if I possessed the quick pencil of Kaulbach, I might have filled a dozen leaver of my sketch-book.  The bourgeoisie were huddled on the quarter-deck benches, silent, and fearful of sea-sickness.  But a very bright, intelligent young officer turned up, who had crossed the Ural, and was able to entertain us with an account of the splendid sword-blades of Zlataoust.  He was now on his way to the copper mines of Pitkaranda, on the northeastern shore of the lake.

About nine o’clock in the evening, although still before sunset, the fog began to darken, and I was apprehensive that we should have some difficulty in finding the island of Konewitz, which was to be our stopping-place for the night.  The captain ordered the engine to be slowed, and brought forward a brass half-pounder, about a foot long, which was charged and fired.  In less than a minute after the report, the sound of a deep, solemn bell boomed in the mist, dead ahead.  Instantly every head was uncovered, and the rustle of whispered prayers fluttered over the deck, as the pilgrims bowed and crossed themselves.  Nothing was to be seen; but, stroke after stroke, the hollow sounds, muffled and blurred in the opaque atmosphere, were pealed out by the guiding bell.  Presently a chime of smaller bells joined in a rapid accompaniment, growing louder and clearer as we advanced.  The effect was startling.  After voyaging for hours over the blank water, this sudden and solemn welcome, sounded from some invisible tower, assumed a mystic and marvellous character.  Was it not rather the bells of a city ages ago submerged, and now sending its ghostly summons up to the pilgrims passing over its crystal grave?

Finally a tall mast, its height immensely magnified by the fog, could be distinguished; then the dark hulk of a steamer, a white gleam of sand through the fog, indistinct outlines of trees, a fisherman’s hut, and a landing-place.  The bells still rang out from some high station near at hand, but unseen.  We landed as soon as the steamer had made fast, and followed the direction of the sound.  A few paces from the beach stood a little chapel, open, and with a lamp burning before its brown Virgin and Child.  Here our passengers stopped, and made a brief prayer before going on.  Two or three beggars, whose tattered dresses of tow suggested the idea of their having clothed themselves with the sails of shipwrecked vessels, bowed before us so profoundly and reverently that we at first feared they had mistaken us for the shrines.  Following an avenue of trees, up a gentle eminence, the tall white towers and green domes of a stately church gradually detached themselves from the mist, and we found ourselves at the portal of the monastery.  A group of monks, in the usual black robes, and high, cylindrical caps of crape, the covering of which overlapped and fell upon their shoulders, were waiting, apparently to receive visitors.  Recognizing us as foreigners, they greeted us with great cordiality, and invited us to take up our quarters for the night in the house appropriated to guests.  We desired, however, to see the church before the combined fog and twilight should make it too dark; so a benevolent old monk led the way, hand in hand with P., across the court-yard.