Russia Part 16

One morning there was a fall of snow; and the cream was brought in from the country in jars wrapped carefully round with matting to prevent its freezing. Hundreds of cabbages and thousands of potatoes, similarly protected, were purchased and stowed away.

Furlongs of wood (in Russia wood is sold by the foot), were laid up in the courtyard; an inspector of stoves arrived to see that every _peitchka_ was in proper working order; and an examiner and fitter-in of windows was summoned to adjust the usual extra sash.

At last the windows had been made fast, each pane being at the same time reputtied into its frame. On the window-sill, in the s.p.a.ce between the outer and inner panes, was something resembling a long deep line of snow, which was, however, merely a ma.s.s of cotton-wool placed there as an additional protection against the external air. Indeed, the winds of the Russian winter have such powers of penetration that, in a room guarded by _triple_ windows, besides shutters closed with the greatest exactness, I have seen the curtains slightly agitated when the howling outside was somewhat louder than usual. "The wind," says Gregorovitch in his _Winter's Tale_, "howls like a dog; and like a dog will bite the feet and calves of those who have not duly provided themselves with fur-goloshes and doubly-thick pantaloons." Such a wind must not be suffered to intrude into any house intended to be habitable.

Besides the cotton-wool, which is a special provision against draughts, the s.p.a.ce between the two sashes is usually adorned with artificial flowers; indeed, the fondness of the Russians for flowers and green leaves during the winter is remarkable. The corridors are converted into greenhouses, by means of trellis-work covered with creepers. The windows of many of the apartments are encircled by evergreens, and in the drawing-rooms, flower-stands form the princ.i.p.al ornaments. At the same time enormous sums are paid for bouquets from the hot-houses which abound in both the capitals. Doubtless the long winters have some share in the production of this pa.s.sion for flowers and green plants, just as love of country is increased by exile, and love of liberty by imprisonment.

There are generally at least two heavy snow-storms by way of warning before winter fairly commences its reign. The first fall of snow thaws perhaps a few days afterwards, the second in about a week, the third in five months. If a lady drops her bracelet or brooch in the street during the period of this third fall, she need not trouble herself to put out handbills offering a reward for its discovery, at all events not before the spring; for it will be preserved in its hiding-place, as well as ice can preserve it, until about the middle of April, when, if the amount of the reward be greater than the value of the article lost, it will in all probability be restored to her. The Russians put on their furs at the first signs of winter, and the sledges make their appearance in the streets as soon as the snow is an inch or two thick. Of course at such a time a sledge is far from possessing any advantage over a carriage on wheels; but the Russians welcome their appearance with so much enthusiasm, that the first sledge-drivers are sure of excellent receipts for several days. The _droshkies_ disappear one by one with the black mud of autumn; and by the time the gilt cupolas of the churches, and the red and green roofs of the houses, have been made whiter than their own walls, the city swarms with sledges. It is not, however, until near Christmas, when the "frost of St. Nicholas" sets in, that they are seen in all their glory.

The earlier frosts of October and November mayor may not be attended to without any very dangerous results ensuing; but when the frigid St. Nicholas makes his appearance,--staying the most rapid currents, forming bridges over the broadest rivers, and converting seas into deserts of ice,--then a blast from his breath, if not properly guarded against, may prove fatal.

It has been said that it is not until the _Niklskoi Maros_, or Frost of St. Nicholas, that the sledges fly through the streets in all their glory. By that time the rich "boyars"[1] (as foreigners persist in styling the Russian proprietors of the present day), have arrived from their estates, and the poor peasants, who have long ceased to till the ground, and have not thrashed all the corn, begin to come in from theirs; for, humble and dependent as he may be, each peasant has nevertheless his own patch of land. For the former are the elegant sledges of polished nut-wood, with rugs of soft, thick fur to protect the legs of the occupants; whose drivers, in their green caftans fastened round the waist with red sashes, and in their square thickly-wadded caps of crimson velvet, like sofa-cushions, urge on the prodigiously fast trotting horses, at the same time throwing themselves back in their seats with outstretched arms and tightened reins, as though the animals were madly endeavouring to escape from their control. The latter bring with them certain strongly-made wooden boxes, with a seat at the back for two pa.s.sengers and a perch in front for a driver. These boxes are put upon rails, and called sledges. The bottom of each box (or sledge), is plentifully strewn with hay, which after a few days becomes converted, by means of snow and dirty goloshes, into something very like manure. The driver is immediately in front of you, with his bra.s.s badge hanging on his back like the label on a box of sardines. He wears a sheepskin; but it is notorious that after ten years' wear the sheepskin loses its odour, besides which it is winter, so that your sense of smell has really nothing to fear. The one thing necessary is to keep your legs to yourself, or at all events not to obtrude them beneath the perch of the driver, or you will run the chance of having your foot crushed by that gentleman's heel. Sometimes the horse is fresh from the plough, and requires a most vigorous application of the driver's thong to induce him to quit his accustomed pace; but for the most part the animals are willing enough, and as rapid as their masters are skilful. The driver is generally much attached to his horse, whom he affectionately styles his "dove" or his "pigeon," a.s.suring him that although the ground is covered with snow, there is still gra.s.s in the stable for his _galoupchik_--as the favourite bird is called, etc., etc.

[Footnote 1: It would be equally correct to speak of the English n.o.bility of the present day as "the barons."]

As for the real pigeons and doves, they are to be found everywhere,--on the belfries of the churches, in the courtyards of the houses, in the streets blocking up the pavement, and above all, beneath the projecting edges of the roofs, where you may see them cl.u.s.tering in long deep lines like black cornices.

At home we a.s.sociate snow with darkness and gloom; but, when once the snow has fallen, the sky of Moscow is as bright and as blue as that of Italy; the atmosphere is clear and pure; the sun shines for several hours in the day with a brightness from which the reflection of the snow becomes perfectly dazzling; and if the frost be intense, there is not a breath of wind. The breath that really does attract your notice is that of the pedestrians, who appear to be blowing forth columns of smoke or steam into the rarefied atmosphere, and who look like so many walking chimneys or human locomotives. And if breath looks like smoke, smoke itself looks almost solid. Rise early, when the fires are being lighted which are to heat the stoves through the entire day, and if the thermometer outside your window marks more than 15, you will see the grey columns rising heavily into the air, until at a certain height the smoke remains stationary, and hangs in clouds above the houses. Looking from some great elevation, such as the tower of Ivan Veliki in the Kremlin, you see these clouds beneath you, agitated like waves, and forming a kind of nebulous sea, which is, however, soon taken up by the surrounding atmosphere.

It is astonishing how much cold one can support when the sky is bright and the sun shining; certainly ten or fifteen degrees more by Reaumur's thermometer, than when the day is dark and gloomy.

And the effect is the same on all. On one of these fine frosty days there is unwonted cheerfulness in the look, unwonted energy in the movements of everyone you meet. If there were the slightest wind with so keen a temperature, you would feel, every time it grazed your face, as if you were being shaved with a blunt razor,--for to be cut with a sharp one is comparatively nothing. But the air is calm; and as the day exhilarates you generally, it makes you walk more briskly than you are in the habit of doing in your _s...o...b.._ of cloth, wadding, and fur; and the result is, you are so warm and so surrounded by sunshine, that, but for seeing the cold, you might fancy yourself on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean instead of on the banks of the Moskva, which is now a long, shiny, serpent-like path of ice. In London, on a damp, foggy, sunless winter's day, when the thermometer is not quite down to freezing-point, the system is so depressed by the atmosphere and the cheerless aspect of the streets, that you feel the cold more acutely than you would do on a sunshiny morning in Moscow with ten degrees of frost. In St.

Petersburg, where the winter sun is, "as in northern climes, but dimly bright," and where the city is frequently enveloped in a mist (which is, however, ethereal vapour compared to the opaque fogs of London), the cold is, on the same principle, more severely felt than in Moscow. Nevertheless, in St. Petersburg people go about far more lightly clad than in the more southern towns of the empire,--for St. Petersburg is half a foreign city, and the numerous pedestrians have found it necessary to reject the ponderous _s...o...b.._ for a long wadded paletot with a fur-collar. The real Russian _s...o...b.._ is undoubtedly very warm; for it enables the Moscow merchant to go upon 'Change, which in the old capital, during the coldest weather, is held in the open air.

In considering the advantages and disadvantages of a Russian winter, one should not forget the question of rain. It is evident, then, that where there is frost there can be no rain; and accordingly, for nearly six months in the year, you can dispense altogether with that most unpleasant enc.u.mbrance, the umbrella. For it must be remembered that in Russia the snow does not fall in the soft feathery flakes to which we are accustomed in the more temperate lat.i.tudes. It comes down in showers of microscopic darts, which, instead of intercepting the light of the sun, like the arrows of Xerxes' army, glitter and sparkle in the rays as they reflect them in every direction. The minute crystals, or rather crystalline fragments, can be at once shaken from the collars of fur, on the points of which they hang like needles, but above all like Epsom salts; and on the cloth of the men's _s...o...b..s_ and the satin of the women's cloaks they have scarcely any hold.

The most pleasant time of the whole winter is during the moonlight nights, when the wind is still and the snow deep on the ground.

In the streets the sparkling _trottoir_, which appears literally paved with diamonds, is as hard as the agate floor of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin. In the country, where alone you can enjoy the night in all its beauty, the frozen surface crunches, but scarcely sinks, beneath the sledge, as your _troika_ tears along the road as fast as the centre horse can trot and the two outsiders gallop. For it is a peculiarity of the _troika_ that the three horses that const.i.tute it are harnessed abreast; and that while the one in the shafts, whose head is upheld by a bow, with a little bell suspended from the top, is trained to trot, and never to leave that pace, however fast he may be driven, the two who are harnessed outside must gallop, even if they gallop but six miles an hour; though it is far more likely that they will be called upon to do twelve. Lastly, the _troika_ must present a fan-like front; to produce which the driver tightens the outside reins till the heads of the outriggers stand out at an angle of forty or fifty degrees from that of the horse in the shafts. At the same time the centre horse trots with his head high in the air, while the two who have their existences devoted to galloping have their noses depressed towards the ground, like bulls running at a dog.

There may be enough moonlight to read by when the moon itself is obscured by clouds. But if it shines directly on the white ermine-like snow, which covers the vast plains like an interminable carpet, the atmosphere becomes full of light, and the night in its brightness, its solitude, and its silence, broken only by the bells of some distant team, reminds you of the calmness of an unusually quiet and beautiful day. As you turn away from the main road towards the woods, you pa.s.s groups of tall slender birch-trees, with their white silvery bark, and their delicate thread-like fibres hanging in frozen showers from the ends of the branches, and clothing the birch with a kind of icy foliage, while the other trees remain bare and ragged. The birch is eminently a winter tree, and its tresses of fibres, whether petrified and covered with crystal by the frost, or waving freely in the breeze which has stripped them of their snow, are equally ornamental. The ground is strewed with the shadows of the trees, traced with exquisite fineness on the white snow, from which these lunar photographs stand forth with wonderful distinctness. To drive out with an indefinite number of _troikas_ to some village in the environs, or to the first station on one of the Government roads, is a common mode of spending a fine winter's night, and one which is equally popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These excursions, which always partake more or less of the nature of a picnic, form one of the chief pleasures of the cold season. Of course such expeditions also take place during the day, but, whatever the hour of the departure, if there happen to be a moon that night, the return is sure not to take place before it has made its appearance.

_A JOURNEY BY SLEIGH_

_FRED BURNABY_

"Bring out another sleigh," said my friend. "How the wind cuts!

does it not?" he continued, as the breeze, whistling against our bodies, made itself felt in spite of all the precautions we had taken. The vehicle now brought was broader and more commodious than the previous one, which, somewhat in the shape of a coffin, seemed especially designed so as to torture the occupants, particularly if, like my companion and self, they should happen to be endowed by nature with that curse during a sleigh journey--however desirable appendages they may be when in a crowd--long legs. Three horses abreast, their coats white with pendent icicles and h.o.a.r-frost, were harnessed to the sleigh; the centre animal was in the shafts and had his head fastened to a huge wooden head-collar, bright with various colors. From the summit of the head-collar was suspended a bell, while the two outside horses were harnessed by cord traces to splinter-bars attached to the sides of the sleigh. The object of all this is to make the animal in the middle trot at a brisk pace, while his two companions gallop, their necks arched round in a direction opposite to the horse in the centre, this poor beast's head being tightly reined up to the head-collar.

A well-turned-out _troika_ with three really good horses, which get over the ground at the rate of twelve miles an hour, is a pretty sight to witness, particularly if the team has been properly trained, and the outside animals never attempt to break into a trot, while the one in the shafts steps forward with high action; but the constrained position in which the horses are kept must be highly uncomfortable to them, and one not calculated to enable a driver to get as much pace out of his animals as they could give him if harnessed in another manner.

Off we went at a brisk pace, the bell dangling from our horse's head-collar, and jingling merrily at every stride of the team.

The sun rose high in the heavens: it was a bright and glorious morning in spite of the intense cold, and the amount of oxygen we inhaled was enough to elevate the spirits of the most dyspeptic of mankind. Presently, after descending a slight declivity, our Jehu turned sharply to the right; then came a scramble and a succession of jolts and jerks as we slid down a steep bank, and we found ourselves on what appeared to be a broad high-road. Here the sight of many masts and shipping which, bound in by the fetters of a relentless winter, would remain imbedded in the ice till the ensuing spring, showed me that we were on the Volga. It was an animated spectacle, this frozen highway, thronged with peasants who strode beside their sledges, which were bringing cotton and other goods from Orenburg to the railway. Now a smart _troika_ would dash by us, its driver shouting as he pa.s.sed, when our Jehu, stimulating his steeds by loud cries and frequent applications of the whip, would vainly strive to overtake his brother coachman. Old and young alike seemed like octogenarians, their short thick beards and mustaches being white as h.o.a.r-frost from the congealed breath. According to all accounts the river had not been long frozen, and till very recently steamers laden with corn from Southern Russia had plied between Sizeran and Samara. The price of corn is here forty copecks the pood of forty pounds, while the same quant.i.ty at Samara could be purchased for eighteen copecks. An iron bridge was being constructed a little farther down the Volga. Here the railroad was to pa.s.s, and it was said that in two years' time there would be railway communication, not only between Samara and the capital, but even as far as Orenburg.

Presently the scenery became very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuira.s.s beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid ma.s.s. Pillars and blocks of the shining and hardened element were seen modelled into a thousand quaint and grotesque patterns.

Here a fountain, perfectly formed with Ionic and Doric columns, was reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from the diamond-like stalact.i.tes which had attached themselves to its crest. There a huge obelisk, which, if of stone, might have come from ancient Thebes, lay half buried beneath a pile of fleecy snow. Farther on we came to what might have been a Roman temple or vast hall in the palace of a Caesar, where many half-hidden pillars and monuments erected their tapering summits above the piles of the _debris_. The wind had done in that northern lat.i.tude what has been performed by some violent pre-adamite agency in the Berber desert. Take away the ebon blackness of the stony ma.s.ses which have been there cast forth from the bowels of the earth, and replace them on a smaller scale by the crystal forms I have faintly attempted to describe, and the resemblance would be striking.

Now we came to some fishing-huts, which were constructed on the frozen river, the traffic in the finny tribe which takes place in this part of Russia being very great, the Volga producing the sterlet (a fish unknown in other rivers of Europe), in large quant.i.ties. I have often eaten them, but must say I could never appreciate this so-called delicacy. The bones are of a very glutinous nature, and can be easily masticated, while the taste of a sterlet is something between that of a barbel and a perch, the muddy flavour of the former predominating. However, they are an expensive luxury, as, to be perfection for the table, they should be taken out of the water alive and put at once into the cooking-pot. The distance to St. Petersburg from the Volga is considerable, and a good-sized fish will often cost from thirty to forty roubles, and sometimes even a great deal more.

We were now gradually nearing our first halting-place, where it was arranged that we should change horses. This was a farm-house known by the name of Nijnege Pegersky Hootor, twenty-five versts distant from Sizeran. Some men were engaged in winnowing corn in a yard hard by the dwelling; and the system they employed to separate the husks from the grain probably dates from before the flood, for, throwing the corn high up into the air with a shovel, they let the wind blow away the husks, and the grain descended on to a carpet set to catch it in the fall. It was then considered to be sufficiently winnowed, and fit to be sent to the mill. The farm-house was fairly clean, and, for a wonder, there were no live animals inside the dwelling. It is no uncommon thing in farm-houses in Russia to find a calf domesticated in the sitting-room of the family, and this more particularly during the winter months. But here the good housewife permitted no such intruders, and the boards were clean and white, thus showing that a certain amount of scrubbing was the custom.

The habitation, which was of a square shape, and entirely made of wood, contained two good-sized but low rooms, a large stove made of dried clay being so arranged as to warm both the apartments.

A heavy wooden door on the outside of the building gave access to a small portico, at the other end of which there was the customary _obraz_, or image, which is to be found in almost every house in Russia. These _obrazye_ are made of different patterns, but generally take the form of a picture of saints or of the Trinity. They are executed in silver-gilt or bra.s.s relief, and adorned with tawdry fringe or other gewgaws. The repeated bows and crosses made by the peasantry before these idols is very surprising to an Englishman, who may have been told that there is little difference between the Greek religion and his own; but if this is the case, the sooner the second commandment is omitted from our service, the better.

It may be said that the Russian peasantry only look upon these images as symbols, and that in reality they are praying to the living G.o.d. Let any one who indulges in this delusion travel in Russia and talk to the inhabitants with reference to the _obrazye_, or go to Kief at the time of a pilgrimage to the mummified saints in that sanctuary, and I think he will then say that no country in the world is so imbued with superst.i.tious credences as Russia.

Above the stove, which was about five feet high, a platform of boards had been erected at a distance of about three feet from the ceiling. This was the sleeping resort of the family, and occasionally used for drying clothes during the day. The Russian _moujik_ likes this platform more than any other part of the habitation, and his great delight is to lie there and perspire profusely, after which he finds himself the better able to resist the cold of the elements outside. The farm-house in which I now found myself had cost in building two hundred roubles, about twenty-six pounds of our money, and her home was a source of pride to the good housewife, who could read and write, an accomplishment not often possessed by the women of this cla.s.s in the province of Russia.

By this time our former team had been replaced by three fresh horses, and the driver who was to accompany us had nearly finished making his own preparations for the sleigh journey. Several long bands of cloth, first carefully warmed at the stove, were successively wound round his feet, and then, having put on a pair of thick boots and stuffed some hay into a pair of much larger dimensions, he drew the latter on as well, when, with a thick sheep-skin coat, cap, and _vashlik_, he declared that he was ready to start.

The cold was very intense when we quitted the threshold, and the thermometer had fallen several degrees during the last half-hour; the wind had also increased, and it howled and whistled against the eaves of the farm-house, bearing millions of minute snowy flakes before it in its course. Presently the sound of a little stamping on the bottom of the sleigh announced to me that the cold had penetrated to my companion's feet, and that he was endeavouring to keep up the circulation.

Very soon that so-called "pins-and-needles" sensation, recalling some snow-balling episodes of my boyish days, began once more to make itself felt, and I found myself commencing a sort of double-shuffle against the boards of the vehicle. The snow was falling in thick flakes, and with great difficulty our driver could keep the track, his jaded horses sinking sometimes up to the traces in the rapidly forming drifts, and floundering heavily along the now thoroughly hidden road. The cracks of his whip sounded like pistol-shots against their jaded flanks, and volumes of invectives issued from his lips.

"Oh, sons of animals!"--[whack].

"Oh, spoiled one!"--[whack]. This to a brute which looked as if he never had eaten a good feed of corn in his life. "Oh, woolly ones!" [whack! whack! whack!].

"O Lord G.o.d!" This as we were all upset into a snowdrift, the sleigh being three parts overturned, and our Jehu precipitated in the opposite direction.

"How far are we from the next halting-place?" suddenly inquired my companion, with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n which showed that even his good temper had given way under the cold and our situation.

"Only four versts, one of n.o.ble birth," replied the struggling Jehu, who was busily engaged endeavouring to right the half-overturned sleigh. A Russian verst about night-fall, and under such conditions as I have endeavoured to point out to the reader, is an unknown quant.i.ty. A Scotch mile and a bit, an Irish league, a Spanish _legua_, or the German _stunde_, are at all times calculated to call forth the wrath of the traveller, but in no way equal to the first-named division of distance. For the verst is barely two-thirds of an English mile, and when, after driving yet for an hour, we were told that there were still two versts more before we could arrive at our halting-place, it began fully to dawn upon my friend that either our driver's knowledge of distance, or otherwise his veracity, was at fault.

At last we reached a long, struggling village, formed of houses constructed much in the same way as that previously described, when our horses stopped before a detached cottage. The proprietor came out to meet us at the threshold. "_Samovar, samovar!_" (urn), said my companion. "Quick, quick! _samovar!_" and hurrying by him, and hastily throwing off our furs, we endeavoured to regain our lost circulation beside the walls of a well-heated stove.

The Russian peasants are not ignorant of the good old maxim that the early bird gets the worm, and the few hours' daylight they enjoy during the winter months makes it doubly necessary for them to observe this precept. We were all up a good hour before sunrise, my companion making the tea, while our driver was harnessing the horses, but this time not three abreast, for the road was bad and narrow; so we determined to have two small sleighs with a pair of horses to each, and put our luggage in one vehicle while we travelled in the other.

Off we went, a motley crew. First, the unwashed peddler who had wished to be my companion's bedfellow the night before; then our luggage sleigh; and, finally, my friend and self, who brought up the rear, with a careful eye upon our effects, as the people in that part of the country were said to have some difficulty in distinguishing between _meum_ and _tuum_.

The sun was bright and glorious, and in no part of the world hitherto visited have I ever seen aurora in such magnificence. First, a pale blue streak, gradually extending over the whole of the eastern horizon, arose like a wall barring the unknown beyond; then, suddenly changing colour until the summit was like lapis-lazuli, and its base a sheet of purple waves of grey and crystal, radiating from the darker hues, relieved the eye, appalled by the vastness of the barrier; the purple foundations were in turn upheaved by a sea of fire, which dazzled the eye with its glowing brilliancy, and the wall of colours floating in s.p.a.ce broke up into castles, battlements, and towers, which were wafted by the breeze far away from our view. The sea of flame meanwhile had lighted up the whole horizon; the eye quailed beneath the glare. The snowy carpet at our feet reflected like a camera the wonderful panorama overhead.

Flakes of light in rapid succession bound earth to sky, until the globe of sparkling light arising from the depths of this ocean of flame dimmed into insignificance the surroundings of the picture.

Presently a sudden check and exclamation of our Jehu told us that the harness had given way, and a conversation, freely interlarded with epithets exchanged between the driver and the peddler, showed that there was decidedly a difference of opinion between them. It appeared that the man of commerce was the only one of the party who knew the road, and having discovered this fact, he determined to make use of his knowledge by refusing to show the way unless the proprietor of the horses who drove the vehicle containing our luggage would abate a little from the price he had demanded for the hire of the horse in the peddler's sleigh. "A bargain is a bargain!" cried our driver, wishing to curry favour with his master, now a few yards behind him. "A bargain is a bargain. Oh, thou son of an animal, drive on!" "It is very cold," muttered my companion.

"For the sake of G.o.d," he shouted, "go on!" But neither the allusion to the peddler's parentage nor the invocation of the Deity had the slightest effect upon the fellow's mercenary soul.

"I am warm, and well wrapped up," he said; "it is all the same to me if we wait here one hour or ten;" and with the most provoking indifference he commenced to smoke, not even the manner in which the other drivers aspersed the reputation of his mother appearing to have the smallest effect. At last the proprietor, seeing it was useless holding out any longer, agreed to abate somewhat from the hire of the horse, and once more the journey continued over a break-neck country, though at anything but a break-neck pace, until we reached the station--a farm-hause--eighteen versts from our sleeping quarters, and, as we were informed, forty-five from Samara.

_RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE_

_EUGeNE EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC_

The Russian people, composed of diverse elements in which the Sclav predominated at the moment when that vast empire began to be established under great princes and amid incessant struggle, was in too close communication with Byzantium not to have been to a certain extent in submission to Byzantine art; but nevertheless each of these elements was in possession of certain notions of art which we must not neglect.

The Sclavs, like the Varangians, knew scarcely anything but construction by wood, but at a comparatively early period they had already carried the art of carpentry very far, and in many different channels.

The Sclavs (as extant traditions show), proceeded by piles in their wooden buildings: and the Scandinavians resorted to joining and dove-tailing. Thus, the latter early attained great skill in naval construction.