Identifier: footprintsoftrav01ball (find matches)
Title: Foot-prints of travel; or, Journeyings in many lands
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Ballou, Maturin M(urray) 1820-1895
Subjects: Voyages around the world
Publisher: Boston, Ginn & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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st of which are crowned with four or five fantasticcupolas each, and whose interiors are rich in gold, silver,and precious stones, together with a large array of priestlyvestments elaborately embroidered with gold and orna-mented with a profusion of gems. It is, indeed, a city ofchurches and palaces. Peter the Great and Catharine II.,who has been called the female Peter the Great, made thisbrilliant capital what it is. Everything that meets the eyeis colossal. The superb Alexander Column, erected aboutfifty years ago, is a solid shaft of red granite, and theloftiest single-stone column in the world. On its pedestalis inscribed this simple line : To Alexander I. — GratefulRussia. It is surmounted by an angelic figure, the wholestructure being one hundred and fifty-four feet high, andthe column itself fourteen feet in diameter at the base ;but so large is the square in which it stands that the shaftloses much of its colossal effect. Opposite the Alexander l;;;;;;;;ll;^;illl>T <l
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llilfllu ,2 yOURNEYINGS IN MANY LANDS. 281 Column, on the same wide area, are situated the WinterPalace, with the Hermitage on one side as a sort of annex,and on the other side in half-moon shape are the Statebuildings containing the bureaus of the several ministers,whose quarters are each a palace in itself. There is notone of the many spacious squares of the city which isnot ornamented with bronze statues of more or less merit,embracing monuments to Peter the Great, Catharine,Nicholas, Alexander I., and others. The Nevsky Prospect is the most fashionable thorough-fare, and the one devoted to the best shops. It is over ahundred feet in width, and extends for a distance of threemiles in a nearly straight line to the Alexander NevskyMonastery, forming a most magnificent avenue. On thisstreet may be seen the churches of several sects of differ-ent faiths, such as Roman Catholics, Protestants, Armeni-ans, and a Mahometan mosque. Here also are the ImperialLibrary, the Alexander Theatre, a

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