date would be June 1, Russian style. Inside the station, the date became June 13, European style. In place of the baggy knickerbockers, high boots, and fur caps of the Russian railwaymen, the employees of the Finnish railway wore the ordinary uniforms customary on European railways. The tickets were printed in European, not Russian characters, and the fares were given in marks and pennies, instead of in roubles and kopecks. The notices on the railway were all printed in six languages, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, French, English, and German, and my patriotic feelings were gratified at noting that all the locomotives had been built in Glasgow. I was astonished to find that although Finland formed an integral part of the Russian Empire, there was a Custom House and Customs examination at the Finnish frontier.
Finland is a country of endless little hills, and endless forests, all alike bestrewn with huge granite boulders; it is also a land of endless rivers and lakes. It is pretty in a monotonous fashion, and looks wonderfully tidy after Russia proper. The wooden houses and villages are all neatly painted a chocolate brown, and in spite of its sparse population it seems very prosperous. The Finns are all Protestants; the educated classes are mostly Swedish-speaking, the others talking their own impossible Ural-Altaic language. At the extremely comfortable club-house at Harraka Niska none of the fishermen or boatmen could talk anything but Finnish. We all had little conversation books printed in Russian and Finnish, but we usually found the language of signs more convenient. In later years, in South America, it became my duty to interview daily the Legation cook, an accomplished but extremely adipose female from Old Spain. I had not then learnt Spanish, and she understood no other tongue, so we conversed by signs. It is extremely derogatory to one's personal dignity to be forced to imitate in succession a hen laying an egg, a sheep bleating, or a duck quacking, and yet this was the only way in which I could order dinner. No one who has not tried it can believe how difficult it is to indicate in pantomime certain comestibles, such, for instance, as kidneys, liver and bacon, or a Welsh rarebit.
The fish at Harraka would not look at a fly, and could only be hooked on a phantom-minnow. The fishing there was very exciting. The big fish all lay where Lake Saima debouched into the turbulent Vuoksi river. There was a terrific rapid there, and the boatmen, who knew every inch of the ground, would head the boat straight for that seething white caldron of raging waves, lashing and roaring down the rocky gorge, as they dashed up angry spurts of white spray. Just as it seemed that nothing could save one from being hurled into that mad turmoil of leaping waters, where no human being could hope to live for a minute, a back-current shot the boat swiftly across to the other bank. That was the moment when the fish were hooked. They were splendid fighters, and played magnificently. These Harraka fish were curiously uniform in size, always running from 18 to 22 lb. Though everyone called them salmon, I think myself that they were really bull-trout, or Salmo ferox. A salmon would have had to travel at least 400 miles from salt water, and I do not believe that any fish living could have got up the tremendous Imatra waterfall, some six miles lower down the Vuoksi. These fish invariably had lice on them. In Great Britain sea-lice on a salmon are taken as a certain indication that the fish is fresh-run. These fish cannot possibly have been fresh-run, so I think it probable that in these great lakes there may be a fresh-water variety of the parasite. Another peculiarity of the Harraka fish was that, though they were excellent eating, they would not keep above two days. I have myself caught eleven of these big fellows in one day. During June there was capital grayling fishing in the lower Vuoksi, the fish running large, and taking the fly readily, though in that heavy water they were apt to break off. There were plenty of small trout too in the Vuoksi, but the densely-wooded banks made fishing difficult, and the water was always crystal-clear, and needed the finest of tackle.
I spent some most enjoyable days at Koltesha, a small English shooting-club of ten members, about twenty miles out of Petrograd. During September, for one fortnight, the marshes round Koltesha were alive with "double-snipe." This bird migrates in thousands from the Arctic regions to the far South, at the approach of autumn. They alighted in the Koltesha marshes to recruit themselves after their journey from the North Pole, and owing to circumstances beyond their control, few of them continued their journey southward. This confiding fowl has never learnt to zig-zag like the other members of the snipe family, and they paid the penalty for this omission by usually proceeding to the kitchen. A "double-snipe" is most delicious eating. The winter shooting at Koltesha was most delightful. The art of "ski-walking" had first to be learnt, and on commencing this unaccustomed method of locomotion, various muscles, which its use called into play for the first time, showed their resentment by aching furiously. The ground round Koltesha being hilly was admirably adapted for coasting on ski. It was difficult at first to shoot from the insecure footing of ski, and the unusual amount of clothing between one's shoulder and the stock of one's gun did not facilitate matters. Everything, however, can be learnt in time. I can claim to be the pioneer of ski on the American Continent, for in January, 1887, I brought over to Canada the very first pair of ski ever seen in America. I used to coast down the toboggan slides at Ottawa on them, amidst universal derision. I was told that, however useful ski might be in Russia, they were quite unsuited to Canadian conditions, and would never be popular there, as the old-fashioned "raquettes" were infinitely superior. Humph! Qui vivra verra!
Koltesha abounded in black game, "ryabchiks," or hazel-grouse, and ptarmigan. Russian hares turn snow-white in winter, and are very difficult to see against a snowy background in consequence. It is almost impossible to convey on paper any idea of the intense delight of those days in the sun and the cold, when the air had that delicious clean smell that always goes with intense frost, the dark fir woods, with their purple shadows, stood out in sharp contrast to the dazzling sheet of white snow, and the sunlight gilded the patches of oak and birch scrub that climbed down the hollows of the low hills. One returned home glowing from head to foot. We got larger game too by "ringing them." The process of "ringing" is as follows. No four-footed creature can travel over the snow without leaving his tracks behind him. Let us suppose a small wood, one mile in circumference. If a man travels round this on ski, and if the track of any animal crosses his trail, going into the wood, and this track does not again come out of the wood, it is obvious that that particular animal is still taking cover there. Measures to drive him out are taken accordingly. We got in this way at Koltesha quite a number of elks, lynxes, and wolves.
The best wolf-shooting I ever got was at the invitation of the Russian Minister of Finance. Great packs of these ravenous brutes were playing havoc on his estate, two hundred miles from Petrograd, so he invited a large shooting party to his country house. We travelled down in a private sleeping-car, and had over twenty miles to drive in rough country sledges from the station. One of the guests was an enormously fat Russian General, a perfect mammoth of a man. As I was very slim in those days, I was told off as this gigantic warrior's fellow-passenger. Although he took up nine-tenths of the sledge, I just managed to creep in, but every time we jolted—and as the track was very rough, this was pretty frequently—I got 250 lb. of Russian General on the top of me, squeezing the life out of me. He was a good-natured Colossus, and apologised profusely for his own obesity, and for his instability, but I was black and blue all over, and since that day I have felt profound sympathy for the little princes in the Tower, for I know what being smothered with a feather-bed feels like.
The Minister's country house was, as are most other Russian country houses, a modest wooden building with whitewashed rooms very scantily furnished. The Minister had, however, thoughtfully brought down his famous Petrograd chef, and I should judge about three-quarters of the contents of his wine-cellar. We had to proceed to our places in the forest in absolute silence, and the wolf being an exceedingly wary animal with a a very keen sense of smell, all smoking was rigorously prohibited.
It was nice open scrubland, undulating gently. The beaters were skilful and we were very lucky, for after an interminable wait, the entire pack of wolves rushed down on us. A wolf is killed with slugs from a smooth-bore. I personally was fortunate, for I got shots at eight wolves, and six of them felt disinclined for further exertions. I still have a carriage-rug made of the skins of the wolves I killed that day. The banging all round meanwhile was terrific. In two days we accounted for fifty-two of these pests. It gave me the utmost pleasure killing these murderous, bloodthirsty brutes; far more than slaying an inoffensive bear. Should a bear encounter a human being in the course of his daily walks, he is certainly apt to hug him to death, as a precautionary measure. He is also addicted to smashing to a jelly, with one blow of his powerful paws, the head of a chance stranger. These peculiarities apart, the bear may be regarded as practically harmless. It is otherwise with the wolf.
Some of the British Colony were fond of going to Finland for a peculiar form of sport. I use the last word dubiously, for to kill any game birds during the breeding season seems a curiously unsportsmanlike act. Circumstances rather excused this. It is well known that black game do not pair, but that they are polygamous. During the breeding season the male birds meet every morning at dawn on regular fighting grounds, and there battle for the attentions of the fairer sex. These fighting grounds are well known to the keepers, who erect there in early autumn conical shelters of fir branches. The birds become familiar with these shelters (called in Russian "shagashki") and pay no attention to them. The "gun" introduces himself into the shelter not later than midnight, and there waits patiently for the first gleam of dawn. He must on no account smoke. With the first grey streak of dawn in the sky there is a great rushing of wings in the air, and dozens of male birds appear from nowhere; strutting up and down, puffing out their feathers, and hissing furiously at each other in challenge. The grey hens meanwhile sit in the surrounding trees, watching, as did the ladies of old at a tournament, the prowess of their men-folk in the lists. The grey hens never show themselves, and make no sound; two things, one would imagine, contrary to every instinct of their sex. A challenge once accepted, two males begin fighting furiously with wings, claws, and beaks. So absorbed are the birds in their combat, that they neither see nor hear anything, and pay no attention to a gun-shot. Should they be within reach of the "shagashka," that is the time to fire. It sounds horribly unsportsmanlike, but it must be remembered that the birds are only just visible in the uncertain dawn. As dawn matures into daylight, the birds suddenly stop fighting, and all fly away simultaneously, followed by the grey hens. I never would kill more than two as specimens, for this splendid bird is such a thing of joy in his breeding plumage, with his glossy dark blue satin coat, and white velvet waistcoat, that there is some excuse for wanting to examine him closer. Ladies, too, loved a blackcock's tail or wings for their hats. It was also the only way in which this curious and little-known phase of bird life could be witnessed.
The capercailzie is called in Russian "the deaf one." Why this name should be given to a bird of abnormally acute hearing seems at first sight puzzling. The explanation is that the male capercailzie in the breeding season concludes his love-song with a peculiar "tchuck, tchuck," impossible to reproduce on paper, moving his head rapidly to and fro the while. During this "tchuck, tchuck," the bird is deaf and blind to the world. The capercailzie hunter goes out into the forest at about 1 a.m. and listens intently. As soon as he hears a capercailzie's song, he moves towards the sound very, very cautiously. When within half a mile of the bird, he must wait for the "tchuck, tchuck," which lasts about two minutes, before daring to advance. The "tchuck" over, he must remain absolutely motionless until it recommences. The snapping of a twig will be enough to silence the bird and to make it fly away. It will be seen then that to approach a capercailzie is a difficult task, and one requiring infinite patience. Once within shot, there is no particular fun in shooting a sitting bird the size of a turkey, up at the top of a tree, even though it only appears as a dusky mass against the faint beginnings of dawn.
The real charm of this blackcock and capercailzie shooting was that one would not otherwise have been out in the great forest at break of day.
To me there was always an infinite fascination in seeing these great Northern tracts of woodland awakening from their long winter sleep. The sweetness of the dawn, the delicious smell of growing things, the fresh young life springing up under one's feet, all these appealed to every fibre in my being. Nature always restores the balance of things. In Russia, as in Canada, after the rigours of the winter, once the snow has disappeared, flowers carpet the ground with a rapidity of growth unknown in more temperate climates. These Finland woods were covered with a low creeping plant with masses of small, white, waxy flowers. It was, I think, one of the smaller cranberries. There was an orange-flowering nettle, too, the leaves of which changed from green to vivid purple as they climbed the stalk, making gorgeous patches of colour, and great drifts of blue hepaticas on the higher ground. To appreciate Nature properly, she must be seen at unaccustomed times, as she bestirs herself after her night's rest whilst the sky brightens.
In Petrograd itself the British Colony found plenty of amusement. We had an English ice-hill club to which all the Embassy belonged. The elevation of a Russian ice-hill, some forty feet only, may seem tame after the imposing heights of Canadian toboggan slides, but I fancy that the pace travelled is greater in Russia. The ice-hills were always built in pairs, about three hundred yards apart, with two parallel runs. Both hills and runs were built of solid blocks of ice, watered every day, and the pitch of the actual hill was very steep. In the place of a toboggan we used little sleds two feet long, mounted on skate-runners, which were kept constantly sharpened. These travelled over the ice at a tremendous pace, and at the end of the straight run, the corresponding hill had only to be mounted to bring you home again to the starting-point. The art of steering these sleds was soon learnt, once the elementary principle was grasped that after a turn to the left, a corresponding turn to the right must be made to straighten up the machine, exactly as is done instinctively on a bicycle. A wave of the hand or of the foot was enough to change the direction, the ice-hiller going down head foremost, with the sled under his chest.
Longer sleds were used for taking ladies down. The man sat cross-legged in front, whilst the lady knelt behind him with both her arms round his neck. Possibly the enforced familiarity of this attitude was what made the amusement so popular.
We gave at times evening parties at the ice-hills, when the woods were lit up with rows of Chinese lanterns, making a charming effect against the snow, and electric arcs blazed from the summits of the slides. To those curious in such matters, I may say that as secondary batteries had not then been invented, and we had no dynamo, power was furnished direct by powerful Grove two-cell batteries. One night our amateur electrician was nearly killed by the brown fumes of nitrous acid these batteries give off from their negative cells.
We had an ice-boat on the Gulf of Finland as well. It is only in early spring, and very seldom then, that this amusement can be indulged in. The necessary conditions are (1) a heavy thaw to melt all the snow from the surface of the ice, followed by a sharp frost; (2) a strong breeze. Nature is not often obliging enough to arrange matters in this sequence. We had some good sailing, though, and could get forty miles an hour out of our craft with a decent breeze. Our boat was of the Dutch, not the Canadian type. I was astonished to find how close an ice-boat could lay to the wind, for obviously anything in the nature of leeway is impossible with a boat on runners. Ice-sailing was bitterly cold work, and the navigation of the Gulf of Finland required great caution, for in early spring great cracks appeared in the ice. On one occasion, in avoiding a large crack, we ran into the omnibus plying on runners between Kronstadt and the mainland. The driver of the coach was drunk, and lost his head, to the terror of his passengers, but very little damage was done. It may be worth while recording this, as it is but seldom that a boat collides with an omnibus.
It will be seen that in one way and another there was no lack of amusement to be found round Petrograd, even during the entire cessation of Court and social entertainments.
CHAPTER VI
Love of Russians for children's games—Peculiarities of Petrograd balls—Some famous beauties of Petrograd Society—The varying garb of hired waiters—Moscow—Its wonderful beauty—The forest of domes—The Kremlin—The three famous "Cathedrals"—The Imperial Treasury—The Sacristy—The Palace—Its splendour—The Terem—A Gargantuan Russian dinner—An unusual episode at the French Ambassador's ball—Bombs—Tsarskoe Selo—Its interior—Extraordinary collection of curiosities in Tsarskoe Park—Origin of term "Vauxhall" for railway station in Russia—Peterhof—Charm of park there—Two Russian illusions—A young man of 25 delivers an Ultimatum to Russia—How it came about—M. de Giers—Other Foreign Ministers—Paraguay—The polite Japanese dentist—A visit to Gatchina—Description of the Palace—Delights of the children's play-room there.
The lingering traces of the child which are found in most Russian natures account probably for their curious love of indoor games. Lady Dufferin had weekly evening parties during Lent, when dancing was rigidly prohibited. Quite invariably, some lady would go up to her and beg that they might be allowed to play what she would term "English running games." So it came about that bald-headed Generals, covered with Orders, and quite elderly ladies, would with immense glee play "Blind-man's buff," "Musical chairs," "Hunt the slipper," and "General post." I believe that they would have joined cheerfully in "Ring a ring of roses," had we only thought of it.
I think it is this remnant of the child in them which, coupled with their quick-working brains, wonderful receptivity, and absolute naturalness, makes Russians of the upper class so curiously attractive.
At balls in my time, oddly enough, quadrilles were the most popular dances. There was always a "leader" for these quadrilles, whose function it was to invent new and startling figures. The "leader" shouted out his directions from the centre of the room, and however involved the figures he devised, however complicated the manoeuvres he evolved, he could rely on being implicitly obeyed by the dancers, who were used to these intricate entanglements, and enjoyed them. Woe betide the "leader" should he lose his head, or give a wrong direction! He would find two hundred people inextricably tangled up. I calculate that many years have been taken off my own life by the responsibilities thrust upon me by being frequently made to officiate in this capacity. Balls in Petrograd in the "'eighties" invariably concluded with the "Danse Anglaise," our own familiar "Sir Roger de Coverley."
I never saw an orchestra at a ball in Petrograd, except at the Winter Palace. All Russians preferred a pianist, but a pianist of a quite special brand. These men, locally known as "tappeurs," cultivated a peculiar style of playing, and could get wonderful effects out of an ordinary grand piano. There was in particular one absolute genius called Altkein. Under his superlatively skilled fingers the piano took on all the resonance and varied colour of a full orchestra. Altkein told me that he always played what he called "four-handed," that is doubling the parts of each hand. By the end of the evening he was absolutely exhausted.
The most beautiful woman in Petrograd Society was unquestionably Countess Zena Beauharnais, afterwards Duchess of Leuchtenberg; a tall, queenly blonde with a superb figure. Nature had been very generous to her, for in addition to her wonderful beauty, she had a glorious soprano voice. I could not but regret that she and her sister, Princess Bieloselskava, had not been forced by circumstances to earn their living on the operatic stage, for the two sisters, soprano and contralto, would certainly have achieved a European reputation with their magnificent voices. How they would have played Amneris and the title-rôle in "Aïda"! The famous General Skobeleff was their brother.
Two other strikingly beautiful women were Princess Kitty Dolgorouki, a piquant little brunette, and her sister-in-law, winning, golden-haired Princess Mary Dolgorouki. After a lapse of nearly forty years, I may perhaps be permitted to express my gratitude to these two charming ladies for the consistent kindness they showered on a peculiarly uninteresting young man, and I should like to add to their names that of Countess Betsy Schouvaloff. I may remark that the somewhat homely British forms of their baptismal names which these grandes dames were fond of adopting always amused me. Our two countries were in theory deadly enemies, yet they borrowed little details from us whenever they could. I think that the racial animosity was only skin-deep. This custom of employing English diminutives for Russian names extended to the men too, for Prince Alexander Dolgorouki, Princess Kitty's husband, was always known as "Sandy," whilst Countess Betsy's husband was invariably spoken of as "Bobby" Schouvaloff. Countess Betsy, mistress of one of the stateliest houses in Petrograd, was acknowledged to be the best-dressed woman in Russia. I never noticed whether she were really good-looking or not, for such was the charm of her animation, and the sparkle of her vivacity and quick wit, that one remarked the outer envelope less than the nimble intellect and extraordinary attractiveness that underlay it. She was a daughter of that "Princesse Château" to whom I referred earlier in these reminiscences.
In the great Russian houses there were far fewer liveried servants than is customary in other European countries. This was due to the difficulty of finding sufficiently trained men. The actual work of the house was done by hordes of bearded, red-shirted shaggy-headed moujiks, who their household duties over, retired to their underground fastnesses. Consequently when dinners or other entertainments were given recourse was had to hired waiters, mostly elderly Germans. It was the curious custom to dress these waiters up in the liveries of the family giving the entertainment. The liveries seldom fitted, and the features of the old waiters were quite familiar to most of us, yet politeness dictated that we should pretend to consider them as servants of the house. Though perfectly conscious of having seen the same individual who, arrayed in orange and white, was standing behind one's chair, dressed in sky-blue only two evenings before, and equally aware of the probability of meeting him the next evening in a different house, clad in crimson, it was considered polite to compliment the mistress of the house on the admirable manner in which her servants were turned out.
There is in all Russian houses a terrible place known as the "buffetnaya." This is a combination of pantry, larder, and serving-room. People at all particular about the cleanliness of their food, or the nicety with which it is served, should avoid this awful spot as they would the plague. A sensitive nose can easily locate the whereabouts of the "buffetnaya" from a considerable distance.
From Petrograd to Moscow is only a twelve hours' run, but in those twelve hours the traveller is transported into a different world. After the soulless regularity of Peter the Great's sham classical creation on the banks of the Neva, the beauty of the semi-Oriental ancient capital comes as a perfect revelation. Moscow, glowing with colour, is seated like Rome on gentle hills, and numbers over three hundred churches. These churches have each the orthodox five domes, and this forest of domes, many of them gilt, others silvered, some blue and gold, or striped with bands and spirals of vivid colour, when seen amongst the tender greenery of May, forms a wonderful picture, unlike anything else in the world. The winding, irregular streets lined with buildings in every imaginable style of architecture, and of every possible shade of colour; the remains of the ancient city walls with their lofty watch-towers crowned with curious conical roofs of grass-green tiles; the great irregular bulk of the Kremlin, towering over all; make a whole of incomparable beauty. There is in the world but one Moscow, as there is but one Venice, and one Oxford.
The great sea of gilded and silvered domes is best seen from the terrace of the Kremlin overlooking the river, though the wealth of detail nearer at hand is apt to distract the eye. The soaring snow-white shaft of Ivan Veliki's tower with its golden pinnacles dominates everything, though the three "Cathedrals," standing almost side by side, hallowed by centuries of tradition, are very sacred places to a Russian, who would consider them the heart of Moscow, and of the Muscovite world. "Mother Moscow," they call her affectionately, and I understand it.
The Russian word "Sobor" is wrongly translated as "Cathedral." A "sobor" is merely a church of peculiar sanctity or of special dignity. The three gleaming white, gold-domed churches of the Kremlin are of quite modest dimensions, yet their venerable walls are rich with the associations of centuries. In the Church of the Assumption the Tsars, and later the Emperors, were all crowned; in the Church of the Archangel the Tsars were buried, though the Emperors lie in Petrograd. The dim Byzantine interior of the Assumption Church, with its faded frescoes on a gold ground, and its walls shimmering with gold, silver, and jewels, is immensely impressive. Here is the real Russia, not the Petrograd stuccoed veneered Russia of yesterday, but ancient Muscovy, sending its roots deep down into the past.
Surely Peter prepared the way for the destruction of his country by uprooting this tree of ancient growth, and by trying to create in one short lifetime a new pseudo-European Empire, with a new capital.
The city should be seen from the Kremlin terrace as the light is fading from the sky and the thousands of church-bells clash out their melodious evening hymn. The Russians have always been master bell-founders, and their bells have a silvery tone unknown in Western Europe. In the gloaming, the Eastern character of the city is much more apparent. The blaze of colour has vanished, and the dusky silhouettes of the church domes take on the onion-shaped forms of the Orient. Delhi, as seen in later years from the fort at sunset was curiously reminiscent of Moscow.
I do not suppose that more precious things have ever been gathered together under one roof than the Imperial Treasury at Moscow contained in those days. The eye got surfeited with the sight of so many splendours, and I can only recall the great collection of crowns and thrones of the various Tsars. One throne of Persian workmanship was studded with two thousand diamonds and rubies; another, also from Persia, contained over two thousand large turquoises. There must have been at least a dozen of these glittering thrones, but the most interesting of all was the original ivory throne of the Emperors of Byzantium, brought to Moscow in 1472 by Sophia Palaeologus, wife of Ivan III. Constantine the Great may have sat on that identical throne. It seems curious that the finest collection in the world of English silver-ware of Elizabeth's, James I's, and Charles I's time should be found in the Kremlin at Moscow, till it is remembered that nearly all the plate of that date in England was melted down during the Civil War of 1642-1646. I wonder what has become of all these precious things now!
The sacristy contains an equally wonderful collection of Church plate. I was taken over this by an Archimandrite, and I had been previously warned that he would expect a substantial tip for his services. The Archimandrite's feelings were, however, to be spared by my representing this tip as my contribution to the poor of his parish. The Archimandrite was so immensely imposing, with his violet robes, diamond cross, and long flowing beard, that I felt quite shy of offering him the modest five roubles which I was told would be sufficient. So I doubled it. The Archimandrite pocketed it joyfully, and so moved was he by my unexpected largesse, that the excellent ecclesiastic at once motioned me to my knees, and gave me a most fervent blessing, which I am persuaded was well worth the extra five roubles.
The Great Palace of the Kremlin was rebuilt by Nicholas I about 1840. It consequently belongs to the "period of bad taste"; in spite of that it is extraordinarily sumptuous. The St. George's Hall is 200 feet long and 60 feet high; the other great halls, named after the Russian Orders of Chivalry, are nearly as large. Each of these is hung with silk of the same colour as the ribbon of the Order; St. George's Hall, orange and black; St. Andrew's Hall, sky-blue; St. Alexander Nevsky's, pink; St. Catherine's, red and white. I imagine that every silkworm in the world must have been kept busy for months in order to prepare sufficient material for these acres of silk-hung walls. The Kremlin Palace may not be in the best of taste, but these huge halls, with their jasper and malachite columns and profuse gilding, are wonderfully gorgeous, and exactly correspond with one's preconceived ideas of what an Emperor of Russia's palace ought to be like. There is a chapel in the Kremlin Palace with the quaint title of "The Church of the Redeemer behind the Golden Railing."
The really interesting portion of the Palace is the sixteenth century part, known as the "Terem." These small, dim, vaulted halls with their half-effaced frescoes on walls and ceilings are most fascinating. It is all mediæval, but not with the mediævalism of Western Europe; neither is it Oriental; it is pure Russian; simple, dignified, and delightfully archaic. One could not imagine the old Tsars in a more appropriate setting. Compared with the strident splendours of the modern palace, the vaulted rooms of the old Terem seem to typify the difference between Petrograd and Moscow.
It so happened that later in life I was destined to become very familiar with the deserted palace at Agra, in India, begun by Akbar, finished by Shah Jehan. How different the Oriental conception of a palace is from the Western! The Agra Palace is a place of shady courts and gardens, dotted with exquisitely graceful pavilions of transparent white marble roofed with gilded copper. No two of these pavilions are similar, and in their varied decorations an inexhaustible invention is shown. The white marble is so placed that it is seen everywhere in strong contrast to Akbar's massive buildings of red sandstone. During the Coronation ceremonies, King-Emperor George V seated himself, of right, on the Emperor Akbar's throne in the great Hall of Audience in Agra Palace.
Though Moscow may appear a dream-city when viewed from the Kremlin, it is an eminently practical city as well. It was, in my time, the chief manufacturing centre of Russia, and Moscow business-men had earned the reputation of being well able to look after themselves.
Another side of the life of the great city could be seen in the immense Ermitage restaurant, where Moscow people assured you with pride that the French cooking was only second to Paris. The little Tartar waiters at the Ermitage were, drolly enough, dressed like hospital orderlies, in white linen from head to foot. There might possibly be money in an antiseptic restaurant, should some enterprising person start one. The idea would be novel, and this is an age when new ideas seem attractive.
A Russian merchant in Moscow, a partner in an English firm, imagined himself to be under a great debt of gratitude to the British Embassy in Petrograd, on account of a heavy fine imposed upon him, which we had succeeded in getting remitted. This gentleman was good enough to invite a colleague and myself to dine at a certain "Traktir," celebrated for its Russian cooking. I was very slim in those days, but had I had any idea of the Gargantuan repast we were supposed to assimilate, I should have borrowed a suit of clothes from the most adipose person of my acquaintance, in order to secure additional cargo-space.
In the quaint little "Traktir" decorated in old-Russian style, after the usual fresh caviar, raw herrings, pickled mushrooms, and smoked sturgeon of the "zakuska," we commenced with cold sucking-pig eaten with horse-radish. Then followed a plain little soup, composed of herrings and cucumbers stewed in sour beer. Slices of boiled salmon and horse-radish were then added, and the soup was served iced. This soup is distinctly an acquired taste. This was succeeded by a simple dish of sterlets, boiled in wine, with truffles, crayfish, and mushrooms. After that came mutton stuffed with buckwheat porridge, pies of the flesh and isinglass of the sturgeon, and Heaven only knows what else. All this accompanied by red and white Crimean wines, Kvass, and mead. I had always imagined that mead was an obsolete beverage, indulged in principally by ancient Britons, and drunk for choice out of their enemies' skulls, but here it was, foaming in beautiful old silver tankards; and perfectly delicious it was! Oddly enough, the Russian name for it, "meod," is almost identical with ours.
Only once in my life have I suffered so terribly from repletion, and that was in the island of Barbados, at the house of a hospitable planter. We sat down to luncheon at one, and rose at five. The sable serving-maids looked on the refusal of a dish as a terrible slur on the cookery of the house, and would take no denial. "No, you like dis, sar, it real West India dish. I gib you lilly piece." What with turtle, and flying-fish, and calipash and calipee, and pepper-pot, and devilled land-crabs, I felt like the boa-constrictor in the Zoological Gardens after his monthly meal.
I was not fortunate enough to witness the coronation of either Alexander III or that of Nicholas II. In the perfect setting of "the Red Staircase," of the ancient stone-built hall known as the "Granovitaya Palata," and of the "Gold Court," the ceremonial must be deeply impressive. On no stage could more picturesque surroundings possibly be devised. During the coronation festivities, most of the Ambassadors hired large houses in Moscow, and transferred their Embassies to the old capital for three weeks. At the coronation of Nicholas II, of unfortunate memory, the French Ambassador, the Comte de Montebello, took a particularly fine house in Moscow, the Shérémaitieff Palace, and it was arranged that he should give a great ball the night after the coronation, at which the newly-crowned Emperor and Empress would be present. The French Government own a wonderful collection of splendid old French furniture, tapestries, and works of art, known as the "Garde Meubles." Under the Monarchy and Empire, these all adorned the interiors of the various palaces. To do full honour to the occasion, the French Government dispatched vanloads of the choicest treasures of the "Garde Meubles" to Moscow, and the Shérémaitieff Palace became a thing of beauty, with Louis Quatorze Gobelins, and furniture made for Marie-Antoinette. To enhance the effect, the Comte and Comtesse de Montebello arranged the most elaborate floral decorations, and took immense pains over them. On the night of the ball, two hours before their guests were due, the Ambassador was informed that the Chief of Police was outside and begged for permission to enter the temporary Embassy. Embassies enjoying what is known as "exterritoriality," none of the police can enter except on the invitation of the Ambassador; much as vampires, according to the legend, could only secure entrance to a house at the personal invitation of the owner. It will be remembered that these unpleasing creatures displayed great ingenuity in securing this permission; indeed the really expert vampires prided themselves on the dexterity with which they could inveigle their selected victim into welcoming them joyfully into his domicile. The Chief of Police informed the French Ambassador that he had absolutely certain information that a powerful bomb had been introduced into the Embassy, concealed in a flower-pot. M. de Montebello was in a difficult position. On the previous day the Ambassador had discovered that every single electric wire in the house had been deliberately severed by some unknown hand. French electricians had repaired the damage, but it was a disquieting incident in the circumstances. The policeman was positive that his information was correct, and the consequences of a terrific bomb exploding in one's house are eminently disagreeable, so he gave his reluctant permission to have the Embassy searched, though his earlier guests might be expected within an hour. Armies of police myrmidons appeared, and at once proceeded to unpot between two and three thousand growing plants, and to pick all the floral decorations to pieces. Nothing whatever was found, but it would be unreasonable to expect secret police, however zealous, to exhibit much skill as trained florists. They made a frightful hash of things, and not only ruined the elaborate decorations, but so managed to cover the polished floors with earth that the rooms looked like ploughed fields, dancing was rendered impossible, and poor Madame de Montebello was in tears. As the guests arrived, the police had to be smuggled out through back passages. This was one of the little amenities of life in a bomb-ridden land.
During the summer months I was much at Tsarskoe Selo. Tsarskoe is only fourteen miles from Petrograd, and some of my Russian friends had villas there. The gigantic Old Palace of Tsarskoe is merely an enlarged Winter Palace, and though its garden façade is nearly a quarter of a mile long, it is uninteresting and unimpressive, being merely an endless repetition of the same details. I was taken over the interior several times, but such a vast quantity of rooms leaves only a confused impression of magnificence. I only recall the really splendid staircase and the famous lapis-lazuli and amber rooms. The lapis-lazuli room is a blaze of blue and gold, with walls, furniture, and chandeliers encrusted with that precious substance. The amber room is perfectly beautiful. All the walls, cabinets, and tables are made of amber of every possible shade, from straw-colour to deep orange. There are also great groups of figures carved entirely out of amber. Both the lapis and the amber room have curious floors of black ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, forming a very effective colour scheme. I have vague memories of the "gold" and "silver" rooms, but very distinct recollections of the bedroom of one of the Empresses, who a hundred years before the late Lord Lister had discovered the benefits of antiseptic surgery had with some curious prophetic instinct had her sleeping-room constructed on the lines of a glorified modern operating theatre. The walls of this quaint apartment were of translucent opal glass, decorated with columns of bright purple glass, with a floor of inlaid mother-of-pearl. Personally, I should always have fancied a faint smell of chloroform lingering about the room.
Catherine the Great had her monogram placed everywhere at Tsarskoe Selo, on doors, walls, and ceilings. It was difficult to connect her with the interlaced "E's," until one remembered that the Russian form of the name is "Ekaterina." How wise the Russians have been in retaining the so-called Cyrillian alphabet in writing their tongue!
In other Slavonic languages, such as Polish and Czech, where the Roman alphabet has been adopted, unholy combinations of "cz," "zh," and "sz" have to be resorted to to reproduce sounds which the Cyrillian alphabet could express with a single letter; and the tragic thing is that, be the letters piled together never so thickly, they invariably fail to give the foreigner the faintest idea of how the word should really be pronounced. Take the much-talked-of town of Przemysl, for instance.
The park of Tsarskoe is eighteen miles in circumference, and every portion of it is thrown open freely to the public. In spite of being quite flat, it is very pretty with its lake and woods, and was most beautifully kept. To an English eye its trees seemed stunted, for in these far Northern regions no forest trees attain great size. Limes and oaks flourish moderately well, but the climate is too cold for beeches. At the latitude of Petrograd neither apples, pears, nor any kind of fruit tree can be grown; raspberries and strawberries are the only things that can be produced, and they are both superlatively good. The park at Tsarskoe was full of a jumble of the most extraordinarily incongruous buildings and monuments; it would have taken a fortnight to see them all properly. There was a Chinese village, a Chinese theatre, a Dutch dairy, an English Gothic castle, temples, hanging gardens, ruins, grottoes, fountains, and numbers of columns, triumphal arches, and statues. On the lake there was a collection of boats of all nations, varying from a Chinese sampan to an English light four-oar; from a Venetian gondola to a Brazilian catamaran. There was also a fleet of miniature men-of-war, and three of Catherine's great gilt state-barges on the lake. One arm of the lake was spanned by a bridge of an extremely rare blue Siberian marble. Anyone seeing the effect of this blue marble bridge must have congratulated himself on the fact that it was extremely improbable that any similar bridge would ever be erected elsewhere, so rare was the material of which it was constructed.
I never succeeded in finding the spot in Tsarskoe Park where a sentry stands on guard over a violet which Catherine the Great once found there. Catherine, finding the first violet of spring, ordered a sentry to be placed over it, to protect the flower from being plucked. She forgot to rescind the order, and the sentry continued to be posted there. It developed at last into a regular tradition of Tsarskoe, and so, day and night, winter and summer, a sentry stood in Tsarskoe Park over a spot where, 150 years before, a violet once grew.
The Russian name for a railway station is "Vauxhall," and the origin of this is rather curious. The first railway in Europe opened for passenger traffic was the Liverpool and Manchester, inaugurated in 1830. Five years later, Nicholas I, eager to show that Russia was well abreast of the times, determined to have a railway of his own, and ordered one to be built between Petrograd and Tsarskoe Selo, a distance of fourteen miles. The railway was opened in 1837, without any intermediate stations. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few Court officials, no one ever wanted to go to Tsarskoe, so the line could hardly be called a commercial success. Then someone had a brilliant idea! Vauxhall Gardens in South London were then at the height of their popularity. The Tsarskoe line should be extended two miles to a place called Pavlosk, where the railway company would be given fifty acres of ground on which to construct a "Vauxhall Gardens," outbidding its London prototype in attractions. No sooner said than done! The Pavlosk "Vauxhall" became enormously popular amongst Petrogradians in summer-time; the trains were crowded and the railway became a paying proposition. As the Tsarskoe station was the only one then in existence in Petrograd, the worthy citizens got into the habit of directing their own coachmen or cabdrivers simply to go "to Vauxhall." So the name got gradually applied to the actual station building in Petrograd. When the Nicholas railway to Moscow was completed, the station got to be known as the "Moscow Vauxhall." And so it spread, until it came about that every railway station in the Russian Empire, from the Baltic to the Pacific, derived its name from a long-vanished and half-forgotten pleasure-garden in South London, the memory of which is only commemorated to-day by a bridge and a railway station on its site. The name "Vauxhall" itself is, I believe, a corruption of "Folks-Hall," or of its Dutch variant "Volks-hall." Even in my day the Pavlosk Vauxhall was a most attractive spot, with an excellent orchestra, myriads of coloured lamps, and a great semicircle of restaurants and refreshment booths. When I knew it, the Tsarskoe railway still retained its original rolling-stock of 1837; little queer over-upholstered carriages, and quaint archaic-looking engines. It had, I think, been built to a different gauge to the standard Russian one; anyhow it had no physical connection with the other railways. It was subsequently modernised.
Peterhof is far more attractive than Tsarskoe as it stands on the Gulf of Finland, and the coast, rising a hundred feet from the sea, redeems the place from the uniform dead flat of the other environs of Petrograd. As its name implies, Peterhof is the creation of Peter himself, who did his best to eclipse Versailles. His fountains and waterworks certainly run Versailles very close. The Oriental in Peter peeped out when he constructed staircases of gilt copper, and of coloured marbles for the water to flow over, precisely as Shah Jehan did in his palaces at Delhi and Agra. As the temperature both at Delhi and Agra often touches 120° during the summer months, these decorative cascades would appear more appropriate there than at Peterhof, where the summer temperature seldom rises to 70°.
The palace stands on a lofty terrace facing the sea. A broad straight vista has been cut through the fir-woods opposite it, down to the waters of the Gulf. Down the middle of this avenue runs a canal flanked on either side by twelve fountains. When les grandes eaux are playing, the effect of this perspective of fountains and of Peter's gilded water-chutes is really very fine indeed. I think that the Oriental in Peter showed itself again here. There is a long single row of almost precisely similar fountains in front of the Taj at Agra.
As at Tsarskoe, the public have free access to every portion of the park, which stretches for four miles along the sea, with many gardens, countless fountains, temples and statues. There was in particular a beautiful Ionic colonnade of pink marble, from the summit of which cataracts of water spouted when the fountains played. The effect of this pink marble temple seen through the film of falling water was remarkably pretty. What pleased me were the two small Dutch châteaux in the grounds, "Marly" and "Monplaisir," where Peter had lived during the building of his great palace. These two houses had been built by imported Dutch craftsmen, and the sight of a severe seventeenth-century Dutch interior with its tiles and sober oak-panelling was so unexpected in Russia. It was almost as much of a surprise as is Groote Constantia, some sixteen miles south of Cape Town. To drive down a mile-long avenue of the finest oaks in the world, and to find at the end of it, amidst hedges of clipped pink oleander and blue plumbago, a most perfect Dutch château, exactly as Governor Van der Stell left it in 1667, is so utterly unexpected at the southern extremity of the African Continent! Groote Constantia, the property of the Cape Government, still contains all its original furniture and pictures of 1667. It is the typical seventeenth-century Continental château, the main building with its façade elaborately decorated in plaster, flanked by two wings at right angles to it, but the last place in the world where you would look for such a finished whole is South Africa. To add to the unexpectedness, the vines for which Constantia is famous are grown in fields enclosed with hedges, with huge oaks as hedgerow timber. This gives such a thoroughly English look to the landscape that I never could realise that the sea seen through the trees was the Indian Ocean, and that the Cape of Good Hope was only ten miles away. Macao, the ancient Portuguese colony forty-five miles from Hong-Kong, is another "surprise-town." It is as though Aladdin's Slave of the Lamp had dumped a seventeenth-century Southern European town down in the middle of China, with churches, plazas, and fountains complete.
There is really a plethora of palaces round Peterhof. They grow as thick as quills on a porcupine's back. One of them, I cannot recall which, had a really beautiful dining-room, built entirely of pink marble. In niches in the four angles of the room were solid silver fountains six feet high, where Naiads and Tritons spouted water fed by a running stream. I should have thought this room more appropriate to India than to Northern Russia, but one of the fondest illusions Russians cherish is that they dwell in a semi-tropical climate.
In Petrograd, as soon as the temperature reached 60°, old gentlemen would appear on the Nevsky dressed in white linen, with Panama hats, and white umbrellas, but still wearing the thickest of overcoats. Should the sun's rays become just perceptible, iced Kvass and lemonade were at once on sale in all the streets. On these occasions I made myself quite popular at the Yacht Club by observing, as I buttoned up my overcoat tightly before venturing into the open air, that this tropical heat was almost unendurable. This invariably provoked gratified smiles of assent.
Another point as to which Russians were for some reason touchy was the fact that the water of the Gulf of Finland is perfectly fresh. Ships can fill their tanks from the water alongside for ten miles below Kronstadt, and the catches of the fishing-boats that came in to Peterhof consisted entirely of pike, perch, eels, roach, and other fresh-water fish. Still Russians disliked intensely hearing their sea alluded to as fresh-water. I tactfully pretended to ignore the fringe of fresh-water reeds lining the shore at Peterhof, and after bathing in the Gulf would enlarge on the bracing effect a swim in real salt-water had on the human organism. This, and a few happy suggestions that after the intense brine of the Gulf the waters of the Dead Sea would appear insipidly brackish, conduced towards making me amazingly popular.
In my younger days I was never really happy without a daily swim during the summer months.
The woods sloping down to the Gulf are delightful in summer-time, and are absolutely carpeted with flowers. The flowers seem to realise how short the span of life allotted to them is, and endeavour to make the most of it. So do the mosquitoes.
I have very vivid recollections of one especial visit to Peterhof. In the summer of 1882, the Ambassador and two other members of the Embassy were away in England on leave. The Chargé d'Affaires, who replaced the Ambassador, was laid up with an epidemic that was working great havoc then in Petrograd, as was the Second Secretary. This epidemic was probably due to the extremely unsatisfactory sanitary condition of the city. Consequently no one was left to carry on the work of the Embassy but myself and the new Attaché, a mere lad.
The relations of Great Britain and France in the "'eighties" were widely different from those cordial ones at present prevailing between the two countries. Far from being trusted friends and allies, the tension between England and France was often strained almost to the breaking-point, especially with regard to Egyptian affairs. This was due in a great measure to Bismarck's traditional foreign policy of attempting to embroil her neighbours, to the greater advantage of Germany. In old-fashioned surgery, doctors frequently introduced a foreign body into an open wound in order to irritate it, and prevent its healing unduly quickly. This was termed a seton. Bismarck's whole policy was founded on the introduction of setons into open wounds, to prevent their healing. His successors in office endeavoured to continue this policy, but did not succeed, for though they might share Bismarck's entire want of scruples, they lacked his commanding genius.
Ismail, Khedive of Egypt since 1863, had brought his country to the verge of bankruptcy by his gross extravagance. Great Britain and France had established in 1877 a Dual Control of Egyptian affairs in the interest of the foreign bondholders, but the two countries did not pull well together. In 1879 the incorrigible Ismail was deposed in favour of Tewfik, and two years later a military revolt was instigated by Arabi Pasha. Very unwisely, attempts were made to propitiate Arabi by making him a member of the Egyptian Cabinet, and matters went from bad to worse. In May, 1882, the French and British fleets appeared before Alexandria and threatened it, and on June 11, 1882, the Arab population massacred large numbers of the foreign residents of Alexandria. Still the French Government refused to take any definite action, and systematically opposed every proposal made by the British Government. We were perfectly well aware that the opposition of the French to the British policy was consistently backed up by Russia, Russia being in its turn prompted from Berlin. All this we knew. After the massacre of June 11, the French fleet, instead of acting, sailed away from Alexandria.
Amongst the usual daily sheaf of telegrams from London which the Attaché and I decyphered on July 12, 1882, was one announcing that the British Mediterranean Squadron had on the previous day bombarded and destroyed the forts of Alexandria, and that in two days' time British marines would be landed and the city of Alexandria occupied. There were also details of further steps that would be taken, should circumstances render them necessary. All these facts were to be communicated to the Russian Government at once. I went off with this weighty telegram to the house of the Chargé d'Affaires, whom I found very weak and feverish, and quite unable to rise from his bed. He directed me to go forthwith to Peterhof, to see M. de Giers, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was there in attendance on the Emperor, and to make my statement to him. I placed the Attaché in charge of the Chancery, and had time admitted of it, I should certainly have smeared that youth's cheeks and lips with some burnt cork, to add a few years to his apparent age, and to delude people into the belief that he had already begun to shave. The dignity of the British Embassy had to be considered. I begged of him to refrain from puerile levity in any business interviews he might have, and I implored him to try to conceal the schoolboy under the mask of the zealous official. I then started for Peterhof. It is not often that a young man of twenty-five is called upon to deliver what was virtually an Ultimatum to the mighty Russian Empire, and I had no illusions whatever as to the manner in which my communication would be received.
I saw M. de Giers at Peterhof, and read him my message. I have never in my life seen a man so astonished; he was absolutely flabbergasted. The Gladstone Government of 1880-85 was then in power in England, and it was a fixed axiom with every Continental statesman (and not, I am bound to admit, an altogether unfounded one) that under no circumstances whatever would the Gladstone Cabinet ever take definite action. They would talk eternally; they would never act. M. de Giers at length said to me, "I have heard your communication with great regret. I have noted what you have said with even deeper regret." He paused for a while, and then added very gravely, "The Emperor's regret will be even more profound than my own, and I will not conceal from you that his Majesty will be highly displeased when he learns the news you have brought me." I inquired of M. de Giers whether he wished me to see the Emperor, and to make my communication in person to His Imperial Majesty, and felt relieved when he told me that it was unnecessary, as I was not feeling particularly anxious to face an angry Autocrat alone. I left a transcript I had myself made of the telegram I had decyphered with M. de Giers, and left. A moment's reflection will show that to leave a copy of decoded telegram with anyone would be to render the code useless. The original cypher telegram would be always accessible, and a decypher of it would be tantamount to giving away the code. It was our practice to make transcripts, giving the sense in totally different language, and with the position of every sentence altered.
After that, as events in Egypt developed, and until the Chargé d'Affaires was about again, I journeyed to Peterhof almost daily to see M. de Giers. We always seemed to get on very well together, in spite of racial animosities.
The clouds in Egypt rolled away, and with them the very serious menace to which I have alluded. Events fortunately shaped themselves propitiously, On September 13, 1882, Sir Garnet Wolseley utterly routed Arabi's forces at Tel-el-Kebir; Arabi was deported to Ceylon, and the revolt came to an end.
A diplomat naturally meets Ministers of Foreign Affairs of many types. There was a strong contrast between the polished and courtly M. de Giers, who in spite of his urbanity could manage to infuse a very strong sub-acid flavour into his suavity when he chose, and some other Ministers with whom I have come in contact. A few years later, when at Buenos Ayres, preliminary steps were taken for drawing up an Extradition Treaty between Great Britain and Paraguay, and as there were details which required adjusting, I was sent 1,100 miles up the river to Asuncion, the unsophisticated capital of the Inland Republic. Dr. ——, at that time Paraguayan Foreign Minister, was a Guarani, of pure Indian blood. He did not receive me at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, for the excellent reason that there was no such place in that primitive republic, but in his own extremely modest residence. When his Excellency welcomed me in the whitewashed sala of that house, sumptuously furnished with four wooden chairs, and nothing else whatever, he had on neither shoes, stockings, nor shirt, and wore merely a pair of canvas trousers, and an unbuttoned coat of the same material, affording ample glimpses of his somewhat dusky skin. In the suffocating heat of Asuncion such a costume has its obvious advantages; still I cannot imagine, let us say, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs receiving the humblest member of a Foreign Legation at the Quai d'Orsay with bare feet, shirtless, and clad only in two garments.