Nicholas the legitimate successor of Prester
John.

But, now, lo! the story-book has come
true! This is real Russian writing on my
passport; there are two live Russians playing
écarté on the poop, and I am steaming
merrily through the real Baltic. We may see
the Mirage this evening, the chief mate says,
hopefully. We may be among the Ice to-
morrow, says weather-worn Captain Smith
(not Captain Steffens, he is too prudent to
allude to such matters, but another captain
—a honorary navigator) ominously. Ice,
Mirage, and the Gulf of Finland! Are not
these better than a cold day in the Strand, or
a steam-boat collision in the Pool?

We are only thirty passengers for Cronstadt,
and the Preussischer Adler has ample
accommodation for above a hundred. It may
not be out of place, however, to remark, that
there is an infinitely stronger desire to get
out of this favoured empire than to get into
it. There have been, even, I am told, some
Russians born and bred under the beneficent
rule of the autocrat, who, having once escaped
from the land of their birth, have been
altogether so wanting in patriotic feeling as
never to return to it; steadfastly disregarding
the invitations—nay, commands—of their
government despatches through their
chanceries in foreign countries.

In Prussia and Denmark, and in my
progress due north, generally, I had observed,
when I happened to mention my intention of
going to St. Petersburg, a peculiar curiosity
to know the purport of my journey thither,
quite distinct from official inquisitiveness.
My interlocutor would usually ask "whether
Monsieur sold?" and when I replied that I
did not sell anything, he would parry the
question, and inquire "whether Monsieur
bought?" Then, on my repudiation of any
mercantile calling whatsoever, my questioner
would hint that music-masters and tutors
were very handsomely paid in Russia. I
devoted myself to the instruction, perhaps.
No; I did not teach anything; and, on this,
my catechist after apparently satisfying
himself from my modest appearance, that I was
neither an ambassador nor a Secretary of
Legation, would shrug up his shoulders and
give a low whistle, and me a look which
might, with extreme facility, be translated
into, "Que diable allez-vous faire dans cette
galère?" I have never been in New England;
but, from the gauntlet of questions I had
to run in Northern Europe, I believe myself
qualified, when my time comes, to bear Connecticut
with equanimity, and to confute the
questionings of Massachusetts without difficulty.

We are thirty passengers, as I have said,
and we are commanded by Captain Steffens.
Captain Steffens is red of face, blue of gills,
black and shiny of hair, high of shirt-collar,
and an officer of the royal Prussian navy. He
will be Admiral Steffens, I doubt not, in the
fulness of time, when the Prussian government
has built a vessel large enough for him
to hoist his flag in. About a quarter of an
hour before we started, I had observed the
red face and the high shirt-collar, popping in
and out—with Jack-in-the-box celerity—of a
little state-room on the deck. I had
previously been dull enough to take the first
mate, who stood at the gangway, for the
commander of the Preussischer Adler, and to
admire the tasteful variety of his uniform,
composed as it was, of a monkey-jacket with
gilt buttons, a sky-blue cap with a gold band,
fawn-coloured trowsers, and a Tartan velvet
waistcoat of a most distracting liveliness of
pattern and colour. But it was only at the
last moment that I was undeceived, and was
made to confess how obtuse I had been; for,
then, the state-room door flying wide open,
Captain Steffens was manifest with the thirty
passengers' passports in one hand, and a
tremendous telescope in the other, and
arrayed besides in all the glory of a light-blue
frock, a white waistcoat, an astonishing
pair of epaulettes of gold bullion ("swabs," I
believe, they are termed in nautical parlance),
a shirt-frill extending at right angles from his
manly breast, like a fan, and patent-leather
boots. But why, Captain Steffens, why,
did you suffer a navy cap with a gold-laced
band to replace the traditional, the martial,
the becoming cocked-hat? For, with
that telescope, that frill, those epaulettes,
that rubicund visage, and that (missing)
cocked-hat, Captain Steffens would have
looked the very Fetch and counterfeit
presentment of the immortal admiral who "came
to hear on" the punishment of the faithless
William Taylor by the "maiden fair and
free" whom he had deserted, and which
admiral not only "werry much applauded her
for what she had done," but likewise
appointed her to the responsible position of first
lieutenant "of the gallant Thunderbomb."

But though unprovided with a cocked-hat,
Captain Steffens turns out to be a most
meritorious commander. He takes off his
epaulettes after we have left Swinemunde, and
subsides into shoulder-straps; but the long
telescope never leaves him, and he seems to
have an equal partiality for the thirty
passports. He is always conning them over
behind funnels, and in dim recesses of the
forecastle; and he seems to have a special
penchant for perusing mine, and muttering
my name over to himself, as if there were
something wrong about me, or the famous
scrap of paper which has given me so much
trouble. I step up to him at last, and request
to be permitted to enlighten him on any
doubtful point he may descry. He assures
me that all is right; but he confesses that
passports are the bane of his existence.
"Those people yonder," he whispers, motioning
with his thumb towards where I supposed
in the steamer's course is Cronstadt, "are the
very deuce with passports, lieber Herr." And
he sits on the pile of passports all dinner