d on a mat, a large merry party glide gaily to the
ground. But," he cried, suddenly interrupting himself, "have a care
where you tread, my brother, or you will be down into that ice-pit!
Never was there such a place as St. Petersburg for these,-- no large
house is deemed complete without one. If Russians _cannot_ be without
abundance of ice in winter, they show that they _will_ not be without it
during their brief hot summer,-- the quantities consumed could scarcely
be believed!"

Whiskerandos, who had been lingering behind us, in a tempting quarter of
the market, now scampered up and joined us. We were passing at the time
a large building, and I could not avoid looking up in wonder at its
strange columns. Of these there were no fewer than a hundred, and the
capital of each was formed by three cannon, with their round open mouths
yawning down into the street.

"This," said our guide, following the direction of my eyes, "is the
Spass Preobrashenskoi Sabor; a church greatly adorned with the spoils of
nations vanquished by Russia."

"Well," said Whiskerandos, who in the course of his adventurous life had
both seen cannon and learnt their use, "perhaps those big instruments of
war are just as well up there, where they are seen, and not heard or
felt. Man is the only creature, I fancy, who, not content with what
powers of destruction nature has given him, cuts down trees from the
forest, digs iron from the mine, sets the furnace glowing, and the
engine working, to fashion means of killing his brothers in a wholesale
manner."

"Yonder," said Wisky, pointing with his nose, "are the father of the
Russian fleet and the grandmother of the houses of St. Petersburg."

"Let's see them by all means!" I exclaimed; "I have viewed plenty of
Russian ships and Russian houses, and I have a lively curiosity to see
the father and the grandmother of so famous a family!"

Wisky rapidly led the way to a hut, into which with little difficulty we
entered, for locks and bars do not keep out rats, nor surly porters
refuse them admission.

"Is this the father of the Russian fleet!" exclaimed Whiskerandos rather
contemptuously, running, audacious rat that he was, along the edge of a
boat about thirty feet long. "Is Russia a child, that she should amuse
herself with a toy, and keep a big boat under a roof where there is no
water to float it, as if it were some delicate jewel!"

"On no jewel in the Emperor's crown," replied Wisky, "would a Rus