To a stranger one of the most interesting sights is the breaking up of the ice on the large rivers. As spring advances, everybody is anxiously expecting the day when it will take place. Groups of people may be seen standing along the quays or banks, with their eyes all fixed on the same object, giving their opinion from past experiences, drawing inferences from the black and watery appearance of the ice, and gravely debating upon the probability of its disappearing “either to-day or to-morrow.” Gentlemen bet wagers on it, ladies chatter about it, peasants quarrel over it; every person is interested concerning it, and, when it is first seen to move, pleasure is expressed on every face. The breaking up of the ice of the Neva is by no means so magnificent a spectacle as that of the Volga or the Northern Dwina, although the whole of the frozen masses from the lake of Ladoga descend by its stream. How delighted I was when, for the first time, I saw the breaking up of the ice in the Dwina! Sometimes the immense blocks seemed to assume the shape of a lion, a dog, a swan, and every kind of figure, beautiful or grotesque, according to the fancy of the spectator. The rushing and crashing of the enormous masses in their onward journey to the ocean; the force with which they became heaped one on another, as if they were really endowed with life, and were struggling to obtain the foremost place in the watery race; the deep blue sunny sky that had succeeded the cloudy canopy of the dreary winter months; the flocks of wild swans; the solitary sea-mew, skimming with snowy pinions the liberated waves—formed a scene altogether strange and beautiful. Sometimes some huge bark would float by, like a wreck vainly struggling with its fate amid the sea of ice, and carried along with irresistible force; sometimes an uprooted pine or sombre fir might be seen dashing against everything in its way.