Peeps at Foreign Countries, by the Ed. [N. MacLeod] and Contributions to Good Words Etc (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871. Excerpt: ... A PEEP AT RUSSIA AND THE SHORES OF THE BALTIC. FOR several reasons, most of them connected with--to me--grave and important business, of which I shall not here speak, I visited Russia in the autumn of last year. Sailing direct from Hull to St Petersburgh I spent a fortnight in that city and in Moscow, returning vid the coast of Finland, as far north as Abo, thence to Stockholm, and by the lakes to Gottenburgh and Copenhagen. The whole tour occupied less than two months. Some things which I saw and heard interested me, and an account of them may, perhaps, be interesting to those who have the misfortune to know as little of those parts as I did before I chanced to visit them. THE VOYAGE OUT. I have little to say about it. The fact is that almost all voyages out of sight of land are much the same. In every ship there is the same sort of steward and passengers; the same bustle for berths at starting; the same running about through the cabin and on deck, with hatboxes, carpet-bags, and new portmanteaus, getting settled down. The same smells too --blame me not for dwelling on them--most notable facts are they, inasmuch as the nose conveys to the soul fully as much information regarding the external world as any other of the senses. Hence there is a sea-shore smell; a highland moor smell; a coach smell; a first, second, and third class smell; a church smell; "a subtle smell which spring unbinds," as Wordsworth well knew, having had the advantage 'of a large poetic nose to perceive it. No man feels himself abroad until he has inhaled the smell of the "salle a manger" or the "Speise Saal." And thus no man realises that he is at sea until he has felt the smell of the cabin, and of those submarine cells called staterooms, --an aroma which stands alone, a product of s...