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

AJSTD OF THE CUSTOM-HOUSE.123

ment fresh boats proceeded from the city, and rowed towards us. Although we were moored close to the walls, the silence was profound. No voice issued from this tomb. The shadows that were gliding in their boats around were equally silent. They were clad in coarse capotes of grey wool, their faces lacked expression, their eyes possessed no fire, their complexion was of a green or yellow hue ; I was told that they were sailors attached to the garrison, but they more resembled soldiers. Sometimes the boats passed round us in silence, sometimes six or a dozen ragged boatmen, half covered with sheep-skins, the wool turned within, and the filthy skin appearing without, brought us some new police agent, or tardy custom-house officer. These arrivals and departures, though they did not accelerate our matters, at least gave me leisure to reflect on the species of filthiness peculiar to the people of the North. Those of the South pass their life in the open air half naked, or in the water; those of the North, for the most part shut up within doors, have a greasy dirtiness, which appears to me far more offensive than the neglect of a people destined to live beneath the open heaven, and born to bask in the sun.

The tedium to which these Russian formalities condemned us, gave me also an opportunity of remarking that the great lords of the country were little inclined to bear patiently the inconveniences of public regulations, when those regulations proved inconvenient to themselves.

" Russia is the land of useless formalities," they murmured among themselves — but in French, that they might not be overheard by the subaltern em-G 2