once.

“Alas, at what a sum he valued his existence! He looked, poor fellow, wretched enough, and miserably clad. I closed the bargain at The light of day was fast fading, so offering up a silent prayer in pardon for my temerity, I took a pull of my flask, and offering the same to my companion, which he refused, gave the word Forward!' "The crowd on the river's bank fell back astonished, as well they might be, and doubtless pronounced me mad; but Onwards' was the We stepped on to our fragile bridge, and hurried forward. Enough that you see me now, pipe in mouth, to prove that we landed safely. As we did so, I fancied I heard a shout of exultation waft across the waters. Cold as was the night the perspiration ran down my face, and finding my feet once more safe on terra firmd, I felt as it were for the moment stunned; rousing myself, however, I paid my poor companion thirty roubles, five more than he had bargained for, and his face brightened up with joy: I fancy he had not seen so much money for a length of time. And then I hastened to the town to my inn, and to bed.

"It was in vain, however, that I tried to sleep: my eyelids refused to close, and as soon as daylight reappeared I was up and dressed, and hastened to the river; when, behold! not a vestige of the ice-bridge I had crossed was there. The river rolled calmly on as if no ice had ever held it in its iron grasp. The sun of spring shone forth, the birds were singing merrily, and I hastened on my journey to Petersburgh with feelings impossible to describe, but never to be forgotten."

At the close of this brief but exciting anecdote, far better related than I can write it, I took! yes, Don Tuxfordo, I took a slight pull at a glass of brandy-and-water which, by accident possibly, had been placed on the table by my side; and looking at my friend's hair, observed that it was not grey, which I confess somewhat astonished me.

"I perfectly recollect your safe arrival," exclaimed another of the party (taking it coolly, I may say, as if he would have acted precisely in like manner). "I also recollect," he added, a somewhat similar occurrence, yet more serious, inasmuch as five lives were in peril instead of one :

"Four sporting friends had left Petersburg one morning on a shooting excursion, about twelve versts from the city, in a carriage or troika driven by a Russian coachman. The day's sport over, they dined somewhat freely on provisions which they had taken with them, by no means forgetting the drinks-in fact, to speak briefly, when mounting the carriage on their return homewards they were one and all, as our American friends have it, rather tight'; the coachman (Russians are not teetotallers) being somewhat tighter than the rest-that is to say, more or less exceedingly drunk; but a drunken Russian, somehow or another, manages to sit right on his scat, and Russian horses know their way home; and thus the party travelled rapidly, utterly unheedful of danger present or to come.

"Now the early spring day had closed ere they reached the Neva, over which river they had crossed in the morning in comparative safety; and coachee, utterly regardless-indeed unconscious-of all things around and about him, at once dashe 1, by the light of lamps, on the same route on his way home. Meanwhile, however, eight hours had con

verted the ice-bound river int floating masses of ice-a road such as that to which you have alluded alone remaining.

"Conceive my horror,' for thus one of the party spoke after the occurrence, on arriving in the centre of the river, when looking out in the comparative darkness, at hearing the sound of rushing waters on cach side of us-we were literally travelling rapidly (three horses, five men, and a carriage) upon a narrow rood of rotting ice, with a deep, rapid river beneath us! If so be that I had partaken somewhat too freely of our good cheer after a pleasant and successful day's shooting, I was sobered in an instant. One look on the foaming rapid waters and floating ice, and I sank my head on my knees, without a word to my companions (who were dozing, and who I felt might move), closed my eyes, and offered up a silent prayer, feeling certain that almost instant death by drowning was inevitable.

"A merciful providence, however, willed it otherwise. We eventually gained the opposite shore in safety, dashed up the street, and not till we arrived at a cheerful home did I name the imminent danger we had so happily escaped-a fact subsequently known throughout the city.

"St. Isaac's clock had scarcely tolled midnight ere not a vestige of that ice-road remained, such is the rapidity when once the frost breaks up that the ice disappears into the Baltic.'

Now these tales may appear fabulous-be it so; read and laugh if you will. All I can say is, that I who write them, not four days since, was in pleasant communion with him who crossed the Dwina, and with him who knew the whole party who crossed the Neva; and if your nose has ever been as cold as was mine on the morning I left the City of the Czar, you would have some practical idea how soon a rapid river freezes over in Russia, and, in like manner, how rapidly it thaws. Such are Petersburg pastimes. The crossing of ice-bridges in early spring is, however, one which I do not intend to practise.

And now, as I have said, the memory of other days crowd on my mind; and, being asked this morning to join the meet of the Petersburg hounds (which the horrible weather prevented), I find I cannot do better than say a word or two on the subject of that huut, derived, for the most part, from the graphic notes of a brother-sportsman, who has ofttimes cheered his own merry pack to victory in Old England.

True that I have already touched lightly in former pages on the Petersburg hunt-true that a writer in a friendly magazine has handled the subject most agreeably; but sportsmen far away "from home" love to read of sport "at home," and sportsmen "at home," in like manner, feel deep interest in the doings of their comrades in other lands; and so, Don Tuxfordo mio, I give you the words of one who is as brilliant a sportsman in the field, whether that field be divided by ox-fences or deep in turnips, as is he an agreeable companion at a round table:

"I have visited the City of the Czar in the height of summer and the depth of winter," he writes; "but it has never been my good fortune until the present occasion to find myself there during the short interregnum which intervenes between these seasons, and which admits of taking the field in earnest; and it is most gratifying to find that the period between the disappearance of snow--perhaps in the month of

May-and its reappearance during the second or third week in November, and during this short time with every difficulty to contend with, the ardour for the chase natural to Englishmen is so strongly developed among the very few who are able to support it, that the success and enthusiasm of a Petersburg field would put many of the flying counties in England to the blush.

"The establishment of an English pack of foxhounds in Russia dates from as far back as sixty or seventy years, and, though of course during that time it has had its ups and downs, there are records which show that, except during the Crimean war, it has never entirely faded out.

"This, it must be said for the glorious innate love of sport in the English character, is a most gratifying fact.

"The expenses incidental to the keeping up such an establishment in a country where it is impossible to breed a single hound, and the great distance from England, are extremely heavy, and those who bear the burden comparatively few, but they are of the right sort, or the establishment would soon fall to the ground; but yet, though it cheers the heart of a true foxhunter to see the noble science so well supported and carried out under such difficulties, I am not here to glorify them, but to give a brief account of their proceedings when they do get a ghost of a chance.

"The kennels are situated at Gorilla, about fifteen versts (or twelve miles) from Petersburg, and built as everything else in Russia (including the head of the whipper-in) of pine-wood from foundation to roof. They have ample room, large yards, and good sleeping-houses-and, indeed, they require it.

"I visited them during the month of March, 1866, and can only conceive the expression of countenance which pervaded the long benches to be equalled by those of the Abyssinian captives. Having had hounds for many years myself, I could well interpret the indignant frown which overcast the brow and dejected lips with which old Hermit, without even rising from his haunches and stern, conveyed to me the following ideas which were perhaps passing in his head:

"Here's a pretty humbug!-Call this a hunting country?-Do I deserve all this for working a little wide with Jem Hills ?-How would he ever kill so many foxes if some of us did not work wide?-Who recovers the line when they have all been jealously racing along a driftway for half-a-mile ?-Seven long weary months have we been confined to this wooden prison, without even having a good roll on the groundWell-fed and well-warmed with stoves, to be sure; but the tedious monotony is enough to produce madness.'

Again: Heroine, a lengthy, hairy, handsome, badger-pied bitch in the next compartment, imparted to me, in everything but words, commencing with the longest and evident yawn, which was not quite without articulation at the end of it, that her determined predilection for current-jelly had been her only fault, and the look she gave me on leaving was intended to imply that if she could only have the rest of her term of imprisonment remitted she would never throw her tongue upon riot again; there was a lurking devil in her eye, however, which shook my confidence in her promises, as it has often done in others of her sex. Howbeit, there were some beauties among the lot, even if their pedigree had been a little tarnished by "Tom Wilton." Such

rows of solemn gravity were grevious to behold, though I must do the huntsman the justice to say, that the hounds appeared in perfect health, and were looking as clean as anything can be made to look, in a country covered with snow and frequently 25 degs. of frost to content with for weeks together.

"The hounds which looked so well

Are now as black as h―ll,

And he lays all the blame upon me."-Huntsman's Lament.

At Montreal, in Canada, I have seen the same sort of incarceration of fox-hounds, and there it requires all the watchfulness and care of a skilful nurse, as well as a huntsman, to pull them through a long and dreary winter.

The next time I visited the Gorilla kennels was in the month of July. How different was the aspect! how changed the expression of my friends Hermit and Heroine! Nothing but severe rating and "Hi, hi! what are you up to, with all that noise?" could subdue the boisterous hilarity which was bursting in each individual breast at the event of a stranger having ridden into the kennel square. Although they had been out, as George informed me, for a long exercise that morning, they were in active preparation for the beginning of the season, and had just received a large draft from England; and, though there certainly was not any striking amount of family-likeness amongst them, I could have drawn out twenty couple of well-formed, useful, active hounds, looking very like work. The kennel horses, also, appeared to be selected with judgment.

The present master, Mr. Balfour, has been in office about three years, and has spared no trouble or expense in getting the right sort of tackle together, to ensure the best sport the country will afford; in which he is warmly and substantially supported by Her Majesty's ambassador, who is a fine specimen of the old English sportsman. His huntsman, George Bartlett, is a useful, industrious servant, and, though perhaps he would not be the worse for a little more pepper in his porridge," he takes much pains, under the greatest difficulties, to give satisfaction. The first-whip is a Russian, who has learned to say "here baick," and is therefore constantly putting that order forth to the hounds, especially if he catches them flinging themselves to try to recover an overrun scent, and woe betide the unfortunate hound, however diligently drawing, he can overtake, when he has him to himself; he then practises the "here baick" with a "heer whack;" he is, nevertheless, a good horseman and a fair telegraph. He has a grey-eyed Russian's look about him, and his long, straight, light hair looks as if it had been cut by a bill-hook, to look like the eaves of a thatched bee-hive. The second-whip is represented in a Russ-boy, about seven stone weight; might be any age from eight to twenty-eight; he has been with them a year, but George must have cut him out of a pine-log to begin with. He is as ignorant now of why he rides in a scarlet coat and leathers as a Belgian sentry I once found posted at the entrance of the Palace at Brussels. My mission was with the king, and my conversation with the sentry as follows: "Is this the entry to the king's palace?" "I His father was many years feeder to the Royal Buck Hounds and whip to Pocock with Mr. Garth,

do not know."

"But this is his majesty's palace, is it not?" "I do not know which is the king's palace; not I." "Then why are you on guard here?" "Because I belong to the 34th regiment.'

"

My last visit to Russia was during the last week of October, which may be considered the height of their almost impossible season, and the few days which are snatched from dread winter at this time are usually the occasion of the cream of their sport. My greeting by my sporting friends at Petersbugh was clamorous, accompanied by descriptions of recent sport some unusually long runs with wolves, which, by-the-bye, generally begin and terminate in the same way. The hounds strike a line of scent, which they run and acknowledge in a half-ashamed sort of way, many of the pack not even liking it well enough to say anything about it; still, with much cheering, the pack hunt the line, sometimes even carrying a head at a good hunting-pace. The line of a wolf, however, is not much in the open, though he occasionally shows himself out of the interminable forests, and here, when viewed, he always appears to be dead-beat; he loups along at a pace which is neither a trot nor a gallop nor a canter; and even if by "giving him a ride" hounds can be got close to him, they never appear to make use of the advantage; though they stick to the line, they do not run with their hackles up, as they do when they make up their minds to give an account of their fox. Thus the wolf continues his track, and in nine cases out of ten, the usual finale is the want of a little more daylight. They had also had many fair runs with foxes; but, as the present season had been an unusually bad scenting-time, they had not nailed-up so many noses as on former occasions. My arrival was the signal for an immediate fixture in the best part of the country-the Billesdon of Russia, and 9 a.m. found me waiting by the golden-topped church at the end of the English Quay, on Wednesday, 23rd October last, for a cast to the meet, and while waiting there I saw several vehicles pass, from the humble dog-cart to the dashing "troika," which is a roomy and convenient carriage, drawn by four horses abreast, driven, or rather frightened, along at the most reckless of gallops, by a Russianyemptschick, a half-savage-looking individual, sewed-up in a sheepskin with the wool turned inwards, and several peacock's-feathers stuck in a squat-hat, shaped after the fashion of a Wiltshire wheat-stack. In such conveyance as this my friends soon arrived, and in it I took my place, and (as the road to Gorilla is shaped exactly like the roof of a house, the only difference being that instead of a row of chimney-pots, in the centre you have a line of unbroken rocks which defy any of the traffic from beating it down, and the carriage is consequently on a slope at an angle of 45 degs.), I had some difficulty to keep. Arrived, however, in a marvellously short time at the kennels, I proceeded to invest myself in the uniform of the hunt-a legitimate bit of pink, with a dark-blue collar.

In addition to the kennels at Gorilla, there is a sort of club-room and several bed-rooms, which are retained by the members of the hunt (in many of the latter, boots, breeches, &c., were waiting before enormous fires for their respective wearers); and in there, when we were all equipped, we sat down to a most substantial breakfast, at which, however good the Russian tea may be, I'll back the Gorilla "cream," when added to it, to warm the cockles of a man's heart, and make him