The Kremlin is "the heart" and "sacred place" of Moscow, once the old fortress of the Tartars, and now the centre of the modern city. It is nearly triangular in form, enclosed by a high brick wall painted white, and nearly two miles in extent, and is in itself a city. It has five gates, at four of which there are high watch-towers. The fifth is "our Saviour's," or the Holy Gate, through whose awe-commanding portals no male, not even the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias, can pass except with uncovered head and bended body. Bareheaded, I entered by this gate, and passed on to a noble esplanade, commanding one of the most interesting views of Moscow, and having in front the range of palaces of the Czars. I shall not attempt to describe these palaces. They are a combination of every variety of taste and every order of architecture, Grecian, Gothic, Italian, Tartar, and Hindoo, rude, fanciful, grotesque, gorgeous, magnificent, and beautiful. The churches, monasteries, arsenals, museum, and public buildings are erected with no attempt at regularity of design, and in the same wild confusion of architecture. There are no regular streets, but three open places or squares, and abundance of room for carriages and foot passengers, with which, in summer afternoons, it is always thronged.

Having strolled for some time about the Kremlin, I entered the Cathedral of the Assumption, the most splendid church in Moscow. It was founded in 1325, and rebuilt in 1472. It is loaded with gorgeous and extravagant ornaments. The iconastos or screen which divides the sanctuary from the body of the church is in many parts covered with plates of solid silver and gold, richly and finely wrought. On the walls are painted the images of more than two thousand three hundred saints, some at full length and some of a colossal size, and the whole interior seems illuminated with gold, of which more than two hundred and ten thousand leaves have been employed in embellishing it. From the centre of the roof is suspended a crown of massive silver, with forty-eight chandeliers, all in a single piece, and weighing nearly three thousand pounds. Besides the portraits of saints and martyrs, there are portraits of the old historians, whose names, to prevent confusion, are attached to their resemblances, as Aristotle, Anarcharsis, Thucydides, Plutarch, &c. Some of the paintings on wood could not fail to delight an antiquary, inasmuch as every vestige of paint being obliterated, there is abundance of room for speculation as to their age and character. There is also an image of the Virgin, painted by St. Luke's own hand!!! The face dark, almost black, the head encircled with a glory of precious stones, and the hands and the body gilded. It is reverenced for its miraculous powers, guarded with great care, and enclosed within a large silver covering, which is never removed but on great religious festivals, or on payment of a ruble to the verger. Here, too, is a nail from the cross, a robe of our Saviour's, and part of one of the Virgin's!!! And here, too, are the tombs of the church patriarchs, one of whom, St. Phillippe, honoured by a silver monument, dared to say to John the Terrible, "We respect you as an image of the Divinity, but as a man you partake of the dust of the earth."

The Cathedral of the Assumption is honoured as the place where the sovereigns of Russia are crowned, and there is but a step from their throne to their grave, for near it is the Cathedral of the archangel Michael, the ancient burial-place where, in raised sepulchres, lie the bodies of the Czars, from the time when Moscow became the seat of empire until the close of the seventeenth century. The bodies rest in raised tombs or sepulchres, each covered with a velvet pall, and having on it a silver plate, bearing the name of the occupant and the date of his decease. Close by is an odd-looking church, constantly thronged with devotees; a humble structure, said to be the oldest Christian church in Moscow. It was built in the desert, before Moscow was thought of, and its walls are strong enough to last till the gorgeous city shall become a desert again.

After strolling through the churches I ascended the tower of Ivan Veliki, or John the Great, the first of the Czars. It is about two hundred and seventy feet high, and contains thirty-three bells, the smallest weighing seven thousand, and the largest more than one hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds English. On festivals they are all tolled together, the Muscovites being extremely fond of Ivan Veliki's music. This celebrated tower rises above every other object in the Kremlin, and its large gilded dome and cross are conspicuous from every part of the city. From its top I had the finest view of Moscow and the surrounding country, and, perhaps, the finest panoramic view in the world. Hundreds of churches were in sight, with their almost innumerable domes, and spires, and crosses glittering with gold, Tartaric battlements, terraces, balconies, and ramparts. Gothic steeples, Grecian columns, the star, the crescent, and the cross, palaces, mosques, and Tartar temples, pagodas, pavilions, and verandas, monasteries peeping out over high walls and among noble trees, the stream of the Moskwa winding prettily below, and in the distance the Sparrow Hills, on which the French army first made its appearance on the invasion of Moscow. It may seem strange, but I did not feel myself a stranger on the top of that tower. Thousands of miles away I had read its history. I knew that the magnificent city at my feet had been a sheet of fire, and that, when Napoleon fled by the light of its conflagration, a dreadful explosion shook to their foundation the sacred precincts of the Kremlin, and rent from its base to its top the lofty tower of Ivan.

I descended, and the custode conducted me to another well-known object, the great bell, the largest, and the wonder of the world. It is only a short distance from the foot of the tower, in an excavation under ground, accessible by a trapdoor, like the covered mouth of a well. I descended by a broken ladder, and can hardly explain to myself the curiosity and interest with which I examined this monstrous piece of metal. I have no knowledge of or taste for mechanics, and no particular penchant for bells, even when spelled with an additional e; but I knew all about this one, and it added wonderfully to the interest with which I strolled through the Kremlin, that, from accidental circumstances, I was familiar with every object within its walls. I impeach, no doubt, my classical taste, but, before seeing either, I had dwelt with more interest upon the Kremlin, and knew more of it, than of the Acropolis at Athens; and I stood at the foot of the great bell almost with a feeling of reverence. Its perpendicular height is twenty-one feet four inches, and the extreme thickness of the metal twenty-three inches; the length of the clapper is fourteen feet, the greatest circumference sixty-seven feet four inches, its weight upward of four hundred thousand pounds English, and its cost has been estimated at more than three hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds sterling. There is some question whether this immense bell was ever hung, but it is supposed that it was suspended by a great number of beams and crossbeams; that it was rung by forty or fifty men, one half on either side, who pulled the clapper by means of ropes, and that the sound amazed and deafened the inhabitants. On one side is a crack large enough to admit the figure of a man. I went inside and called aloud, and received an echo like the reverberations of thunder.

Besides the great bell, there is another noisy musical instrument, namely, the great gun, like the bell, the largest in the world, being a four thousand three hundred and twenty pounder. It is sixteen feet long, and the diameter of its calibre nearly three feet. I jumped in and turned round in its mouth, and sat upright, my head not reaching the top. All around were planted cannon taken from the French in their unhappy expedition against the capital of Russia; immense fieldpieces, whose throats once poured their iron hail against the walls within which they now repose as trophies. I was attracted by a crowd at the door of one of the principal buildings, which I found to be the treasury, containing what a Russian prizes as his birthright, the repository of sacred heirlooms; the doorkeeper demanded a permit, and I answered him with rubles and entered the treasury. On the first floor are the ancient imperial carriages; large, heavy, and extraordinary vehicles, covered with carving and gilding, and having large plate glass windows; among them was an enormous sleigh, carved and profusely gilded, and containing a long table with cushioned seats on each side; all together, these vehicles were most primitive and Asiatic in appearance, and each one had some long and interesting story connected with it.

I ascended by a noble staircase to the belle etage, a gallery composed of five parts, in the first of which are the portraits of all the emperors and Czars and their wives, in the exact costume of the times in which they lived; in another is a model of a palace projected by the Empress Catharine to unite the whole Kremlin under one roof, having a circumference of two miles, and make of it one magnificent palace; if it had been completed according to the plan, this palace would probably have surpassed the Temple of Solomon or any of the seven wonders of the world. In another is a collection of precious relics, such as the crowns worn by the different emperors and Czars, loaded with precious stones; the dresses worn at their marriages; the canopies under which the emperors are married, surmounted by magnificent plumes; two canopies of red velvet, studded with gold, and a throne with two seats. The crown of Prince Vladimir is surmounted by a golden cross, and ornamented with pearls and precious stones, and, until the time of Peter the Great, was used to crown the Czars; the crown of the conquered kingdom of Cazan was placed there by the victorious hands of John Vassilivitch. Besides these were the crowns of the conquered countries of Astrachan and Siberia. That of John Alexius has eight hundred and eighty-one diamonds, and under the cross which surmounts it is an immense ruby. There were also the crown of Peter the Great, containing eight hundred and forty-seven diamonds; that of Catharine the First, his widow, containing two thousand five hundred and thirty-six fine diamonds, to which the Empress Anne added a ruby of enormous size, bought by the Russian ambassador at Pekin; and, lastly, the crown of unhappy Poland! It is of polished gold, surmounted by a cross, but no other ornament. And there were other emblems of royalty: a throne or Greek fauteuil of ivory, in arabesque, presented to John the Great by the ambassadors who accompanied from Rome to Moscow the Princess Sophia, whom he had demanded in marriage. She was the daughter of Thomas Paleologus Porphrygenitus brother of Constantine Paleologus, who died in fourteen hundred and fifty-three, after seeing his empire fall into the hands of the Turks. By this marriage John considered himself the heir of Constantine, and took the title of Czar, meaning Cæsar (this is one of the derivations of the name), and thus the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias has the fairest claim to the throne of the Cæsars, and, consequently, has always had an eye upon Constantinople; then there are the throne of Boris, adorned with two thousand seven hundred and sixty turquoises and other precious stones; that of Michel, containing eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-four precious stones; that of Alexius, containing eight hundred and seventy-six diamonds, one thousand two hundred and twenty-four other jewels, and many pearls, bought of a company of merchants trafficking to Ispahan; the throne of the Czars John and Peter, made of massive silver, separated in the middle, the back a cloth of gold, concealing a hole through which the Czarina used to dictate answers to the foreign ambassadors; and, lastly, the throne of Poland!

In the armory are specimens of ancient armour, the workmanship of every age and nation; coats of mail, sabres adorned with jewels, swords, batons, crosses in armour, imperial robes, ermines in abundance, and, finally, the clothes in which Peter the Great worked at Saardam, including his old boots, from which it appears that he had considerable of a foot. These memorials were all interesting, and I wandered through the apartments till ordered out by the footman, when I returned to my hotel to meet my old friend the marquis, who was engaged to dine with me. At his suggestion we went to a new restaurant, patronized by a different set of people from those who frequented the Restaurant au coin du pont des Mareschaux, being chiefly Frenchmen, manufacturers, and small merchants of various kinds, who, while they detested the country, found it a profitable business to introduce Parisian luxuries and refinements among the barbarous Russians. A party of about twenty sat at a long table, and relieved the severity of exile by talking of their beautiful and beloved France; many of them were old militaires; and my octogenarian friend, as a soldier distinguished under the empire, and identified with the glory of the French arms, was treated with a consideration and respect honourable to them and flattering to himself. At another table was another circle of strangers, composed almost exclusively of Swiss, forming here, as elsewhere, one of the most valuable parts of the foreign population; keeping alive by intercourse with each other the recollections of home, and looking to the time when, with the profits of successful industry, they might return to their wild and beloved native mountains.

Before we rose from table my friend of the theatre came in and took his seat at one end; he talked and laughed louder than any one else, and was received generally with an outward appearance of cordiality; but the old marquis could not endure his presence. He said he had become too old to learn, and it was too late in life to temporize with dishonour; that he did not blame his countrymen; fair words cost nothing, and it was not worth their while wilfully to make an enemy who would always be on their haunches; but as to himself, he had but a few years to live, and he would not sully the last moments of his life by tolerating a man whom he regarded as a disgrace to his country. We rose from the table, the old marquis leaning on my arm, and pouring in my ears his honest indignation at the disgraceful character of his countryman, and proceeded to the Kitaigorod, or Chinese Town, the division immediately encircling the Kremlin. It is enclosed by a wall with battlements, towers, and gates; is handsomely and compactly built, with wide, clean, and regular streets, and thronged with every variety of people, Greeks, Turks, Tartars, Cossacks, Chinese, Muscovites, French, Italians, Poles, and Germans, in the costumes of their respective nations. The quarter is entirely Russian, and I did not find in the shops a single person who could speak any language but Russian. In one of them, where I was conducted by the marquis, I found the old mongik to whom I before referred, who could not agree with his master for the price of his ransom. The principal shops resemble the bazars in the East, though they are far superior even to those in Constantinople, being built of stone, and generally in the form of arcades. They are well filled with every description of Asiatic goods; and some of them, particularly their tea, and tobacco, and pipe shops, are models of propriety and cleanliness. The façade of the great bazar or market is very imposing, resting the whole length on Corinthian columns. It fronts on a noble square, bounded on the opposite side by the white walls of the Kremlin, and contains six thousand "bargaining shops." The merchants live at a distance, and, on leaving their shops at sundown, each of them winds a piece of cord round the padlock of his door, and seals it with soft wax; a seal being with the Russians more sacred than a lock.

In another section of the Kitaigorod is the finest part of the city, containing the hotels and residences of the nobles, many of which are truly magnificent. The hotel at which I put up would in Italy be called a palace. As we moved slowly along the street by the Pont des Mareschaux, we discoursed of the terrible inroads at this moment making by the French in the capital of the north, almost every shop having an inviting sign of nouveautés from Paris. Foiled in their attempt with the bayonet, they are now advancing with apparently more feeble but far more insidious and fatal weapons; and the rugged Russian, whom French arms could not conquer, bows to the supremacy of the French modistes and artistes, and quietly wears the livery of the great mistress of fashion.

CHAPTER IV.

Early the next morning I mounted a drosky and rode to a celebrated garden or springs, furnished with every description of mineral water. I have several times spoken of the drosky. This may be called the Russian national vehicle, for it is found all over Russia, and nowhere else that I know of, except at Warsaw, where it was introduced by its Russian conquerors. It is on four wheels, with a long cushioned seat running lengthwise, on which the rider sits astride as on horseback, and so low that he can mount from the street. It is drawn by two horses; one in shafts, with a high arched bow over the neck called the douga, and the other, called "le furieux," in traces alongside, this last being trained to curb his neck and canter while the shaft-horse trots. The seat is long enough for two besides the driver, the riders sitting with their feet on different sides; or sometimes there is a cross-seat behind, on which the riders sit, with their faces to the horses, and the drosky boy, always dressed in a long surtout, with a bell-crowned hat turned up at the sides, sits on the end. But to return to the springs. The waters are prepared under the direction of medical men, who have the chymical analysis of all the principal mineral waters known, and manufacture them to order. As is universally the case in Russia, where there is any attempt at style, the establishment is upon a magnificent scale. The building contains a room perhaps one hundred and fifty feet long, with a clean and highly-polished floor, large looking-glasses, elegant sofas, and mahogany chairs and tables. The windows open upon a balcony extending along the whole front, which is furnished with tables and rustic chairs, and opens upon a large garden ornamented with gravel-walks, trees, and the most rare and valuable plants and flowers, at the time of my visit in full bloom. Every morning, from sunrise till noon, crowds of people, and particularly the nobility and higher classes, frequent this establishment, and that morning there was a larger collection than usual. Russian hospitality is conspicuous at a place like this. A stranger, instead of being avoided, is sought out; and after one or two promenades I was accosted by more than one gentleman, ready to show me every civility. In the long room and on the balconies, scattered about at the different tables, I saw the gourmand who had distended his stomach almost to bursting, and near him the gaunt and bilious dyspeptic, drinking their favourite waters; the dashing officer and the blooming girl, the lover and coquette, and, in short, all the style and fashion of Moscow, their eyes occasionally turning to the long mirrors, and then singly, in pairs and in groups, strolling gently through the gardens, enjoying the music that was poured forth from hidden arbours.

Returning through a street not far from my hotel, I saw a line of carriages, and gentlemen and ladies passing under a light arcade, which formed the entrance to a large building. I joined the throng, and was put back by the doorkeeper because I was not in a dresscoat. I ran to my hotel and changed my frockcoat, but now I had no biglietto of entrance. A few rubles obviated this difficulty and admitted me to the Salle des Nobles, a magnificent apartment surrounded by a colonnade, capable of containing more than three thousand persons, and said to be the finest ballroom in Europe. It belongs to a club of the nobility, and none are admitted as members but nobles. All games of hazard are forbidden; but, nevertheless, all games of hazard are played. Indeed, among the "on dits" which a traveller picks up, gambling is said to be the great vice of Russia. Young men who have not two rubles to rub together will bet thousands; and, when all other resources fail, the dishonourable will cheat, but the delicate-minded will kill themselves. It is not uncommon for a young man to say at the cardtable over night, "I must shoot myself to-morrow;" and he is as good as his word. The Salle was open for a few days, as a sort of fair, for the exhibition of specimens of Russian manufacture; and, besides tables, workboxes, &c., there were some of the finest living specimens of genuine Russian men and women that I had yet seen, though not to be compared, as a Russian officer said, to whom I made the remark, with the exhibition of the same specimens in the waltz and mazourka, when the Salle was lighted up and decorated for a ball.

I returned to my hotel, where I found my old friend the marquis waiting, according to appointment, to dine with me. He would have accompanied me everywhere, but I saw that he suffered from the exertion, and would not allow it. Meeting with me had struck a chord that had not been touched for years, and he was never tired of talking of his friends in America. Every morning he breakfasted in my room, and we dined together every day. We went to the restaurant where I had supped with my friend of the theatre. The saloon was crowded, and at a table next us sat a seigneur, who was dining upon a delicacy that will surprise the reader, viz., one of his own female slaves, a very pretty girl, whom he had hired to the keeper of the restaurant for her maintenance and a dinner a volonté per annum for himself. This was the second time he had dined on her account, and she was then waiting upon him; a pretty, modest, delicate-looking girl, and the old noble seemed never to know when he had enough of her. We left him gloating over still untasted dishes, and apparently mourning that human ability could hold out no longer. In going out my old friend, in homely but pithy phrase, said the only difference between a Russian seigneur and a Russian serf is, that the one wears his shirt inside his trousers and the other outside; but my friend spoke with the prejudices of a soldier of France aggravated by more than twenty years of exile. So far as my observation extended, the higher classes are rather extraordinary for talent and acquirements. Their government is unfortunate for the development and exercise of abilities. They have none of the learned profession; merchandise is disgraceful, and the army is the only field. With an ardent love of country and an ambition to distinguish himself, every nobleman becomes a soldier, and there is hardly an old or middle-aged individual of this class who was not in arms to repel the invasion of Napoleon, and hardly a young man who did not serve lately in a less noble cause, the campaign in Poland. The consequence of service in the army seems to have been generally a passion for display and expensive living, which sent them back to their estates, after their terms of service expired, over head and ears in debt. Unable to come often to the cities, and obliged to live at their chateaux, deprived of all society, surrounded only by slaves, and feeling the want of the excitement incident to a military life, many of them become great gourmands, or rather, as my French friend said, gluttons. They do not eat, said he, they swallow; and the manner in which, with the true spirit of a Frenchman who still remembered the cuisine of the Palais Royal, he commented upon their eating entremets, hors d'œuvres, rotis, and desserts all pellmell, would have formed a proper episode to Major Hamilton's chapter upon Americans eating eggs out of wineglasses. The old marquis, although he retained all his French prejudices against the Russians, and always asserted, as the Russians themselves admit, that, but for the early setting in of winter, Napoleon would have conquered Russia, allowed them the virtue of unbounded hospitality, and enumerated several principal families at whose tables he could at any time take a seat without any express invitation, and with whom he was always sure of being a welcome guest; and he mentioned the case of a compatriot who for years had a place regularly reserved for him at the table of a seigneur, which he took whenever he pleased without any questions being asked, until, having stayed away longer than usual, the seigneur sent to inquire for him, and learned that he was dead.

But to return. Toward evening I parted with the marquis, mounted a drosky, and rode to the country theatre at Pedroski. Pedroski is a place dear to the heart of every Russian, having been the favourite residence of Peter the Great, to whom Russia owes its existence among civilized nations. It is about three versts from the barrier, on the St. Petersburgh road. The St. Petersburgh Gate is a very imposing piece of architecture. Six spirited horses rest lightly upon the top, like the brazen horses at St. Mark's in Venice. A wide road, divided into avenues for carriages and pedestrians, gravelled and lined with trees, leads from the gate. The chateau is an old and singular, but interesting building of red brick, with a green dome and white cornices, and enclosed by a circular wall flanked with turrets. In the plain in front two regiments of Cossack cavalry were going through their exercises. The grounds around the chateau are very extensive, handsomely laid out for carriages and promenades, public and retired, to suit every taste. The principal promenade is about a mile in length, through a forest of majestic old trees. On each side is a handsome footpath of continual shade; and sometimes almost completely hidden by the luxuriant foliage are beautiful little summer-houses, abundantly supplied with all kinds of refreshments.

The theatre is at a little distance from the extreme end of the great promenade, a plain and unpretending building; and this and the grand operahouse are the only theatres I have seen built like ours, merely with continued rows of seats, and not partitioned off into private boxes. The opera was some little Russian piece, and was followed by the grand ballet, the Revolt of the Seraglio. He who goes to Russia expecting to see a people just emerging from a state of barbarism, will often be astonished to find himself suddenly in a scene of Parisian elegance and refinement; and in no place will he feel this wonder more than in an operahouse at Moscow. The house was rather full, and contained more of the Russian nobility than I had yet seen at any one time. They were well dressed, adorned with stars and ribands, and, as a class of men, the "biggest in the round" I ever saw. Orders and titles of nobility, by-the-way, are given with a liberality which makes them of no value; and all over Russia princes are as plenty as pickpockets in London.

The seigneurs of Russia have jumped over all intermediate grades of civilization, and plunged at once into the luxuries of metropolitan life. The ballet was, of course, inferior to that of Paris or London, but it is speaking in no mean praise of it to say that at this country theatre it might be made a subject of comparison. The dancers were the prettiest, the most interesting, and, what I was particularly struck with, the most modest looking I ever saw on the stage. It was melancholy to look at those beautiful girls, who, amid the glare and glitter of the stage, and in the graceful movements of the dance, were perfectly captivating and entrancing, and who, in the shades of domestic life, might fill the measure of man's happiness on earth, and know them to be slaves. The whole troop belongs to the emperor. They are selected when young with reference to their beauty and talents, and are brought up with great care and expense for the stage. With light fairy figures, seeming rather spirits than corporeal substances, and trained to inspire admiration and love, they can never give way to these feelings themselves, for their affections and marriages are regulated entirely by the manager's convenience. What though they are taken from the very poorest class of life, leaving their parents, their brothers and sisters, the tenants of miserable cabins, oppressed and vilified, and cold and hungry, while they are rolling in luxuries. A chain does not gall the less because it is gilded. Raised from the lot to which they were born, taught ideas they would never have known, they but feel more sensibly the weight of their bonds; and the veriest sylph, whose graceful movements have brought down the loudest thunders of applause, and whose little heart flutters with the admiration she has excited, would probably give all her shortlived triumph for the privilege of bestowing that little flutterer where it would be loved and cherished. There was one among them whom I long remembered. I followed her with my eyes till the curtain fell and left a blank around me. I saw her go out, and afterward she passed me in one of a long train of dark blue carriages belonging to the direction, in which they are carried about like merchandise from theatre to theatre, but, like many other bright visions that broke upon me for a moment, I never saw her again.

At about eleven I left the steps of the theatre to return home. It was a most magnificent night, or, rather, it is almost profanation to call it by so black a name, for in that bright northern climate the day seemed to linger, unwilling to give place before the shades of night. I strolled on alone, wrapped in lonely but not melancholy meditations; the carriages rolled rapidly by me, and I was almost the last of the throng that entered the gate of Moscow.

A Sunday at Moscow. To one who had for a long time been a stranger to the sound of the church-going bell, few things could be more interesting than a Sunday at Moscow. Any one who has rambled along the Maritime Alps, and has heard from some lofty eminence the convent bell ringing for matins, vespers, and midnight prayers, will long remember the sweet yet melancholy sounds. To me there is always something touching in the sound of the church-going bell; touching in its own notes, but far more so in its associations. And these feelings were exceedingly fresh when I awoke on Sunday in the holy city of Moscow. In Greece and Turkey there are no bells; in Russia they are almost innumerable, but this was the first time I had happened to pass the Sabbath in a city. I lay and listened, almost fearing to move lest I should hush the sounds; thoughts of home came over me; of the day of rest, of the gathering for church, and the greeting of friends at the church door. But he who has never heard the ringing of bells at Moscow does not know its music. Imagine a city containing more than six hundred churches and innumerable convents, all with bells, and these all sounding together, from the sharp, quick hammer-note, to the loudest, deepest peals that ever broke and lingered on the ear, struck at long intervals, and swelling on the air as if unwilling to die away. I rose and threw open my window, dressed myself, and after breakfast, joining the throng called to their respective churches by their well-known bells, I went to what is called the English chapel, where, for the first time in many months, I joined in a regular church service, and listened to an orthodox sermon. I was surprised to see so large a congregation, though I remarked among them many English governesses with children, the English language being at that moment the rage among the Russians, and multitudes of cast-off chambermaids adventuring thither to teach the rising Russian nobility the beauties of the English tongue.

All over the Continent Sunday is the great day for observing national manners and customs. I dined at an early hour with my friend the marquis, and, under his escort, mounting a drosky, rode to a great promenade of the people called L'Allée des Peuples. It lies outside the barrier, and beyond the state prisons, where the exiles for Siberia are confined, on the land of Count Schremetow, the richest nobleman in Russia, having one hundred and thirty thousand slaves on his estate; the chateau is about eight versts from the city, and a noble road through his own land leads from the barrier to his door.

This promenade is the great rendezvous of the people; that is, of the merchants and shopkeepers of Moscow. The promenade is simply a large piece of ground ornamented with noble trees, and provided with everything necessary for the enjoyment of all the national amusements, among which the Russian mountain is the favourite; and refreshments were distributed in great abundance. Soldiers were stationed at different points to preserve order, and the people seemed all cheerful and happy; but the life and soul of the place were the Bohemian or gipsy girls. Wherever they moved, a crowd gathered round them. They were the first I had seen of this extraordinary people. Coming no one knows whence, and living no one knows how, wanderers from their birth, and with a history enveloped in doubt, it was impossible to mistake the dark complexion and piercing coal-black eyes of the gipsy women. The men were nowhere to be seen, nor were there any old women with them; and these young girls, well dressed, though, in general, with nothing peculiar in their costume, moved about in parties of five or six, singing, playing, and dancing to admiring crowds. One of them, with a red silk cloak trimmed with gold, and a gold band round her hair, struck me as the very beau ideal of a gipsy queen. Recognising me as a stranger, she stopped just in front of me, struck her castanets and danced, at the same time directing the movements of her companions, who formed a circle around me. There was a beauty in her face, combined with intelligence and spirit, that riveted my attention, and when she spoke her eyes seemed to read me through. I ought, perhaps, to be ashamed of it, but in all my wanderings I never regretted so much my ignorance of the language as when it denied me the pleasure of conversing with that gipsy girl. I would fain have known whether her soul did not soar above the scene and the employment in which I found her; whether she was not formed for better things than to display her beautiful person before crowds of boors; but I am sorry to add, that the character of my queen was not above reproach; and, as I had nothing but my character to stand upon in Moscow, I was obliged to withdraw from the observation which her attention fixed upon me.

Leaving my swarthy princess with this melancholy reflection, and leaving the scene of humbler enjoyment, I mounted a drosky, and, depositing my old friend in the suburbs of the city, in half an hour was in another world, in the great promenade of Pedroski, the gathering-place of the nobility, where all the rank and fashion of Moscow were vying with each other in style and magnificence. The extensive grounds around the old chateau are handsomely disposed and ornamented with trees, but the great carriage promenade is equal to anything I ever saw. It is a straight road, more than a mile in length, through a thick forest of noble trees. For two hours before dark all the equipages in Moscow paraded up and down this promenade. These equipages were striking and showy without being handsome, and the Russian manner of driving four horses makes a very dashing appearance, the leaders being harnessed with long traces, perhaps twenty feet from the wheel horses, and guided by a lad riding the near leader, the coachman sitting as if nailed to the box, and merely holding the reins. All the rules of good taste, as understood in the capitals of Southern Europe, were set at defiance; and many a seigneur, who thought he was doing the thing in the very best style, had no idea how much his turnout would have shocked an English whip. But all this extravagance, in my eyes, added much to the effect of the scene; and the star-spangled Muscovite who dashed up and down the promenade on horseback, with two Calmuc Tartars at his heels, attracted more of my attention than the plain gentleman who paced along with his English jockey and quiet elegance of equipment. The stars and decorations of the seigneurs set them off to great advantage; and scores of officers, with their showy uniforms, added brilliancy to the scene, while the footmen made as good an appearance as their masters.

On either side of the grand promenade is a walk for foot passengers, and behind this, almost hidden from view by the thick shade of trees, are little cottages, arbours, and tents, furnished with ices and all kinds of refreshments suited to the season. I should have mentioned long since that tea, the very pabulum of all domestic virtues, is the Russian's favourite beverage. They say that they have better tea than can be obtained in Europe, which they ascribe to the circumstance of its being brought by caravans over land, and saved the exposure of a sea voyage. Whether this be the cause or not, if I am any judge they are right as to the superiority of their article; and it was one of the most striking features in the animating scene at Pedroski to see family groups distributed about, all over the grounds, under the shade of noble trees, with their large brass urn hissing before them, and taking their tea under the passing gaze of thousands of people with as much unconcern as if by their own firesides.

Leaving for a moment the thronged promenade, I turned into a thick forest and entered the old chateau of the great Peter. There all was solitude; the footman and I had the palace to ourselves. I followed him through the whole range of apartments, in which there was an appearance of staid respectability that quite won my heart, neither of them being any better furnished than one of our oldfashioned country houses. The pomp and show that I saw glittering through the openings in the trees were unknown in the days of the good old Peter; the chateau was silent and deserted; the hand that built it was stiff and cold, and the heart that loved it had ceased to beat; old Peter was in his grave, and his descendants loved better their splendid palaces on the banks of the Neva.

When Moscow was burning, Napoleon fled to this chateau for refuge. I stopped for a moment in the chamber where, by the blaze of the burning city, he dictated his despatches for the capital of France; gave the attendant a ruble, and again mixed with the throng, with whom I rambled up and down the principal promenade, and at eleven o'clock was at my hotel. I ought not to forget the Russian ladies; but, after the gay scene at Pedroski, it is no disparagement to them if I say that, in my quiet walk home, the dark-eyed gipsy girl was uppermost in my thoughts.

The reader may perhaps ask if such is indeed what the traveller finds in Russia; "Where are the eternal snows that cover the steppes and the immense wastes of that Northern empire? that chill the sources of enjoyment, and congeal the very fountains of life?" I answer, they have but just passed by, and they will soon come again; the present is the season of enjoyment; the Russians know it to be brief and fleeting, and, like butterflies, unfold themselves to the sun and flutter among the flowers.

Like them, I made the most of it at Moscow. Mounted in a drosky, I hurried from church to church, from convent to convent, and from quarter to quarter. But although it is the duty of a traveller to see everything that is to be seen, and although there is a kind of excitement in hurrying from place to place, which he is apt to mistake for pleasure, it is not in this that his real enjoyment is found. His true pleasure is in turning quietly to those things which are interesting to the imagination as well as to the eyes, and so I found myself often turning from the churches and palaces, specimens of architecture and art, to the sainted walls of the Kremlin. Here were the first and last of my visits; and whenever I sauntered forth without any specific object, perhaps to the neglect of many other places I ought to have seen, my footsteps involuntarily turned thitherward.

Outside and beneath the walls of the Kremlin, and running almost the whole extent of its circumference, are boulevards and a public garden, called the Emperor's, made within a few years, and the handsomest thing of the kind in Moscow; I am not sure but that I may add anywhere else. I have compared it in my mind to the Gardens of the Luxembourg and Tuileries, and in many respects hold it to be more beautiful. It is more agreeably irregular and undulating in its surface, and has a more rural aspect, and the groves and plants are better arranged, although it has not the statues, lakes, and fountains of the pride of Paris. I loved to stroll through this garden, having on one side of me the magnificent buildings of the great Russian princes, seigneurs, and merchants, among the finest and most conspicuous of which is the former residence of the unhappy Queen of Georgia; and on the other side, visible through the foliage of the trees, the white walls of the Kremlin, and, towering above them, the domes of the palaces and churches within, and the lofty tower of Ivan Veliki. Thence I loved to stroll to the Holy Gate of the Kremlin. It is a vaulted portal, and over the entrance is a picture, with a lamp constantly burning; and a sentinel is always posted at the gate. I loved to stand by it and see the haughty seigneurs and the degraded serf alike humble themselves on crossing the sacred threshold, and then, with my hat in my hand, follow the footsteps of the venerating Russian. Once I attempted to brave the interdict, and go in with my head covered; but the soldier at the gate stopped me, and forbade my violating the sacred prohibition. Within the walls I wandered about, without any definite object, sometimes entering the great church and beholding for a moment the prostrate Russian praying before the image of some saint, or descending to look once more at the great bell, or at other times mounting the tower and gazing at the beautiful panorama of the city.

On the last day of my stay in Moscow a great crowd drew me to the door of the church, where some fête was in course of celebration, in honour of the birth, marriage, or some other incident in the life of the emperor or empress. The archbishop, a venerable-looking old man, was officiating, and when he came out a double line of men, women, and children was drawn up from the door of the church to his carriage, all pressing forward and struggling to kiss his hands. The crowd dispersed, and I strolled once more through the repository of heirlooms, and imperial reliques and trophies; but, passing by the crowns loaded with jewels, the canopies and thrones adorned with velvet and gold, I paused before the throne of unhappy Poland! I have seen great cities desolate and in ruins, magnificent temples buried in the sands of the African desert, and places once teeming with fertility now lying waste and silent; but no monument of fallen greatness ever affected me more than this. It was covered with blue velvet and studded with golden stars. It had been the seat of Casimir, and Sobieski, and Stanislaus Augustus. Brave men had gathered round it and sworn to defend it, and died in redeeming their pledge. Their oaths are registered in heaven, their bodies rest in bloody graves; Poland is blotted from the list of nations, and her throne, unspotted with dishonour, brilliant as the stars which glitter on its surface, is exhibited as a Russian trophy, before which the stoutest manhood need not blush to drop a tear.

Toward evening I returned to my favourite place, the porch of the palace of the Czars. I seated myself on the step, took out my tablets, and commenced a letter to my friends at home. What should I write? Above me was the lofty tower of Ivan Veliki; below, a solitary soldier, in his gray overcoat, was retiring to a sentry-box to avoid a drizzling rain. His eyes were fixed upon me, and I closed my book. I am not given to musing, but I could not help it. Here was the theatre of one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the world. After sixty battles and a march of more than two thousand miles, the grand army of Napoleon entered Moscow, and found no smoke issuing from a single chimney, nor a Muscovite even to gaze upon them from the battlements or walls. Moscow was deserted, her magnificent palaces forsaken by their owners, her three hundred thousand inhabitants vanished as if they had never been. Silent and amazed, the grand army filed through its desolate streets. Approaching the Kremlin, a few miserable, ferocious, and intoxicated wretches, left behind as a savage token of the national hatred, poured a volley of musketry from the battlements. At midnight the flames broke out in the city; Napoleon, driven from his quarters in the suburbs, hurried to the Kremlin, ascended the steps, and entered the door at which I sat. For two days the French soldiers laboured to repress the fierce attempts to burn the city. Russian police-officers were seen stirring up the fire with tarred lances; hideous-looking men and women, covered with rags, were wandering like demons amid the flames, armed with torches, and striving to spread the conflagration. At midnight again the whole city was in a blaze; and while the roof of the Kremlin was on fire, and the panes of the window against which he leaned were burning to the touch, Napoleon watched the course of the flames and exclaimed, "What a tremendous spectacle! These are Scythians indeed." Amid volumes of smoke and fire, his eyes blinded by the intense heat, and his hands burned in shielding his face from its fury, and traversing streets arched with fire, he escaped from the burning city.

Russia is not classic ground. It does not stand before us covered with the shadow of great men's deeds. A few centuries ago it was overrun by wandering tribes of barbarians; but what is there in those lands which stand forth on the pages of history, crowned with the glory of their ancient deeds, that, for extraordinary daring, for terrible sublimity, and undaunted patriotism, exceeds the burning of Moscow. Neither Marathon, nor Thermopylæ, nor the battle of the Horatii, nor the defence of Cocles, nor the devotion of the Decii, can equal it; and when time shall cover with its dim and quiet glories that bold and extraordinary deed, the burning of Moscow will be regarded as outstripping all that we read of Grecian or Roman patriotism, and the name of the Russian governor (Rostopchin), if it be not too tough a name to hand down to posterity, will never be forgotten.

CHAPTER V.