partake of badly cooked, cold rations.  Many a meal was lost altogether, and once or twice a poor cook who could not swim was drowned by the boat filling and capsizing.  The frail craft of this kind were of curious shape, and only a person who had the knack could row them.  No more comical sport could be witnessed than the lurky race which was held every season.  Many of the cooks never acquired the art of rowing straight, and whenever they put a spurt on the lurky would run amuck in consequence of being flat-bottomed and having no keel.  Then the carnival of collisions, capsizing of boats, and rescuing of their occupants began.  Some disdained assistance, and heroically tried to right their erratic “dug-outs.”  It would be impossible to draw a true picture of these screamingly funny incidents, but be it remembered they were all sailor-cooks who took part in the sport, and the riotous joy they derived therefrom was always a pleasant memory, and kept them for days in good temper for carrying out the pilgrimage to and from the cookhouse.

The popular English idea is that there are only two classes in Russia—­viz., the upper and lower; but this is quite a mistake.  There has always been a thrifty shopkeeping and artisan class, which may be called their middle lower class.  Then there is a class that comes between them and the common labourer.  Nearly all the shopkeepers that carry on business at Cronstadt, Riga, and other Northern Russian ports during the summer have their real homes in Moscow, and mostly all speak a little English.  There are also the boatmen, who are a well-behaved, well-dressed lot of men, whose homes are in Archangel.  They, as well as the tradesmen, come every spring, and leave when the port closes in the autumn.  In the sailing-ship days each of the greengrocers—­as they were called, though they sold all kinds of stores besides—­had their connection.  Every afternoon, between four and six, batches of captains were to be found seated in a greengrocer’s shop having a glass of tea with a piece of lemon in it.  It was then they spun their yarns in detail about their passages, their owners, their mates, their crews, and their loading and discharging.  If their vessels were unchartered they discussed that too, but whenever they got authority from their owners to charter on the best possible terms they became reticent and sly with each other.  To exchange views as to the rate that should be accepted would have been regarded as a decided token of business incapacity.  Supposing two captains had their vessels unchartered, each would give instructions to be called early in the morning, that they might go in the first boat to St. Petersburg, and neither would know what the other intended.  When they met aboard the passenger boat they would lie to each other grotesquely about what was taking them to town.  If they were unsuccessful in fixing, they rarely disclosed what had been offered; and this would go on for days, until they had to fix; then they would draw closer to each other, and relate in the most minute fashion the history of all the negotiations, and how cleverly they had gained this or that advantage over the charterers; whereas, in truth, their agents or brokers had great trouble in getting some of them to understand the precise nature of the business that was being negotiated.  The following is an instance.