rganized at the present day, either by
the establishment of new constitutions, or by the remodeling and
reforming of old ones, all this is changed. The people understand now
that all the money which is expended by their governments is ultimately
paid by themselves, and they are gradually devising means by which they
can themselves exercise a greater and greater control over these
expenditures. They retain a far greater portion of the avails of their
labor in their own hands, and expend it in adorning and making
comfortable their own habitations, and cultivating the minds of their
children, while they require the government officials to live, and
travel, and transact their business in a more quiet and unpretending way
than was customary of yore.

Thus, in traveling over most parts of the United States, you will find
the people who cultivate the land living in comfortable, well-furnished
houses, with separate rooms appropriately arranged for the different uses
of the family. There is a carpet on the parlor floor, and there are
books in the book-case, and good supplies of comfortable clothing in the
closets. But then our embassadors and ministers in foreign courts are
obliged to content themselves with what they consider very moderate
salaries, which do not at all allow of their competing in style and
splendor with the embassadors sent from the old despotic monarchies of
Europe, under which the people who till the ground live in bare and
wretched huts, and are supplied from year to year with only just enough
of food and clothing to keep them alive and enable them to continue their
toil.

But to return to Peter and his embassy. When the public reception was
over Peter introduced himself privately to the king in his own name, and
the king, in a quiet and unofficial manner, paid him great attention.
There were to be many more public ceremonies, banquets, and parades for
the embassy in the city during their stay, but Peter withdrew himself
entirely from the scene, and went out to a certain bay, which extended
about one hundred and fifty miles along the shore between Konigsberg and
Dantzic, and occupied himself in examining the vessels which were there,
and in sailing to and fro in them.

This bay you will find delineated on any map of Europe. It extends along
the coast for a considerable distance between Konigsberg and Dantzic, on
the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea.

When the embassadors and their train had fin