Petersburg is told. The train runs very smoothly and very slowly;
twenty miles an hour is about the rate. Of course the journey seemed
long. For a large part of the way it was an uninhabited, level plain; so
green, however, that it seemed like travelling on prairies. Occasionally
we passed a dreary little village of small huts, and as we neared St.
Petersburg we passed larger and better built towns, which the dome of
some cathedral lighted up for miles.
"The road was enlivened, too, by another peculiarity. The restaurants
were all adorned by flags of all colors, and festooned by vines. At one
place the green arches ran across the road, and we passed under a bower
of evergreens. I accepted this, at first, as a Russian peculiarity, and
was surprised that so much attention was paid to travellers; but I
learned that it was not for us at all. The Duke of Edinboro' had passed
over the road a few days before, on his way to St. Petersburg, for his
betrothal to the only daughter of the czar, and the decorations were for
him; and so we felt that we were of the party, although we had not been
asked.
"We approached St. Petersburg just at night, and caught the play of the
sunlight on the domes. It is a city of domes--blue domes, green domes,
white domes, and, above all, the golden dome of the Cathedral of St.
Isaac's.
"It is almost never a single dome. St. Isaac's central, gilded dome
looms up above its fellow domes, but four smaller ones surround it.
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