6 FORESTRY IK EASTERN RUSSIA. 



noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, 

 bone to his bone, and the breath came unto them, and 

 they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding 

 great army.' 



It is fifty yea-rs since this occurred ; but I see it again 

 as if it were to-day. From what has been stated, some 

 idea may be formed of the extent of the plain. Since 

 then it has been converted into a large landscape garden 

 with magnificent fountains, winding walks, herbs, and 

 flowers, and trees, and flowering shrubs, and an artificial 

 mound, with numerous benches, whence is seen the Neva, 

 and the fortress and the islands beyond ; while even the 

 cravings of little children have not been overlooked : in 

 various places, surrounded with benches, are heaps of 

 clean sand where, as on the beach in Britain, children, 

 under the eye of parents or other guardians, or free from 

 all such control, may play to their heart's content with 

 wheelbarrows, shovels, and buckets, of like tiny dimen- 

 sions. This it is which is called the Alexandra Sad, 

 or Alexandra Garden. 



Within this is enclosed the famous equestrian statue of 

 Peter the Great, placed on a massive granite boulder, 

 brought thither with great difficulty, and erected to his 

 memory by Catherine the Great ; and outside of the enclo- 

 sure, at the opposite extremity of the plain, is the pillar of 

 red granite, eighty feet high, surmounted by the figure of 

 an angel and a cross, to the consecration of which to the 

 memory of Alexander the First I have referred. 



This stands in front of the Winter Palace, but at such a 

 distance as the great extent of the plain required in order 

 to maintain aesthetic proportions. The palace, in the winter 

 of 1837-38, had its entire interior destroyed by fire. I 

 witnessed the catastrophe. The walls of the palace are 

 surmounted by statues in varied attitudes. While the 

 flames and smoke, rising high above these, not unfre- 

 quently came swirling around them, and at times completely 

 invested them, they looked in the quivering and alternat- 

 ing light and shadow, as if alive and moving demons 



