St. Petersburg never looks so beautiful as on a summer’s night; the buildings are then seen to great advantage. The peculiar twilight of these latitudes casts a softness yet a clearness over them, of which those who have not seen it can have no idea: the utter silence of a great city in what seems broad daylight gives a mysterious feeling to the heart, and subdues the thoughts. I was never more struck with the beauty of St. Petersburg than once when, on returning from a party at a late hour, I was crossing the upper bridge from Kamanoi Oustroff: the long line of palaces fading away in the distance, the magnificent quays, the calm river, the unbroken stillness, all produced the effect of a fairy-scene, as if they were fabrics of a vision too lovely to be real, erected on the enchanting shores of a lake of liquid silver. But, see! yonder is a strange group. They are prisoners being escorted out of the town by soldiers. There is a Cossack of the Black Sea among them. What a savage look he casts around! The long hairs of his shaggy white cap almost fall into his eyes, and make him look even more ferocious than he otherwise would; his legs are heavily chained, so are those of his companions. The man next to him is a Cossack of the Ural; his rough sheepskin cap, like those of the soldiers, and wild-looking dress, mark him as a complete barbarian. It would be difficult to decide which has the more villanous countenance of the two. We need scarcely ask what their crimes are. That young girl cannot be more than sixteen, yet she has been knouted, and is now sufficiently recovered to be able to accompany the gang to Siberia; her crime was that of striking her mistress: she will not be reclaimed by the wicked wretches with whom she is marching. The charitable are bestowing alms on them, kindly wishing to alleviate their sufferings as much as possible, and the money will enable them to buy some trifling comforts on their journey. One of the convicts seems to be the treasurer of the party, for everything is handed over to him. There is kindness in that poor peasant who is running after them to give them the little he can afford. The Russians are, generally speaking, a good-hearted people, and would eventually become a noble nation under a freer and better government. Many of their vices and crimes proceed from ignorance and _fear_.