cruise in the Baltic, and to be frozen immovably in the harbors for six months out of twelve The will of the Czar can effect much, but it can not convert Russia into a naval power until he can secure a seacoast, and harbors which can not be shut up to him by a single hostile fortification. Russia can not be a maritime power till she is mistress of the entrance to the Baltic and the Black Sea. To the right and the left of the Admiralty stretch the great squares upon which stand the principal public edifices and monuments of the So much for the lower jaw of the monster that | lies in wait for the Russian capital; now for the upper:-Lake Ladoga, which discharges its waters through the Neva, is frozen over to an enormous thickness during the long winter. The rapid northern spring raises its waters and loosens the ice simultaneously; when the waters of the Gulf are at their usual level, the accumulated ice and water find an easy outlet down the broad and rapid Neva. But let a strong west wind heap up the waters of the Gulf just as the breaking up of Lake Ladoga takes place, and the waters from above and from below would suffice to in-capital; the Winter Palace, with its six thousand undate the whole city, while all its palaces, monuments, and temples would be crushed between the masses of ice, like "Captain Ahab's" boat in the ivory jaws of "Moby Dick." Nothing is more probable than such a coincidence. It often blows from the west for days together in the spring; and it is almost a matter of certainty that the ice will break up between the middle and the end of April. Let but a westerly storm arise on the fatal day of that brief fortnight, and farewell to the City of the Czars. Any steamer that bridges the Atlantic may be freighted with the tidings that St. Petersburg has sunk deeper than plummet can sound in the Finnish marshes from which it has so magically risen. constant occupants; the Hotel de l'Etat Major, whence go forth orders to a million of soldiers, the Senate House, and the Palace of the Holy Synod, the centres of temporal and spiritual law for the hundred nations blended into the Russian Empire; the Church of St. Isaac, with its four porticoes, the lofty columns of which, sixty feet in height, are each of a single block of granite, and the walls of polished marble; its cupola covered with copper overlaid with gold, gleaming like another sun, surmounted by a golden cross, and forming the most conspicuous object to the approaching visitor, whether he comes up the Gulf, or across the dreary Finnish marshes; yet, high as it rises in the air, it sinks scarcely a less distance below the ground, so deep was it necessary to drive into the marsh the forest of piles upon which it rests, before a firm foundation could be secured. Here is the Statue of Peter-the finest equestrian statue in the world-reining his steed upon the brink of the precipice up which he has urged it, his hand stretched out in benediction toward the Neva, the pride of his new-founded city. Here is the triumphal column to Alexander, "the Restorer of Peace," the whole elevation of which is 150 feet, measuring to the head of the angel who-the cross victorious over the crescent Nor is this merely a matter of theory and speculation. Terrible inundations, involving enormous destruction of life and property have occurred. The most destructive of these took place on the 17th of November, 1824. A strong west wind heaped the waters of the Gulf up into the narrow funnel of the Neva, and poured them, slowly at first, along the streets. As night began to close in the rise of the waters became more and more rapid. Cataracts poured into doors, windows, and cellars. The sewers spouted up columns, like whales in the death-agony. The streets were filled with abandoned equipages, bears the symbol of the Christian faith above and deserted horses struggling in the rising wa- the capital cast from cannon captured from the ters. The trees in the public squares were Turks. The shaft is a single block eighty-four crowded with those who had climbed them for feet in height-the largest single stone erected refuge. During the night the wind abated, and in modern times; and it would have been still the waters receded. But the pecuniary damage loftier had it not been for the blind unreasoning of that one night is estimated at twenty millions obedience to orders, so characteristic of the Rusof dollars, and the loss of lives at eight thousand. sian. When the column had been determined All through the city a painted line traced upon upon, orders were dispatched to the quarries to the walls designates the height to which the wa-detach, if possible, a single block for the shaft of ters reached. Were ever house-painters before the length of eighty-four feet, though with scarceengaged upon a task so ghastly? But suppose ly a hope that the attempt would succeed. One that, instead of November, April had been writ-day a dispatch was received by the Czar from the ten as the date of this inundation, when the waters from the Lake above had met those from the Gulf below; St. Petersburg would have been numbered among the things that were-Ilium fuit. Nothing of the kind can be more imposing than the view of St. Petersburg from the tower of the Admiralty upon some bright June day, such as that on which I first beheld it from that post. Under foot, as it seemed, from the galleries, lay the Admiralty-yards, where great ships were in process of erection, destined for no nobler service than to perform their three months' summer superintendent, with the tidings that a block had been detached, free from flaw, one hundred feet long; but that he was about to proceed to reduce it to the required length. The sovereign mounted in hot haste to save the block from mutilation, and to preserve a column so much exceeding his hopes. But he was too late; and arrived just in time to see the sixteen feet severed from the block, which would otherwise have been the noblest shaft in the world. The length of these public places, open and in full view, right and left, from the "Admiralty tower, is a full mile. Stretching southward from the tower lies the "Great Side" of St. Petersburg, cut into three concentric semicircular divisions, of which the Admiralty is the centre, by three canals, and intersected by the three main avenues or Prospekts (Perspectives). These three Perspectives diverge like the spokes of a wheel from the Admiralty and run straight through the city, through the sumptuous quarters of the aristocracy, the domains of commerce, and the suburbs of the poor; while the view is closed by the mists rising from the swamps of Ingermanland. Turning from the "Great Side," and looking northward, the arms of the Neva diverge from near the foot of the Admiralty tower, as the Per spectives do from the southern side. The width of the Neva, its yielding bottom and shores, and the masses of ice which it sweeps down, make the erection of bridges so difficult that they are placed at very rare intervals, so that a person might be obliged to go miles before reaching one. But the stream is enlivened by boats and gondolas ready to convey passengers from one bank to the other. We were never weary of watching with a glass from the Admiralty tower, alternately, the river gay with boats and shipping, and the Perspectives thronged with their brilliant and motley crowd. With a somewhat different, but certainly no less absorbing interest, we gazed down from the same elevation into the works of the citadel, upon Petersburg Island, whose minutest details were clearly visible. This citadel is useless as a defense of the city against a hostile attack; but it furnishes a ready means of commanding the capital, and furnishes a refuge for the government in case of an insurrection. Like the fortifications of Paris, it is designed not so much to defend as to control the city. St. Petersburg is certainly the most imposing city, and Russia is the most imposing nation in the world-at first sight. But the imposing aspect of both is to a great extent an imposition. The city tries to pass itself off for granite, when a great proportion is of wood or brick, covered with paint and stucco, which peels off in masses before the frosts of every winter, and needs a whole army of plasterers and painters every spring to put it in presentable order. You pass what appears a Grecian temple, and lo, it is only a screen of painted boards. A one-storied house assumes the airs of a loftier building, in virtue of a front of another story bolted and braced to its roof. And much even that is real is sadly out of place. Long lines of balconies and pillars and porticoes, which would be appropriate to Greece or Italy, are for the greater part of the year piled with snow-drifts. St. Petersburg and Russian | civilization are both of a growth too hasty, and too much controlled from without, instead of proceeding from a law of inward development, to be enduring. the Neva, without having as yet become severe enough to drive every body from the streets. The Neva is the main artery through which pours the life-blood of St. Petersburg. But the life-current is checked from the time when the ice is too far weakened by the returning sun to be passable, and not yet sufficiently broken up to float down to the Gulf. At that time all intercourse between portions of the city on its opposite banks is suspended. Every body is anxious for the breaking-up of the ice. Luxuries from more genial climes are waiting in the Baltic for the river to be navigable. No sooner is the ice so far cleared as to afford a practicable passage for a boat, than the glad news is announced by the artillery of the citadel, and, no matter what the hour, the commandant and his suite hurry into a gondola and push over to the Imperial palace, directly opposite. The commandant fills a large goblet with the icy fluid, and presents it to the Emperor, informing him that his gondola, the first which has that year crossed the river, is the precursor of navigation. The Czar drains the cup to the health of the capital, and returns it, filled with ducats, to the commandant. Formerly it was observed, by some mysterious law of natural science, that this goblet grew larger and larger, year by year, so that the Czar who had swallowed Poland without flinching, and stood ready to perform the same operation upon Turkey, stood in danger of suffocation from his growing bumpers. Some wise man at last suggested that this tendency to the enlargement of the goblet might be counteracted, by limiting the number of ducats returned by way of acknowledgment. The suggestion was acted upon, and. greatly to the comfort of the Imperial purse and stomach, was found to be perfectly successful. The sum now given is two hundred ducats. This goblet of Neva water is surely the most costly draught ever quaffed since the time when brownfronted Cleopatra dissolved the pearl in honor of mad Mark Antony. The most striking winter spectacle of St. Petersburg, to a foreigner, is that of the ice mountains. They are in full glory during "Butter Week"-of which more anon-when Russia seems to forget her desire to be any thing but Russian. The great Place of the Admiralty is given up to the popular celebrations, and filled with refreshment-booths, swings, and slides. To form these ice mountains a narrow scaffold is raised to the height of some thirty or forty feet. This scaffold has on one side steps for the purpose of ascending it; on the other it slopes. off, steeply at first, and then more gradually, until it finally terminates on a level. Upon this long slope blocks of ice are laid, over which water is poured, which by freezing unites the blocks, and furnishes a uniform surface, down which the merry crowd slide upon sledges, or more frequently upon blocks of smooth ice cut into an appropriate form. The capital to be seen to advantage must be viewed during the few weeks of early summer; or in the opening winter, when the snow forms Two of these mountains usually stand oppoa pavement better than art can produce, and site and fronting each other, their tracks lying when the cold has built a continuous bridge over | close together, side by side. This is a national amusement all over Russia. | Ice mountains are raised in the court-yards of all the chief residents in the capital. And an imitation of them, for summer use, covered with some polished wood, instead of ice, is often found in the halls of private dwellings. In the Imperial palace is such a slide, built of mahogany. Street-life in St. Petersburgh presents many aspects strange to one who comes fresh from the capitals of other countries. One of the first things which will strike him is the silence and desertion of most of the streets. The thronging, eager crowd of other cities is here unknown. There is room enough, and to spare here. Broad streets, lined with rows of palaces, are as silent and lonely as deserted Tadmor, and a solitary droshka breaking the uniformity of the loneliness, heightens the effect. Leaving these broad, still streets, and mingling in the throng that presses in and through the Admiralty Place, the Nevskoi Perspective, or the Place of St. Isaac, the most noticeable feature, at first glance, is the preponderance of the military. The ordinary garrison of the capital amounts to 60,000 men. The Russian army comprises an almost infinite variety of uniforms, and specimens of these, worn by the élite of every corps, are constantly in the cap- | night, and never washed, he constantly affords ital. evidence of his presence any thing but agreeable There are the Tartar guards, and the Circas- to the organs of smell. But a closer acquaintsian guards, Cossacks from the Don, from the ance will bring to light many traits of character Ural, and from Crimea; guards with names end-which belie his rude exterior; and will show ing with "off" and "ski," unpronounceable by him to be at bottom a good-natured, merry, Western lips. The wild Circassian-enacting friendly fellow. His most striking characteristic the double part of soldier and hostage-silver- is pliability and dexterity. If he does not posharnessed and mail-coated, alternates with the sess the power of originating, he has a wonderful skin-clad Cossack of the Ural, darting, lance in faculty of copying the ideas of others, and of rest, over the parade-ground. There are regi-yielding himself up to carry out the conceptions ments uniform not only in size of the men, color of the horses, and identity of equipments, but in the minutiae of personal appearance. Of one, all the men are pug-nosed, blue-eyed, and red bearded; of another, every man has a nose like a hawk, with eyes, hair and beard as black as a raven's wing. Half the male population of St. Petersburg wear uniform; for, besides these 60,000 soldiers, it is worn by officers of every grade, by the police, and even by professors of the university, and by teachers and pupils in the public schools. of any one who wishes to use him for the accomplishment of his ends. There is an old German myth which says that the Teutonic race was framed, in the depths of time, out of the hard, unyielding granite. The original material of the Russian race must have been Indian rubber, so easily are they compressed into any form, and so readily do they resume their own, when the pressure is removed. The raw, untrained mujik is drafted into the army, and in a few weeks attains a precision of movement more like an automaton than a human being. He becomes a trader, and the Jews themselves can not match him in cunning and artifice. The mujik is a thoroughly good-tempered fellow. Address him kindly, and his face unbends at once, and you will find that he takes a sincere delight in doing you a kindness. In no capital of Europe are the temptations to crimes against the person so numerous as in St. Petersburg, with its broad lonely streets, unlighted at night, and scantily patrolled; but in no capital are such Turning from the military to the civil portion of the population, the same brilliant variety of costumes every where meets the eye. The sobersuited native of western and civilized Europe, jostles the brilliant silken robes of the Persian or Bokharian; the Chinaman flaunts his dangling pig-tail, ingeniously pieced out by artificial means, in the face of the smoothly-shorn Englishman; the white-toothed Arab meets the tobacco-stained German; Yankee sailors and adventurers, portly English merchants, canny Scotch-crimes of so rare occurrence. men, dwarfish Finlanders, stupid Lettes, diminutive Kamtschatkians, each in his own national costume, make up a lively picture; while underlying all, and more worthy of note than all, are the true Russian peasantry; the original stock out of which Peter and his successors have fash-cups he is the same good-natured fellow. The ioned their mighty empire. But the mujik has two faults. He is a thorough rogue, and a great drunkard. He will cheat and guzzle from sheer love for the practices; and without the least apparent feeling that there is any thing out of the way in so doing. But in his Irishman or Scotchman when drunk is quarrelThe Russian of the lower orders is any thing some and pugnacious; the German or the Enbut an inviting personage, at first sight. The glishman, stupid and brutal; the Spaniard or Italname by which they have been designated, in ian, revengeful and treacherous. The first stages their own language, time out of mind, describes of drunkenness in the mujik are manifested by them precisely. It is tschornoi narod, “the dirty loquacity. The drunker he is the more gay and people," or as we might more freely render it, genial does he grow; till at last he is ready to "The Great Unwashed." An individual of this throw himself upon the neck of his worst enemy class is called a mujik. He is usually of mid- and exchange embraces with him. When the dle stature, with small light eyes, level cheeks, last stage has been reached, and he starts for his and flat nose, of which the tip is turned up so as home, he does not reel, but marches straight on, to display the somewhat expanded nostril. His till some accidental obstruction trips him up into pride and glory is his beard, which he wears as the mire, where he lies unnoticed and unmolestlong and shaggy as nature will allow. The backed till a policeman takes charge of him. This of the head is shaved closely; and as he wears misadventure is turned to public advantage, for nothing about his neck, his head stands distinctly away from his body. His ideal of the beauty of the human head, as seen from behind, seems to be to make it resemble, as nearly as may be, a turnip. He is always noisy and never clean; and when wrapped in his sheepskin mantle, or caftan of blue cloth reaching to his knees, might easily enough be taken for a bandit. As he seldom thinks of changing his inner garments more than once a week, and as his outer raiment lasts half his lifetime, and is never laid aside during the by an old custom every person, male or female, of what grade soever, taken up drunk in the street by the police, is obliged the next day to sweep the streets for a certain number of hours. In our early rambles we often came across a woeful group thus improving the ways of others, in punishment for having taken too little heed of their own. In vino veritas may perhaps be true of the juice of the grape; but it is not so of the bad brandy which is the favorite drink of the mujik. He is never too drunk to be a rogue, but yet you do not look upon his roguery as you do upon that of any other people. He never professes to be honest; and does not see any reason why he should be so. He seems so utterly unconscious of any thing reprehensible in roguery, that you unconsciously give him the benefit of his ignorance. If he victimizes you, you look upon him as upon a clever professor of legerdemain, who has cheated you in spite of your senses; but you hardly hold him morally responsible. Upon the whole, though you can not respect the mujik, you can hardly avoid having a sort of liking for him. Perhaps the most thoroughly Russian of all the tschornoi narod are the isvoshtshiks, or public drivers; at least they are the class with whom the traveler comes most immediately and necessarily into contact, and from whom he derives his idea of them. Such is the extent of St. Petersburg, that when the foreigner has sated his curiosity with the general aspect of the streets, he finds that he can not afford time to walk from one object of interest to another. Moreover, in win ter-and here winter means fully six months in the year-the streets are spread with a thick covering of snow, which soon becomes beaten up into powdered crystals, through which locomotion is as difficult as through the deepest sands of Sahara; and the wind whirls these keen crystals about like the sand-clouds of the desert. Every body not to the manner born, whose pleasures or avocations call him abroad, is glad to draw his mantle over his face, and creeping into a sledge, wrap himself up as closely as he may in furs. In spring and summer, when the streets are usually either a marsh or choked with intolerable dust, pedestrianism is equally disagreeable. All this has called into requisition a host of Jehus, so that the stranger who has mastered enough Russian to call out Davai ishvoshtshik!" Here, driver!" or even lifts his hand by way of signal, has seldom need to repeat the summons. Like his cart-borne kindred, the Tartars and Scythians, the ishvoshtshik makes his vehicle his home. In it he eats, drinks, and often sleeps, rolling himself up into a ball in the bottom, to |