_smörgås_, or "butter-goose" but the American term (if we had the
custom) would be "the whetter." On a side-table there are various plates
of anchovies, cheese, chopped onions, raw salt herring, and bread, all
in diminutive slices, while glasses of corresponding size surround a
bottle of _kümmel_, or cordial of caraway-seed. This, at least, was the
_zakouski_ on board the Valamo, and to which our valiant captain
addressed himself, after first bowing and crossing himself towards the
Byzantine Christ and Virgin in either corner of the cabin. We, of
course, followed his example, finding our appetites, if not improved,
certainly not at all injured thereby. The dinner which followed far
surpassed our expectations. The national _shchee_, or cabbage-soup, is
better than the sound of its name; the fish, fresh from the cold Neva,
is sure to be well cooked where it forms an important article of diet;
and the partridges were accompanied by those plump little Russian
cucumbers, which are so tender and flavorous that they deserve to be
called fruit rather than vegetables.

When we went on deck to light our Riga cigars, the boat was approaching
Schlüsselburg, at the outlet of the lake. Here the Neva, just born,
sweeps in two broad arms around the island which bears the
Key-Fortress,--the key by which Peter opened this river-door to the Gulf
of Finland. The pretty town of the same name is on the south bank, and
in the centre of its front yawn the granite gates of the canal which,
for a hundred versts, skirts the southern shore of the lake, forming,
with the Volkhoff River and another canal beyond, a summer communication
with the vast regions watered by the Volga and its affluents. The Ladoga
Canal, by which the heavy barges laden with hemp from Mid-Russia, and
wool from the Ural, and wood from the Valdaï Hills, avoid the sudden
storms of the lake, was also the work of Peter the Great. I should have
gone on shore to inspect the locks, but for the discouraging persistence