"This country may well be likened to a comet; we are now in the
perihelion--I shall not wait the aphelion. Never have I seen so many
severe cases of summer disease.
"St. Petersburg, built upon a morass, resembles Holland in everything
but cleanliness and wealth. An inundation of the Neva, the only outlet
of the vast Lake Ladoga and its tributary swamps, lays the city under
water. The mark of the last inundation is four feet above the surface
of the streets, which are all on a dead level. The water for drinking
is detestable, worse even than that of Norfolk or New York, and never
fails to engender the most fatal diseases. Dysentery in its worst
form, bilious fever of the most malignant type, are now raging. The
Concord [the ship which brought him] is a perfect hospital.
"I have written thus far interrupted every quarter of a minute by
innumerable flies, gigantic as the empire they inhabit, which attack
the face in all its vulnerable points--nose, mouth, ears, and eyes
under the cover of the spectacles. This is the land of Pharaoh and its
plagues. It is Egypt in all but fertility. The extremes of human
misery and human splendour here meet."