ing. Here I borrowed a sled, and was so
elated at performing the feat successfully, on the first attempt, that I
offered my services as charioteer to a lady rash enough to accept them.
The increased weight gave so much additional impetus to the sled, and
thus rendered its guidance a more delicate matter. Finding that it began
to turn even before reaching the bottom, I put down my hand suddenly
upon the ice. The effect was like an explosion; we struck the edge of a
snow-bank, and were thrown entirely over it and deeply buried in the
opposite side. The attendants picked us up without relaxing a muscle of
their grave, respectful faces, and quietly swept the ice for another
trial. But after that I preferred descending alone.

Good skaters will go up and down these ice-hills on their skates. The
feat has a hazardous look, but I have seen it performed by boys of
twelve. The young Grand-Dukes who visited the Gardens generally
contented themselves with skating around the lake at not too violent a
speed. Some ladies of the court circle also timidly ventured to try the
amusement, but its introduction was too recent for them to show much
proficiency. On the Neva, in fact, the English were the best skaters.
During the winter, one of them crossed the Gulf to Cronstadt, a distance
of twenty-two miles, in about two hours.

Before Christmas, the Lapps came down from the North with their
reindeer, and pitched their tents on the river, in front of the Winter
Palace. Instead of the canoe-shaped _pulk_, drawn by a single deer, they
hitched four abreast to an ordinary sled, and took half a dozen
passengers at a time, on a course of a mile, for a small fee. I tried it
once, for a child's sake, but found that the romance of reindeer travel
was lost without the pulk. The Russian sleighs are very similar to our
own for driving about the city: in very cold weather, or for trips into
the country, the _kibitka_, a heavy closed carriage on runners, is used.
To my eye, the most dashing team in the world is the _troika_, or
three-span, the thill-horse being trained to trot rapidly, while the
other two, very lightly and loosely harnessed, canter on either side of
him. From the ends of the thills springs a wooden arch, called the
_duga_, rising eighteen inches above the horse's shoulder, and usually
emblazoned with gilding and brilliant colors. There was one magnificent
troika on the Nevskoi Prospekt, the horses of which were full-blooded,
jet-black m