Show czar guided by ty eagle on a glorious spring morning toward the close of may years t ago a momentous historic event took i place in 4 very quiet way with not J even a chronicler to describe the deib tails woodland water and a cloud 5 less sky formed the framework of i the picture the foreground of which ij wa was occupied with a number of boats o 0 sailing on the surface of a broad river and manned with warriors fierce look ing oddly dressed and wrangling among themselves in loud tones they were the famous bombardier regi ment which had achieved feats of prowess a few weeks before during the battle with the swedes and their Scap captain tain was the most imposing fig are ure of them all sitting in the prow of a stout vessel ahead of the rest the weather was bright and bracing and the breeze caused the face of the blue broad neva to wrinkle as it lost itself in the finnish gulf the cap tain stood with his back to the sea gazing at the smiling islands in front which were literally covered with dense forests indeed bad had it not been for the noisy tongued men on the boats he might have fancied himself in a country theretofore unvisited by man the whole district swedish down to a couple of weeks before had I 1 recently been taken by the russian troops the captain now landed on the most pleasantly situated and at of the islands and with a few of his officers was making his I 1 way to the center when a curious sound in the air above arrested his attention looking up he beheld a great eagle flapping its wings noisily soaring up to a dizzy height and then swiftly des bending to a spot not tar far from where he stood he did not then know that it was a bird tamed by the men me 31 who were wont to load the boats with tim her but looked upon its appearance as a good omen for his undertaking seizing a bayonet therefore he cut out two sods of the turf placed them one on the other like the beams of a cross then made a wooden cross from two bough and pressing it into the sods exclaimed in the name of jesus christ let there be a chu church ach on this spot and let its name be those of the chief apostles peter and paul and it was all he had said the church with its golden spire now surmounts the terrible fortress in which many political prisoners have perished miserably and the city aroura it Is st petersburg for the captain of the bombardiers was peter the great i such Is the legendary tale of the foundation of the northern palmyra which is said to have been jotted down by an officer of the corps at the time and to have been laid in a gold casket which still lies among the foundations of the fortress |