CHAPTER I. 
THE NEVA. 
THE steamer plying between St. Petersburg and Lake 
Onega takes its departure from a quay nearly opposite to 
the Finnish Railway Terminus. Of the passage by water 
from the centre of the city to this, I have given an 
account in the companion volume, entitled Forests and 
Forestry in Finland. The drive by land from the centre of 
the city to the quay of the Onega steamer may be less 
striking, but it is not less interesting. 
Starting from Vassiliostroff, or from the English 
Quay, passing along this brings us upon the Isaac’s 
Plain, now the Alexandra Sadd. This was the scene 
of the military insurrection which occurred in Decem- 
ber 1825, on Nicolas I. succeeding to the throne. I write 
from memory of what was told to me fifty years ago 
oy men who had seen, and men who had ‘acted in the 
conflict, and of what I then read of the trial and condemna- 
tion of leaders in the fight, and the visions which rise before 
me may be more vivid than absolutely correct, but they 
are my remembrances accurately given. The conspiracy 
had been progressing rapidly during the later years of 
Alexander I. His death, and the succession of the Grand 
Duke Constantine, intensified the desire of many to effect 
a change in the government of the Empire. By a family 
compact Constantine had ceded to his younger brother 
Nicolas all claim to the throne. There, as here,the Sovereign 
never dies. The oath of allegiance to Constantine had 
been taken when the death of Alexander was proclaimed ; 
and now the soldiery were required to take an oath of 
allegiance to Nicolas. The disaffected officers, assuming 
