ST. PETERSBURG.

Peter the Great and his New Capital-The Building of the City-Inundations-Streets and Street Scenes-Cathedral of St. Isaac-The Fortress-Church of St. Peter and St. Paul-Story of Prince Alexis-Peter's Boat-Our Lady of KazanChurches and Monasteries-Russian Heroes and their Tombs-Royal Palaces, and Stories concerning them-The Czar Nicholas-The Police and the Actor-A Curious Code of Etiquette-Picture-Hunting-The Hermitage-The Cottage of Peter the Great-Monuments-Government Departments and Civic Institutions-Curiosities of the Museum-Libraries -Feasting and Fasting-Scenes on the Neva-The Future.

COMPARED with the greater number of the cities

whose historic monuments are described in the present work, the metropolis of Russia is but a creation of yesterday. At the beginning of the last century a few scattered Finnish fishermen were almost the only inhabitants of the district called Ingria, on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Finland. For nearly a century the territory, though formerly Russian, had belonged to Sweden, when, in 1702, Peter the Great, after a siege of several days, took the Swedish fort of Nyenschanz, which guarded the passage by the Neva to Lake Ladoga. Peter had resolved upon reorganising his country, and winning for it a place among the Powers of the West. He had been longing for a "window by which the Russians might look into civilised Europe," and accordingly determined to erect a new capital upon the desolate marshes and low swampy islands among which the Neva flowed on to the Gulf of Finland.

Accordingly, a vast number of peasants-Tartars, Calmucks, Cossacks, Ingrians, Finns, and Russians were collected and set to work, and employed constantly in deepening the river channels, raising the islands, and driving innumerable piles into the pestilential swamps. Peter personally superintended operations, dwelling in a cottage which is still in existence, and pushing forward operations with the indomitable energy of an iron will armed with absolute power. But for the enormous masses of workmen congregated together there no supplies could be obtained from the surrounding district, which had been devastated by long years of war, and the convoys that brought provisions across Lake Ladoga were often detained by contrary winds. Toiling on in cold and wet, badly fed, and almost without shelter in inclement weather, it is little to be wondered at that the foundations of the new city were laid at the cost of at least a hundred thousand lives.

But the Czar had willed that a great city should rise and be inhabited, and with him, to will was to perform. Year after year forty thousand peasants from every part of his dominions were sent there to labour. Foreign workmen were hired to build and embellish the city, and also to teach the natives. Nobles and merchants received imperative commands to come and build dwellings. The erection of stone mansions in any

other part of the empire was forbidden whilst the new capital was in progress. To assist in keeping up the supply of building materials, no vessel, large or small, was permitted to sail up the Neva, and no peasant's cart to enter the city, without bringing a specified quantity of building stones. After Peter's death, Catherine I. continued the work, though less vigorously. Peter II. preferred Moscow, and resided there till his death. The Empress Ann did much to adorn St. Petersburg, which henceforth became the settled residence of the Court. Various edifices and monuments have been since erected by successive monarchs. The Empress Catherine lined the left bank of the Neva with a granite quay, which has not, however, prevented several serious inundations since that time. As the result of so much imperial energy, and so much toil and suffering on the part of the wretched labourers, a vast and beautiful city has replaced the dreary marshes amidst which Peter dwelt and planned his future capital. But its maintenance, like its foundation, is a constant struggle with nature. It rests upon a substructure of piles, without which it would sink deep into the marshes below. All large buildings, the granite quays, the very foot-pavements, rest on piles. The district produces nothing except fish from the Neva, and for six months in the year the harbour is inaccessible. The winter is so severe that it is only by the assiduous labour of a host of workmen that the city can be annually restored, in readiness for summer visitors. Half a century of neglect would insure for St. Petersburg its complete destruction.

But the city is also liable to sudden dangers, that may at any time overthrow it. When westerly winds roll back the waters of the Gulf of Finland, the lower parts of St. Petersburg are submerged. Then alarm-guns are fired-with increasing frequency as the water rises-and the dwellers in the low districts are rescued in boats, and carried elsewhere till their dwellings can be again approached. In spring, when for a fortnight the Neva is flooded with the accumulated water and broken ice pouring down from Lake Ladoga, the occurrence of a westerly wind for twelve hours would produce results indescribably disastrous.

One of the most destructive inundations to which the city has been subjected occurred in November, 1824, when 15,000 lives were lost, and property destroyed to the amount of £1,000,000. It is said that Peter the Great was aware of the liability of the site to floods, but that he nevertheless persisted in his enterprise. Whilst the first piles were being driven into the soil, he happened to notice a tree conspicuously marked at a certain height from the ground. He called a Finnish peasant, and asked him what the mark signified. The man said it was the height to which the waters had risen in 1680. "It is a lie!" cried the angry Czar; "the thing is impossible!" With his own hand he cut down the tree that dared to foreshadow an obstacle to the attainment of his wishes.

St. Petersburg, as approached from the Neva, presents a most imposing aggregate of gilded domes, tall spires, and immense palaces and other public buildings. All is vast, and arranged on a plan so gigantic that even the loftiest buildings seem dwarfed. The immense edifices side by side become monotonous for want of grouping and variety. The most important part of the city is the southern portion; here are the principal buildings and finest streets; the Court, the nobility, and half the population reside

here. This district is divided into three parts by canals, which are crossed by the three principal streets of St. Petersburg, radiating from the Admiralty: namely, the Neva Perspective, the Peas Street, and the Ascension Perspective. The first of these is the Regent Street of the Russian capital, as regards life and fashion; it is 150 feet wide, and is lined on each side with elegant shops, palaces, and churches. All these three main avenues run straight through the city, like the spokes of a wheel, through the

sumptuous aristocratic quarter, the commercial regions, and the outskirts inhabited by the poor; the long vistas terminating in the mists that rise from the swamps outside.

St. Petersburg has been laid out on such an immense scale that, with the exception of a few chief thoroughfares, the streets present a deserted appearance. In some quarters the silence is oppressive. It is calculated that if every man, woman, and child were out of doors at one time, the streets and public places would afford them 400 square feet each. Many broad streets, lined with rows of broad mansions, are perfectly still, except for the passage of an occasional drojki. In the more crowded streets the predominance of the military element is very striking. The ordinary garrison of the capital is 60,000 men, and soldiers of various types-Tartars, Circassians, Cossacks-are constantly met with. But besides the soldiers, the police officers, university professors, public school teachers, and pupils all wear uniform; in fact, half the moving population bear a military aspect.

Amongst the civil portion of the populace a great variety of costumes are seen, both native and foreign. English, French, Americans, Chinese, Persians, Arabs, Finns, Kamschatkans, and many more many more varieties of human life mingle in the crowd. The Russian peasant, or mujik, moves about everywhere-noisy, dirty, a great cheat, and a great drunkard, but whether sober or not, a thoroughly good-natured fellow. It is as an isvóstchik, or driver, that he comes most in contact with visitors, for distances are SO great in St. Petersburg that nobody walks who can help it. The isvóstchik eats, drinks,

and sleeps in his vehicle, and is very merry with his fellows whilst waiting for a fare. All sorts of vehicles now ply for hire in this city, as in more western places, but the indigenous carriage is the drojki, a small four-wheeled carriage of a very primitive type, constructed to carry sometimes one, sometimes two persons. In winter the drojkies disappear, and are replaced by the sledges, gliding smoothly and noiselessly over the frozen surface of the streets.

Near the western end of the large open space a mile in length, contiguous to the Admiralty, stands the Cathedral of St. Isaac, the most magnificent church in the Russian Empire. The design is extremely simple, but its grand proportions and immense masses of costly material produce an imposing effect. Peter the Great planted a wooden church here in the infancy of the city; Catherine II. began another in 1766, which was replaced by the present splendid structure, commenced in 1819, and consecrated in 1858. To make

a firm foundation, a forest of piles twenty-one feet in length was forced into the marshy soil, at a cost of £200,000, and a further considerable sum was afterwards spent in strengthening the sub-structure on the side facing the Neva. Altogether, three millions sterling have been spent on this edifice.

The four sides are approached by broad flights of steps, formed of masses of Finland granite. On each side there is an entrance, with a peristyle of magnificent columns sixty feet in height, each column being a highly-polished granite monolith. The central cupola, which is covered with copper, overlaid with gold, rises to the height of 296 feet. It is surmounted by a golden cross, the top of which is 366 feet above the surface of the ground. The interior is gorgeous and imposing; porphyry, jasper, malachite, and other costly materials have been lavishly employed in the decoration of the walls and massive columns. The row of malachite pillars on each side of the high altar are especially admired. The inmost sanctuary, or Ikonostas, is approached by the "royal door" of bronze-work, which has on each side a column of lapis-lazuli, worth £6,000. The interior of this shrine (into which no woman may enter) is a grand display of gilding and polished marble. From the rotunda above the dome there is a splendid view of St. Petersburg; the broad river and its branches, the islands covered with buildings, the quays, streets, and public places, the palaces, columns and monuments, churches, mansions, and warehouses uniting to form a grand tout ensemble.

The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul forms part of the great citadel of which Peter the Great laid the foundation-stone in 1703. The present church dates from 1756, one or two predecessors on the same site having been destroyed by lightning. The cathedral is oblong in shape, 210 feet long by 98 feet broad, and the summit of the cross on the lofty spire is 371 feet above the ground-level. To this dizzy height, in 1830, a Russian peasant climbed, aided only by a nail and a rope, in order to repair the cross, which was showing symptoms of decay. In the vaults beneath the nave of the cathedral are the sarcophagi of all the Czars of Russia since Peter the Great, except only Peter II., who died at Moscow. The sites of the graves are marked by tombs in the church above. The tomb of Peter records the fact that the great Czar was 19 inches long at birth, and 5 broad. Opposite is the tomb of the Emperor Nicholas, and close by is that of the lamented Czarevitch, who died at Nice in 1865. The tombs of Catherine II., Paul, Alexander, and other rulers of Russia, are all here-plain, simple monuments generally, covered with black velvet palls-and last of all is that of the assassinated Czar, Alexander II.

Massive square pillars, adorned with pictures of saints, support the richly-painted roof, and huge silver candlesticks illumine the altar, which is a blaze of gold and silver. Amongst the treasured relics of the church are a head of St. James (asserted to be the real original one, although there are others elsewhere, for which equally strong claims are made), several limbs of saints, a robe of our Lord, etc. Military trophies of various kinds-flags, standards, keys, and battle-axes-are displayed on the walls of the church. These trophies were captured in wars with the Turks, Poles, French, and others; amongst them are flags that were taken from the soldiers of Napoleon during the ill-starred and disastrous expedition to Russia in 1812.