his somewhat jaundiced complexion, looked
not unlike a canary bird himself), go down the
ladder into the hold, to feed his choristers
and converse with them in a cheerful and
friendly manner. But he was in a pitiable
state of tribulation; firstly, because he had
learnt that the customs duties on singing
birds in Russia were enormous; and,
secondly, because he had been told that Jews
were not suffered to enter St. Petersburgh.*
He turned his coat-collar up, and, pulled his
hat over his eyes with a desperate effort to
make himself look like a Christian; but he
only succeeded in travestying, not in
disguising, himself; for, whereas, he had looked
a Frank, open Jew, say, like Judas Maccabæus;
he, now, with his cowering and furtive
mien, looked unspeakably like Judas Iscariat.
He was sorely annoyed, too, at the proceedings
of one of the policemen, who, having
probably never seen a canary bird before,
and imagining it to be a species of wild beast
of a diminutive size, was performing the feat
of stirring up with a long pole, by means
of a tobacco-pipe, poked between the wires
of one of the cages, and was apparently
much surprised that the little canary
declined singing under that treatment. But,
courage, my Hebrew friend! you have
brought your birds to a fine market, even
if you have to pay fifty per cent. ad
valorem duty on them. For, be it known a
canary sells for twenty-five silver roubles in
Russia—for nearly four pounds! and, as for
a parrot, I have heard of one, and
two hundred roubles being given for one that
could speak French.

* I am not aware of the existence of any Oukase
positively forbidding Jews to settle at St. Petersburg: but it
is certain that there are no Jews in the Russian capital.
In other parts of the Empire a distinction is made
between the Karaïm Jews, who abide by the law of the
Old Testament, and the Rabbinical Jews, who hold by
the Talmud. The former are tolerated and protected;
but the latter are treated with great rigour, and are not
permitted to settle in the towns.

The wag from the South of France had not
been idle all this time. Who, but he counterfeited
(while he was not looking) the usage
and bearing of the little semi-humpbacked
policeman, and threw us into convulsions of
laughter? Who but he pretended to
be dreadfully frightened at the officer in
the dirt-inlaid lace, running away from him,
after the manner of Mr. Flexmore the
clown, when he is told that the policeman
is coming? Who but he addressed the very
tallest douanier in the exact voice, and with
the exact gesture of the immortal Punch (at
which we went into fits, of course, and even
the adamantine Miss Wapps condescended to
smile), pouring forth a flood of gibberish,
which he declared to be Russian. The
douanier looked very ferocious, and I
thought the wag would have been knouted
and sent to Siberia; but he got over it
somehow, and gave the customs magnate
a cigar, which that brave proceeded, with
great gravity and deliberation to chew, and
they were soon the best friends in the world.

I was getting very tired of assuring myself of the
shirtlessness of the boarders, whom I
had now been inspecting for nearly three
quarters of an hour, when Captain Steffens
reappeared, this time without the telescope,
but with the thirty passports as usual fluttering
in the breeze, and a pile of other papers
besides. He had mounted his epaulettes
again, had Captain Steffens, and a stiffer
shirt-collar than ever; and on his breast
nearest his heart there shone a gold enamelled
cross and a parti-coloured riband, proclaiming
to us awe-stricken passengers and to the
world in general, that Captain Steffems
was a knight of one of the thousand and one
Russian orders. It might have been a Prussian
order, you may urge. No, no; my eyes
were too sharp for that. Young as I was to
Russia, I could tell already a hawk from a
handsaw, and the august split crow of the
autocrat from the jay-like black eaglet of
Prussia. I think Captain Steffens' decoration
was the fifteenth class of St. Michael-the-
Moujik. The chief mate was also in full fig;
and, though he could boast no decoration,
he had a tremendous pin in his shirt, with a
crimson bulb a-top like a brandy ball. And
Captain Steffens and his mate were both
arrayed in this astounding costume evidently
to do honour to and receive with respect two
helmeted beings, highly laced, profusely
decorated, and positively clean, who now
boarded the steamer from a man-o'-war's gig
alongside, and were with many bows ushered
into the saloon.

Whether he had dropped cherublike from
aloft, where he had been looking out for our
lives, or risen like Venus from the salt sea
spray, or come with the two helmets in the
gig—though I could almost make affidavit
that he was not in it when it rowed alongside,
—or boarded the Prussian Eagle in his own
private wherry, or risen from the hold where
he had lain concealed during the voyage, or
been then and there incarnated from the
atmospheric atoms; whether he came as a
spirit but so would not depart, I am utterly
incapable of judging, but this is certain: that,
at the cabin-door there suddenly appeared
Mr. Edward Wright, comedian. I say Mr.
Wright advisedly; because although the
apparition turned out to be a Russian to the
backbone, thigh bone, and hip bone, and though
his name was very probably Somethingovitch
or Off, he had Mr. Wright's voice, and Mr.
Wright's face, together with the teeth, eye-
glass, white ducks, and little patent tipped
boots of that favourite actor. And he was
not only Mr. Wright, but he was Mr. Wright
in the character of Paul Pry—minus the
costume certainly, but with the eye-glass and
the umbrella to the life. I am not certain
whether he wore a white hat, but I know
that he carried a little locked portfolio under
one arm, that his eyes without the slightest