beautiful villas, mostly constructed of wood in a fanciful
style, and painted various colours with gardens very tastefully laid
out. Besides numerous delightful drives among these islands they are
made further accessible by small steamers. They are also connected by
wooden bridges resting on boats which are removed before the winter
season sets in, being not then required and also liable to great injury
by the breaking up of the ice. But lower down there is one bridge
constructed of iron of seven arches and 1,050 feet long and 60 feet
wide, costing a million and a quarter sterling.

Besides steamers there are many other boats, some very large rudely
constructed, bringing wood from the lake of Ladoga, mostly birch, cut in
short lengths for fuel, and others freighted with leather, hemp and
various products from the interior. In discharging these boats with fuel
the serfs[4] make use of a sort of truck with a framework to hold the
billets, and the wheels, being not more than six or seven inches in
diameter, require a narrow plank to be laid across the street a little
below the uneven pavement. They have also a very defective mode of
watering the streets; fetching the water in buckets and putting it into
a larger vessel upon wheels from which they sprinkle the streets,
instead of pumping up the water into a machine and distributing it as it
goes along.

On account of the boggy state of the ground the buildings are
constructed on piles at an enormous expense, so that it has been said by
an English resident that larger sums had been expended under ground than
above, which I can the more readily believe after witnessing the
extraordinary foundations of a new palace now in the course of erection.

Most of the buildings, including palaces and churches, are built of
brick, and covered with a cement of various colours; often out of
condition and presenting a less substantial appearance.

The pavement is generally in a bad state, consisting mostly of pebbles
of every size mingled together, and all, I should say, wrong side up, in
some places a yard or two without any at all.

This condition of the streets, with the droshkies, a small four-wheel
carriage, holding two persons, sitting together behind the driver, or
sometimes back to back, with the fore-wheels about twelve inches high,
and drawn very rapidly over such a pavement, you may suppose, makes it
no easy matter to keep your seat.

The droshky drivers have generally a ro