So again I am in Germany; again I hear the rumble of huge wagons on the road, hear the cracking of the whip, hear the incessant ja wohl of the inn servants; again I see good Germans, with their ingenuous, honest physiognomies, with pipes or cigarettes in their mouths, as well as pretty German women dressed in varied clothing, with faces expressing trustful, meek dispositions, and carrying little baskets in their arms ….

To describe my trip from Petersburg to Travemünde (see Figure 1.7, Travemünde) would mean to repeat the same things I have said in the past. I will note only some differences. This time I sailed on the steamer Naslednik, the best among all the steamers in the Baltic Sea. Even a week before May 1 (the day of the scheduled departure from Kronstadt), the ice still covered the full expanse of the gulf from Kronstadt to Petersburg and stretched far into the sea. Nobody thought that the navigation channel would open by the appointed date, and I was so certain of my trip's delay that I scheduled a meeting for May 3 with the editors of the Voenny Leksikon. But all of a sudden, on April 26, fierce wind rose from the west, stirred the waters of the gulf, and crushed the ice. The surface was covered with large chunks of ice, which, though very friable, still impeded sailing. Even on the 28th, on Wednesday, in the steamship booking office, there was much doubt that the expected ship would make it, but on the 29th, in the morning, the Naslednik waited at the English Embankment. Redoubtable Captain Bos, who has plied the waves for around 30 years as if walking on dry land and who lost two sons to the sea, departed on the appointed day and hour for Travemünde, and on the fourth day at sea, encountered huge icebergs in the Gulf of Finland; he maneuvered among them for twenty hours, sometimes pressing forward, sometimes retreating, sometimes wading through—and at the appointed hour, he appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, having spent two days on the afterdeck without sleep and almost without any food.