Unable to remain longer in Moscow, I prepared for my journey for St. Petersburgh. Several diligences run regularly between these two great cities; one of which, the Velocifère, is superior to any public conveyance on the Continent of Europe. I took my place in that, and two days beforehand sent my passport to be viséd. I sent for it the next day, and it was not ready. I went myself, and could not get it. I knew that nothing could be done at the Russian offices without paying for it, and was ready and willing to do so, and time after time I called the attention of the officer to my passport. He replied coolly, "Dans un instant," and, turning to something else, kept me waiting two hours; and when at length he took it up and arranged it, he led me down stairs out of sight to receive the expected douceur. He was a well-dressed man, with the large government button on his coat, and rather distingué in his appearance and manners. I took the passport, folded it up, and put it in my pocket with a coolness equal to his own, and with malicious pleasure put into his hand a single ruble, equal to twenty cents of our money; he expected at least twenty-five rubles, or about five dollars, and his look of rage and disappointment amply repaid me for all the vexation he had caused by his delay. I bade him farewell with a smile that almost drove him mad.

Bribery is said to be almost universal among the inferior officers of government, and there is a story of a Frenchman in Russia which illustrates the system. He had an office, of which the salary was so small that he could not live upon it. At first he would not take bribes, but stern necessity drove him to it, and while he was about it he did the thing handsomely. Having overreached the mark, and been guilty of being detected, he was brought before the proper tribunal; and when asked, "Why did you take a bribe?" his answer was original and conclusive, "I take, thou takest, he takes, we take, you take, they take!"

I told the marquis the story of my parting interview at the police-office, which he said was capital, but startled me by suggesting that, if there should happen to be any irregularity, I would have great trouble in getting it rectified; even this, however, did not disturb my immediate satisfaction, and, fortunately, all was right.

The morning of my departure, before I was out of bed, the marquis was in my room. Meeting with me had revived in him feelings long since dead; and at the moment of parting he told me, what his pride had till that moment concealed, that his heart yearned once more to his kindred; and that, if he had the means, old as he was, he would go to America. And yet, though his frame trembled and his voice was broken, and his lamp was almost burned out, his spirit was as high as when he fought the battles of the empire; and he told me to say to them that he would not come to be a dependant upon their bounty; that he could repay all they should do for him by teaching their children. He gave me his last painting, which he regarded with the pride of an artist, as a souvenir for his sister; but having no means of carrying it safely, I was obliged to return it to him. He remained with me till the moment of my departure, clung to my hand after I had taken my place in the drosky, and when we had started I looked back and saw him still standing in the road. It seemed as if the last link that bound him to earth was broken. He gave me a letter, which I forwarded to his friends at home; his sister was still living, and had not forgotten her long-lost brother; she had not heard from him in twenty years, and had long believed him dead. Pecuniary assistance was immediately sent to him, and, unhappily, since my return home, intelligence has been received that it arrived only at the last moment when human aid could avail him; in time to smooth the pillow of death by the assurance that his friends had not forgotten him. And perhaps, in his dying moments, he remembered me. At all events, it is some satisfaction, amid the recollections of an unprofitable life, to think that, when his checkered career was drawing to its close, I had been the means of gladdening for a moment the old exile's heart.

I must not forget my host, the quondam exile to Siberia. In his old days his spirit too was chafed at living under despotism, and, like the marquis, he also hoped, before he died, to visit America. I gave him my address, with the hope, but with very little expectation, of seeing him again. A travelling companion once remarked, that if every vagabond to whom I gave my address should find his way to America, I would have a precious set to present to my friends. Be it so; there is not a vagabond among them whom I would not be glad to see.

My English companion and myself had seen but little of each other at Moscow. He intended to remain longer than I did, but changed his mind, and took a place in the same diligence for St. Petersburgh. This diligence was the best I ever rode in; and, for a journey of nearly five hundred miles, we could not have been more comfortably arranged. It started at the hour punctually, as from the Messagere in Paris. We rolled for the last time through the streets of Moscow, and in a few minutes passed out at the St. Petersburgh Gate. Our companions were a man about thirty-five, a cattle-driver, with his trousers torn, and his linen hanging out ostentatiously in different places, and an old man about sixty-five, just so far civilized as to have cut off the long beard and put on broadcloth clothes. It was the first time the old man had ever been on a journey from home; everything was new to him, and he seemed puzzled to know what to make of us; he could not comprehend how we could look, and walk, and eat like Russians, and not talk like them. My place was directly opposite his, and, as soon as we were seated, he began to talk to me. I looked at him and made no answer; he began again, and went on in an uninterrupted strain for several minutes, more and more surprised that I did not answer, or answered only in unintelligible sounds. After a while he seemed to come to the conclusion that I was deaf and dumb and turned to my companion as to my keeper for an explanation. Finding he could do nothing there, he appeared alarmed, and it was some time before he could get a clear idea of the matter. When he did, however, he pulled off an amazingly white glove, took my hand and shook it, pointed to his head, shook it, and touched my head, then put his hand to his heart, then to my heart; all which was to say, that though our heads did not understand each other, our hearts did. But though he saw we did not understand him, he did not on that account stop talking; indeed, he talked incessantly, and the only way of stopping him was to look directly in his face and talk back again; and I read him long lectures, particularly upon the snares and temptations of the world into which he was about to plunge, and wound up with stanzas of poetry and scraps of Greek and Latin, all which the old man listened to without ever interrupting me, bending his ear as if he expected every moment to catch something he understood; and when I had finished, after a moment's blank expression he whipped off his white glove, took my hand, and touched significantly his head and heart. Indeed, a dozen times a day he did this; and particularly whenever we got out, on resuming our seats, as a sort of renewal of the compact of good fellowship, the glove invariably came off, and the significant movement between the hand, head, and heart was repeated. The second day a young seigneur named Chickoff, who spoke French, joined the diligence, and through him we had full explanations with the old Russian. He always called me the American graff or noble, and said that, after being presented to the emperor, I should go down with him into the country.

My worthy comrade appeared at first to be not a little bored by the old man's garrulous humour; but at length, seized by a sudden whim, began, as he said, to teach him English. But such English! He taught him, after a fashion peculiarly his own, the manner of addressing a lady and gentleman in English; and very soon, with the remarkable facility of the Russians in acquiring languages, the old man, utterly unconscious of their meaning, repeated the words with extraordinary distinctness; and regularly, when he took his place in the diligence, he accompanied the significant movements of his hand, head, and heart to me with the not very elegant address taught him by my companion. Though compelled to smile inwardly at the absurdity of the thing, I could not but feel the inherent impropriety of the conduct of my eccentric fellow-traveller; and ventured to suggest to him that, though he had an undoubted right to do as he pleased in matters that could not implicate me, yet, independent of the very questionable character of the joke itself (for the words savoured more of Wapping than of St. James's), as we were known to have travelled together, a portion of the credit of having taught the old Russian English might fall upon me—an honour of which I was not covetous, and, therefore, should tell the old man never to repeat the words he had been taught, which I did without assigning any reason for it, and before we arrived at St. Petersburgh he had forgotten them.

The road from Moscow to St. Petersburgh is now one of the best in Europe. It is Macadamized nearly the whole way, and a great part is bordered with trees; the posthouses are generally large and handsome, under the direction of government, where soup, cutlets, &c., are always ready at a moment's notice, at prices regulated by a tariff hanging up in the room, which, however, being written in Russian, was of no particular use to us. The country is comparatively thickly settled, and villages are numerous. Even on this road, however, the villages are forlorn things, being generally the property and occupied by the serfs of the seigneurs, and consisting of a single long street, with houses on both sides built of logs, the better sort squared, with the gable end to the street, the roofs projecting two or three feet from the houses, and sometimes ornamented with rude carving and small holes for windows. We passed several chateaux, large, imposing buildings, with parks and gardens, and a large church, painted white, with a green dome surmounted by a cross.

In many places on the road are chapels with figures of the Panagia, or all holy Virgin, or some of the saints; and our old Russian, constantly on the lookout for them, never passed one without taking off his hat and going through the whole formula of crosses; sometimes, in entering a town, they came upon us in such quick succession, first on one side, then on the other, that, if he had not been engaged in, to him, a sacred ceremony, his hurry and perplexity would have been ludicrous. During the night we saw fires ahead, and a little off the road were the bivouacs of teamsters or wayfarers, who could not pay for lodging in a miserable Russian hut. All the way we met the great caravan teams carrying tallow, hides, hemp, and other merchandise to the cities, and bringing back wrought fabrics, groceries, &c., into the interior. They were generally thirty or forty together, one man or woman attending to three or four carts, or, rather, neglecting them, as the driver was generally asleep on the top of his load. The horses, however, seemed to know what they were about; for as the diligence came rolling toward them, before the postillion could reach them with his whip, they intuitively hurried out of the way. The bridges over the streams and rivers are strong, substantial structures, built of heavy hewn granite, with iron balustrades, and ornamented in the centre with the double-headed eagle, the arms of Russia.

At Tver we passed the Wolga on a bridge of boats. This noble river, the longest in Europe, navigable almost from its source for an extent of four thousand versts, dividing, for a great part of its course, Europe and Asia, runs majestically through the city, and rolls on, bathing the walls of the city of Astrachan, till it reaches the distant Caspian; its banks still inhabited by the same tribes of warlike Cossacks who hovered on the skirts of the French army during their invasion of Russia. By its junction with the Tverza, a communication is made between the Wolga and Neva, or, in other words, between the Caspian and Baltic. The impetus of internal improvements has extended even to the north of Europe, and the Emperor Nicolas is now actively engaged in directing surveys of the great rivers of Russia for the purpose of connecting them by canals and railroads, and opening steam communications throughout the whole interior of his empire. A great number of boats of all sizes, for carrying grain to the capital, were lying off the city. These boats are generally provided with one mast, which, in the largest, may equal a frigate's mainmast. "The weight of the matsail," an English officer remarks, "must be prodigious, having no fewer than one hundred breadths in it; yet the facility with which it is managed bears comparison with that of the Yankees with their boom mainsail in their fore-and-aft clippers." The rudder is a ponderous machine, being a broad piece of timber floating astern twelve or fifteen feet, and fastened to the tiller by a pole, which descends perpendicularly into the water; the tiller is from thirty to forty feet long, and the pilot who turns it stands upon a scaffold at that distance from the stern. Down the stream a group of Cossacks were bathing, and I could not resist the temptation to throw myself for a moment into this king of rivers. The diligence hurried me, and, as it came along, I gathered up my clothes and dressed myself inside.

About eighty versts from St. Petersburgh we came to the ancient city of Novogorod. In the words of an old traveller, "Next unto Moscow, the city of Novogorod is reputed the chiefest in Russia; for although it be in majestie inferior to it, yet in greatness it goeth beyond it. It is the chiefest and greatest mart-town of all Muscovy; and albeit the emperor's seat is not there, but at Moscow, yet the commodiousness of the river, falling into that gulf which is called Sinus Finnicus, whereby it is well frequented by merchants, makes it more famous than Moscow itself." Few of the ruined cities of the Old World present so striking an appearance of fallen greatness as this comparatively unknown place. There is an ancient saying, "Who can resist the gods and Novogorod the Great?" Three centuries ago it covered an area of sixty-three versts in circumference, and contained a population of more than four hundred thousand inhabitants. Some parts of it are still in good condition, but the larger portion has fallen to decay. Its streets present marks of desolation, mouldering walls, and ruined churches, and its population has dwindled to little more than seven thousand inhabitants. The steeples in this ancient city bear the cross, unaccompanied by the crescent, the proud token showing that the Tartars, in all their invasions, never conquered it, while in the reconquered cities the steeples all exhibit the crescent surmounted by the cross.

Late in the afternoon of the fourth day we were approaching St. Petersburgh. The ground is low and flat, and I was disappointed in the first view of the capital of Russia; but passing the barrier, and riding up the Newski Perspective, the most magnificent street in that magnificent city, I felt that the stories of its splendour were not exaggerated, and that this was, indeed, entitled to the proud appellation of the "Palmyra of the North." My English companion again stopped at a house kept by an Englishwoman and frequented by his countrymen, and I took an apartment at a hotel in a broad street with an unpronounceable Russian name, a little off the Newski Perspective. I was worn and fatigued with my journey, but I could not resist the inclination to take a gentle promenade along the Newski Perspective. While in the coffee-room refreshing myself with a cup of the best Russian tea, I heard some one outside the door giving directions to a tailor, and presently a man entered, whom, without looking at him, I told he was just the person I wanted to see, as I had a pair of pantaloons to be mended. He made no answer, and, without being able to see distinctly, I told him to wait till I could go up stairs and change them, and that he must mend them strongly and bring them back in the morning. In all probability, the next moment I should have been sprawling on the floor; but the landlady, a clever Frenchwoman, who saw my error stepped up, and crying out, "Ah, Monsieur Colonel, attendez, attendez," explained my mistake as clearly as I could have done myself, and I followed closely with an apology, adding that my remark could not be intended as disrespectful to him, inasmuch as even then, with the windows closed, I could scarcely distinguish his person. He understood the thing at once, accepted my apology with great frankness, and, instead of knocking me down, or challenging me to fight with sabre or some other diabolical thing, finding I was a stranger just arrived from Moscow, sat down at the table, and before we rose offered to accompany me in my walk.

There could be no mistake as to the caste of my new friend. The landlady had called him colonel, and, in repelling the imputation of his being a tailor, had spoken of him as a rich seigneur, who for ten years had occupied the front apartments au premier in her hotel. We walked out into the Newski Perspective, and strolled along that magnificent street down to the Admiralty, and along the noble quays of the Neva. I had reached the terminus of my journey; for many months I had been moving farther and farther away, and the next step I took would carry me toward home. It was the eve of the fourth of July; and as I strolled through the broad streets and looked up at the long ranges of magnificent buildings, I poured into the ear of my companion the recollections connected with this moment at home: in boyhood, crackers and fireworks in readiness for the great jubilee of the morrow; and, latterly, the excursion into the country to avoid the bustle and confusion of "the glorious fourth."

At Moscow and during the journey I had admired the exceeding beauty of the twilight in these northern latitudes but this night in St. Petersburgh it was magnificent. I cannot describe the peculiar shades of this northern twilight. It is as if the glare and brilliancy of the sun were softened by the mellowing influence of the moon, and the city, with its superb ranges of palaces, its statues, its bridges, and its clear and rapid river, seemed, under the reflection of that northern light, of a brilliant and almost unearthly beauty. I felt like rambling all night. Even though worn with three days' travel, it was with me as with a young lady at her first ball; the night was too short. I could not bear to throw it away in sleep. My companion was tough, and by no means sentimental, and the scene was familiar to him; but he told me that, even in his eyes, it never lost its interest. Moonlight is something, but this glorious twilight is a thing to enjoy and to remember; and, as the colonel remarked when we sat down in his apartment to a comfortable supper, it always gave him such an appetite. After supper I walked through a long corridor to my apartment, threw myself upon my bed and tried to sleep, but the mellow twilight poured through my window and reproached me with the base attempt. I was not restless, but I could not sleep; lest, however, the reader should find himself of a different humour, I will consider myself asleep the first night in St. Petersburgh.

CHAPTER VI.

July Fourth. I had intended to pass this day at Moscow, and to commemorate it in Napoleon style by issuing a bulletin from the Kremlin, but it was a long time since I had heard from home. At Constantinople I had written to Paris, directing my letters to be sent to Petersburgh, and, notwithstanding my late hours the night before, I was at the postoffice before the door was open. I had never been so long without hearing from home, and my lips quivered when I asked for letters, my hand shook when I received them, and I hardly drew breath until I had finished the last postscript.

My next business was at the bureau of general police for a carte de sejour, without which no stranger can remain in St. Petersburgh. As usual, I was questioned as to my reasons for coming into Russia; age, time of sojourn, destination, &c.; and, satisfied that I had no intention of preaching democratic doctrines or subverting the government of the autocrat, I received permission to remain two weeks, which, according to direction, I gave to my landlord to be entered at the police-office of his district. As no stranger can stay in Petersburgh without permission, neither can he leave without it; and, to obtain this, he must advertise three times in the Government Gazette, stating his name, address, and intention of leaving the empire; and as the Gazette is only published twice a week, this formality occupies eight days. One of the objects of this is to apprize his creditors, and give them an opportunity of securing their debts; and few things show the barbarity and imperfect civilization of the Russians more clearly than this; making it utterly impossible for a gentleman to spend a winter in St. Petersburgh and go away without paying his landlord. This must prevent many a soaring spirit from wending its way hither, and keep the residents from being enlivened by the flight of those birds of passage which dazzle the eyes of the denizens of other cities. As there was no other way of getting out of the dominions of the Czar, I caused my name and intention to be advertised. It did not create much of a sensation; and though it was proclaimed in three different languages, no one except my landlord seemed to feel any interest in it. After all, to get in debt is the true way to make friends; a man's creditors always feel an interest in him; hope no misfortune may happen to him, and always wish him prosperity and success.

These formalities over, I turned to other things. Different from every other principal city I had visited, St. Petersburgh had no storied associations to interest the traveller. There is no Colosseum, as at Rome; no Acropolis, as at Athens; no Rialto, as at Venice; and no Kremlin, as at Moscow; nothing identified with the men and scenes hallowed in our eyes, and nothing that can touch the heart. It depends entirely upon itself for the interest it creates in the mind of the traveller.

St. Petersburgh is situated at the mouth of the Neva, at the eastern extremity of the Gulf of Finland. It is built partly on islands formed by the Neva, and partly on both sides of that river. But little more than a century ago, the ground now covered with stately palaces consisted of wild morasses and primeval forests, and a few huts tenanted by savage natives, who lived upon the fish of the sea. In seventeen hundred and three Peter the Great appeared as a captain of grenadiers under the orders of one of his own generals, on the wild and dreary banks of the Neva, drove the Swedes from their fortress at its mouth, cut down the forests on the rude islands of the river, and laid the foundations of a city which now surpasses in architectural magnificence every other in the world. I do not believe that Rome, when Adrian reared the mighty Colosseum, and the Palace of the Cæsars covered the Capitoline Hill, exhibited such a range of noble structures as now exists in the Admiralty Quarter. The Admiralty itself is the central point, on one side fronting the Neva, and on the other a large open square, and has a façade of marble, with ranges of columns, a quarter of a mile in length. A beautiful golden spire shoots up from the centre, towering above every other object, and seen from every part of the city glittering in the sun; and three principal streets, each two miles in length, radiate from this point. In front is a range of boulevards, ornamented with trees, and an open square, at one extremity of which stands the great church of St. Isaac, of marble, jasper, and porphyry, upon a foundation of granite; it has been once destroyed, and reared again with increased splendour, enormous columns of a single block of red granite already lifting their capitals in the air.

On the right of the façade, and near the Isaac Bridge, itself a magnificent structure, a thousand and fifty feet long and sixty feet wide, with two drawbridges, stands the well-known equestrian statue of Peter the Great. The huge block of granite forming the pedestal is fifteen hundred tons in weight. The height of the figure of the emperor is eleven feet, that of the horse seventeen feet, and the weight of the metal in the group nearly thirty-seven thousand pounds. Both the idea and the execution of this superb monument are regarded as masterpieces of genius. To immortalize the enterprise and personal courage with which that extraordinary man conquered all difficulties and converted a few fishermen's huts into palaces, Peter is represented on a fiery steed, rushing up a steep and precipitous rock to the very brink of a precipice; the horse rears with his fore feet in the air, and seems to be impatient of restraint, while the imperial rider, in an attitude of triumph, extends the hand of protection over his capital rising out of the waters. To aid the inspiration of the artist, a Russian officer, the boldest rider of his time, daily rode the wildest Arabian of Count Orloff's stud to the summit of a steep mound, where he halted him suddenly, with his forelegs raised pawing the air over the brink of the precipice. The monument is surrounded by an iron railing, and the pedestal bears the simple inscription, Petro Primo, Catharina Secunda, MDCCLXXXII.

On the other side of the square, and in front of the Winter Palace, raised within the last two years, and the most gigantic work of modern days, rivalling those magnificent monuments in the Old World whose ruins now startle the wondering traveller, and towering to the heavens, as if to proclaim that the days of architectural greatness are not gone by for ever, is the great Alexandrine Column, a single shaft of red granite, exclusive of pedestal and capital, eighty-four feet high. On the summit stands an angel holding a cross with the left hand, and pointing to heaven with the right. The pedestal contains the simple inscription, "To Alexander I. Grateful Russia."

Surrounding this is a crescent of lofty buildings, denominated the Etat Major, its central portion having before it a majestic colonnade of the Corinthian order, placed on a high rustic basement, with a balustrade of solid bronze gilt between the columns. In the middle is a triumphal arch, which, with its frieze, reaches nearly to the upper part of the lofty building, having a span of seventy feet, the entablature sculptured with military trophies, allegorical figures, and groups in alto relievo. Next on a line with the Admiralty, and fronting the quay, stands the first of a long range of imperial palaces, extending in the form of a crescent for more than a mile along the Neva. The Winter Palace is a gigantic and princely structure, built of marble, with a façade of seven hundred and forty feet. Next are the two palaces of the Hermitage, connected with it and with each other by covered galleries on bold arches; the beautiful and tasteful fronts of these palaces are strangely in contrast with their simple and unpretending name. Next is the stately Grecian theatre of the Hermitage. Beyond this are the barracks of the guards, then the palace of the French ambassador, then the marble palace built by Catharine II. for her favourite, Prince Orloff, with a basement of granite and superstructure of bluish marble, ornamented with marble columns and pillars. In this palace died Stanislaus Poniatowsky, the last of the Polish sovereigns. This magnificent range, presenting an uninterrupted front of marble palaces upward of a mile in length, unequalled in any city in the world, is terminated by an open square, in which stands a colossal statue of Suwarrow; beyond this, still on the Neva, is the beautiful summer garden fronting the palace of Paul II.; and near it, and at the upper end of the square, is the palace of the Grand-duke Michael.

Opposite is the citadel, with its low bastions of solid granite, washed all around by the Neva; beautiful in its structure, and beautifully decorated by the tall, slender, and richly gilded spire of its church. On the one side of the Admiralty is the senatorial palace, and beyond opens the English Quay, with a range of buildings that might well be called the residence of "merchant princes;" while the opposite bank is crowded with public buildings, among which the most conspicuous are the palace of the Academy of the Fine Arts; the Obelisk, rising in the centre of a wide square, recording the glory of some long-named Russian hero; the building of the Naval Cadet Corps, with its handsome front, and the barracks of the Guard of Finland; finally, the great pile of palace-like buildings belonging to the Military Cadet Corps, reaching nearly to the palace of the Academy of Sciences, and terminating with the magnificent Grecian front of the Exchange. I know that a verbal description can give but a faint idea of the character of this scene, nor would it help the understanding of it to say that it exhibits all that wealth and architectural skill can do, for few in our country know what even these powerful engines can effect; as for myself, hardly noting the details, it was my greatest delight to walk daily to the bridge across the Neva, at the summer gardens, the view from which more than realized all the crude and imperfect notions of architectural magnificence that had ever floated through my mind; a result that I had never found in any other city I had yet seen, not excepting Venice the Rich or Genoa the Proud, although the latter is designated in guide-books the city of palaces.

Next to the palaces in solidity and beauty of structure are the bridges crossing the Neva, and the magnificent quays along its course, these last being embankments of solid granite, lining the stream on either side the whole length of its winding course through the city.

I was always at a loss whether to ride or walk in St. Petersburgh; sometimes I mounted a drosky and rode up and down the Newski Perspective, merely for the sake of rolling over the wooden pavement. This street is perhaps more than twice as wide as Broadway; the gutter is in the middle, and on each side are wooden pavements wide enough for vehicles to pass each other freely. The experiment of wooden pavements was first made in this street, and found to answer so well that it has since been introduced into many others; and as the frost is more severe than with us, and it has stood the test of a Russian winter, if rightly constructed it will, no doubt, prove equally successful in our own city. The road is first covered with broken stone, or Macadamized; then logs are laid across it, the interstices being filled up with sand and stone, and upon this are placed hexagonal blocks of pine about eighteen inches long, fitted like joiner's work, fastened with long pegs, and covered with a preparation of melted lead.

When I left Paris I had no expectation of travelling in Russia, and, consequently, had no letter of introduction to Mr. Wilkins, our minister; but, long before reaching St. Petersburgh, I had made it a rule, immediately on my arrival in a strange place, to call upon our representative, whatever he might be, from a minister plenipotentiary down to a little Greek consul. I did so here, and was probably as well received upon my own introduction as if I had been recommended by letter; for I got from Mr. Wilkins the invitation to dinner usually consequent upon a letter, and besides much interesting information from home, and, more than all, a budget of New-York newspapers. It was a long time since I had seen a New-York paper, and I hailed all the well-known names, informed myself of every house to let, every vessel to sail, all the cotton in market, and a new kind of shaving-soap for sale at Hart's Bazar; read with particular interest the sales of real estate by James Bleecker and Sons; wondered at the rapid increase of the city in creating a demand for building lots in one hundred and twenty-seventh street, and reflected that some of my old friends had probably grown so rich that they would not recognise me on my return.

Having made arrangements for the afternoon to visit the Summer Islands, I dined with my friend the colonel, in company with Prince —— (I have his name in my pocketbook, written by himself, and could give a facsimile of it, but I could not spell it). The prince was about forty-five, a high-toned gentleman, a nobleman in his feelings, and courtly in his manners, though, for a prince, rather out at elbows in fortune. The colonel and he had been fellow-soldiers, had served in the guards during the whole of the French invasion, and entered Paris with the allied armies as officers in the same regiment. Like most of the Russian seigneurs, they had run through their fortunes in their military career. The colonel, however, had been set up again by an inheritance from a deceased relative, but the prince remained ruined. He was now living upon a fragment saved from the wreck of his estate, a pension for his military services, and the bitter experience acquired by a course of youthful extravagance. Like many of the reduced Russian seigneurs, he was disaffected toward the government, and liberal in politics; he was a warm admirer of liberal institutions, had speculated upon and studied them both in France and America, and analyzed understandingly the spirit of liberty as developed by the American and French revolutions; when he talked of Washington, he folded his hands and looked up to heaven, as if utterly unable to express the fulness of his emotions. With us, the story of our revolution is a hackneyed theme, and even the sacred name of Washington has become almost commonplace; but the freshness of feeling with which the prince spoke of him invested him in my eyes with a new and holy character. After dinner, and while on our way to the Summer Islands, we stopped at his apartments, when he showed me the picture of Washington conspicuous on the wall; under it, by way of contrast, was that of Napoleon; and he summed up the characters of both in few words, by saying that the one was all for himself, the other all for his country.

The Summer Islands on Sundays and fête days are the great promenade of the residents of the capital, and the approach to them is either by land or water. We preferred the latter, and at the Admiralty took a boat on the Neva. All along the quay are flights of steps cut in the granite, and descending to a granite platform, where boats are constantly in attendance for passengers. These boats are fantastically painted, and have the stern raised some three or four feet; sometimes they are covered with an awning. The oar is of disproportionate thickness toward the handle, the blade very broad, always feathered in rowing, and the boatman, in his calico or linen shirt and pantaloons, his long yellowish beard and mustaches, looks like anything but the gondolier of Venice. In passing down the Neva I noticed, about half way between low-water mark and the top of the quay, a ring which serves to fasten vessels, and is the mark, to which if the water rises, an inundation may be expected. The police are always on the watch, and the fearful moment is announced by the firing of cannon, by the display of white flags from the Admiralty steeple by day, and by lanterns and the tolling of the bells at night. In the last dreadful inundation of eighteen hundred and twenty-four, bridges were swept away, boats floated in some parts of the town above the tops of the houses, and many villages were entirely destroyed. At Cronstadt, a vessel of one hundred tons was left in the middle of one of the principal streets; eight thousand dead bodies were found and buried, and probably many thousands more were hurried on to the waters of the Gulf of Finland.

It was a fête day in honour of some church festival, and a great portion of the population of St. Petersburgh was bending its way toward the Summer Islands. The emperor and empress were expected to honour the promenade with their presence, and all along the quay boats were shooting out loaded with gay parties, and, as they approached the islands, they formed into a fleet, almost covering the surface of the river. We were obliged to wait till perhaps a dozen boats had discharged their passengers before we could land.

These islands are formed by the branches of the Neva, at about three versts from St. Petersburgh. They are beautifully laid out in grass and gravel-walks, ornamented with trees, lakes, shrubs, and flowers, connected together by light and elegant bridges, and adorned with beautiful little summer-houses. These summer-houses are perfectly captivating; light and airy in their construction, and completely buried among the trees. As we walked along we heard music or gentle voices, and now and then came upon a charming cottage, with a beautiful lawn or garden, just enough exposed to let the passer-by imagine what he pleased; and on the lawn was a light fanciful tent, or an arbour hung with foliage, under which the occupants, with perhaps a party of friends from the city, were taking tea, and groups of rosy children were romping around them, while thousands were passing by and looking on, with as perfect an appearance of domestic abandon as if in the privacy of the fireside. I have sometimes reproached myself that my humour changed with every passing scene; but, inasmuch as it generally tended toward at least a momentary satisfaction, I did not seek to check it; and though, from habit and education, I would have shrunk from such a family exhibition, here it was perfectly delightful. It seemed like going back to a simpler and purer age. The gay and smiling faces seemed to indicate happy hearts; and when I saw a mother playing on the green with a little cherub daughter, I felt how I hung upon the community, a loose and disjointed member, and would fain have added myself to some cheerful family group. A little farther on, however, I saw a papa flogging a chubby urchin, who drowned with his bellowing the music from a neighbouring arbour, which somewhat broke the charm of this public exhibition of scenes of domestic life.

Besides these little retiring-places or summer residences of citizens, restaurants and houses of refreshments were distributed in great abundance, and numerous groups were sitting under the shade of trees or arbours, taking ices or refreshments; and the grounds for promenade were so large and beautifully disposed, that, although thousands were walking through them, there was no crowd, except before the door of a principal refectory, where a rope-dancer was flourishing in the air among the tops of the trees.

In addition to the many enchanting retreats and summer residences created by the taste, luxury, and wealth of private individuals, there are summer theatres and imperial villas. But the gem of the islands is the little imperial palace at Cammenoi. I have walked through royal palaces, and admired their state and magnificence without one wish to possess them, but I felt a strong yearning toward this imperial villa. It is not so grand and stately as to freeze and chill one, but a thing of extraordinary simplicity and elegance, in a beautifully picturesque situation, heightened by a charming disposition of lawn and trees, so elegant, and, if I may add such an unpoetical word in the description of this imperial residence, so comfortable, that I told the prince if I were a Rasselas escaped from the happy valley, I would look no farther for a resting-place. The prince replied that in the good old days of Russian barbarism, when a queen swayed the sceptre, Russia had been a great field for enterprising and adventurous young men, and in more than one instance a palace had been the reward of a favourite. We gave a sigh to the memory of those good old days, and at eleven o'clock returned to the city on the top of an omnibus. The whole road from the Summer Islands and the great street leading to the Admiralty were lighted with little glass lamps, arranged on the sidewalks about six feet apart, but they almost realized the conceit of illuminating the sun by hanging candles around it, seeming ashamed of their own sickly glare and struggling vainly with the glorious twilight.

The next morning the valet who had taken me as his master, and who told others in the house that he could not attend to them, as he was in my service, informed me that a traveller arrived from Warsaw the night before had taken apartments in the same hotel, and could give me all necessary information in regard to that route; and, after breakfast, I sent him, with my compliments, to ask the traveller if he would admit me, and shortly after called myself. He was a young man, under thirty, above the middle size, strong and robust of frame, with good features, light complexion, but very much freckled, a head of extraordinary red hair, and a mustache of the same brilliant colour; and he was dressed in a coloured stuff morning-gown, and smoking a pipe with an air of no small dignity and importance. I explained the purpose of my visit, and he gave me as precise information as could possibly be had; and the most gratifying part of the interview was, that before we separated he told me that he intended returning to Warsaw in about ten days, and would be happy to have me bear him company. I gladly embraced his offer, and left him, better pleased with the result of my interview than I had expected from his rather unprepossessing appearance. He was a Frenchman by descent, born in Belgium, and educated and resident in Poland, and possessed in a striking degree the compounded amor patriæ incident to the relationship in which he stood to these three countries. But, as I shall be obliged to speak of him frequently hereafter, I will leave him for the present to his morning-gown and pipe.

Well pleased with having my plans arranged, I went out without any specific object, and found myself on the banks of the Neva. Directly opposite the Winter Palace, and one of the most conspicuous objects on the whole line of the Neva, is the citadel or old fortress, and, in reality, the foundation of the city. I looked long and intently on the golden spire of its church, shooting toward the sky and glittering in the sun. This spire, which rises tapering till it seems almost to fade away into nothing, is surmounted by a large globe, on which stands an angel supporting a cross. This angel, being made of corruptible stuff, once manifested symptoms of decay, and fears were entertained that he would soon be numbered with the fallen. Government became perplexed how to repair it, for to raise a scaffolding to such a height would cost more than the angel was worth. Among the crowd which daily assembled to gaze at it from below was a roofer of houses, who, after a long and silent examination, went to the government and offered to repair it without any scaffolding or assistance of any kind. His offer was accepted; and on the day appointed for the attempt, provided with nothing but a coil of cords, he ascended inside to the highest window, and, looking for a moment at the crowd below and at the spire tapering away above him, stood up on the outer ledge of the window. The spire was covered with sheets of gilded copper, which, to beholders from below, presented only a smooth surface of burnished gold; but the sheets were roughly laid, and fastened by large nails, which projected from the sides of the spire. He cut two pieces of cord, and tied loops at each end of both, fastened the upper loops over two projecting nails, and stood with his feet in the lower; then, clinching the fingers of one hand over the rough edges of the sheets of copper, raised himself till he could hitch one of the loops on a higher nail with the other hand; he did the same for the other loop, and so he raised one leg after the other, and at length ascended, nail by nail, and stirrup by stirrup, till he clasped his arms around the spire directly under the ball. Here it seemed impossible to go any farther, for the ball was ten or twelve feet in circumference, with a smooth and glittering surface, and no projecting nails, and the angel was above the ball, as completely out of sight as if it were in the habitation of its prototypes. But the daring roofer was not disheartened. Raising himself in his stirrups, he encircled the spire with a cord, which he tied round his waist; and, so supported, leaned gradually back until the soles of his feet were braced against the spire, and his body fixed almost horizontally in the air. In this position he threw a cord over the top of the ball, and threw it so coolly and skilfully that at the first attempt it fell down on the other side, just as he wanted it; then he drew himself up to his original position, and, by means of his cord, climbed over the smooth sides of the globe, and in a few moments, amid thunders of applause from the crowd below, which at that great height sounded only like a faint murmur, he stood by the side of the angel. After attaching a cord to it he descended, and the next day carried up with him a ladder of ropes, and effected the necessary repairs.

But to return. With my eyes fixed upon the spire, I crossed the bridge and entered the gate of the fortress. It is built on a small island, fortified by five bastions, which, on the land side, are mere ramparts connected with St. Petersburgh quarter by drawbridges, and on the river side it is surrounded by walls cased with granite, in the centre of which is a large gate or sallyport. As a fortress, it is now useless; but it is a striking object of embellishment to the river, and an interesting monument in the history of the city. Peter himself selected this spot for his citadel and the foundation of his city. At that time it contained two fishing-huts in ruins, the only original habitations on the island. It was necessary to cut down the trees, and elevate the surface of the island with dirt and stone brought from other places before he commenced building the fortress; and the labour of the work was immense, no less than forty thousand workmen being employed at one time. Soldiers, Swedish prisoners, Ingrians, Carelians, and Cossacks, Tartars and Calmucs, were brought from their distant solitudes to lay the foundation of the imperial city, labouring entirely destitute of all the comforts of life, sleeping on the damp ground and in the open air, often without being able, in that wilderness, to procure their daily meal; and, moreover, without pickaxes, spades, or other instruments of labour, and using only their bare hands for digging; but, in spite of all this, the work advanced with amazing rapidity, and in four months the fortress was completed. The principal objects of interest it now contains are the Imperial Mint and the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. Brought up in a community where "making money" is the great business of life, I ought, perhaps, to have entered the former, but I turned away from the ingots of gold and silver, and entered the old church, the burial-place of Peter the Great, and nearly all the Czars and Czarinas, emperors and empresses, since his time. Around the walls were arranged flags and banners, trophies taken in war, principally from the Turks, waving mournfully over the tombs of the dead. A sombre light broke through the lofty windows, and I moved directly to the tomb of Peter. It is near the great altar, of plain marble, in the shape of a square coffin, without any ornament but a gold plate, on one end of which are engraved his name and title; and at the moment of my entrance an old Russian was dusting it with a brush. It was with a mingled feeling of veneration and awe that I stood by the tomb of Peter. I had always felt a profound admiration for this extraordinary man, one of those prodigies of nature which appear on the earth only once in many centuries; a combination of greatness and cruelty, the sternness of whose temper spared neither age nor sex, nor the dearest ties of kindred; whose single mind changed the face of an immense empire and the character of millions, and yet who often remarked with bitter compunction, "I can reform my people, but I cannot reform myself."

By his side lies the body of his wife, Catharine I., the beautiful Livonian, the daughter of a peasant girl, and the wife of a common soldier, who, by a wonderful train of events, was raised to wield the sceptre of a gigantic empire. Her fascination soothed the savage Peter in his moodiest hours. She was the mediatrix between the stern monarch and his subjects; mercy was ever on her lips, and one who knew her well writes what might be inscribed in letters of gold upon her tomb: "She was a pretty, well-looked woman, but not of that sublimity of wit, or, rather, that quickness of imagination which some people have supposed. The great reason why the Czar was so fond of her was her exceeding good temper; she never was seen peevish or out of humour; obliging and civil to all, and never forgetful of her former condition, and withal mighty grateful."

Near their imperial parents lie the bodies of their two daughters, Anne of Holstein and the Empress Elizabeth. Peter, on his deathbed, in an interval of delirium, called to him his daughter Anne, as it was supposed, with the intention of settling upon her the crown, but suddenly relapsed into insensibility; and Anne, brought up in the expectation of two crowns, died in exile, leaving one son, the unfortunate Peter III.

Elizabeth died on the throne, a motley character of goodness, indolence, and voluptuousness, and extremely admired for her great personal attractions. She was never married, but, as she frequently owned to her confidants, never happy but when in love. She was so tender of heart that she made a vow to inflict no capital punishment during her reign; shed tears upon the news of every victory gained by her troops, from the reflection that it could not have been gained without bloodshed, and would never give her consent for the execution of a felon, however deserving; and yet she condemned two noble ladies, one of them the most beautiful woman in Russia, to receive fifty strokes of the knout in the open square of St. Petersburgh.

I strolled for a few moments among the other imperial sepulchres, and returned to the tombs of Peter's family. Separate monuments are erected over their bodies, all in the shape of large oblong tombstones, ornamented with gold, and enclosed by high iron railings. As I leaned against the railing of Peter's tomb, I missed one member of his imperial family. It was an awful chasm. Where was his firstborn child and only son? the presumptive heir of his throne and empire? Early the object of his unnatural prejudice, excluded from the throne, imprisoned, tortured, tried, condemned, sentenced to death by the stern decree of his offended father!

The ill-starred Alexius lies in the vaults of the church, in the imperial sepulchre, but without any tomb or inscription to perpetuate the recollection of his unhappy existence. And there is something awful in the juxtaposition of the dead; he lies by the side of his unhappy consort, the amiable Princess Charlotte, who died the victim of his brutal neglect; so subdued by affliction that, in a most affecting farewell to Peter, unwilling to disturb the tranquillity of her last hour, she never mentioned his name, and welcomed death as a release from her sufferings.

Leaving the church, I went to a detached building within the fortress, where is preserved, in a separate building, a four-oared boat, as a memorial of the origin of the Russian navy. Its history is interesting. About the year 1691 Peter saw this boat at a village near Moscow; and inquiring the cause of its being built differently from those he was in the habit of seeing, learned that it was contrived to go against the wind. Under the direction of Brandt, the Dutch shipwright who built it, he acquired the art of managing it. He afterward had a large pleasure-yacht constructed after the same model, and from this beginning went on till he surprised all Europe by a large fleet on the Baltic and the Black Sea. Twenty years afterward he had it brought up from Moscow, and gave a grand public entertainment, which he called the consecration of the "little grandsire." The fleet, consisting of twenty-seven men-of-war, was arranged at Cronstadt in the shape of a half moon. Peter embarked in the little grandsire, himself steering, and three admirals and Prince Mendzikoff rowing, and made a circuit in the gulf, passing by the fleet, the ships striking their flags and saluting it with their guns, while the little grandsire returned each salute by a discharge of three small pieces. It was then towed up to St. Petersburgh, where its arrival was celebrated by a masquerade upon the waters, and, Peter again steering, the boat proceeded to the fortress, and under a discharge of all the artillery it was deposited where it now lies.

Returning, I took a bath in the Neva. In bathing, as in everything else, the Russians profit by the short breath of summer, and large public bathing-houses are stationed at intervals along the quay of the river, besides several smaller ones, tasteful and ornamental in appearance, being the private property of rich seigneurs. I went into one of the former, where a swimming-master was teaching a school of boys the art of swimming. The water of the Neva was the first thing I had found regularly Russian, that is, excessively cold; and though I bathed in it several times afterward, I always found it the same.

At five o'clock I went to dine with Mr. Wilkins. He had broken up his establishment and taken apartments at the house of an English lady, where he lived much in the same style as at home. He had been at St. Petersburgh but a short time, and, I believe, was not particularly well pleased with it, and was then making arrangements to return. I had never met with Mr. Wilkins in our own country, and I consider myself under obligations to him; for, not bringing him any letter, I stood an entire stranger in St. Petersburgh, with nothing but my passport to show that I was an American citizen, and he might have even avoided the dinner, or have given me the dinner and troubled himself no more about me. But the politeness which he had shown me as a stranger increased to kindness; and I was in the habit of calling upon him at all times, and certainly without any expectation of ever putting him in print. We had at table a parti quarré, consisting of Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Gibson, who has been our consul, I believe, for twenty years, if, he being still a bachelor, it be not unfriendly to carry him back so far, and Mr. Clay, the secretary of legation, who had been twice left as chargé d'affaires at the imperial court, and was then lately married to an English lady in St. Petersburgh. After dinner, three or four American merchants came in; and at eleven o'clock, having made an appointment to go with Mr. Wilkins and see a boatrace on the Neva, Mr. Clay and I walked home along the quay, under that enchanting twilight which I have already so often thrust upon the reader, and which I only regret that I cannot make him realize and enjoy.

CHAPTER VII.