The project of going to St. Petersburg, into the very capital of Nicholas, was sufficiently strange, and, most certainly, it was not one which I had contemplated when I made sundry and manifold plans of evasion at Ekaterinski-Zavod; but, since leaving Archangel, I had been wandering pretty much on chance, with no other object than always to get near some sea or frontier, no matter which, and always to avoid remaining more than a few hours in any place where they were likely to ask me for my papers. Now the boat in question was to leave that very day; and there was something, even in the very strangeness of the enterprise, which seemed reassuring. Any capital appeared to me less dangerous than a small provincial town, and the event showed that I was not wrong in this calculation. By evening the boat was slipped from her moorings, and the navigation began, which, by Vytiégra, the lake of Onega, the river Svir, the lake of Ladoga, and the Néva, was to conduct me to the very walls of St. Petersburg. We rowed day and night, or floated past innumerable canoes, boats and ships, with which the lakes and rivers were literally covered; but, above all, past rafts of wood, also intended to supply the wants of the metropolis, and which, in some places, completely, obstructed the passage. We made a party of three--myself, the master, and his son, a stout young man, who, whenever we neared the banks, would get the horse out and fasten him to the boat, so as to help to draw it along. In spite of the smallness of the boat, its owner could not prevail on himself to refuse an occasional passenger, whom he would take up or put down at spots agreed upon; for how could he be expected to resist turning a penny from time to time? But these freights caused me the greatest distress, for the passengers could not be said to be members of any Temperance league, and I had to watch over the tipsiest ones, and once had even to jump into the water to pull out a poor wretch who had rolled overboard. As I do not wish to make myself appear better than I am, I must state here that I had a strong personal interest in the safety of these troublesome guests; for, had any disaster really occurred, we should have been obliged to stop, and report ourselves at the nearest police station, when the negotiation thereupon ensuing would, to a certainty, have been opened by a request for our papers; thus my charity was hardly of a very evangelical sort.