ld, there was almost
invariably a day of rain or fog, and for many weeks walking was so
difficult that we were obliged to give up all out-door exercise except
skating or sliding. The streets were either coated with glassy ice or they
were a foot deep in slush. There was more and better sleighing in the
vicinity of Boston last winter than in St. Petersburg during the winter of
1862-3. In our trips to the Observatory of Pulkova, twelve miles
distant, we were frequently obliged to leave the highway and put our
sled-runners upon the frosted grass of the meadows. The rapid and
continual changes of temperature were more trying than any amount of
steady cold. _Grippe_ became prevalent, and therefore fashionable, and
all the endemic diseases of St. Petersburg showed themselves in force.
The city, it is well known, is built upon piles, and most of the
inhabitants suffer from them. Children look pale and wilted, in the
absence of the sun, and special care must be taken of those under five
years of age. Some little relatives of mine, living in the country, had
their daily tumble in the snow, and thus kept ruddy; but in the city
this is not possible, and we had many anxious days before the long
darkness was over.

As soon as snow had fallen and freezing weather set in, the rough,
broken ice of the Neva was flooded in various places for skating-ponds,
and the work of erecting ice-hills commenced. There were speedily a
number of the latter in full play, in the various suburbs,--a space of
level ground, at least a furlong in length, being necessary. They are
supported by subscription, and I had paid ten rubles for permission to
use a very fine one on the farther island, when an obliging card of
admission came for the gardens of the Taurida Palace, where the younger
members of the Imperial family skate and slide. My initiation, however,
took place at the first-named locality, whither we were conducted by an
old American resident of St. Petersburg.

The construction of these ice-hills is very simple. They are rude towers
of timber, twenty to thirty feet in height, the summit of which is
reached by a staircase at the back, while in front descends a steep
concave of planking upon which water is poured until it is covered with
a six-inch coating of solid ice. Raised planks at the side keep the sled
in its place until it reaches the foot, where it enters upon an icy
plain two to four hundred yards in length, (in proportion to the height
o