you will— the Bar I call it. It is not unlike
a railway refreshment-room; for, traversing it
longitudinally, there is a bar or counter, laden
with comestibles. No soup, no scalding water
discoloured and miscalled tea, no pork pies
or sausage rolls, however, here recal memories
of Wolverton and Swindon. The counter
stores at Heyde's consist of that by me
abhorred, by others adored, condiment, caviare:
caviare simple, in little yellow hooped kegs:
caviare spread on bread and butter: caviare
artfully introduced between layers of pastry.
Then there are all the dried, and smoked,
and pickled fishes, on little crusts of bread,
like what we call tops and bottoms; all the
condiments in the way of spiced and marinaded
meats, highly peppered sausages, and Russian
substitutes for our brawn and collared viands;
of which I have already spoken, as being
purchaseable in the refreshment-room of the
Cronstadt pyroscaphe. There are crabs, too,
and craw-fish, and some mysterious molluscs
floating in an oleaginous pickle, and which,
shell for shell, and saucer for saucer, bear a
curious family likeness to those immortal
WHELKS that, displayed on stalls, supported
by kidney-puddings and hot eel-soup, were
once the greatest glories of the pillars of
Clement's Inn.

Now, all these condiments are simply
incentives to appetite. You, who have travelled
in Denmark and Sweden, know that in private
as well as public houses, such buffets or
counters are set out, and that dinner is
invariably prefaced by a mouthful of caviare or
salted fish, and a dram of raw spirits. We
have but a very faint reflex of this
epigastrium-spurring custom in Western Europe:
—in France, in the oysters and chablis (or
Sauterne) by which a dinner bien monté is
preceded; in England, in the glass of sherry
and bitters, in which gastronomes will sometimes
indulge before dinner. In Russia,
dram-drinking and condiment-eating
preparatory to the prandial meal are customs
very widely disseminated. In every restaurant
you find such a counter in every wealthy
merchant's house. In old Russian families
too— noble families, I mean,— there are the
buffet, the caviare, and the drams; it is only
among the tip-top specimens of nous autres—
the great counts and princes, in whose
magnificent saloons you forget (for a moment) that
you are among savages, and believe yourself
to be in the Faubourg St. Germain, that you
find a disdain of this homely, Sclavonic,
tippling custom. The dram and fish buffet is
abolished, the dinner is served according to
the most approved models set forth by Ude
and Carêsne; but even under these
circumstances a slight innovation upon the Median
and Persian discipline of a Parisian cuisine
takes place. The apparently exiled drams
and condiments are handed round to the
guests by stealthy lacqueys. This is a mean,
furtive, underhanded way, I take it, of
drinking one's "morning," or rather "evening."

We can excuse him who takes his grog,
honestly, manfully, openly; but what shall
we say of the surreptitious toper who creeps
home to bed, hides the gin bottle under the
pillow, and gets up to drink drams while
honest men are sound asleep. In the United
States of America, I have heard that pickled
oysters and small cubes of salted cod are
frequently to be met with on the marble bars
of the palatial hotels; but I am given to
understand, that they are regarded less as
incentives to eating, than as provocatives to
drinking. It is well known that it is impossible
for our Transatlantic cousins to annex the
Universe, rig the market for the millennium,
and chaw up, whip, and burst up creation
generally, without a given number of " drinks"
(some authorities say fifty, some seventy-five)
per diem. It happens sometimes that the
Democratic stomach grows palled, the Locofoco
digestive organs shaky, the Hard Shell nerves
in an unsatisfactory condition. It is then
that the pickled oysters and salted cod whets
come into requisition. I wonder that some
of the enterprising aides-de-camp to Bacchus
the ginshop, and tavern keepers of London
do not take a leaf from the Russo-American
book! Dried sprats might cause the " superior
cream gin " to go off gaily, and little slabs of
kippered- salmon might cause an immense
augmentation in the demand for the " Gatherings
of Long John," or the "Real Glenlivat," or the
"Genuine L. L." As it is, broiled bones,
cayenned kidneys, and devilled biscuits, are
luxuries confined to the rich. Why should
the middle and lower classes be deprived of
the same facilities for the descent of that
Avernus which leads to the devil, as are
enjoyed by their more fortunate brethren!

As, in a " Journey Due North," it is
competent for me, I hope, to notice the
peculiarities of the countries one may traverse
before reaching the Ultima Thule, I may
mention that, in the taverns and beer-houses
of Belgium and Holland, although no condiments
are sold at the bar, women and boys
are continually circulating round the tables
with baskets, in which are hard-boiled eggs,
craw-fish, and sometimes periwinkles, which
they offer for sale to the beer-drinkers.

Although Hyde's is a German hotel, and
the younger Barnabay tells me that he is a
Lutheran, there is in the buffet the ordinary
inevitable Joss, or Saint's Image. He is a very
seedy Saint, very tarnished and smoke-blackened,
and they have hung him up very high
indeed, in one corner. He is so little thought
of, that Heyde's is the only public room I yet
know in Petersburg, in which the guests sit,
habitually, with their hats on. Nowhere else,
in shop, lavka, Angliski or Ruski Magazin,
would such a thing be tolerated. The hat
goes off as soon as one goes into any place
sanctified by the presence of the Joss. When
I go to buy a pair of gloves, or a book, or a
quire of paper, I take off my hat reverentially;
for is not Saint Nicholas, or Saint Waldemar,