LOST IN A SNOW-STORM.
"There is a story of two travellers who saw a third in trouble; one of them proposed to go to the relief of the man in distress, but the other refused, saying he would not stir out of their sleigh. The first went and relieved the sufferer; his exertions set the blood rushing through his veins and saved him from injury by the cold, while the one who refused to render aid was frozen to death.
"It is a curious fact," said the Doctor, in closing his remarks upon the Russian winter, "that foreigners coming here do not feel the cold at first. They walk the streets in the same clothing they would wear in London or Paris, and laugh at the Russians wrapping themselves in furs. At the same time the Russians laugh at them and predict that if they stay in the country for another season they will change their ways. A stranger does not feel the cold the first winter as sensibly as do the Russians, but in every succeeding season of frost he is fully sensitive to it, and vies with the natives in constant use of his furs."
[CHAPTER XI.]
LEAVING ST. PETERSBURG.—NOVGOROD THE GREAT: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.—RURIK AND HIS SUCCESSORS.—BARBARITIES OF JOHN THE TERRIBLE.—EARLY HISTORY OF RUSSIA.—AN IMPERIAL BEAR-HUNT.—ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF ROMANOFF.—"A LIFE FOR THE CZAR."—RAILWAYS IN RUSSIA FROM NOVGOROD TO MOSCOW.
A day was appointed for leaving St. Petersburg. Notice was given at the office of the hotel, and the passports of the three travellers received the necessary indorsements at the Police Bureau. Trunks were packed and bills settled, and at the proper time a carriage conveyed the party to the commodious station of the Imperial Railway from the new capital of Russia to the old. But they did not take their tickets direct for Moscow.
As before stated, the railway between the two great cities of the Czar's dominions is very nearly a straight line, and was laid out by the Emperor Nicholas with a ruler placed on the map and a pencil drawn along its edge. There is consequently no city of importance along the route, with the exception of Tver, where the line crosses the Volga. Novgorod, the oldest city of Russia, is about forty miles from the railway as originally laid out. Until within a few years it was reached by steamers in summer from Volkhova Station, seventy-five miles from St. Petersburg. In winter travellers were carried in sledges from Chudova Station (near Volkhova), and to novices in this kind of travel the ride was interesting.
Latterly a branch line has been completed to Novgorod, and one may leave St. Petersburg at 9 a.m. and reach Novgorod at 6 p.m. The pace of the trains is not dangerously fast, and accidents are of rare occurrence. Between Moscow and St. Petersburg (four hundred and three miles) the running time for express trains is twenty hours, and for way trains twenty-three to twenty-five hours. Nine hours from St. Petersburg to Novgorod (one hundred and twenty miles) should not startle the most timorous tourist.