ight, but that was
an additional advantage, inasmuch as it forced the occupant to stay
out most of the time and see a great deal more of the town than he
could possibly see in his room.

Having deposited my knapsack and put my extra shirt in the wash, you
will now be kind enough to consider me the shade of Virgil, ready to
lead you, after the fashion of Dante, through the infernal regions or
any where else within the bounds of justice, even through St.
Petersburg, where the climate in summer is hot enough to satisfy
almost any body. The sun shines here, in June and July, for twenty
hours a day, and even then scarcely disappears beneath the horizon. I
never experienced such sweltering weather in any part of the world
except Aspinwall. One is fairly boiled with the heat, and might be
wrung out like a wet rag. Properly speaking, the day commences for
respectable people, and men of enterprising spirit--tourists,
pleasure-seekers, gamblers, vagabonds, and the like--about nine or ten
o'clock at night, and continues till about four or five o'clock the
next morning. It is then St. Petersburg fairly turns out; then the
beauty and fashion of the city unfold their wings and flit through the
streets, or float in Russian gondolas upon the glistening waters of
the Neva; then it is the little steamers skim about from island to
island, freighted with a population just waked up to a realizing sense
of the pleasures of existence; then is the atmosphere balmy, and the
light wonderfully soft and richly tinted; then come the sweet witching
hours, when

"Shady nooks
Patiently give up their quiet being."

None but the weary, labor-worn serf, who has toiled through the long
day in the fierce rays of the sun, can sleep such nights as these. I
call them nights, yet what a strange mistake. The sunshine still
lingers in the heavens with a golden glow; the evening vanishes
dreamily in the arms of the morning; there is nothing to mark the
changes--all is soft, gradual, and illusory. A peculiar and almost
supernatural light glistens upon the gilded domes of the churches; the
glaring waters of the Neva are alive with gondolas; miniature steamers
are flying through the winding channels of the islands; strains of
music float upon the air; gay and festive throngs move along the
promenades of the Nevskoi; gilded and glittering equipages pass over
the bridges and disappear in the shadowy recesses of the islands.
Whatever may be