é THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
what I have heard from others.’ His rejoinder was: ‘Mark 
my reply ; I cannot say more, but, I repeat, As loyal as 
man is to God.” ‘Oh! ho! Universal depravity?’ He 
said nothing in reply, but his silence led me to say: 
‘How came you then to fire upon those who were in the 
same plot?’ He shrugged his shoulders and replied, ‘We 
are in the army accustomed to implicit and immediate 
obedience. Our superior officers gave the orders to us ; 
and we in turn, faithful to our traditions, gave them to 
those who were under our command, et Voila!’ 
Through the scene of this outbreak, and slaughter, and 
treason, and treachery, lies the way from the English Quay 
to the point of embarking for Lake Onega. 
St. Isaac’s Plain is now laid out as a garden with public 
promenades, and there there is to be seen one manifestation 
of the reign of peace which, often as I have beheld it, always 
gives me pleasure. Here and there are laid down cart- 
loads of fine clean sand in the summer, in which children, 
whose parents cannot arrange to take them to the country, 
as do most who can, may work as they please —making dove- 
cots, digging pits, raising bulwarks, and trundling sand 
from one corner to another, as children delight to do; and 
in the early morning, before they are again astir, all is 
swept up again into a heap, where during the day they or 
others may resume their play. 
Within this garden stands the statue of Peter the Great, 
on its immense boulder support. At right angles to the 
Synod and Senate Houses stands St. Isaac’s Church, the 
dome of which dominates the city. Along the left-hand 
side of the garden are the Admiralty Buildings, with their 
golden spire, opposite to which diverge at equal angles the 
three lengthened Prospects which divide into sections a 
great extent of the city situated on the mainland,—one of 
them, the Nevsky Prospect, being one of the celebrated 
streets of Europe. Beyond the Admiralty Buildings is the 
Imperial residence, the Winter Palace, looking out upon the 
monolith erected to the memory of Alexander I., and on the 
