Detained at Customs; Miss Dee's Boarding House

The Winter Palace about 1840 by Ferdinand Victor Perrot

The River Neva is a fine broad noble looking river and formerly / this is denied by some & asserted by others.

had a fine channel but one of the former Emperors placed a bar in its bed for the purpose of preventing any vessels of war coming to the City.  It is said that if any one should be found sounding the river, he would
in all probability be sent to Siberia.  At Cronstadt is a very fine [8] Navy Yard, and almost completely filled with fine ships, though the Russians have not at the present moment a large Fleet at sea. On our arriving at the City (which from its being now being [sic] quite dark & raining we had not opportunity of seeing well, we were detained for some length of time for the Custom House officers to board us.  On our passports being delivered up to us, we were obliged to go through the same examination for the third time.  When after a quite rigorous personal examination we were allowed to go on shore, through without  the least article of our luggage, not even a dressing case.  After a short walk we four Yankees proceeded to Miss Dee’s an American landlady where we were made quite comfortable, and found the house filled with American Captains though no travellers.*  
*"From the total absence of everything like comfort, cleanliness, or attendance, at the hotels in St. Petersburg, several boarding-houses have sprung into existence ; which, being conducted by English women, combine every advantage that a traveller can expect or require. Those kept by Miss Benson on the English Quay, and by Miss Dee in the Galerny, are extremely good: the attention and arrangement of those ladies leave nothing to be desired. They are frequented by numbers of English and Americans, and occasionally by travellers of other nations; and, as English is naturally the language used, there is less constraint and reserve, probably, than at other tables in the empire of a public nature."  Edward P. Thompson, Life in Russia, or The Discipline of Despotism (London, 1848), 31.