The drive in the omnibuses was continued for a couple of hours longer, until the students had seen the principal streets of the city and the public buildings. Finally, the line stopped at the Taurida Palace, a long, low building, near the Neva, at the eastern extremity of the city. It was built by Catharine II., and presented to her favorite Potemkin, who conquered the Crimea, the Russian name of which is Taurida. The party entered the great ball-room, which is about all that is shown of the palace, for it is occupied by the superannuated ladies of honor of the court. It is an enormous apartment, the ceiling supported by columns covered with plaster. In this hall Potemkin gave balls in honor of his imperial mistress, when it was lighted by twenty thousand wax candles. On the columns were hoops to contain candles, for the room is occasionally used at the present time for balls and feasts. At one end was a full-rigged brig, of miniature proportions, formerly in the water, but now set in the floor, and used for the amusement of the royal children.
The party had entered this room, which certainly had the appearance of "some banquet hall deserted," for a purpose, and the students were collected around the little brig, upon the deck of which, as a rostrum, Mr. Mapps took his place.
"The region in which St. Petersburg is situated was formerly Ingria, and belonged first to Novgorod, and then to Moscow," said the professor. "The Swedes obtained it in 1617; but it was reconquered by Peter the Great, who laid the foundations of this city in 1703, in order, as he expressed it, to have 'a window looking out into Europe;' or, in other words, to obtain a seaport by which he could carry on commerce with other parts of the world. He gathered together a vast number of Russian and Finnish peasants, and went to work, drafting forty thousand men annually, some of them from the most distant parts of his vast empire, to perform the labor. Peter superintended the laying out of the city himself, living in a small cottage, which exists at the present time, and which we shall soon visit.
"As I have said before, the location is most unfortunate. The Neva is the outlet of Lake Ladoga, and when the ice breaks up in the spring, the city is peculiarly liable to an inundation, if a westerly storm forces in this direction the waters of the Gulf of Finland; and at other seasons there is great danger from these storms. It is said that Peter was warned of this peril. After he had laid the foundation of a portion of the city in the marshes, he happened to see a tree with a ring cut around the trunk. He asked a Finn what the mark meant, and was told that it indicated the height to which the water rose in the inundation of 1680. He angrily told the man that he lied, for what he said was quite impossible, and with his own hand he felled the tree. It was practically saying, 'So much the worse for your facts,' when they conflicted with his theory. There have been seven terrific floods in the city, the last of which was in November, 1824. A driving westerly storm heaped up the waters in the Neva till they overflowed the low banks, and swept in floods through the streets. Wooden houses were lifted from their foundations, and floated about still occupied. Carriages had to be abandoned in the streets, and the horses were drowned. The Emperor Alexander I. gathered together a few resolute men in a large boat, and went himself to the relief of the sufferers, exposing his own life, and saving many from destruction.
"After the water subsided, many buildings fell, and much sickness followed from the dampness in the houses. The damage was estimated at a hundred million rubles. A gardener, surprised by the storm, sought a place of safety on the roof of a summer-house, to which also an army of rats was driven, and he was fearful that they would devour him; but a cat and a dog swam to the roof, and neutralized his dangerous enemies, so that all of them passed the night in safety. A Protestant merchant hauled in at his second story window, from a fragment of a bridge, an Orthodox Greek, a Jew, and a Mohammedan Tartar, supplying them with food, raiment, and shelter."
The professor finished his remarks, and the party, after a glance at the handsome gardens of the palace, resumed their places in and on the omnibuses. Looking down the street, the students could see the Smolni Church, on the bank of the river, which here makes a sharp turn to the south. The structure is of white marble, with fine blue domes, spangled with golden stars. At one side of it is a large building, in which the daughters of citizens are educated; at the other, one in which those of the nobles are educated. The procession moved through several streets, and passed between the Michael and the Summer Palace, attached to the latter of which are the gardens of the same name, forming the park most used by the people of the city. The middle one of the three openings at the grand gateway is now occupied by a small chapel, dedicated to St. Alexander Nevski, for on this spot an assassin attempted to take the life of the present emperor in 1866. Over the principal entrance is placed, in gold letters, the text, "Touch not mine anointed." The chapel was built by subscription, as a token of the love of the people for their sovereign.
The omnibuses crossed the river on the Troitsa, or Trinity Bridge, which is built of boats, and removed in winter, when the people cross on the ice, and stopped at the cottage of Peter the Great, where the students alighted. The original house is contained within another, built by Alexander I. to preserve it from decay. It is fifty-five feet long by twenty in breadth, and has three rooms. One of these is now used as a chapel, and contains the miraculous image of the Saviour which Peter carried with him in his battles, and to which he ascribed his victory at Pultowa. In front of it is a circular board, full of holes of all sizes, in which the faithful place their lighted candles, as a votive offering to the picture. Near the door is a stand for the sale of these candles, which are in size from twice the thickness of a pipe stem, up to double the ordinary size. They are sold at from five to twenty-five copecks apiece. Near the picture are some glass cases, in which are a great many small legs and arms of silver, and other valuable articles, presented by people who had recovered from various maladies, in token of their gratitude. These cases were robbed by a soldier in 1863, who murdered the two keepers of the house. The building contains many relics of the great Czar.
A short ride brought the tourists to the fortress and Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. The fortress is separated from Petrofski Island, on which Peter's cottage is situated, by a moat crossed by two bridges. It is completely walled in, and has been used as a state prison. In one of its gloomy dungeons, Alexis, the son of the great Czar, perished by the hand of his father, and the rebels of 1825, who conspired against Nicholas, were confined, tried, and some of them executed in this castle.
In the centre of the enclosure rises the cathedral, the spire of which is tall, slender, and tapering, so that it looks like a needle in the air, and is really one of the curiosities of the city. The spire itself is one hundred and twenty-eight feet high. It is crowned with a globe, five feet in diameter, on which is an angel supporting a cross, twenty-one feet high, though no one would suspect them to be of these dimensions, for they look like toys in the air. The summit of the cross is three hundred and eighty-seven feet from the ground. The spire is covered with copper, and gilded, and twenty-two pounds of pure gold were used upon it. The students gazed with wonder and admiration at the shadowy spire, and listened eagerly to the explanations given by Mr. Mapps.
"What do you think of climbing that spire, as you would go aloft?" asked Mr. Mapps, with a smile.