Early in the morning, while I was standing in the yard of the hotel, chaffering with some Jews about the sale of our carriage, an officer in a faded, threadbare uniform, with two or three ribands at his buttonhole and stars sparkling on his breast, came up, and, taking me by the hand, told me, in capital English, that he had just heard of the arrival of two English gentlemen, and had hurried down to see them; that he was a great admirer of the English, and happy to have an opportunity, in the interior of his own country, to show its hospitalities to the natives of the Island Queen. At the risk of losing the benefit of his attentions, I was obliged to disclaim my supposed English character, and to publish, in the heart of a grinding despotism, that I was a citizen of a free republic. Nor did I suffer for my candour; for, by one of those strange vagaries which sometimes happen, we cannot tell how or why, this officer in the service of Russia had long looked to America and her republican government as the perfection of an ideal system. He was in Chioff only by accident. Wounded in the last campaign against the Turks, he had taken up his abode at Ismail, where, upon his pension and a pittance of his own, he was able to live respectably as a poor officer. With no friends or connexions, and no society at Ismail, his head seemed to have run principally upon two things, apparently having no connexion with each other, but intimately connected in his mind, viz., the British possessions in India and the United States of America; and the cord that bound them together was the wide diffusion of the English language by means of these powerful agents. He told me more than I ever knew of the constitution and government of the East India Company, and their plan of operations; and, in regard to our own country, his knowledge was astonishing; he knew the names and character, and talked familiarly of all our principal men, from the time of Washington to the present day; had read all our standard works, and was far more familiar with those of Franklin, Irving, &c., than I was; in short, he told me that he had read every American book, pamphlet, or paper he could lay his hands on; and so intimate was his knowledge of detail, that he mentioned Chestnut-street by name as one of the principal streets in Philadelphia. It may be supposed that I was not sorry to meet such a man in the heart of Russia. He devoted himself to us, and seldom left us, except at night, until we left the city.

After breakfast, accompanied by our new friend with as unpronounceable a name as the best in Russia, we visited the catacombs of the Petcherskoi monastery. I have before remarked that Chioff is the holy city of the Russians, and the crowds of pilgrims we met at every turn in the streets constantly reminded us that this was the great season of the pilgrimage. I was but imperfectly acquainted with the Russian character, but in no one particular had I been so ignorant as in regard to their religious impressions. I had seen Italian, Greek, and Turkish devotees, but the Russian surpassed them all; and, though deriving their religion from strangers, they exceed the punctilious Greeks themselves in the observance of its minutest forms. Censurable, indeed, would he be considered who should pass, in city or in highway, the figure of the cross, the image of the Virgin, or any of the numerous family of saints, without taking off his hat and making on his breast the sacred sign of the cross; and in a city like Chioff, where every turn presents some new object claiming their worship, the eyes of our drosky boy were rapidly turning from one side to the other, and his hand was almost constantly in a quick mechanical motion.

The Church of the Catacombs, or the Cathedral of the Assumption, attached to the monastery, stands a little out of the city, on the banks of the Dnieper. It was founded in ten hundred and seventy-three, and has seven golden domes with golden spires, and chains connecting them. The dome of the belfry, which rises above the hill to the height of about three hundred feet, and above the Dnieper to that of five hundred and eighty-six, is considered by the Russians a chef d'œuvre of architecture. It is adorned with Doric and Ionic columns and Corinthian pilasters; the whole interior bears the venerable garb of antiquity, and is richly ornamented with gold, silver, and precious stones and paintings; indeed, it is altogether very far superior to any Greek church I had then seen.

In the immense catacombs under the monastery lie the unburied bodies of the Russian saints, and year after year thousands and tens of thousands come from the wilds of Siberia and the confines of Tartary to kneel at their feet and pray. In one of the porches of the church we bought wax tapers, and, with a long procession of pilgrims, bareheaded and with lighted tapers in our hands, descended a long wooden staircase to the mouth of the catacomb. On each side along the staircase was ranged a line of kneeling devotees, of the same miserable description I had so often seen about the churches in Italy and Greece. Entering the excavated passages of the catacombs, the roof of which was black from the smoke of candles, we saw on each side, in niches in the walls, and in open coffins, enveloped in wrappers of cloth and silk, ornamented with gold and silver, the bodies of the Russian saints. These saints are persons who have led particularly pure and holy lives, and by reason thereof have ascended into heaven, where they are supposed to exercise an influence with the Father and Son; and their bodies are left unburied that their brethren may come to them for intercession, and, seeing their honours after death, study to imitate them in the purity of their lives. The bodies are laid in open coffins, with the stiffened hands so placed as to receive the kisses of pilgrims, and on their breasts are written their names, and sometimes a history of their virtuous actions. But we saw there other and worse things than these, monuments of wild and desperate fanaticism; for besides the bodies of saints who had died at God's appointed time, in one passage is a range of small windows, where men had with their own hands built themselves in with stones against the wall, leaving open only a small hole by which to receive their food; and died with the impious thought that they were doing their Maker good service. These little windows close their dwelling and their tomb; and the devoted Russian, while he kneels before them, believes that their unnatural death has purchased for them everlasting life, and place and power among the spirits of the blessed.

We wandered a long time in this extraordinary burial-place, everywhere strewed with the kneeling figures of praying pilgrims. At every turn we saw hundreds from the farthest parts of the immense empire of Russia; perhaps at that time more than three thousand were wandering in these sepulchral chambers.

The last scene I shall never forget. More than a hundred were assembled in a little chapel, around which were arranged the bodies of men who had died in peculiar sanctity. All were kneeling on the rocky floor, an old priest, with a long white beard streaming down his breast, was in the midst of them, and all there, even to the little children, were listening with rapt attention, as if he were preaching to them matters of eternal moment. There was no hypocrisy or want of faith in that vast sepulchre; surrounded by their sainted dead, they were searching their way to everlasting life, and in all honesty believed that they saw the way before them. We ascended once more to the regions of upper air, and stopped a few moments in the courtyard of the monastery, where the beggar pilgrims were eating the hard bread distributed to them by the monks from the bounty of government. No man seemed more relieved than the major. He was a liberal in religion as well as in politics, but he crossed himself everywhere most devoutly, to avoid, as he said, offending the prejudices of his countrymen, though once he rather scandalized a group of pilgrims by cross-questioning a monk about a new saint, who seemed to be receiving more than a usual share of veneration, and who, he said, had been canonized since he was there last.

But there is a time for all things, and nothing is more absolutely fixed by Nature's laws than a time for dinner. Almost at the first moment of our acquaintance the major had told me of an engraving representing a scene in New-York, which was to be found at a second or third rate hotel, and I proposed to him, in compliment to the honest publican who had the good taste to have such a picture in his house, to go there and dine. We went, and in a large room, something like a barroom in our hotels, saw on one of the walls, in a black wooden frame, a gaudy and flaring engraving representing the pulling down of the statue of George the Second in the Bowling Green. The Bowling Green was associated with my earliest recollections. It had been my playground when a boy; hundreds of times I had climbed over its fence for my ball, and I was one of a band of boys who held on to it long after the corporation invaded our rights. Captain Cook mentions the effect produced upon his crew by finding at one of the savage islands he visited a silver spoon marked "London;" my feelings were, in a small way, of the same nature. The grouping of the picture was rude and grotesque, the ringleader being a long negro stripped to his trousers, and straining with all his might upon a rope, one end of which was fastened to the head of the statue, and the other tied around his own waist, his white teeth and the whites of his eyes being particularly conspicuous on a heavy ground of black. It was a poor specimen of art, but it was a home scene; we drew up our table opposite the picture, and here, in the very headquarters of despotism, I found a liberal spirit in an officer wearing the uniform of the autocrat, who pledged me in the toast, "Success to liberty throughout the world."

I had another occupation, which savoured more of home, and served to keep my faculties from rusting; and that was the sale of our carriage. We had made a calculation, and found that it would be cheaper, to say nothing of other advantages, to give it away, and take the diligence to Moscow, than go on posting. We accordingly offered it for sale, and every time we returned to the house found a group of Jews examining it. The poor thing found no favour in their eyes; they told us that we had been riding in it at peril of our lives; that we might be thankful it had not broken down on the road; and, in short, that it was worth nothing except for old iron, and for that it was worth forty-five rubles, or about nine dollars. We could not stand this. It had cost us one hundred and forty less than a week before, was cheap at that, and as good now as when we bought it. On the eve of departure, therefore, we offered it to our landlord for three days' board; but the old Turk (he was a Jew turned Christian, and in his regenerated worse than his natural state) refused our offer, thinking that we would go away and leave it on his hands. But we resolved to burn it first; and while hesitating about offering it to our friend the major, he relieved us from all delicacy by telling us that he did not want it, and had no horses to put to it; to save us from imposition, he would willingly give us the full value, but he was not worth the money. He had, however, a piece of fifty rubles, or about ten dollars, in his pocket, and, if we would take that, he would keep the carriage as a souvenir. We gladly accepted his offer, and had the satisfaction of finding that we had grievously disappointed both the Jews and our landlord.

In the morning the proprietor of the diligence, learning that we had sold our vehicle, raised the price of places fifty rubles apiece; the major heard of it, and insisted upon our taking back the carriage, when the proprietor took another tone, talked of the expense of sending his huge vehicle with only two passengers, and we listened and assented. We started to accompany him, and just at the door of the hotel saw two runaway horses coming furiously down the street with a drosky, and an officer entangled and dragging on the ground. We picked him up and carried him into the hotel. He was a noble-looking man, who but a few minutes before had attracted my attention by his proud and manly bearing, now a miserable mangled object, his clothes torn, his plume soiled with mud, and his face covered with dust and blood, and, when we left, it was uncertain whether he would live or die.

The major accompanied us to the office of the diligence, and our parting was rather tender; he rubbed his mustache on both my cheeks, wrote his name in my memorandum-book, and I gave him my address; he said that our visit had been an interlude relieving the dull monotony of his life; that we were going to new scenes, and would soon forget him, but he would not forget us. Nor shall I forget him, although it is not probable that he and I will ever meet again.

We took our seats in the diligence for Moscow, and set off with an uncommon degree of satisfaction at having got rid of posting and of Henri, and, with them, of all our troubles. We had nothing to do, no wrangling with postmasters, no cheating to undergo from Jews, and were in that happy state which made the honest Hibernian indifferent to an upset or a breakdown; that is to say, we were merely passengers. With great pomp and circumstance we drove through the principal streets, to advise the Knickerbockers of Chioff of the actual departure of the long-talked-of diligence, the conducteur sounding his trumpet, and the people stopping in the streets and running to the doors to see the extraordinary spectacle.

We descended the long wooden road to the river, and crossed the Dnieper on a bridge about half a mile long. On the opposite bank I turned for the last time to the sacred city, and I never saw anything more unique and strikingly beautiful than the high, commanding position of "this city on a hill," crowned with its golden cupolas and domes, that reflected the sun with dazzling brightness.

For a short distance the country was rather undulating, but soon settled into the regular steppe. We rolled on all day without anything to annoy us or even to interest us, except processions of pilgrims on their way to Chioff. They travelled on foot in bands of one or two hundred, men, women, and children, headed by a white-bearded monk, barefooted, and leaning on a staff. During the night I was roused by a loud chant, and, looking out, saw a group of more than a hundred pilgrims gathered round a fire, with an old monk in the midst of them, breaking the stillness of night with songs of devotion; and all the night long, as we rode swiftly by, I saw by the bright moonlight groups of forty, fifty, or a hundred lying by the roadside asleep under the trees. More than fifty thousand pilgrims that year visited the catacombs of Kiev, coming from every part of the immense empire of Russia, and many from Kamschatka and the most distant region of Siberia, performing the whole journey on foot, seldom sleeping under a roof, and living upon the precarious charity of the miserable peasants on the road. I have since seen the gathering of pilgrims at Jerusalem, and the whole body moving together from the gates of the city to bathe in the Jordan, and I have seen the great caravan of forty thousand true believers tracking their desolate way through the deserts of Arabia to the tomb of the Prophet at Mecca; but I remember, as if they were before me now, the groups of Russian pilgrims strewed along the road and sleeping under the pale moonlight, the bare earth their bed, the heavens their only covering.

In the morning we stopped at a little town, where the posthouse had in front four Corinthian columns supporting a balcony. Inside, mats were placed against the broken windows, the walls were rough logs, the floor of mud, with pigs and children disputing its possession, and the master and mistress stood in special need of the purifying influence of a Russian bath. We brought the teaurn out on the balcony, and had a cow brought up and milked in our presence. After breakfast we lighted our pipes and strolled up the street. At the upper end, an old man in a civil uniform hailed us from the opposite side, and crossed over to meet us; supposing him to be some dignitary disposed to show us the civilities of the town, we waited to receive him with all becoming respect; but, as he approached, were rather startled by the loud tone of his voice and the angry expression of his face, and more so when, as soon as within reach, he gave my pipe-stick a severe rap with his cane, which knocked it out of my mouth, broke the bowl, and scattered the contents on the ground. I picked up the stick, and should, perhaps, have laid it over his head but for his gray hairs; and my companion, seeing him tread out the sparks of fire, recollected that there was a severe penalty in Russia against smoking in the streets. The houses are all of wood; whole villages and towns are often burned down at once, and probably the old man had begun by a civil intimation to that effect; but, indignant at my quietly smoking in his face, had used more summary measures. He was in a perfect fury; and calling at the top of his voice to a man up the street, the latter went off with such a suspicious looking-for-a-police-officer movement, that we hurried back to the diligence, which happened to be ready and waiting for us, and started from the town on a full run.

That night, in a miserable posthouse in a miserable village, we found an old billiard-table. It seemed strangely out of place, and I had a great curiosity to know how it had found its way there; but it was twelve o'clock, and all were asleep but the postillion. I can give no account of the rest of the night's work. I had a large cushioned seat of the diligence to myself, certainly the softest bed I had yet had in Russia; and when I put my feet out of the window, it was so comfortable that I felt myself in some danger of falling into luxurious habits.

At daylight we arrived in a large village, the inhabitants of which were not yet stirring, and the streets were strewed with peasants, grim, yellow-bearded fellows, in sheepskin dresses and caps, lying on their backs asleep, each of them with a log of wood under his head for a pillow. I descended from the diligence, and found that the whole village consisted of a single street, with log-houses on each side, having their gable ends in front; the doors were all open, and I looked in and saw men and women with all their clothes on, pigs, sheep, and children strewed about the floor.

In every house was the image of the Panagia, or all holy Virgin, or the picture of some tutelary saint, the face only visible, the rest covered with a tin frame, with a lamp or taper burning before it; and regularly as the serf rose he prostrated himself and made his orisons at this domestic shrine.

About noon we passed the chateau and grounds of a seigneur; belonging to the chateau was a large church standing in a conspicuous situation, with a green dome, surmounted by the Greek cross; and round it were the miserable and filthy habitations of his slaves. Entering the village, we saw a spectacle of wretchedness and misery seldom surpassed even on the banks of the Nile. The whole population was gathered in the streets, in a state of absolute starvation. The miserable serfs had not raised enough to supply themselves with food, and men of all ages, half-grown boys, and little children were prowling the streets or sitting in the doorways, ravenous with hunger, and waiting for the agent to come down from the chateau and distribute among them bread.

I had found in Russia many interesting subjects of comparison between that country and my own, but it was with deep humiliation I felt that the most odious feature in that despotic government found a parallel in ours. At this day, with the exception of Russia, some of the West India Islands, and the republic of the United States, every country in the civilized world can respond to the proud boast of the English common law, that the moment a slave sets foot on her soil he is free. I respect the feelings of others and their vested rights, and would be the last to suffer those feelings or those rights to be wantonly violated; but I do not hesitate to say that, abroad, slavery stands as a dark blot upon our national character. There it will not admit of any palliation; it stands in glaring contrast with the spirit of our free institutions; it belies our words and our hearts; and the American who would be most prompt to repel any calumny upon his country withers under this reproach, and writhes with mortification when the taunt is hurled at the otherwise stainless flag of the free republic. I was forcibly struck with a parallel between the white serfs of the north of Europe and African bondsmen at home. The Russian boor, generally wanting the comforts which are supplied to the negro on our best-ordered plantations, appeared to me to be not less degraded in intellect, character, and personal bearing. Indeed, the marks of physical and personal degradation were so strong, that I was insensibly compelled to abandon certain theories not uncommon among my countrymen at home, in regard to the intrinsic superiority of the white race over all others. Perhaps, too, this impression was aided by my having previously met with Africans of intelligence and capacity, standing upon a footing of perfect equality as soldiers and officers in the Greek army and the sultan's.

The serfs of Russia differ from slaves with us in the important particular that they belong to the soil, and cannot be sold except with the estate; they may change masters, but cannot be torn from their connexions or their birthplace. One sixth of the whole peasantry of Russia, amounting to six or seven millions, belong to the crown, and inhabit the imperial demesne, and pay an annual tax. In particular districts, many have been enfranchised, and become burghers and merchants; and the liberal and enlightened policy of the present emperor is diffusing a more general system of melioration among these subjects of his vast empire. The rest of the serfs belong to the nobles, and are the absolute property and subject to the absolute control of their masters, as much as the cattle on their estates. Some of the seigneurs possess from seventy to more than a hundred thousand; and their wealth depends upon the skill and management with which the labour of these serfs is employed. Sometimes the seigneur sends the most intelligent to Petersburgh or Moscow to learn some handicraft, and then employs them on his own estates, hires them out, or allows them to exercise their trade on their own account on payment of an annual sum. And sometimes, too, he gives the serf a passport, under which he is protected all over Russia, settles in a city, and engages in trade, and very often accumulates enough to ransom himself and his family. Indeed, there are many instances of a serf's acquiring a large property, and even rising to eminence. But he is always subject to the control of his master; and I saw at Moscow an old mongik who had acquired a very large fortune, but was still a slave. His master's price for his freedom had advanced with his growing wealth, and the poor serf, unable to bring himself to part with his hard earnings, was then rolling in wealth with a collar round his neck; struggling with the inborn spirit of freedom, and hesitating whether to die a beggar or a slave.

The Russian serf is obliged to work for his master but three days in the week; the other three he may work for himself on a portion of land assigned to him by law on his master's estate. He is never obliged to work on Sunday, and every saint's day or fête day of the church is a holyday. This might be supposed to give him an opportunity of elevating his character and condition; but, wanting the spirit of a free agent, and feeling himself the absolute property of another, he labours grudgingly for his master, and for himself barely enough to supply the rudest necessaries of life and pay his tax to the seigneur. A few rise above their condition, but millions labour like beasts of burden, content with bread to put in their mouths, and never even thinking of freedom. A Russian nobleman told me that he believed, if the serfs were all free, he could cultivate his estate to better advantage by hired labour; and I have no doubt a dozen Connecticut men would cultivate more ground than a hundred Russian serfs, allowing their usual non-working days and holydays. They have no interest in the soil, and the desolate and uncultivated wastes of Russia show the truth of the judicious reflection of Catharine II., "that agriculture can never flourish in that nation where the husbandman possesses no property."

It is from this great body of peasantry that Russia recruits her immense standing army, or, in case of invasion, raises in a moment a vast body of soldiers. Every person in Russia entitled to hold land is known to the government, as well as the number of peasants on his estate; and, upon receiving notice of an imperial order to that effect, the numbers required by the levy are marched forthwith from every part of the empire to the places of rendezvous appointed. It might be asked, What have these men to fight for? They have no country, and are brought up on immense levels, wanting the rocks, rivers, and mountains that inspire local attachments. It is a singular fact, that, with the Russian serf, there is always an unbounded love for him who stands at the head of the system of oppression under which they groan, the emperor, whom they regard as their protector against the oppression of their immediate masters; but to whatever cause it may be ascribed, whether inability to estimate the value of any change in their condition, or a feeling of actual love for the soil on which they were born, during the invasion of Napoleon the serfs of Russia presented a noble spectacle; and the spirit of devotion which animated the corps of ten thousand in the north extended to the utmost bounds of the empire. They received orders to march from St. Petersburgh to meet the advance of the French army; the emperor reviewed them, and is said to have shed tears at their departure. Arrived at the place appointed, Witgenstein ordered them to fall back to a certain point, but they answered "No; the last promise we made the emperor our father was, that we would never fly before the enemy, and we keep our word." Eight thousand of their number died on the spot; and the spirit which animated them fired the serfs throughout the whole empire. The scholar may sneer, but I defy him to point to a nobler page in Grecian or Roman history.

I shall make amends for this long discussion by hurrying on to Moscow. We rode hundreds of miles without meeting a hill; the country was bare of trees, and almost everywhere presenting the same appearance. We saw the first disk of the sun peeping out of the earth, watched it while soaring on its daily round, and, without a bush to obstruct the view, saw it sink below the horizon; and woke up at all times of night and saw the stars,

The principal and only large towns on our road were Orel and Toula, the former containing a population of four or five thousand, and presenting an imposing display of churches and monasteries gaudily painted and with gilded domes; the houses were principally of wood, painted yellow. Toula is the largest manufacturing town, and is called the Sheffield of Russia, being particularly celebrated for its cutlery. Everywhere the diligence created a great sensation; the knowing ones said it would never do; but at Orel one spirited individual said if we would wait three days for him he would go on with us. It can hardly seem credible, in our steamboat and railroad community, that a public conveyance could roll on for seven days and nights, through many villages and towns, toward the capital of an immense empire, and not take in a single way-passenger; but such was the fact; and on the morning of the seventh day, alone, as we started from Chioff, we were approaching the burned and rebuilt capital of the Czars, Moscow with gilded cupolas, the holy Moscow, the sanctified city, the Jerusalem of Russia, beloved of God, and dear to men.

CHAPTER III.

At daylight we arrived at the last post; and here, for the first time, we saw evidences of our approach to a great city. Four or five travelling-carriages were waiting for horses, some of which had been waiting all night; but our diligence being a "public accommodation," we were preferred, and had the first that came in. We took our places for the last time in the diligence, and passed two or three fine chateaux, our curiosity and interest increasing as we approached, until, at about five versts from Moscow, as we reached the summit of a gentle eminence, the whole city broke upon us at one view, situated in the midst of a great plain, and covering an extent of more than thirty versts. Moscow is emphatically the city of churches, containing more than six hundred, many of which have five or six domes, with steeples, and spires, and crosses, gilded and connected together with golden chains like those of Chioff. Its convents, too, are almost innumerable, rivalling the churches in size and magnificence, and even to us, coming directly from the capital of the Eastern empire, presenting a most striking and extraordinary appearance. As we passed the barrier, two of the most conspicuous objects on each side were the large Greek convents, enclosed by high walls, with noble trees growing above them; and as we rode through the wide and showy streets, the first thing that struck me as strange, and, in this inhospitable climate (always associated in my mind with rude and wintry scenes), as singularly beautiful, was the profusion of plants and flowers, with the remarkable degree of taste and attention given to their cultivation. In Greece and Turkey I had seen the rarest plants and flowers literally "wasting their sweetness on the desert air;" while here, in the heart of an inhospitable country, every house had a courtyard or garden, and in front a light open portico or veranda, ornamented with plants, and shrubs, and flowers, forced into a glowing though unnatural beauty. The whole appearance of the city is Asiatic; and as the exhibition of flowers in front of the better class of houses was almost universal, Moscow seemed basking in the mild climate of Southern Asia, rioting in its brief period of vernal existence, and forgetting that, in a few weeks, a frost would come and cover their beauty with the dreary drapery of winter.

At the office of the diligence my companion and myself separated. He went to a hotel kept by an English woman, with English company, and I believe, too, with English comfort, and I rode to the Hotel Germanica, an old and favourite stopping-place with the Russian seigneurs when they come up from their estates in the country. Having secured my room, I mounted a drosky and hurried to a bath. Riding out to the suburbs, the drosky boy stopped at a large wooden building, pouring forth steam from every chink and crevice. At the entrance stood several half-naked men, one of whom led me to an apartment to undress, and then conducted me to another, in one end of which were a furnace and apparatus for generating steam. I was then familiar with the Turkish bath, but the worst I had known was like the breath of the gentle south wind compared with the heat of this apartment. The operator stood me in the middle of the floor, opened the upper door of the stove, and dashed into it a bucketful of water, which sent forth volumes of steam like a thick fog into every part of the room, and then laid me down on a platform about three feet high and rubbed my body with a mop dipped in soap and hot water; then he raised me up, and deluged me with hot water, pouring several tubfuls on my head; then laid me down again, and scrubbed me with soap and water from my head to my heels, long enough, if the thing were possible, to make a blackamoor white; then gave me another sousing with hot water, and another scrubbing with pure water, and then conducted me up a flight of steps to a high platform, stretched me out on a bench within a few feet of the ceiling, and commenced whipping me with twigs of birch, with the leaves on them, dipped in hot water. It was hot as an oven where he laid me down on the bench; the vapour, which almost suffocated me below, ascended to the ceiling, and, finding no avenue of escape, gathered round my devoted body, fairly scalding and blistering me; and when I removed my hands from my face, I felt as if I had carried away my whole profile. I tried to hold out to the end, but I was burning, scorching, and consuming. In agony I cried out to my tormentor to let me up, but he did not understand me, or was loath to let me go, and kept thrashing me with the bunch of twigs until, perfectly desperate, I sprang off the bench, tumbled him over, and descended to the floor. Snow, snow, a region of eternal snow seemed paradise; but my tormentor had not done with me; and, as I was hurrying to the door, he dashed over me a tub of cold water. I was so hot that it seemed to hiss as it touched me; he came at me with another, and at that moment I could imagine, what had always seemed a traveller's story, the high satisfaction and perfect safety with which the Russian in mid winter rushes from his hot bath and rolls himself in the snow. The grim features of my tormentor relaxed as he saw the change that came over me. I withdrew to my dressing-room, dozed an hour on the settee, and went out a new man. In half an hour I stood in the palace of the Czars, within the walls of the Kremlin.

Toward evening I returned to my hotel. In all the large hotels in Russia it is the custom for every man to dine in his own apartment. Travelling alone, I always avoided this when I could, as, besides my dislike of the thing itself, it prevented my making acquaintances and acquiring such information as I needed in a strange city; and I was particularly averse to dine alone the first day of my arrival at Moscow; but it was the etiquette of the house to do so, and as I had a letter of introduction which I intended to deliver, from Count Woronzow to Prince Galitzin, the governor of Moscow, I was bound to make some sacrifice for the credit of my acquaintance. After the table was spread, however, finding it too severe a trial, I went down stairs and invited myself to dine with my landlord. He was a German of about fifty-five or sixty, tall, stout, with gray hair, a frank, manly expression, and great respectability of appearance and manners; and before the dinner was over I regarded him emphatically as what a Frenchman would call un brave homme. He had been in Russia during the whole of the French invasion, and, among the other incidents of a stirring life, had been sent in exile to Siberia; and the curious part of it was, that he was sent there by mistake. Rather an awkward mistake, though, as he said, not so bad as being knouted or hanged by mistake; and in his case it turned out a rather interesting adventure. He was taken by the French as a Russian spy, and retaken by the Russians as a French spy, when, as he said, he did not care a fig for either of them. He was hurried off to Siberia, but on the journey succeeded in convincing the officer who escorted the prisoners that there was error in the case, and on his arrival was merely detained in exile, without being put to hard labour, until, through the medium of friends, he had the matter brought before the proper tribunal, and the mistake corrected, when he came back post, in company with a Russian officer, smoking his pipe all the way, at the expense of the government. He gave me many interesting particulars in regard to that celebrated country, its mines, the sufferings of the noble exiles; and much also, that was new to me, touching its populousness and wealth, and the comfort and luxury of a residence there. He spoke of Tobolsk as a large, gay, and populous city, containing hotels, theatres, and all kinds of places of amusement. The exiles, being many of them of rank, have introduced there all the luxuries of the capital, and life at Tobolsk is much the same as life at Moscow.

As the rage for travelling is excited by hearing from the lips of a traveller stories of the countries he has visited, before dinner was over I found myself infected with a strong disposition for a journey to Siberia. Small matters, however, produce great changes in the current of a man's feelings, and in a few moments I had entirely forgotten Siberia, and was carried directly home. While we were smoking our pipes, an old gentleman entered, of singularly aristocratic appearance, whom my host received with the greatest consideration and respect, addressing him as the Marquis de P——. He was a Frenchman, an old militaire, and a noble specimen of a race almost extinct; tall, thin, and gray-headed, wearing a double-breasted blue frockcoat, buttoned up to the throat, with a cane in his hand and a red riband in his buttonhole, the decoration of the Knights of Malta; and when my host introduced me as an American traveller arrived that day in Moscow, he welcomed me with more than the usual forms of courtesy, and told me that, far off as it was, and little as he knew of it, he almost regarded America as his own country; that, on the downfall of "the emperor," and in a season of universal scattering, some of his nearest relatives, particularly a sister married to a fellow-soldier and his dearest friend, had taken refuge on the other side of the Atlantic; that, eighteen years before, he had met an American secretary of legation who knew them, but since that time he had not heard from them, and did not know whether they were living or dead. I asked him the name, with very little expectation of being able to give him any information about them; and it was with no small degree of pleasure that I found I was particularly acquainted with the condition of his relatives. His brother-in-law and old comrade was dead, but I brought him a satisfaction to which he had long been a stranger, by telling him that his sister was still living, occupying a large property in a neighbouring state, surrounded by a family of children, in character and standing ranking among the first in our country. They were intimately connected with the family of one of my most intimate friends, letters to and from different members of which had very often passed through my hands; I knew the names of all his nieces, and personally one of his nephews, a lieutenant, and one of the most promising officers in our navy; and about a year before I had accompanied the friends to whom I refer on a visit to these relatives. At Philadelphia I left them under the charge of the lieutenant; and on my return from Washington, according to agreement, the lieutenant came down to an intersecting point on the railroad to take me home with him; but circumstances prevented my going, and much as I regretted my disappointment then, I regretted it far more now, as otherwise I might have gladdened the old man's heart by telling him that within a year I had seen his sister. His own history was brief. Born to the possession of rank and fortune, and having won honours and decorations by long service in the field, and risen to the rank of inspector-general in the army of Napoleon, he was taken in the campaign against Russia in eighteen hundred and thirteen, and sent a prisoner of war to Moscow, where he had remained ever since. Immediately on their arrival, his brother-in-law and sister had written to him from America, telling him that, with the wreck of their fortune, they had purchased a large landed estate, and begging him to come over and share their abundance; but, as he told me, he scorned to eat the bread of idleness and dependance; manfully turned to account the advantages of an accomplished education; and now, at the advanced age of seventy-eight, sustained himself by his pencil, an honoured guest at every table, and respected by the most distinguished inhabitants of Moscow. He had accidentally given up his rooms a few days before, and was residing temporarily at the same hotel with myself. He was much agitated by this unexpected intelligence from friends he never expected to hear of more, and left me with a promise to call upon me early in the morning.

Too much interested myself to go back to Siberia with my host, I went to the French theatre. The play was some little every-day thing, and the house but thinly attended. I took my seat in the pit, which was on a dead level, instead of ascending from the stage, containing large cushioned seats, and sprinkled with officers talking with ladies in the boxes above. At the end of the first act, as whole benches were empty above me, I moved up to put myself nearer a pair of bright eyes that were beaming from the box upon a pair of epaulettes below. I was hardly seated before one of the understrappers came up and whispered, or rather muttered, something in my ear. As I did not understand a word he said, and his manner was exceedingly rude and ungracious, I turned my back upon him and looked at the lady with the bright eyes. The fellow continued muttering in my ear, and I began to be seriously annoyed and indignant, when a Frenchman sitting two or three benches behind me came up, and, in an imperious tone, ordered him away. He then cursed the Russians as a set of canaille, from the greatest seigneurs to the lowest serf; remarked that he saw I was a stranger, and, with the easy freedom of a man of the world, took a seat by my side. He was above six feet high, about thirty-three or thirty-four years of age, in robust health, with a large pair of whiskers, rather overdressed, and of manners good, though somewhat imperious and bordering on the swagger. He seemed perfectly at home in the theatre; knew all the actors and, before the evening was over, offered to introduce me to all the actresses. I was under obligations to him, if not for the last offer, at least for relieving me from the impertinent doorkeeper; and, when the curtain fell, accepted his invitation to go to a restaurant and take a petit souper. I accompanied him to the Restaurant au coin du pont des Mareschaux, which I afterward ascertained to be the first in Moscow. He was perfectly at home with the carte, knew exactly what to order, and, in fact, he was a man of great general information, perfectly familiar with all continental Europe, geographically and politically, and particularly at home in Moscow; and he offered his services in showing me all that was curious and interesting. We sat together more than two hours, and in our rambling and discursive conversation I could not help remarking that he seemed particularly fond of railing at the government, its tyranny and despotism, and appealing to me, as an American and a liberal, to sustain him. I did not think anything of it then, though in a soldier under Charles the Tenth, driven out, as he said, by the revolution of July, it was rather strange; but, at any rate, either from a spirit of contradiction or because I had really a good feeling toward everything in Russia, I disagreed with him throughout; he took upon himself the whole honours of the entertainment, scolded the servants, called in the landlord, and, as I observed, after a few words with him, went out without paying. I saw that the landlord knew him, and that there was something constrained and peculiar in his behaviour. I must confess, however, that I did not notice these things at the time so clearly as when I was induced to recur to them by after circumstances, for we went out of the house the best friends in the world; and, as it was then raining, we took a drosky and rode home together, with our arms around each other's neck, and my cloak thrown over us both. About two o'clock, in a heavy rain, I stopped at my hotel, bade him good-night, and lent him my cloak to go home with.

The reader, perhaps, smiles at my simplicity, but he is wrong in his conjecture; my cloak came home the next morning, and was my companion and only covering many a night afterward. My friend followed it, sat with me a few minutes, and was taking his departure, having made an appointment to call for me at twelve o'clock, when there was a knock at the door, and my friend the marquis entered. I presented them to each other, and the latter was in the act of bending his body with the formality of a gentleman of the old school, when he caught a full view of my friend of the theatre, and, breaking off his unfinished bow, recovered his erect position, and staring from him to me, and from me to him, seemed to demand an explanation. I had no explanation to give, nor had my friend, who, cocking his hat on one side, and brushing by the marquis with more than his usual swagger, stamped down stairs. The marquis looked after him till he was at the foot of the stairs, and then turning to me, asked how, in the name of wonder, I had already contrived to pick up such an acquaintance. I told him the history of our meeting at the theatre, our supper at the restaurant, and our loving ride home, to which he listened with breathless attention; and after making me tax my memory for the particulars of the conversation at the restaurant, told me that my friend was a disgrace to his country; that he had, no doubt, been obliged to leave France for some rascality, and was now entertained by the Emperor of Russia as a spy, particularly upon his own countrymen; that he was well fed and clothed, and had the entrée of all the theatres and public houses without paying. With the earnestness of a man long used to a despotic government, and to seeing slight offences visited with terrible punishments, the marquis congratulated me upon not having fallen into what he called the snare laid for me.

It is almost impossible for an American to believe that even in Russia he incurs any risk in speaking what he thinks; he is apt to regard the stories of summary punishment for freedom of speech as bugbears or bygone things. In my own case, even when men looked cautiously around the room and then spoke in whispers, I could not believe that there was any danger. Still I had become prudent enough not to talk with any unnecessary indiscretion of the constituted authorities, and, even in writing home to my friends, not to say anything that could prejudice me if the letter should fall into wrong hands; and now, although I did not consider that I had run any great risk, I was rather pleased that I had said nothing exceptionable; and though I had no apprehension, particularly since I had been put on my guard, I determined to drop my new acquaintance, and did not consider myself bound to observe any great courtesy in the mode of doing it. I had had a supper, which it was my original intention to return with a dinner; but I did not consider myself under any obligation to him for civilities shown in the exercise of his despicable calling. The first time I met him I made no apology for having been out when he called according to appointment, and did not ask him to come again. I continued to meet him in the streets and at every public place, but our greetings became colder and colder, and the day before I left Moscow we brushed against each other without speaking at all. So much for acquaintances who, after an intimacy of three or four hours, had ridden home under the same cloak, with their arms around each other's neck.

But to return: as soon as the marquis left me I again went to the Kremlin, to me the great, I had almost said the only, object of interest in Moscow. I always detested a cicerone; his bowing, fawning, and prating annoyed me; and all through Italy, with my map and guide-book under my arm, I was in the habit of rambling about alone. I did the same at Moscow, and again walked to the Kremlin unaccompanied. Unlike many of the places I had visited, all the interest I had felt in looking forward to the Kremlin was increased when I stood within its walls. I had thought of it as the rude and barbarous palace of the Czars; but I found it one of the most extraordinary, beautiful, and magnificent objects I ever beheld. I rambled over it several times with admiration, without attempting to comprehend it all. Its commanding situation on the banks of the Moskwa river; its high and venerable walls; its numerous battlements, towers, and steeples; its magnificent and gorgeous palaces; its cathedrals, churches, monasteries, and belfries, with their gilded, coppered, and tin-plated domes; its mixture of barbarism and decay, magnificence and ruins; its strong contrast of architecture, including the Tartarian, Hindoo, Chinese, and Gothic; and, rising above all, the lofty tower of Ivan Veliki, with its golden ball reflecting the sun with dazzling brilliancy, all together exhibited a beauty, grandeur, and magnificence strange and indescribable.