Baltic RussiaHarper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1890, Henry Lansdell

RUINS OF CATHEDRAL AT DORPAT.

 Continued from 302 Our host had invited to meet us Mr. A. Raby1, the English consul; Mr. Robinson, an old English resident at Riga; and some 303 others; and after dinner we were shown the stables and a trotting horse which was to run on the morrow upon the sands at the races, in expectation of which, preparations were going on. In the evening we went to a small pleasure garden where a band was playing, and the rank and fashion of the place, gathered from various parts of the interior, were walking.

We returned to Riga fully intending to post thence to Dorpat. This would be newer than the humdrum railway route. The distance was only 130 miles, and at Wenden, fifty miles on the way, we should have an opportunity to see one of the chief towns of Livonia, and its old church and castle, once the residence of the Masters of the Teutonic Order. The road would take us, too, through the picturesque valley of the Aa, called the Livonian Switzerland. We found, however, that we could not procure a Russian tarantass, in one of which I had travelled with comparative comfort some thousands of miles in Siberia, nor easily hire a conveyance to carry us right through; whilst to go in the rough post-carts of the country, changing at every station, was not inviting. So we took the advice of local friends to the effect that, though much further, it was easier to return to Dünaburg, go thence by rail to Pskov, and on by steamer to Dorpat.

Accordingly on Monday morning we left Riga at eleven, after six hours we regained Dünaburg, and arrived at Pskov at two in the night. Pskov is situated on the Velikaia River, which is about as long as the Thames, and flows into a lake named after the city. To this lake accordingly we steamed about eight o'clock next morning, and after ploughing across it from the southeast to the northwest, we entered a channel rather more than three miles wide, which brought us into Lake Peipus. Peipus, or Tchoodskoe2, is the fourth largest lake in Europe, and five times the size of the Lake of Geneva, its surface belonging to the provinces of Livonia, Esthonia, and St. Petersburg. It was on this lake that Peter the Great made his first experiment in navigation after the Western fashion, having with him on board a Scotchman, Patrick Gordon, who kept a log of the proceedings. The one river that flows out of the Peipus Lake into the Baltic is the Narova, on the north, whilst among several that flow into it is the Embach River, up which we steamed westward for about sixteen miles to Dorpat.