The real charm of this blackcock and capercailzie shooting was that one would not otherwise have been out in the great forest at break of day.
To me there was always an infinite fascination in seeing these great Northern tracts of woodland awakening from their long winter sleep. The sweetness of the dawn, the delicious smell of growing things, the fresh young life springing up under one's feet, all these appealed to every fibre in my being. Nature always restores the balance of things. In Russia, as in Canada, after the rigours of the winter, once the snow has disappeared, flowers carpet the ground with a rapidity of growth unknown in more temperate climates. These Finland woods were covered with a low creeping plant with masses of small, white, waxy flowers. It was, I think, one of the smaller cranberries. There was an orange-flowering nettle, too, the leaves of which changed from green to vivid purple as they climbed the stalk, making gorgeous patches of colour, and great drifts of blue hepaticas on the higher ground. To appreciate Nature properly, she must be seen at unaccustomed times, as she bestirs herself after her night's rest whilst the sky brightens.
In Petrograd itself the British Colony found plenty of amusement. We had an English ice-hill club to which all the Embassy belonged. The elevation of a Russian ice-hill, some forty feet only, may seem tame after the imposing heights of Canadian toboggan slides, but I fancy that the pace travelled is greater in Russia. The ice-hills were always built in pairs, about three hundred yards apart, with two parallel runs. Both hills and runs were built of solid blocks of ice, watered every day, and the pitch of the actual hill was very steep. In the place of a toboggan we used little sleds two feet long, mounted on skate-runners, which were kept constantly sharpened. These travelled over the ice at a tremendous pace, and at the end of the straight run, the corresponding hill had only to be mounted to bring you home again to the starting-point. The art of steering these sleds was soon learnt, once the elementary principle was grasped that after a turn to the left, a corresponding turn to the right must be made to straighten up the machine, exactly as is done instinctively on a bicycle. A wave of the hand or of the foot was enough to change the direction, the ice-hiller going down head foremost, with the sled under his chest.
Longer sleds were used for taking ladies down. The man sat cross-legged in front, whilst the lady knelt behind him with both her arms round his neck. Possibly the enforced familiarity of this attitude was what made the amusement so popular.
We gave at times evening parties at the ice-hills, when the woods were lit up with rows of Chinese lanterns, making a charming effect against the snow, and electric arcs blazed from the summits of the slides. To those curious in such matters, I may say that as secondary batteries had not then been invented, and we had no dynamo, power was furnished direct by powerful Grove two-cell batteries. One night our amateur electrician was nearly killed by the brown fumes of nitrous acid these batteries give off from their negative cells.
We had an ice-boat on the Gulf of Finland as well. It is only in early spring, and very seldom then, that this amusement can be indulged in. The necessary conditions are (1) a heavy thaw to melt all the snow from the surface of the ice, followed by a sharp frost; (2) a strong breeze. Nature is not often obliging enough to arrange matters in this sequence. We had some good sailing, though, and could get forty miles an hour out of our craft with a decent breeze. Our boat was of the Dutch, not the Canadian type. I was astonished to find how close an ice-boat could lay to the wind, for obviously anything in the nature of leeway is impossible with a boat on runners. Ice-sailing was bitterly cold work, and the navigation of the Gulf of Finland required great caution, for in early spring great cracks appeared in the ice. On one occasion, in avoiding a large crack, we ran into the omnibus plying on runners between Kronstadt and the mainland. The driver of the coach was drunk, and lost his head, to the terror of his passengers, but very little damage was done. It may be worth while recording this, as it is but seldom that a boat collides with an omnibus.
It will be seen that in one way and another there was no lack of amusement to be found round Petrograd, even during the entire cessation of Court and social entertainments.