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

134DIFFICULTIES OF LANDING.

chant, who was among our passengers, was searched unmercifully, not omitting even the clothes on his person, and his pocket-book. Had such a search been made upon me, I should have been pronounced a very suspicious character. My pockets were full of letters of introduction, and though the greater number had been given me by the Russian ambassador himself, and by others equally well known, they were sealed; a circumstance which made me afraid of leaving them in my writing-case. The police permitted me to pass without searching my person ; but when my baggage came to be unpacked before the custom-house officers, these new enemies instituted a most minute examination of my effects, more especially my books. These were seized en masse, and without any attention to my protestations, but an extraordinary politeness of manner was all the while maintained. A pair of pistols and an old portable clock were also taken from me, without my being able to ascertain the reason of the confiscation. All that I could get was the promise that they would be returned.

I have now been more than twenty-four hours on shore without having been able to recover any thing, and to crown my embarrassment, my carriage has, by mistake, been forwarded from Kronstadt to the address of a Russian prince. It will require trouble, and explanations without end, to prove tins error to the custom-house agents; for the prince of my carriage is from home.

Between nine and ten o'clock I found myself, personally, released from the fangs of the custom-house, and entered Petersburg under the kind care of a German traveller, whom I met by chance on the quay.