Foot-prints of Travel - Maturin Murray Ballou (book suggestions txt) 📗

a country aspect, forming a series of parks where fine roads wind through shady woods, cross green meadows, and skirt transparent lakes. Here every variety of villa is seen embowered in attractive verdure, and a highly rural effect is obtained within city limits.

St. Petersburg is the most spacious capital ever built by the hand of man, and one cannot but feel that many of its grand squares, presided over by some famous monument, are yet dismally empty. As we look upon it to-day, it probably bears little resemblance to the city left by the great Peter, its founder, except in its general plan, and yet it extends so little way into the past as to have comparatively no root in history. The magnificent granite quays, the gorgeous palaces, the costly churches and monuments do not date previous to the reign of Catharine II. The choice of the locality, and the building of the capital upon it, is naturally a wonder to those who have not thought carefully about it, since it seems to have been contrary to all reason, and to have been steadily pursued in the face of difficulties which would have discouraged and defeated most similar enterprises. Ten thousand lives and more were sacrificed among the laborers annually, while the work was going on, owing to its unhealthy nature, but still the autocratic designer held to his purpose, until finally a respectable but not unobjectionable foundation may be said to have been obtained upon this Finland marsh. Yet there are those who believe that all was foreseen by the energetic founder, that he had a grand and definite object in view of which he never lost sight, and moreover that the object which he aimed at has been fully consummated.

The Winter Palace is grand in every respect. Its size may be divined when we realize that it accommodates six thousand persons connected with the royal household. With the exception of the Vatican at Rome, and Versailles near Paris, it is the largest habitable palace in existence, and is made up of suits of splendid apartments, reception saloons, drawing-rooms, throne rooms, banqueting-halls, etc. The gem of them all is the Salle Blanche, or White Hall, so called because the fittings and decorations are all in white and gold, by means of which an aerial lightness and fascination of effect is produced which is difficult to describe. It is in this apartment that the court festivals take place, and there are probably no royal entertainments in Europe which quite equal in splendor those given in the Winter Palace. One becomes almost dazed by the glare of gilt and bronze, the number of polished columns of marble and porphyry, the gorgeous hangings, the mosaics, mirrors, and candelabra. Many of the painted ceilings are wonderfully perfect in design and execution, while choice works of art are so abundant on all sides as to lose effect. The famous banqueting-hall measures two hundred feet in length by one hundred in breadth. As we come forth from the palace through the grand entrance upon the square, it is natural to turn and scan the magnificent front as a whole, and to remember that from the gate of this palace Catharine II. went forth on horseback with a drawn sword in her hand, to put herself at the head of her army.

The Hermitage, of which the world has read so much, is a spacious building adjoining the Winter Palace, with which it is connected by a covered gallery, and is five hundred feet long where it fronts upon the square containing the Alexander Column. It is not, as its name might indicate, a solitude, but a grand and elaborate palace in itself, built by Catharine II. for a picture gallery, a museum, and a resort of pleasure. It contains to-day one of the largest as well as the most precious collections of paintings in the world, not forgetting those of Rome, Florence, Paris, and Madrid. The catalogue shows twenty original pictures by Murillo, six by Velasquez, sixty by Rubens, thirty-three by Vandyke, forty by Teniers, the same number by Rembrandt, six by Raphael, and many other invaluable examples by famous masters.

Here are also preserved the private libraries that once belonged to Zimmermann, Voltaire, and Diderot, besides those of several other remarkable men of letters. There is a royal theatre under the same roof, where plays used to be performed by amateurs from the court circles for the gratification of the empress, the text of the plays being sometimes written by herself. This royal lady indulged her fancy to the fullest extent. On the roof of the Hermitage was created a marvellous garden planted with choicest flowers, shrubs, and even trees of considerable size, all together forming a grand floral conservatory which was heated by subterranean fires in winter, and sheltered by a complete covering of glass.


CHAPTER XIX.

The Palace of Peterhoff is situated about sixteen miles from St. Petersburg, on the shore of the Neva where the river expands to a width of eight or ten miles. This place has always been celebrated for the magnificent entertainments given here since the days when it was first built by Peter the Great. The main structure has no special merit in point of architecture, but the location and the surroundings are extremely beautiful. From the terrace of the great yellow palace built upon a natural elevation, one gets a fine though distant view of the coast of Finland,--a portion of the Tzar's dominion which alone exceeds in size Great Britain and Ireland, a wide-spread barren land of lakes and granite rocks, but peopled by over two millions of souls. The parks, gardens, fountains, hot-houses, groves, and embowered paths of Peterhoff are kept in the most perfect order by a small army of household attendants. The artificial water-works are after the style of those at St. Cloud, and are nearly equal to those of Versailles.

Here the famous Peter used to retire and stroll about the gardens with his humble favorite, a Polish girl, forgetting the cares of state. This lowly companion, besides great personal beauty, possessed much force of character, and exercised great influence over her melancholic and morose master. Long before her final elevation to the throne, many instances are related of her interference in behalf of mercy, which showed a kind and loving nature. Peterhoff is the favorite summer resort of the royal family.

The Tzar's dominion embraces every phase of religion and of civilization. Portions of the empire are as barbaric as Central Africa, others are semi-civilized, while a large share of the people inhabiting the cities assume the highest outward appearance of refinement and culture. This diversity of character spreads over a country extending from the Great Wall of China on one side to the borders of Germany on the other; from the Crimea in the south to the Polar Ocean in the far north.

The distance from St. Petersburg to Moscow is about four hundred miles; the cars upon this route take us directly towards the heart of Russia. Thirty years ago there were but about eight hundred miles of railroad in the country; to-day there are twenty thousand and more. On this trip one passes through scenery of the most monotonous and melancholy character, flat and featureless, made up of forests of fir-trees, interspersed with the white birch, and long reaches of wide, deserted plains.

The forest forms a very prominent feature of Russia north of the line of travel between the two great cities, covering in that region fully a third part of the country; the largest forest in Europe is that of Volskoniki, which commences near the source of the Volga. But to the south of Moscow the vast plains, or steppes, are quite free from wood, consisting merely of sandy deserts, unfit for habitation. No country is more thinly inhabited or more wearisomely tame. Now and again a few sheep are seen cropping the thin brown moss and straggling verdure, tended by a boy clad in a fur cap and skin jacket, forming a strong contrast to his bare legs and feet.

Though sparsely inhabited by fierce and active races for centuries, the appearance is that of primitiveness; the log-cabins seem to be only temporary expedients,--wooden tents, as it were. The men and women who are seen at the railroad stations are of the Tartar type, the ugliest of all humanity, with high cheekbones, flattened noses, dull gray eyes, copper-colored hair, and bronzed complexions. Their food is not of a character to develop much physical comeliness. The one vegetable which the Russian peasant cultivates is cabbage; this, mixed with dried mushrooms, and rarely anything else, makes a soup upon which he lives. Add to this soup a porridge made of meal, and we have about the entire substance of his regular food. If they produce some pork and corn, butter and cheese, they are seldom indulged in for their own subsistence, but are sold at the nearest market, as a certain amount of ready money must be had when the tax-gatherer makes his annual visit. We are speaking of the masses, but of course there are exceptions. Some thrifty peasants manage much better than this. No other country is richer in horses, mines of gold, silver, copper, and precious stones; or in the useful articles of iron, lead, and zinc. Though the Russians are famous for having large families, still the inhabitants average but fifteen to the square mile, while in Germany there are eighty, and in England over four hundred to the square mile.

Forests of such density as to be impenetrable to man frequently line the railroad for many miles together, but the loneliness of the way is relieved by occasional glimpses of wild-flowers scattered along the roadside in great variety, diffusing indescribable freshness. Among them now and again a tall scarlet poppy rears its gaudy head, nodding lazily in the currents of air and leading us to wonder how it came here in such company. A peculiar little blue flower is frequently observed with yellow petals, seeming to look up from the surrounding nakedness and desolation with the appealing expression of human eyes. Snow-white daisies and delicate little harebells come into view at intervals, struggling for a brief and lonely existence. The railroad stations are beautified by floral displays of no mean character. It seems that professional gardeners travel on the line, remaining long enough at each place to organize the skilful culture of garden-plants by the keeper's family during the few weeks of summer; but one shudders to think what must be the aspect of this region during the long frost-locked Russian winter.

On reaching the city of Tver, we cross, by a high iron bridge, the river Volga,--one of the greatest in the world,--the Mississippi of Russia. From this point the river is navigable for over two thousand miles to Astrakhan. In a country so extensive and which possesses so small a portion of seaboard, rivers have a great importance, and until the introduction of railroads they formed nearly the only available means of transportation. The canals, rivers, and lakes are no longer navigated by barges drawn by horse-power. Steam-tugs and small passenger steamers now tow great numbers of flat-boats of large capacity; and transportation by this mode of conveyance is very cheap. The Volga is the largest river in Europe. Measured through its entire windings it has a length of twenty-four hundred miles from its rise in the Valdai Hills, five hundred and fifty feet above sea-level, to its outlet into the Caspian Sea. Many cities and thriving towns are situated upon its banks. At Nijni-Novgorod it is joined by the Oka River. In addition to these water-ways there are also the Obi, the Yenisee, the Lena, the Don, and the Dnieper, all rivers of the first class, whose entire course from source to