If Peter had been willing to exercise a little patience and moderation in carrying out his plans, it is very probable that most of this suffering might have been saved. If he had sent a small number of men to the ground the first year, and had employed them in opening roads, establishing granaries, and making other preliminary arrangements, and, in the mean time, had caused stores of food to be purchased and laid up, and ample supplies of proper tools and implements to be procured and conveyed to the ground, so as to have had every thing ready for the advantageous employment of a large number of men in the following year, every thing would, perhaps, have gone well. But the qualities of patience and moderation formed no part of Peter's character. What he conceived of and determined to do must be done at once, at whatever cost; and a cost of human life seems to have been the one that he thought less of than any other. He rushed headlong on, notwithstanding the suffering which his impetuosity occasioned, and thus the hymn which solemnized the entrance into being of the new-born city was composed of the groans of a hundred thousand men, dying in agony, of want, misery, and despair. Peter was a personal witness of this suffering, for he remained, during a great part of the time, on the ground, occupying himself constantly in superintending and urging on the operations. Indeed, it is said that he acted himself as chief engineer in planning the fortifications, and in laying out the streets of the city. He drew many of the plans with his own hands; for, among the other accomplishments which he had acquired in the early part of his life, he had made himself quite a good practical draughtsman. When the general plan of the city had been determined upon, and proper places had been set apart for royal palaces and pleasure-grounds, and public edifices of all sorts that might be required, and also for open squares, docks, markets, and the like, a great many streets were thrown open for the use of any persons who might choose to build houses in them. A vast number of the mechanics and artisans who had been attracted to the place by the offers of the Czar availed themselves of this opportunity to provide themselves with homes, and they proceeded at once to erect houses. A great many of the structures thus built were mere huts or shanties, made of any rude materials that came most readily to hand, and put up in a very hasty manner. It was sufficient that the tenement afforded a shelter from the rain, and that it was enough of a building to fulfill the condition on which the land was granted to the owner of it. The number of these structures was, however, enormous. It was said that in one year there were erected thirty thousand of them. There is no instance in the history of the world of so great a city springing into existence with such marvelous rapidity as this.