too closely, rises the proud structure of the new
Church of Saint Isaac, with its four granite-columned porticoes. Then
radiating off directly before us are the three widest and longest
streets perhaps in Europe: first in magnificence comes the Neva
Perspective, and then comes Peas Street, and the Resurrection
Perspective; but running out of them are also streets of great width,
composed of houses of numerous storeys and undoubted pretensions to
grandeur. The Neva Perspective is the most interesting. On the right
side of it stands the Kazan Church, which it was intended should be like
Saint Peter's at Rome; but, except that it has a wide-spreading portico
with numerous columns, it is in no way to be compared to that
magnificent structure. On the same side is a building, or rather a
collection of buildings, which at a distance have no very imposing
appearance. This is the great market of Saint Petersburg, or the
Gostinnoi dvor. It consists of a series of arcades, in front of stores
of two or more storeys, forming the outside boundary of an extensive
region of squares, which have likewise arcades running round them, the
area being filled with garden produce and rough wares not liable to be
injured by weather. Here every article, either for use or consumption,
which the lower orders can possibly require, is to be found, from a hat
to a cucumber, or a pair of shoes to a leg of mutton; but, as our
friends were about to visit the place, it need not now be further
described.

"At the very end of the street could be seen the terminus of the Saint
Petersburg and Moscow railway, the iron road itself running far, far
away to the southward across the flat and marshy steppe. On either side
of this prince of streets, the Neva Prospect, and in many streets
branching from it, could be seen a number of lofty and magnificent
palaces with here and there golden-domed churches, and many public
buildings, convents, and monasteries, and wide walks fringed with trees,
and canals carrying produce from far-off countries into the very heart
of the city. Let us have one look more before we descend at Peter's
Statue, not bigger apparently than a child's toy, and the Alexander
Column, and the golden domes of the Isaac Church, and the huge Winter
Palace, and the Hermitage, and the Imperial Theatre, and the long line
of palaces facing the quays of the Neva beyond them; then we have to-day
witnessed a sight not easily forgotten.

"Saint Pet