nd chapels in the city, most of
which are crowned with four or five fantastic cupolas each, and whose
interiors are opulent in gold, silver, and precious stones, together
with a large array of priestly vestments elaborately decked with gold
and ornamented with gems. It is a city of churches and palaces. Peter
the Great and Catherine II., who has been called the female Peter,
made this brilliant capital what it is. Everything that meets the eye
is colossal. The superb Alexander Column, erected about fifty years
ago, is a solid shaft of mottled red granite, and the loftiest
monolith in the world. On its pedestal is inscribed this simple line:
"To Alexander I. Grateful Russia." It is surmounted by an angelic
figure,--the whole structure being one hundred and fifty-four feet
high, and the column itself fourteen feet in diameter at the base;
but so large is the square in which it stands that the shaft loses
much of its colossal effect. This grand column was brought from the
quarries of Pytterlax, in Finland, one hundred and forty miles from
the spot where it now stands. It forms a magnificent triumph of human
power, which has hewn it from the mountain mass and transported it
intact over so great a distance. Arrived complete upon the ground
where it was designed to be erected, to poise it safely in the air
was no small engineering triumph. The pedestal and capitol of bronze
is made of cannon taken from the Turks in various conflicts. It was
swung into its present upright position one August day in 1832, in
just fifty-four minutes, under direction of the French architect, M.
de Montferrand. Just opposite the Alexander Column, on the same wide
area, are situated the Winter Palace,--the Hermitage on one side; and
on the other, in half-moon shape, are the State buildings containing
the bureaus of the several ministers, whose quarters are indeed, each
one, a palace in itself. This is but one of the many spacious squares
of the city which are ornamented with bronze statues of more or less
merit, embracing monuments of Peter, Catherine, Nicholas, Alexander
I., and many others.

The Nevsky Prospect is the most fashionable thoroughfare and the
street devoted to the best shops. It is from two to three hundred
feet in width, and extends for a distance of three miles in nearly a
straight line to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, forming all together
a magnificent boulevard. On this street may be seen the churches of
several dissenting sec