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I admired the Tsar, he looked so noble. We went down into the cabins, the ladies sat part from the men in an adjacent saloon, where, during the banquet, no man except the Tsar was allowed to enter. There was a small round window, hung with red damask, in the partition between the two saloons. I sat next to it; raising the curtain a little I could see and partly hear what went on in the men’s apartment. Some of the things I have put down in my note book.

Long narrow tables, arranged in the shape of a horse shoe, were laden with cold dishes; pickles and fumados, anything that would create intense thirst. The food is coarse, the wines are good. For the furnishing of these banquets the Tsar allows the Admiralty from his private purse one thousand roubles, a vast sum for this country. The guests sat down anyhow, without any distinction of rank, common seamen next to the highest dignitaries. At one of the tables presided the Kniaz-Pope, the mock Prince-pope, surrounded by his cardinals. He solemnly pronounced “Grace and peace be unto you, noble assembly! In the name of Bacchus, and Ivaska Khmelnitsky, and the Spirit of wine. The drunkenness of Bacchus be with you!”