In the year 1703, Peter the Great began to build a city, to be called after his own name. He selected a miserable site on the banks of the Neva, and here he gathered a host of Russians, Tartars, Kalmucks, and Fins, and set them at this stupendous work. We expect to grow as the people want houses to live in. Peter built a city, and then looked for people to come and find it. The little cottage that he built for himself on the shore is still standing where he placed it, and the tools with which he worked, with his own industrious and skilful hands. For several successive years, 40,000 men were annually raised by draft, as for an army, to come from distant parts of the empire and build. The nobility of Russia came and caused residences to be reared for them, when they saw that Moscow was no longer to be the capital. Peter died, and Catharine I. did not push on the work with energy. Her successor, Peter II., loved Moscow more, and died there. Anne, the empress, adopted Petersburg as her residence, and it flourished under her reign. Catharine strove hard to defend it from the inroads of the river, but it lies so low that no art can avert inundations. It lies in the midst of waters, a vast morass. Canals easily traverse its bosom. Bridges and islands and quays are part of the streets and squares of the city. The houses are too many for the inhabitants. The thoroughfares are never thronged. You may walk long streets and scarcely meet a person. Half a million is the number of its inhabitants, but there is room for many more. The contrasts are more sudden and striking than in other capitals. The rich are very rich; the poor are very poor. Society is rigid in its laws. The nobles have no sympathies with the serf, though a serf no longer. Caste is stronger in Russia than in England. But I am impatient to be out in the town, sight-seeing. It is a very hot day, and I asked Russel if they often had such hot weather in June. “Well,” he said, “sometimes it is ’ot as this, and sometimes not so ’ot: it depends very much on the weather;” and with this profound observation he led the way into the city. It was but a step from our lodgings, under the arch that divides and connects the state apartments into the grand square in front of the Winter Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Russia.