I shall not think it worth while to dwell on the very many churches which adorn the northern capital, because, with few exceptions, there is nothing in point of art which merits to be recorded. Yet I can scarcely refrain from again referring to the fine fantasy played by many-coloured domes against the blue sky. The forms are beautiful, the colours decorative. The city in its sky outline presents a succession of strange pictures, at one point the eye might seem to range across a garden of gourds, at other positions peer above house-tops groups which might be mistaken for turbaned Turks; and when the sun shines vividly, and throws glittering light on the "patens of bright gold," over these many-domed churches, a stranger might almost fancy that above the city floated fire balloons or bright-coloured lanterns. The large cupola of St. Isaac, covered with copper overlaid with gold, has been said to burn on a bright day like the sun when rising on a mountain top. I can never forget the sight when I returned to St. Petersburg from the most brilliant civic and military spectacle I ever witnessed, the fete of the Empress at Tsarskoe Selo. It was still dark, but before I reached my hotel for the short repose of a night which already brightened into morning, every cupola on the way was awakening into daylight; the sun, hesitating for a moment on the horizon, announced his coming as by electric light on the golden stars which shone on domes more blue than the grey sky of morning. In Moscow church cupolas playa part in the city panorama still more conspicuous than in St. Petersburg.