It was the edge of evening as we returned from this expedition, and the declining sun was flooding the river and the eastern shore with golden glory. We were tired; the evening was cool and refreshing; the scene was beautiful, indeed exciting, as other boats and barges and steamers swept by us and ships and schooners swung listlessly in the stream. The Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the Alexander Column, the Admiralty Buildings, and other splendid edifices were on the western bank, the fortress and arsenal and academy on the east, and the domes of the Isaac and Kazan Cathedrals hung like suns in the sky. We seemed to be far away from home, and lost in an enchanted sea. We rowed along under the stern of a vessel and read her name, “Favorite, Arbroath;” it sounded Scotchy, and hailing a sailor leaning over the ship’s side, I asked him, “where’s Arbroath?” “Aboot twelve miles from Dundee,” he said. “And what brings you here?” “The ship,” he answered, and then added that the cargo was fire-brick, made in England, and brought here for the Russians, who make great use of it in their stoves. He did not like the Russians, he said, and hoped he should never have to come there again. Our boatman landed us on the western shore, and as we walked up and down the river enjoying the evening breeze, he soon passed us with another company in his boat, and taking off his cap saluted us as old customers with a grace that would do credit to a Paris waterman. It was half-past nine o’clock when we saw the last rays of the sun on the spire of the arsenal church, and we then went home. It is now eleven o’clock at night, and I am writing by the light from the window opening into a court. It would be easy to write all night without a candle. [Illustration: A RUSSIAN PORTER.] CHAPTER XXVI. FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. MY roughest railroad ride in Europe was from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It did not improve the road to be told, as I was, that it was built by American engineers; but it did jolt me so naturally that I felt at home as soon as we were under way. And there was a slight infusion of a familiar morality in the excuse made for the present condition of the road, that the managers of it under the government were seeking to buy it, and were letting it run down that they might get it at a lower figure!