one sweep of the eye, but visible from time to time in the course
of an afternoon's ramble, are the most prominent characteristics of
this wonderful city. A vague sense of loneliness impresses the
traveler from a distant land--as if in his pilgrimage through foreign
climes he had at length wandered into the midst of a strange and
peculiar civilization--a boundless desert of wild-looking streets, a
waste of colossal palaces, of gilded churches and glistening waters,
all perpetually dwindling away before him in the infinity of space. He
sees a people strange and unfamiliar in costume and expression;
fierce, stern-looking officers, rigid in features, closely shaved, and
dressed in glittering uniforms; grave, long-bearded priests, with
square-topped black turbans, their flowing black drapery trailing in
the dust; pale women richly and elegantly dressed, gliding unattended
through mazes of the crowd; rough, half-savage serfs, in dirty pink
shirts, loose trowsers, and big boots, bowing down before the shrines
on the bridges and public places; the drosky drivers, with their long
beards, small bell-shaped hats, long blue coats and fire-bucket boots,
lying half asleep upon their rusty little vehicles awaiting a
customer, or dashing away at a headlong pace over the rough
cobble-paved streets, and so on of every class and kind. The traveler
wanders about from place to place, gazing into the strange faces he
meets, till the sense of loneliness becomes oppressive. An invisible
but impassable barrier seems to stand between him and the moving
multitude. He hears languages that fall without a meaning upon his
ear; wonders at the soft inflections of the voices; vainly seeks some
familiar look or word; thinks it strange that he alone should be cut
off from all communion with the souls of men around him; and then
wonders if they have souls like other people, and why there is no
kindred expression in their faces--no visible consciousness of a
common humanity. It is natural that every stranger in a strange city
should experience this feeling to some extent, but I know of no place
where it seems so strikingly the case as in St. Petersburg. Accustomed
as I was to strange cities and strange languages, I never felt utterly
lonely until I reached this great mart of commerce and civilization.
The costly luxury of the palaces; the wild Tartaric glitter of the
churches; the tropical luxuriance of the gardens; the brilliant
equipages of the nobility;