the good living accorded them, have ever seriously regretted the cost on arrival at their destination.

As soon as the passengers are fairly awake in the morning, which with Russians is not much before eight or nine o'clock, tea and coffee, with bread and butter, and rusks, are served up in the saloon. At eleven o'clock the passengers meet for a light lunch, commencing, of course, with the inevitable zakuska, or dinette of the Russians consisting of a glass of vodky, bitters, or absinthe, and a taste of raw herring, a sardine, a bit of cheese or sausage, two or three English pickles, some caviare on bread, dried salmon, and innumerable other little tit-bits calculated, according to Russian estimation, to give one an appetite. The zakuska, to my mind, is a grand institution, although it does not seem to flourish well out of Russia. During the Tsar's coronation some magnificent zakuskas were served up with the Imperial banquets and suppers, but my tenderest recollections are associated with one preceding a dinner given by the fifty special correspondents to their amiable Censor, Gospodin Vaganoff. A huge table literally groaned beneath the assortment of appetisers heaped upon it, and which could not have included less than a hundred different kinds of delicious tit-bits and forty or fifty stimulating drinks.

The zakuska disposed of, the clean and liveried stewards, whose unobtrusive attentiveness, by the way, impresses itself upon the traveller, hand round in succession sturgeon or some other kind of fish, cutlets or some made dish, cheese, confectionery, and grapes, melons, apples, nuts, and other fruit. Red and white wine of the Crimea, grown on the Company's own estates, and therefore real wine, free from adulteration, the passenger can drink as much as he likes; then, after a cup of coffee, he can go on deck and smoke, or

AMONG RUSSIAN BARBARIANS.

39

play at chess in the cabin, with the calm self-satisfaction of a man who feels that he "has not done so bad for breakfast."

Dinner is served up at four in the afternoon. This consists of half-a-dozen excellent dishes, preceded by the zakuska, and accompanied by abundance of fruit and wine; and is equal to any table-d'hote dinner, in point of excellence and variety of cooking, obtainable at the Criterion or other leading restaurants in London. At eight or nine, tea and coffee, with rusks and rolls, are set forth again in the saloon, and when this is over, and the passenger retires to bed, he must be a very exacting mortal if he considers himself badly done by. Mr. Gallenga, the experienced special correspondent of the Times, has placed on record his conviction that nowhere in the world is such excellent "feeding" obtainable on board a steamer as on the vessels of the Black Sea Steam Navigation Company, and I can readily endorse his opinion. In no voyage round about the coasts of England will a man find his inner and outer comfort better looked after, than has been the case for the last twenty years in the Black Sea.

The vessels of the Navigation Company maintain a perpetual service round the ports of the Black Sea, one running one way and one the other, and passing each other in their circular course near Batoum. Generally speaking, the steamers are crowded with passengers from Odessa as far as Kertch, but from the Sea of Azoff along the Caucasian coast, the most interesting part of the voyage, there are hardly any passengers at all, except steerage, and the traveller is thus able to enjoy the scenery without being incommoded by a crowd. The afternoon we left Odessa the saloon was full of people dining, but the fresh breeze we encountered when we got a little way out to sea soon thinned the tables,

and hardly anybody at all turned up for the evening tea. Among the passengers was a Mr. Gibson, for many years in the employ of the Company, who was returning to Sevastopol, and he contributed to make the time pass rapidly away till he left us the next morning.

During the night the steamer caught it a little in running across the open sea to Cape Tarhankoutt, the first point attained of the Crimea, and the swell made nearly all the passengers sick, including a Russian who occupied part of my cabin. The voyage would have been pleasanter if Mr. C. and myself could have shared. a cabin between us; but finding only single berths obtainable, we had been compelled to separate, which, as he did not speak Russian, was rather inconvenient for him. I tried hard to share a cabin with some German, on the principle that, whereas a German is only occasionally sick at sea, a Russian always is; but was unsuccessful. During the voyage it used to grieve me to see huge swaggering Russian officers come on board in full regimentals and decorations; I knew what their fate would be. But, as a rule, they took it quietly, retiring to their cabins as soon as they felt queer, and drawing a curtain over their undignified misery. Were England not an island, we should have innumerable Russian visitors, for we are heartily admired in Russia. But even the enthusiasm of Anglophiles cannot carry them across the Channel. Just fancy," said a wellknown Russian general to me once-"just fancy me, in full regimentals, ignominiously leaning over the bulwark of a steamer and vomiting! The bare recollection would prevent me ever maintaining my composure before my troops again. No, no, bridge over the Channel, or bore a hole under it, and I will come and see you."

After daybreak we got well under cover of the coast

of the Crimea, and the rolling of the Grand Duke Michael diminished. When the tea-bell rang at seven we were already anchored in the roadstead of Eupatoria. The town has a pretty appearance from the sea. The houses are either built of a soft white stone, or of wood painted white or yellow; the roofs are red or green, interspersed with picturesque minarets. At the base are brown bare hills, and towards Sevastopol stretch along the flat coast fifty or sixty windmills clustered together, giving quite a peculiar appearance to the place. Eupatoria possesses deep historical interest to Englishmen, on account of its being the first Russian point touched at and occupied by the Allies in the invasion of the Crimea. Concerning this occupation a funny incident is narrated by Kinglake.

The English fleet arrived at Eupatoria on the 1st of September, 1854, and the bright little town being defenceless, officers were sent to summon it. The governor was an official personage in a high state of discipline. He had before his eyes the armed navies of the Allies, with the countless sails of their convoys; and to all that vast armament he had nothing to oppose except the forms of office. But to him the forms of office seemed all-sufficing, and on them he still calmly relied; so, when the summons was delivered, he insisted upon fumigating it according to the health regulations of the little port. When he understood that the Western Powers intended to land, he said that decidedly they might do so; but he explained that it would be necessary for them to land at the Lazaretto, and consider themselves in strict quarantine. The following day the place was occupied by a small body of English troops.

We only stopped long enough at Eupatoria to discharge a few barrels of merchandise into lighters, and

take on board two or three passengers, and in less than an hour were off again. The comparative calmness of the sea had drawn on deck most of the passengers. These now promptly descended below again when the steamer stood out to sea, to strike straight across the bay to Sevastopol. Our course lay too far out, and the coast was too misty at the time, for us to distinctly discern where the Allies landed; but when we neared Sevastopol the steamer went close to the cliffs, and the brighter weather enabled us to follow the course of the troops from the Alma.