PALACES AND GARDENS.
At half past seven the next morning, breakfast had been disposed of, and the little steamer came alongside the ship to convey the students to St. Petersburg again. At nine o'clock she landed them on the English Quay, near the Nicholas Bridge. A procession was formed, which was but the work of a moment, for every student knew his place in the line. The column moved along the quay to the Winter Palace, under the guidance of an officer of the emperor's household, who had been detailed for the purpose, when Mr. Fluxion applied for permission to see the palace. Every courtesy had been extended to the tourists, and not a word was said about passports.
At the Hotel Klée, Kendall and Shuffles had sent their passports to the police office. They had beenviséat the Russian consulate in Stockholm, and permission was indorsed upon them for the owners to abide in the city. The people at the hotel attend to all this business, and ask for the traveller's passport as soon as he arrives, charging the fees, which are quite small, in the bill. In every additional city or town in which the tourist remains over night, his passport must besent to the police, who indorse upon it the permission to remain. Letters from abroad are delivered to travellers, but newspapers, unless they are on the permitted list, are detained. A few New York papers are on this list, and it is useless to send any others into Russia, for they will not be forwarded to their address. The custom-house officers were formerly very strict in regard to the admission of books, and are so still where there is any suspicion of revolutionary works, or of those directed against the Orthodox Greek church. Such books as ordinary travellers desire to carry, as the Bible, Prayer-books, and Guidebooks, are permitted to pass.
The students had seen the Winter Palace and Hermitage, which are connected by galleries, when they rode through the streets the day before. The grand entrance is on the Neva, but there is another opening into the square in front of the Etat Major. The exterior, except in size, is hardly as imposing as many other European palaces, though the building has the reputation of being one of the most elegant on the continent. It is four hundred and fifty-five feet long by three hundred and fifty wide, and eighty feet high. In winter it accommodates six thousand persons, forming the emperor's household. On the site of the palace was the estate of the high admiral of Peter the Great, who bequeathed it to Peter II. The Empress Anne commenced a palace on the spot, which was completed in the reign of Catharine II., but it was destroyed by fire in 1837. In two years more the present vast structure was completed. The entrance from the Neva side is by a magnificent staircase of marble. The students went in at the entrance on thesquare, and walked through all the apartments which visitors are permitted to enter, and all of them were magnificent. The White Hall, as its name indicates, is of clear white, adorned with gold, and is the room in which the court balls and other festivities are held. St. George's Hall, which is one hundred and forty feet long by sixty wide, is the apartment in which the ambassadors are received; and there is another throne room, in which the emperor meets the diplomats on New Year's Day. There were hundreds of other rooms, all of them hung with pictures, which are mostly portraits of persons noted in Russian history, and battle-pieces in which the armies of the czars have been victorious. In the Romanoff Gallery are the pictures of all the sovereigns of this line, from Michael down to the present time. In this hall is a tablet, covered with a curtain, on which are inscribed the ten rules that Catharine II. enforced at the meetings of her friends. The visitor was enjoined to leave his rank, and his right of precedence, outside the door; to be gay, and sit, stand, or walk, as he pleased, without regard to any one; to talk gently, and argue without excitement; to eat what was good, and drink moderately, so that each might find his legs when he wanted to use them; that all should join in any innocent game when one proposed it, and tell no tales out of school. The penalty of a violation of these rules was the drinking of a glass of cold water, and the reading of a page of a poet who appears to have been the Martin Farquhar Tupper of Russia. If any one broke three of the rules in the same evening, he was condemned to commit six lines of this poet tomemory; and the one who told tales out of school was not again admitted.
The students were conducted to a room on the second floor, which is guarded day and night by officers of the household, where the crown jewels are kept. On the sceptre is the great Orlof diamond, the largest in Europe, presented to Catharine II. by her favorite, whose name it takes. It is said that it once formed the eye of an idol in India, and was stolen by a French soldier. After passing through various hands, it was purchased by Count Orlof, who paid four hundred and fifty thousand rubles for it, besides conferring a patent of nobility, and an annuity of two thousand rubles upon the seller. The crown of the emperor is shaped something like a bishop's mitre, and is covered with diamonds and pearls. On the top is an immense ruby, which supports a cross formed of five beautiful diamonds. The crown of the empress is a mass of diamonds of the most perfect hue and lustre. There are many other treasures, such as the plume of Suvaroff, presented by the Sultan of Turkey; the "Shah," a diamond from Persia; and necklaces, bracelets, brooches, and other articles, glittering with diamonds, and studded with immense pearls. Millions upon millions of rubles in value lie idle and useless in this apartment, which would plant a common school in nearly every town of the vast empire.
On the lower floor is the room in which the Emperor Nicholas died, in 1855, with everything just as it was on the day he breathed his last. It is one of the smallest and plainest apartments of the palace, and a grenadier of the guard is always on duty within it to protect the sacredrelics of the czar. It is furnished with a narrow iron camp bedstead, on which he expired. On it lies his military cloak, and his sword and helmet are just as he left them. On the table is a quartermaster's report, given to him on the day he died. Everything in the room is of the simplest manufacture, with nothing of the luxuriousness of the other parts of the palace.
From the palace the students passed into the Hermitage, which is a museum and gallery of paintings, and is hardly equalled in all Europe. It is somewhat larger than the palace, enclosing two large courts. It is a perfect labyrinth of apartments, and all of them filled with paintings, works of art, and historical relics. All the old masters are represented in the picture galleries, and rooms or suits of rooms are devoted to each school of painting. Not many of the students were able to appreciate the treasures of art, and most of them preferred the military and naval pictures in the Winter Palace. In the vast numismatic collection are many very rare Greek coins. In the gem room is a mechanical clock, which a poor woman drew in a lottery, and sold for fifteen thousand dollars. It played overtures with all the effects of the modern orchestrion, and was wound up for the gratification of the visitors. In the gallery of Peter the Great, the party were disposed to linger for a long time. It contains works of art and industry in the time of the Czar whose name it bears, and the turning lathes and carving tools he used himself. His spy-glasses, mathematical instruments, books, canes, and other articles are exhibited. The gilded chariot in whichhe occasionally rode, his dogs, and his war horse, stuffed, and various casts and portraits of him, taken after death, were examined with interest. A broken clock, with wonderful mechanical movements, excited the attention of the boys. It consists of a peacock, which, at the striking of the hour, expands his tail, while a rooster flaps his wings, an owl rolls his eyes, and a grasshopper feeds on a mushroom. Near it is a collection of snuff-boxes, which belonged to various sovereigns of Europe. In this room, enclosed in cases, was a great variety of curiosities, including articles which had belonged to the members of the royal family.
On the lower floor are the galleries of ancient sculpture. In the Kertch collection are medals and other articles proving the existence of a Greek colony on the northern shores of the Black Sea six hundred years before Christ. In 1820 a tomb was found at Kertch, which is at the entrance to the Sea of Azof, containing a chamber of hewn stone, in which were the remains of a Scythian prince, with his wife, his horse, and his chief groom. His crown, weapons, ornaments, and golden robes, with vases of bronze and other material containing the remains of provisions, were found where they had lain for two thousand years, and were conveyed to this museum. The tomb of a priestess of Ceres, buried with her ornaments, and with four horses, was found in 1866. The Scythian collection is equally rich in the treasures of a former race.
The students wandered during the forenoon through these numerousapartments till most of them were very tired; for there is no harder work for the human frame than that of exploring museums and galleries. The party dined again at the Hotel Klée, and in the afternoon walked to the Arsenal Museum, which contains specimens of arms and accoutrements of many periods, and a vast quantity of historical curiosities. Among the former are some curious guns, pistols, revolvers, and warlike machines; and among the latter are many relics of Peter the Great, as the hat and sword he wore at Pultowa; the leather coat in which he worked at Saardam; the uniforms in which he passed through the several military grades of private, captain, and colonel; and a cabriolet in which he measured distances on the road by means of machinery like that of a clock connected with the wheels. At the head of the staircase is a Russian eagle, the body, neck, and legs made of gun-flints fixed on the wall, the wings of sword blades, and the eyes formed by the muzzles of a pair of pistols, in the same manner as the several objects in the Tower of London are composed.
The Museum of Imperial Carriages was next visited. After passing through several rooms in which some beautiful Gobelin tapestries are exhibited, the students entered the large hall which contains the vehicles. The first was the carriage presented by Frederick the Great, of Prussia, to the Empress Elizabeth, in 1746, and in which the Princess Dagmar rode into St. Petersburg with the empress. It is gilded, with paintings on the panels and doors. There are a dozen of these large, clumsy state carriages, glittering with gold, and rich with silk, satin, andembroidery. Some of them are over a hundred years old, and have been "restored" several times. Those used by the various sovereigns, from Peter I. to the present time, were pointed out. After the party had critically examined one of them, the only interest the others had was the fact that Catharine II. had spread herself in one, and Nicholas had sternly looked out from the windows of another. Besides these state coaches, there were many modern vehicles from different parts of Europe, and a number of sleighs, used by the court in carnival time, some of which are very ingeniously constructed. By all odds, the greatest curiosity in this collection is the sledge of Peter the Great, in which he travelled, in winter, on his long journeys to the distant parts of his vast empire. It is a kind of coach on runners, and was entirely constructed by the Czar's own hands. Behind it is a trunk in which he carried his clothes and provisions. Peter made a journey in this sledge to Archangel, on the White Sea, and there came a thaw which compelled him to return to his capital on wheels. Alexander I. caused the sleigh to be brought to St. Petersburg. It is placed in a large glass case, to protect it from injury. A sleigh in the form of St. George and the Dragon is unique. A mechanical drosky, invented by a Siberian peasant, has an apparatus which records the time and distance travelled, besides playing several tunes. Near Peter's sledge stand two or three diminutive carriages for the use of the royal children.
In another room are kept the harnesses and trappings used for theimperial state carriages, with liveries for eight hundred men. In one set, each horse has to carry about one hundred and twenty pounds. The carriages are all in the second story of the building, and there is a kind of platform elevator, by which they are hoisted up. The state coaches are used at the coronation of the emperors, and this ceremonial always takes place at Moscow, whither they have to be transported, though, since the railroad was completed, this is not so difficult a matter as formerly.
The students walked on the quay to the vast Admiralty building, and went into the Naval Museum, in which there are models of all kinds of boats and vessels, which were full of interest to the nautical young gentlemen. This completed the labors of the day, and the company returned to Cronstadt in the steamer.
At the usual hour on the following morning they embarked again, and were soon landed at Peterhoff, which is sometimes called the Versailles of Russia, on account of the number and variety of the fountains in the palace grounds. The place is on the south side of the broad bay inside of Cronstadt, and about ten miles distant from it. It is a favorite summer resort of the people from the capital, steamers plying frequently between the two places. It has a great many attractions, the principal of which is the palace, erected in 1720, under the direction of Peter the Great, on an elevation of sixty feet,—a considerable hill in Russia,—and the magnificent grounds, laid off in parks, lawns, terraces, groves, and gardens. The buildings are extensive, but not very elegant outside. The apartments contain a great many paintings, including portraits of three hundred and sixty-eight beautiful younggirls, from fifty different provinces. The rooms for use contain the usual gilded chairs, sofas, tables, and other furniture, which soon become very tiresome to the traveller in Europe, for they are about the same thing in all the palaces, and, to a republican, would have a cheap look, if it were not for the silks, velvets, and brocade with which they are upholstered.
The palace faces the sea, and the slope of the hill is cut into terraces, which are adorned with fountains, waterfalls, and basins with Neptunes, swans, nymphs, tritons, and other aquatic ornaments. Beneath a fountain, which throws a jet eighty feet high, is a kind of canal, extending five hundred yards down the slope to the bay, in which there is a succession of cataracts. The fountains play at five o'clock every Sunday afternoon in the summer, but on this occasion the water was let on as a special favor, which can perhaps be obtained at any time by paying a ruble or two. The effect was very fine, and compared favorably with the water works at Versailles. On fête days, lamps are placed under the sheets of water in the evening, and the appearance is said to be both unique and brilliant. In the garden below, near the sea-shore, are the small structures called Marly and Montplaisir. In the former Peter used to look out upon his fleet at Cronstadt. In the latter the great Czar died, and his bed is still preserved, as he used it, with his night clothes and dressing gown on the pillow. It is a small, Dutch-built house, and the interior looks very much like that of a country farm-house. Peter's boots, slippers, writing-desk, sedan-chair, andother articles belonging to him, are to be seen in the several apartments. The Hermitage is the cottage of Catharine. A table in the dining-room is provided with a contrivance by which dishes are sent down through the floor, or sent up, without the servants coming into the apartment. The same thing is shown in one of the palaces at Potsdam, where Frederick the Great used to carouse, without any menials to witness his revels. In an oblong pond a vast number of tame fish are kept, and regularly fed. The man in charge of the straw cottage goes to the edge of the water and rings a bell, with some parade, when visitors are present, and the fish are supposed to come at his call; but Scott protested that it was all a humbug, for not a fish was seen until the man had thrown the food into the water. Then they scrambled for the bits of black bread, piling themselves up in stacks, to the intense amusement of the boys. There are several other palaces near Peterhoff, one of which was occupied by Nicholas as his summer residence; and Stretna, the palace of the Grand Duke Constantine, is about half way to St. Petersburg by railroad. At ten the company took the train, and stopped atKrasnoé Sélo, where there is an immense camp, containing forty thousand troops or more, during the summer season. The soldiers were drilling, marching, and manœuvring in large bodies. In every Russian camp there is a quantity of simple gymnastic apparatus, on which the men are required to exercise regularly. Near the end of August the emperor reviews the troops, when sham fights and other kinds of mimic warfareare exhibited. Taking the next train, the party reached St. Petersburg in season for dinner.
In the afternoon, omnibuses were again in demand and the students rode to the Monastery of St. Alexander Nevski, on the river at the end of the Nevski Prospect. This establishment is the seat of the Metropolitan, or Patriarch of St. Petersburg, and is therefore of a higher order than the ordinary monastery. It is called aLavra, and only ranks below two others in the empire—the one at Moscow, and the other at Kief. It was founded by Peter the Great in honor of the Grand Duke Alexander, who defeated the Swedes on the Neva in 1241, which battle gave him his surname. His remains were brought to this monastery with the most solemn pomp, and he was canonized. He is the patron saint of the present emperor, who takes his name. The shrine of St. Alexander Nevski in the principal church, beneath which his remains repose, is of solid silver, and weighs thirty-two hundred and fifty pounds. Over it hang the keys of Adrianople. The establishment encloses a considerable tract of land, and includes several churches, buildings for the monks, cells, refectories, towers, gardens, and a cemetery. It is endowed with immense wealth, and contains many costly gifts of the Persians, as well as valuable works of art. In one of the chapels is the tomb of Suwaroff—which is only a plain marble tablet—and many other noted men. The cemetery is regarded as peculiarly holy ground, and wealthy families pay large sums for the privilege of burying their dead in its consecrated earth. The party walked through the churches, visited the dining-room of the monks, whose fare is certainly very plain, looked into one of their cells, andinspected some of the curious monuments in the cemetery.
The omnibuses then conveyed the company to some of the public gardens of the city, several of which are situated on the islands. Kamannoi, or Stone Island, situated on the Great Nevka, a drive of three miles from the Nevski Prospect over a broad avenue, is covered with the villas of the nobles and other wealthy people of the city. Upon it there is an extensive public garden, with an immense refreshment establishment and a summer theatre, while the grounds are filled with towers, temples, kiosks, and almost every appliance for the amusement of the visitors. In the theatre the plays and songs are generally in French, and one will observe that a large proportion of the people who frequent this place of resort speak the "polite language" in their conversation, as they walk about the grounds, listening to the concert. Up the Neva, three miles from Trinity Bridge, are the Tivoli Gardens, which may be reached by small steamers that ply on the river. In the winter there is a skating rink at this place, where this amusement may be had under cover. The visit to the gardens finished the excursion for the day, and the tourists returned to the squadron at Cronstadt. The next day was Sunday, and in the forenoon the students attended service at the British Chapel in the town; in the afternoon, in the steerage of the ship. As in most of the countries of Europe, Sunday is a holiday in Russia. The people attend church in the morning, and devote the afternoon to recreation and amusement.
On Monday the company went up to St. Petersburg again, and walked fromthe English Quay to the station of the Czarskoé Sélo Railroad. On the way they halted in the square upon which the Great Theatre and the Marie Theatre are situated. As in Paris, the government pays large sums for the support of the theatre, and for the Great Theatre, which accommodates three thousand people, the best operatic talent of Europe is engaged. Dancing is an especial attraction to the people, and a school for the training of actresses and dancers is maintained. The finest performances are given on Sunday. Masked balls are also given in this theatre in the winter, which are attended by the emperor and other members of the imperial family. The Marie Theatre is more especially for the representation of Russian dramas and the opera.
There are four railway stations on the south side of St. Petersburg, the Peterhoff, the Warsaw, the Czarskoé Sélo, and the Moscow, though the latter is at the bend of the Nevski Prospect. Czarskoé Sélo, fifteen miles from the city, is the principal summer residence of the emperor. The railway to this place was the first one built in Russia. A ride of forty minutes brought the party to their destination. The grounds of the palace, which are entered by a gateway with two towers, covered with Egyptian figures and hieroglyphics, are eighteen miles in circumference. They are kept in the nicest order by six hundred old soldiers, who are pensioned off in this way. Not a dry leaf, a cigar stump, or any unclean thing is permitted to remain in the walks, for the veterans capture it as an invader, and put it out of sight. The front of the palace isseven hundred and eighty feet long. Peter the Great erected a building here, but the present edifice was built during the reign of Elizabeth, and was embellished by Catharine II. Originally, every statue, pedestal, capital of a column, and all the ornaments, were gilded, the gold for which was worth over two millions of dollars. In a short time the gilding was badly injured by the weather. The contractors employed in repairing the building offered Catharine half a million silver rubles for the gold leaf which remained on the ornaments, to whom she replied, "I am not accustomed to sell my old clothes." The front of the palace is now gaudily painted with white, green, and yellow, the only gilding being on the dome and cupolas of the church. Parts of the interior, however, are very lavishly gilded, as the chapel, the ceiling of which is one sheet of gold. One small apartment has strips of lapis lazuli inlaid upon the walls, and the floor is of ebony, ornamented with mother-of-pearl. In another room the walls are panelled with amber, wrought into a variety of designs. The amber was presented to Catharine by Frederick the Great, and their initials and arms are blended in the panels; that of the Czarina being an E, for her Russian name wasEkaterina. There seems to be enough of this costly material to make mouth-pieces for all the pipes in Christendom. Catharine's sleeping apartment has pillars of purple glass, and the walls are decorated with porcelain. The bed-clothes are those under which she slept the last time she dwelt in the palace. The banqueting-rooms and the ball-rooms areprofusely gilded, and, as may be seen in several of the palaces of Europe, especially those of Poland, Russia, and Sweden, there is a Chinese room, in which everything is fitted up in "Celestial" style. The rooms of Alexander I. are kept just as he left them when he started for Taganrog, where he died. In his cabinet is his writing-desk, all in confusion, with blotted paper, and quill pens, stained with ink, as though he had but just used them. Next to this is his bed-room, which is plain enough for an ordinary farmer. In an alcove is a camp bedstead on which the Czar slept. His toilet articles are on the table, and on a chair is his well-worn overcoat under which are his boots.
The party walked through the Alexander Palace built by Catharine for her grandson, and occupied by Nicholas, whose military tastes are apparent in the pictures, models, and other ornaments. From this they went to the Arsenal, in which there is a vast collection of ancient armor, arms, and Oriental trappings. In a glass case are a miniature drum and trumpet of silver, given by Catharine to Paul in his childhood. The grounds were very attractive to the students, for they are filled with towers, kiosks, Chinese pagodas and other odd structures. The mast of a frigate, full rigged, afforded the present High Admiral, the Grand Duke Constantine, the means of obtaining some experience aloft without going to sea. On one of the ponds there is a fleet of miniature vessels, which was used for the amusement of the same young gentleman. A Chinese village, an aerial flower garden, supported on an Ionic pillar, a marble bridge, columns erected by Catharine to her favorites, hermitages, ruins, Roman tombs, grottoes, and waterfalls add to the wonders of theplace. On a small lake is a pavilion, in which the daughter of Nicholas, who died in 1844, used to feed her swims. Since her death, black swans have been kept in the pond. In the pavilion are a picture and a marble statue of the youthful Grand Duchess.
"I think I could pass a summer here very comfortably," said Lincoln, as he gazed with admiration upon the beautiful grounds and the many curious structures it contains.
"Perhaps you would alter your mind before the season closed," replied the doctor. "I was in Russia one year in August, and I think I wore an overcoat every day for a fortnight, not at night merely, but in the middle of the day. Still the weather is sometimes very warm here. On the whole, I think I should prefer to be here in the winter. St. Petersburg is very lively then, the court is in town, and there is a variety of amusements."
"I should like to see the fun for a while, and the strange sights which are to be seen only in winter, such as the sleigh-riding, skating, and frolics on the ice," added Lincoln.
"I think the want of ventilation in the houses must be one of the greatest evils of a residence here," continued Dr. Winstock, as the party left the palace gardens.
The company returned to St. Petersburg, and spent the rest of the day in visiting palaces and other places of interest. At the usual hour they embarked on the steamer, and returned to the squadron.