Jack, though it wasn't one by any means.
Nigra fuit sed formosa: jet black was her
hull, but she was comely-beautiful, a long
lithe lizard carved in ebony, with an ivory
streak on her back (that was her deck), and
gliding almost noiselessly over the water.
She looked not so much like a steamer as
like the toy model of one seen through a
powerful opera-glass; and her wheel and
compass, and spider-web rigging, and shining
brass bolts, and beeswaxed blocks, would
have looked far more in place in the toyman's
window in Fleet Street, London, than in this
grim Cronstadt. She had her little murder-
popguns though—tapering little brass
play-things, such as you may see by dozens in
a basket, marked eightpence each, in the same
toyshop window. This was a Russian-built
boat, with Russian engines, engineers, and
crew, and she seemed to say to me mockingly:
"Ah! we have no war-steamers, haven't we?
we are dependent upon England for our
machinery, are we? Wait a bit! "She was, in
truth, as crack a piece of naval goods as I—
not being a judge—could wish to see. She had
a full crew of fine hardy fellows, spotlessly
clean, and attired from head to foot in white
duck. They were strapping, tawny, moustachioed
men; mostly, I was told, Fins. Your
true Russian is no sailor; though you may
teach him to row, reef, and steer, as you may
teach him to dance on the tight-rope. On the
paddle-bridge there was an arm-chair, covered
with crimson velvet, and in it, with his feet
on a footstool covered with the same material,
sate the commander of the steamer. He was
puffing a paper cigar; he was moustachioed
and whiskered like a life-guardsman; he was
epauletted and belaced; he was crossed and
medalled for his services at the siege of
Belleisle, doubtless; he had spotless white
trousers tightly strapped over his patent-
leather boots; but he had not a pair of
spurs; though I looked for them attentively,
and those who state that such ornaments
exist on the heels of Russian naval officers
are calumniators. Instead of a sword, he
wore a dirk at his side, with a gold and ivory
hilt, very tasteful and ship-shape; and, at the
stern of the vessel there stood, motionless and
rigid, a long man, with a drooping moustache
like an artist's Sweetener, with a thoroughly
Tartar face, and clad in the eternal coarse
grey sack, who they said was a midship-man.
He had a huge hour-glass before him,
and two smaller quarter-hour-glasses, which
he turned with grave composure when the
sand had run out.

On the deck of an adjacent lighter I could
see, for the first time, the genuine Russian
national costume on a score of stalwart,
bearded men, clad in an almost brimless felt
hat (not unlike that patronised by the Connaught
bogtrotters), a sheepskin coat, with the
skinny side out and the woolly side in
(Mr. Brian O'Lynn's favourite wear, and which he
declared to be mighty convanient), baggy
breeches, apparently of bed-ticking, and long,
clumsy, thick-soled boots of leather innocent
of blacking, and worn outside the trousers.
These poor devils had been loading a Dutch
galliot, and it being dinner-hour, I suppose,
had knocked off work, and were lying dead
asleep in all sorts of wonderful positions.
Prone to the deck on the stomach, with the
hands and legs stretched out like so many
turtle, seemed to be the favourite posture
for repose. But one gentleman, lying on
his back, presented himself to my view
in a most marvellous state of fore-shortening
—leaving nothing visible to me but
the soles of his boots, the convexity of his
stomach and the tip of his nose. By and by
their time for turning to again came; and,
when I saw the mate or foreman—or whatever
else he was—of the gang, step among them
with a long twisted rattan, like that of the
gaoler in the bridewell scene of the Harlot's
Progress, and remind them that it was time
to go to work by the gentle means of striking,
kicking, and all but jumping on them, I
received my first lesson, that I was in a
country where flesh and blood are cheaper—
much cheaper—than gentle Thomas Hood
ever wotted of.

We had been in our floating prison with
the chance of being drowned, three hours in
addition to the seventy-three we had
consumed in coming from Stettin, when the door
of the saloon was flung wide open, and a
polizei, seemingly seized with insanity, began
frantically vociferating "Voyageur passport!
Passport voyageur!" at the very top of his
voice; which cries he continued without
intermission till he either ran down, like a clock,
or was threatened by a discreet and scandalised
corporal with the disciplinary application
of the stick if he did not desist. Poor fellow!
this was, very likely, all the French he knew,
and he was proud of it! Taking this as a
gentle hint that we were to enter the saloon
for passport purposes, we all poured into that
apartment pêle-mêle like your honourable
house to the bar of the Lords. And here we
found several empty bottles and a strong
smell of cigar smoke, which rather bore out
the wag's story of the champagne and cigars;
and, sitting at a table, Mr. Wright, more
toothy than ever, the captain, the helmets,
and somebody else we little expected to see.

There were only twenty-nine passengers
standing round the table. Do you understand
now? The thirtieth passenger was
one of the lot—one of ces gens-là—one of
Count Orloff's merry men. So, at least, I
conjecture, for he was the somebody else at
the table, and he asked me, with all the coolness
in the world—when my turn came, and
as if he had never seen me before in his life—
what my object in coming to Russia might
be? I told him that I voyaged pour mon
plaisir, at which reply he seemed but
moderately satisfied, and made a neat note of it
on a sprawling sheet of paper. I had