Swedes in the course of the
war. The works were immediately commenced on a vast scale, and they were
carried on during the summer with great energy. The first thing to be
secured was, of course, the construction of the fortress which was to
defend the town. There were wharves and piers to be built too, in order
that the vessels bringing stores and provisions might land their goods.
The land was surveyed, streets laid out, building lots assigned to
merchants for warehouses and shops, and to the boyars for palaces and
gardens. The boyars commenced the building of their houses, and the Czar
himself laid the foundation of an imperial palace.

But, notwithstanding all the precautions which Peter had taken to secure
supplies of every thing required for such an undertaking, and to regulate
the work by systematic plans and arrangements, the operations were for a
time attended with a great deal of disorder and confusion, and a vast
amount of personal suffering. For a long time there was no proper
shelter for the laborers. Men came to the ground much faster than huts
could be built to cover them, and they were obliged to lie on the marshy
ground without any protection from the weather. There was also a great
scarcity of tools and implements suitable for the work that was required,
in felling and transporting trees, and in excavating and filling up,
where changes in the surface were required. In constructing the
fortifications, for example, which, in the first instance, were made of
earth, it was necessary to dig deep ditches and to raise great
embankments. There was a great deal of the same kind of work necessary
on the ground where the city was to stand before the work of erecting
buildings could be commenced. There were dikes and levees to be made
along the margin of the stream to protect the land from the inundations
to which it was subject when the river was swollen with rains. There
were roads to be made, and forests to be cleared away, and many other
such labors to be performed. Now, in order to employ at once the vast
concourse of laborers that were assembled on the ground in such works as
these, an immense number of implements were required, such as pickaxes,
spades, shovels, and wheelbarrows; but so limited was the supply of these
conveniences, that a great portion of the earth which was required for
the dikes and embankments was brought by the men in their aprons, or in
the skirts of their clothes, or in bag