Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

on, may return ; a word, a cloud, the flight of a bird, may persuade me irresistibly that I have no right to be at ease. The same arguments may convince me that I am wrong to be uneasy.

Travemnnde has been undergoing improvements for the last ten years, and, what is more, the improvements have not spoilt it. A magnificent road has been completed between Lubeck and the sea; it forms one embowered avenue, under the shade of which the postilions convey you through orchards and hamlets, thinly scattered among the fields, to the mouth of the river. I have seen nothing so pastoral on any other coast. Though the town is lively, the surrounding country is silent and rural; it is a meadow, level with the sea, whose pastures, enlivened by numerous flocks, terminate only where the green turf is bathed by the salt water.

The Baltic here has the appearance of a lake, and its shores have an aspect of tranquillity that appears supernatural. One fancies one's self in the midst of happy shades, in Virgil's Elysian fields. The view of the Baltic Sea, notwithstanding its storms and rocks, inspires me with the idea of security. The waters of the most dangerous gulfs do not convey to the imagination the impression of extension without bounds. It is the idea of infinity which awes the man who stands on the borders of the great ocean.

The tinkling of the sheep-bell mingles with the ringing of the bells on board the steam-boats, in the port of Travemnnde. This sudden reminiscence of modern industry, in the midst of a country where a pastoral life is still that of a great part of the population, appears to me poetical without being ex-