out of the stable, tied it to a post, and beat it with a thick stick for
a quarter of an hour so violently that my heart bled for the poor animal.
At last the chevochic was tired out, and taking the horse back to the
stable he fastened up his head once more, and to my astonishment it began
to devour its provender with the greatest appetite. At this the master
jumped for joy, laughed, sang, and committed a thousand extravagancies,
as if to shew the horse how happy it had made him. I was beside myself
with astonishment, and concluded that such treatment would have succeeded
nowhere but in Russia, where the stick seems to be the panacea or
universal medicine.

They tell me, however, that the stick is gradually going out of fashion.
Peter the Great used to beat his generals black and blue, and in his days
a lieutenant had to receive with all submission the cuffs of his captain,
who bent before the blows of his major, who did the same to his colonel,
who received chastisement from his general. So I was informed by old
General Woyakoff, who was a pupil of Peter the Great, and had often been
beaten by the great emperor, the founder of St. Petersburg.

It seems to me that I have scarcely said anything about this great and
famous capital, which in my opinion is built on somewhat precarious
foundations. No one but Peter could have thus given the lie to Nature by
building his immense palaces of marble and granite on mud and shifting
sand. They tell me that the town is now in its manhood, to the honour of
the great Catherine; but in the year 1765 it was still in its minority,
and seemed to me only to have been built with the childish aim of seeing
it fall into ruins. Streets were built with the certainty of having to
repair them in six months' time. The whole place proclaimed itself to be
the whim of a despot. If it is to be durable constant care will be
required, for nature never gives up its rights and reasserts them when