“I wondered whether the laboring man worked eight or ten hours under my window; it seemed to me that he was sawing wood the whole twenty-four!

“W. came in one night after a stroll, and described a beautiful square which he had come upon accidentally.  I listened with great interest, and said, ’I must go there in the morning; what is the name of it?’—­’I don’t know,’ he replied.—­’Why didn’t you read the sign?’ I asked.—­’I can’t read,’ was the reply.—­’Oh, no; but why didn’t you ask some one?’—­’I can’t speak,’ he answered.  Neither reading nor speaking, we had to learn St. Petersburg by our observation, and it is the best way.  Most travellers read too much.

“There are learned institutions in St. Petersburg:  universities, libraries, picture-galleries, and museums; but the first institution with which I became acquainted was the drosky.  The drosky is a very, very small phaeton.  It has the driver’s seat in front, and a very narrow seat behind him.  One person can have room enough on this second seat, but it usually carries two.  Invariably the drosky is lined with dark-blue cloth, and the drosky-driver wears a dark-blue wrapper, coming to the feet, girded around the waist by a crimson sash.  He also wears a bell-shaped hat, turned up at the side.  You are a little in doubt, if you see him at first separated from his drosky, whether he is a market-woman or a serving-man, the dress being very much like a morning wrapper.  But he is rarely six feet away from his carriage, and usually he is upon it, sound asleep!

“The trunks having gone to St. Petersburg in advance of ourselves, our first duty was to get possession of them.  They were at the custom-house, across the city.  My nephew and I jumped upon a drosky—­we could not say that we were really in the drosky, for the seat was too short.  The drosky-driver started off his horse over the cobble-stones at a terrible rate.  I could not keep my seat, and I clung to W. He shouted, ’Don’t hold by me; I shall be out the next minute!’ What could be done?  I was sure I shouldn’t stay on half a minute.  Blessings on the red sash of the drosky-man—­I caught at that!  He drove faster and faster, and I clung tighter and tighter, but alarmed at two immense dangers:  first, that I should stop his breath by dragging the girdle so tightly; and, next, that when it became unendurable to him, he would loosen it in front.

“I could not perceive that he was aware of my existence at all!  He had only one object in life,—­to carry us across the city to our place of destination, and to get his copecks in return.

“In a few days I learned to like the jolly vehicles very much.  They are so numerous that you may pick one up on any street, whenever you are tired of walking.

“My principal object in visiting St. Petersburg was the astronomical observatory at Pulkova, some twelve miles distant.

“I had letters to the director, Otto von Struve, but our consul declared that I must also have one from him, for Struve was a very great man.  I, of course, accepted it.