ABSTRACT
I have met with few things in the course of my existence more striking, than my first approach to this new-created metropolis. It lies on the river Neva, which takes its rise from the lake Ladoga, and discharges itself from three mouths into the gulph of Finland, the eastern branch of the Baltic sea. The city stands on three or four islands, formed by these streams; and the suburbs extend into the provinces of Carelia on the north, and Ingria on the south. The area on / which it is placed was, a short time before, nothing but a vast morass, with no other buildings upon it than a few fishermen’s huts. It was the mighty genius of the czar, that prompted him to remove his residence and the seat of empire from Moscow, which had been the abode of his ancestors for centuries, and was in the centre of his European dominions, and fix it on the western extremity, and on a spot so undesirable to all vulgar observation. But it is this act, that promises to place Russia among the foremost of European powers, and open to her a career among the nations of the civilised world, to which it is difficult for the boldest spirit of prediction to assign any limits.
