“I should like to do that,” said Mr. Porter, “but it would take too long; you boys would not get back in time for school.”
“Which wouldn’t bother me any,” declared Raymond.
The last good-byes were finally said and the travelers stood on deck waving their handkerchiefs to Mrs. Porter on the fast-receding pier.
While the boys had been great travelers by land, they had never before made a long ocean voyage and the novel scenes and sensations were of constant interest to them. The greatest interest began, however, after the ship had traversed the English Channel and had passed through the Strait of Dover into the North Sea. There the ships which they encountered were numerous and made a pleasant variety after the broad expanse of the Atlantic.
On the eighth day after leaving New York they made the port of Rotterdam and the boys could give a day to quaint Dutch scenes. Then came the delightful voyage up the North Sea, around the north end of Denmark, through the narrow strait into the Baltic and to their destination, Libau, three days packed full of pleasure and charm.
With the Great Fair in prospect there was little in Libau to detain the travelers and at the earliest possible moment they were aboard a train for Nizhni-Novgorod with three days of what they feared would be tiresome travel ahead of them. But the boys found, to their delight, that in the first-class coach they were given a compartment for three. As Raymond said,—
“It’s just like having a private car.”
“And we even have our own bedding,” said Sidney, “which makes it still more private.”
They had followed Baedeker’s instructions and had provided themselves with traveling-rugs and pillows, which is the wisest course to pursue on Russian railways.
However, even the charms of a private car may become tiresome, and all the party were glad when, on the afternoon of August 1, their train pulled into Nizhni-Novgorod. That city is situated along the right bank of the Volga River, and of its great tributary, the Oka. The most important part of the city is on the high bluff that borders the two rivers along that side, and the hotel which our travelers selected was on the bluff near the Kremlin.