coxk’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.

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ing to crawl to fome frefh draw fpread for our beds in the corner of an unfurnifhed inn.With the comforts of this delightful place of repofe I was fo enamoured, that I couldnot be prevailed upon to relinquifh it even for a few minutes, for the enjoyment of anexcellent ragout prepared by our fervant, which a conflant faffing fince nine in themorning tended greatly to recommend.

A tolerable night’s reft, and the profped of only fifty miles between us and Peterf-burgh, induced us to re-affume our former ftations, and to brave a repetition of ourfatigue. The country we paffed through was ill calculated to alleviate our fufferings,by transferring our attention from ourfelves to the furrounding objeds. Exceptingthe environs of Novogorod, which were tolerably open, the road made of timber, andas ftraight as an arrow, ran through a perpetual foreft, without the lead intermixtureof hill or dale, and with few flips of cultivated ground. Through this dreary extent,the gloomy uniformity of the foreft was only broken by a few folitary villages, at longdi(lances from each other, without the intervention of a fingle houfe. Itchora, the laltvillage at which we changed horfes, though but twenty miles from the capital, was fmalland wretched, and the adjacent country as inhofpitable and unpeopled as that we had al-ready paffed. About ten miles from Itchora we fuddenly turned to the right, and thefcene inftantly brightened: the woods gave way to cultivation, the country began to beenlivened with houfes, the inequalities of the timber road were fucceeded by the levelof a fpacious caufeway, equal to the fined turnpikes of England, the end of each verft *was marked with fuperb mile-ftones of granite and marble, and a long avenue of treeswas clofed at the diflance of a few miles with a view of Peterfburgh, the objed of ourwifhes, and the termination of our labours.

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Chav. III.— Jujlification of Peter the Great for transferring the Seat of Empire fromMof cow to St. Peterfburgh.—Defcription of the new Metropolis—Foundation andProgrefs.—Circumference and Population.—Inundations of the Neva.—RemarkableFlood in 1777. —Bridge of Pontoons.—Plan for a Bridge of a fingle Arch acrofs theNeva.—Coloffal Statue of Peter the Great.—Account of the Pedefal, and its Conveyanceto Peterfburgh.—General Obfervations on the Weather during the Winter.—Precautionsagainjl the Cold.—Diverfions and Winter Scenes upon the Neva.—Ice Hills.—AnnualFair.

SAINT Peterfburgh is fituated in the latitude of 59 0 56' 2 f north, and longitude30° 25' eaft, from the meridian of Greenwich. It (lands upon the Neva, near theGulph of Finland , and is built partly on fome iflands in the mouth of that river, andpartly on the continent. The principal divifions are: 1. The Admiralty quarter.

2. The Vaffili Oftrof f. 3. The fortrefs. 4. The Ifland of St. Peterfburgh; and5. The various fuburbs, called the fuburbs of Livonia, of Mofcow, of Alexander Nev-fki, and of Wiburgh. Their refpedive fituation will be better explained by the an-nexed plan of the town, than by the moft elaborate defcription.

Peter the Great incurred confiderable cenfure for transferring the feat of empirefrom Mofcow to St, Peterfburgh ; it has been urged, with fome degree of plaufibility,that he was in effect more an Afiatic than an European fovereign; that Mofcow, lying

* Throughout all the high roads of Ruffia, each verft (or three quarters of a mile] is marked by a woodenPoft, about twelve feet in height,painted red.t Oftrof fignifies lilatid.

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nearer