o pass through that channel, and thus
effectually keeps it warm.

"We Russians are not so fond of violent exercise as are you English, and
therefore we depend on the heat of our stoves and the thickness of our
clothing to keep ourselves warm. We sometimes forget that our servants
are not so substantially clad as ourselves, and while we are
entertaining ourselves in-doors, they, foolish fellows, fall asleep, and
get frozen to death outside the palace or theatre, or wherever we may
happen to be. Every year, also, people lose their lives by getting
drunk and falling asleep out of doors. They may try the experiment
several times, but some night the thermometer sinks to zero, and they
never wake again. In summer, travelling is all very well, but in winter
it is enjoyable; no dust, no dirt, no scorching heat. Well covered up
with warm skins, and with fur boots on our feet, away we glide, dragged
rapidly on by our prancing steeds over the hard snow, fleet almost as
the bird on the wing, and like the bird directly across the country,
where in summer no road can be found. Mighty streams also are bridged
over, and we journey along the bed of water-courses; which in spring are
swept by foaming torrents. The thick mantle of ice and snow which
clothes our country forms a superb highway, which the inhabitants of
other lands may in vain desire. The snow, which seems so cold and
inhospitable to the stranger, is our greatest and most valued friend.
It is like a fur cloak; it keeps in the warmth generated in the bosom of
the earth, and shelters the bulbs and roots and seeds from the biting
cold, which would otherwise destroy them. More than anything else we
have to dread a snowless winter; then truly the earth is shut up by an
iron grasp, and tall trees, and shrubs, and plants wither and die under
its malign influence. The earth, deprived of its usual covering, the
ruthless cold deeply penetrates it, and man and beast and creeping
things suffer from its effects. Oh, yes, we have reason to pray
earnestly to be delivered from a snowless winter?"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Sports in Winter--Bear and Wolf Hunting--Story of the Miller and the
Wolves--Other Tales about Wolves--Shooting Wolves from Sledges--Narrow
Escape from a Wolf--Breaking up of the Ice on the Volga--Dreadful
Sight of a Boat's Crew carried away with the Ice--Loss of an old Man
on the Ice--The Russian Bath--Trial of Vocal Powers of Two Musicians.

"But