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TRAVELS IN FOREIGN LANDS 
 
 BY CURTIS GUILD 
 
 Editor of the boston commercial bulletin 
 
 OVER THE OCEAN 
 
 OR SIGHTS AND SCENES IN FOREIGN LANDS 
 
 $2 50 
 
 ABROAD AGAIN 
 
 OR A FRESH FORAY IN FOREIGN LANDS 
 
 $2.50 
 
 BRITONS AND MUSCOVITES 
 
 OR TRAITS OF BOTH EMPIRES 
 
 $2.00 
 
 PUBLISHED BY LEE AND SHEPARD 
 
 10 MILK STREET NEXT OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE 
 BOSTON 
 
Britons and Muscovites 
 
 OR 
 
 TRAITS OF TWO EMPIRES 
 
 BY 
 
 CURTIS GUILD 
 
 EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COMMERCIAL BULLETIN, AUTHOR OF 
 " OVER THE OCEAN " AND " ABROAD AGAIN " 
 
 ■ 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 IO MILK STREET, NEXT OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 NEW YORK CHARLES T DILLINGHAM 
 
 1888 
 
c\± 
 
 jO*CO*G*Ui 
 WAMUffOTO* 
 
 Copyright, 1888, by Curtis Guild 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 BRITONS AND MUSCOVITES 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting a third volume of experiences abroad, 
 or the sights and scenes of 'foreign 'travel as seen by an 
 American tourist, the author begins with that ever pro- 
 lific field, England. •• ■ ' ..''•" 
 
 The reader is taken to the picturesque old ruins of 
 Fountains and Furness Abbeys, to old Boston in Lin- 
 colnshire, and other historic points neglected by most 
 travellers in that " tight little island." Some space is 
 given to the consideration of English hotel management, 
 from the fact that it seemed to be a leading topic with 
 all American tourists. The abortive efforts to carry on 
 large hotels in London on the American plan, and the 
 annoyances experienced by Americans, who expect 
 the same conveniences and accommodation obtainable 
 at home, offer a tempting theme for general discussion. 
 
 A descriptive sketch is given of the author's journey 
 to Russia, and the result of his observation of cities 
 visited in that country, in the style which characterizes 
 the description in his former volumes — of "Over the 
 Ocean," and " Abroad Again." 
 
 This is done with a desire to be of service to those 
 who may come after the author, to whom much of the 
 minutiae of description and many of the hints to tour- 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 ists may be of service. In fact, the author, while 
 seekino- to avoid anything of the set guide-book char- 
 acter in his volume, has endeavored to render it of 
 service to travellers, by presenting facts respecting 
 the localities visited, such as cannot be found in any 
 guide-book. 
 
 If in any degree he shall have succeeded in accom- 
 plishing this object, and, possibly, in entertaining with 
 pen-pictures those unable to visit the scenes described, 
 he will be more than gratified. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Ubiquitous Americans — Methods of Travel — A Huge Steam- 
 ship — Power and Dimensions — Life at Sea— Homage to 
 Title — A Useful Institution — American Improvements — 
 Liverpool and American Ideas 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A London Newspaper — Free Trade and Fair Trade — English 
 Hotels — Cast-Iron Eules — Poor Clerks and Slow Servants 
 
 — The Metropole and the Grand Hotels — Cold Reception 
 
 — English Delay vs. American Impatience — How Not to 
 Do It — Useless Officials — Clumsiness Personified — Cold 
 Comfort and a Lean Larder 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The English Bill of Fare — American and British Menus Com- 
 pared — Grand Hotel, London, and Fifth Avenue, New 
 York — French Flummery — English Hotel Book-Keeping — 
 A Most " Ex-twardinawy " Affair — Tyranny of Dress — 
 Blunders of Travellers — Difference Between the English 
 and American Language — American Drinks — Sherry 
 Chickens — Astonishing a Publican — American Taverns 
 and English Inns 25 
 
yiii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Letter from an Englishman — The Author's Reply— An Amer- 
 ican Merchant's Views — Old-Fashioned Hotel Management 
 
 — Lack of Modern Conveniences — Typical English Inn — 
 Curious Mistake — English Shops — The Guinea Exaction — 
 Fortunes of a Bibliopole 41 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A Trip to Eipon — Fountains Abbey — Charming Landscape 
 Effects — Picturesque Ruins — Interesting Remains — Luxu- 
 ries of a Monastery — The Great Hall — Ripon Cathedral — 
 Superb Decorations — Robin Hood's Well — A Millennial 
 Festival — An Antique Pageant — Old England Repre- 
 sented 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Furness Abbey — A Romantic Glen — A Powerful Community — 
 An Abbot-King — Remains of Architectural Beauty — 
 Superb East Window — The Tower and Scriptorium — The 
 Guest-Hall — Suppression of the Abbey — A Memorable Mon- 
 astery — Glories of the Past 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A Look into Lincolnshire — Old Boston — John Cotton and his 
 Work — St. Botolph's Church — Its History — A Beautiful 
 Tower — Fine Stone Carving — Chancel and Ancient Stalls 
 
 — The East Window — Cotton Chapel — The American 
 Tablet — Dimensions of St. Botolph's — An Old English 
 Town — Shodf riars' Hall — Modern Improvements .... 73 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Boston to Berlin — The American Exchange — A Staid German 
 City — Preparations for Trip to Russia — Railway Fares, 
 Guide-Books, and Refreshments — The Smoking Nuisance 
 
 — Travelling Companions — Arrival at the Frontier — Pass- 
 ports — Value of Deference to Officials — Baggage Exami- 
 nation — Railroad Restaurants — Experiences on the Line 
 
 — Arrival at St. Petersburg — Fine Hotel — Press Censor- 
 ship — Russian Illiteracy — Shop-Keeper's Curious Signs . 83 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Nevski Prospect — Fine Accommodations and Fair Prices — 
 Novel Sights — Street Shrines and Worshippers — Costumes 
 and Droskies — Grand Squares and Splendid Buildings — 
 Churches and Palaces — The St. Nicholas Bridge — Quays, 
 Bridges, and Canals — The Russian Army — St. Isaac's 
 Cathedral — The Grand Entrances — An Architectural Won- 
 der — Barbaric Splendor — Exquisite Stone- Work, Gold, 
 Silver, Malachite, Lapis-lazuli, Marble, and Porphyry in 
 Profusion — The Religious Ceremonies — Begging Nuns 
 and Monks — Income of Monasteries — Sales of Religious 
 Goods 95 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Petersburg the Paris of Russia — Beautiful Bridges — Cathedral 
 of Our Lady of Kazan — Cossacks of the Guard — Meeting 
 of the Grand-Duke Michael — An Immense Cathedral — 
 Captured Trophies — A Rich Screen — The Wonderful Por- 
 trait — Seeing the Czar — Exchange Salutations at Ten 
 Paces — An Unusual Piece of Good-Fortune — The Winter 
 Palace — Peter the Great's Throne-Room — The Hermitage 
 — A Wonderful Collection of Pictures — Fine Works of 
 Great Artists — The Gallitzin Gallery — Priceless Archaeo- 
 logical Treasures — The Grecian Helmet Holding the 
 Owner's Head — Curious Antiques — Jewelry and Vases — 
 Ancient Coins — A Feast for Artist, Archseologist, Anti- 
 quary, or Numismatist 109 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Peter the Great — Reverence of him in Russia — Relics of him 
 and his Time — Collection of Snuff-Boxes — Gems and 
 Jewelry — Antiques and Rich Rarities of Every Kind — 
 The Green Vaults Rivalled — A Model Guide — A Hint to 
 Tourists — An Amusing Case — Escorted to the Frontier — 
 Politeness of the Police to an American Offender — Museum 
 of Imperial Carriages — Peter the Great's Sledge — Luxuri- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 cms Chariot of Catherine II. — Alexander II. 's Carriage as 
 Smashed by Nihilist Bombs —The Unfossilized Remains of 
 Mastodons from Siberia— Ethnographic Exhibition — Peter 
 the Great's Monument .— Cathedral of St. Peter — Russian 
 Saints — Catherine II. and her Monument — Peter the 
 Great's Cottage — Peter's Summer Palace — Monastery of 
 Alexander Nevski — Death-Bed of Peter — Altar-Screens — 
 A Miniature Palace — Wonderful Wealth of Russian 
 Churches — Peterhof Palace — The Imperial Summer 
 Palace — The Royal Chapel — The Wonderful Amber Room 
 — The Chinese Room —Room of Catherine II. — Prodigal 
 Luxuriance — The Alexander Palace 121 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 From St. Petersburg to Moscow — A More Foreign Look — Mos- 
 cow a Manufacturing City — Russian Cotton — Finances of 
 the Country — Street Scenes in Moscow — Curious Vehicles 
 
 — Monks and Nuns — Conflagration of Moscow — A City of 
 Churches — The Kremlin — The Redeemer's Gate — The 
 Big Bell — The Tower of Ivan — The Spoils of War — Na- 
 poleon's Cannon — The Arsenal — Great Riding-School — 
 Cathedral of the Assumption — A Picture Decorated with a 
 Quarter of a Million Dollars Worth of Jewels — Heaps of 
 Precious Stones — Church of Archangel Michael — Tomb of 
 Ivan the Terrible — The Treasury — Armor and Trophies — 
 The Crowns and Thrones of Departed Monarchs — Another 
 Prodigal Display of Wealth— Coronation Robes and Plate 
 
 — The Carriage Museum — The Patriarch's Sacristy — The 
 Sacred Oil and How it is Made — House of the Holy Synod 
 
 — Illimitable Wealth in Precious Stones — Masterpieces of 
 
 Art 144 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Church in the Wood — St. Basil the Beautiful — Cathedral 
 of St. Saviour — A New Memorial Temple — Grand Propor- 
 tions, Rich Marbles, and Costly Carving — Visiting the 
 Sanctum Sanctorum — Hew it was Accomplished — The 
 Foundling Hospital — A Wonderful Institution — Training 
 of the Inmates — Admirable System — Government Grant — 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Illegitimacy in Eussia — The Ride to Sparrow Hills — Fine 
 Panoramic View — Napoleon and Moscow — Recalling His- 
 toric Events on the Spot of their Enactment — Russian 
 Peasants — Siberian Exiles — Their March and Treatment . 16G 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 An Escape from Siberia — The Story of a Political Exile — The 
 Arrest — Farewell to Friends — The March — Guards, Food, 
 and Treatment — A Disguised Friend — Plans of Deliver- 
 ance — The Escape — Hardships and Risks in Reaching the 
 Frontier — Narrow Escape — America Reached at Last — 
 Another Exile — A Wood-Cutter in the Forests of Siberia — 
 He Turns Out to be a Learned College Professor — Meets 
 Two of his Former Pupils — The Sweets of Liberty . . . 181 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Russian Post-Office Regulations — Simonof Monastery — A Once 
 Powerful Institution — All Asleep — The Great Bell-Tower 
 
 — Built for Defence — Wall and Watch-Towers — The 
 Romanoff House — Antique Russian Style — Curious Relics 
 
 — Work for Tourists — The Royal Palace — Standards of 
 the Russian Army — Grand Apartments — Halls of St. 
 George, St. Andrew, St. Alexander, and St. Catherine — 
 The Granite Palace — The Red Staircase — A Historic Spot 
 
 — Royal Banquet-Room — Mementos of Bonaparte's Inva- 
 sion — Traveller's Stories of Nijni Novgorod Fair — The 
 Railway Trip from Moscow to Nijni Novgorod 193 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Scenes at Nijni Novgorod — Miles of Wharves and Mountains of 
 Merchandise — Russian Beggars — Religious Pilgrims — 
 Fleets of Freight-Steamers — The Iron-Market — Russian 
 Iron — Wool and Cotton Marts — The Tea-Quarter — Tea 
 Testers and Tasters — Tartar Laborers — The Horse-Fair — 
 Orloff Horses — Turkish and Persian Fabrics — Vast Collec- 
 tion of Merchandise — The Turkish Quarter — Entering a 
 Turkish Mosque — An Obliging Mollah — Mussulman Beg- 
 gars — Precautions Against Fire 205 
 
x ii CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Cheap Quarter — Dust-Bin of the Empire — Raree-Shows and 
 Cheap Exhibitions —Dance-Houses and Music-Hails — The 
 Man-Eating Savages — A Cannibal Selling Photographs and 
 Speaking English — A Surprised Showman — Tea-Drinking 
 in Russia — Vodki-Shops — Business During the Fair — 
 Russian Merchants Represented — The Daily Exchange — 
 Russian Grain-Trade — A Clever Ruse — Russian Honesty 
 — Drosky-Drivers — Shops — Travelling — Russia's Extent 
 of Territory — Her Power and Possibilities 21S 
 
BRITONS AND MUSCOVITES; 
 
 TRAITS OF TWO EMPIRES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Americans are said to be an uneasy race, from 
 the fact that, go where you will, in any quarter of the 
 globe, you are sure to meet them, and that more fre- 
 quently than the natives of any other country. 
 
 It is a well known fact that London, Paris, Vienna, 
 Switzerland, Rome, and other European localities 
 depend on American visitors during the travelling 
 season for increasing the business of their retail trades- 
 men, their hotels and travel routes. Indeed, a falling- 
 off of American travel, owing to business panic or any 
 other reason, is noted at once in European capitals and 
 the consequent loss of trade commented on, both by 
 tradesmen and the press. Again, the investigating 
 spirit of the American, his thirst for something new, 
 his desire to see something beyond what others have 
 seen, to go farther, run greater risks, travel more miles 
 or at greater speed than others have done before him, 
 sends him to the uttermost parts of the earth and 
 causes him to pervade the world generally. 
 
 American travellers are as plentiful all over Europe 
 as flies at a sugar barrel. They wander through Eng- 
 land's castles and abbeys, throw money away prodi- 
 
 1 
 
2 UBIQUITOUS AMERICANS. 
 
 gaily in Paris, applaud at bull fights in Spain, secure 
 the best rooms in the Swiss hotels to the disgust of the 
 plaid-suited and thick-shod Englishmen, scare their 
 guides half out of their wits by their acts at the crater 
 of Vesuvius, abuse custodians of the Vatican at Rome, 
 ride like mad through the streets of St. Petersburg, 
 charter unnecessary donkeys in Cairo, pay double 
 price for curiosities at Thebes, get into difficulties in 
 the crooked streets of Damascus, shoot alligators in 
 Florida, dash in carioles over the mountain roads of 
 Norway, meander through Mexico, steam along the 
 gold-laden rocks of Alaska, and elbow their way round 
 the streets of Melbourne. 
 
 In fact, Dr. Livingstone, the African explorer, who 
 fancied that his was the only pale face among the 
 ebony-hued natives of what he supposed was unknown 
 Africa, must have been astonished, in that terra incog- 
 nita, at seeing an individual advance with the Amer- 
 ican flag and the greeting : — 
 
 "Dr. Livingstone, I believe." 
 
 The Americans, by their continual pushing about, 
 have done much to improve means of travel, to intro- 
 duce conveniences, comforts, and facilities of their in- 
 vention, often temporarily used by foreigners to please 
 their visitors, but finally permanently adopted for 
 themselves. 
 
 Notwithstanding it is now as much the fashion to 
 examine and praise new American inventions as it used 
 to be to decry and abuse them, yet there is something 
 so clumsy and awkward in the English manner of try- 
 ing to do anything after the American plan as to make 
 Americans who suffer by it wish it had never been 
 attempted. On the other hand, the pertinacity with 
 which the English cling to customs obsolete elsewhere 
 
METHODS OF TRAVEL. 3 
 
 drives the bright, wide-awake Yankee, who is detained, 
 hampered, and annoyed thereby, almost to the verge of 
 desperation. 
 
 It is so much the fashion to travel nowadays, and 
 there are so many methods by which what were for- 
 merly long, costly, and somewhat dangerous tours have 
 been rendered enjoyable, cheap, and safe pleasure-trips, 
 that almost all persons of moderate means can make or 
 have made extensive tours at home or abroad. The 
 Cook and Gaze tourist tickets, in Europe, and the better 
 and perfectly managed Raymond excursions, here in 
 the United States, remove a greater part of the burden 
 and bother of travel, and really give to the tourist 
 nearly all his time for the sight-seeing and enjoyment 
 of his trip without the annoyances of ticket-buying, 
 luggage-checking, and hotel arrangements, which nec- 
 essarily fall to one's lot when travelling independently 
 upon his own account. 
 
 Nevertheless, the latter method has its advantages to 
 those who have the time and means to use it. The 
 English are notorious grumblers as tourists, and 
 prone to cavil at everything that does not exactly 
 suit them ; but if there is any one country in which 
 the average American has reason to expect so much 
 advance in the way of convenience and accommoda- 
 tion to the traveller, and finds so little, it is England. 
 
 Going over the ocean to-day in one of the great 
 Cunard steamers is, however, very different and more 
 speedy than it was twenty years ago. Then the author 
 thought the voyage good and speedy in the old side- 
 wheeler Asia, which accomplished the journey between 
 Boston and Queenstown in twelve days ! Now from 
 the stepping on board the great steamer Umbria, at 
 her pier in New York, to the stepping off at Liverpool, 
 
4 A LOOK AT THE LEVIATHAN. 
 
 including the stop at Queenstown, the time was found 
 to be exactly seven days and five hours — about half 
 that covered by the first mentioned voyage. 
 
 A look at this huge specimen of naval architecture 
 at the wharf, while exciting the wonder of the behold- 
 er, somehow or other gives him an impression prejudi- 
 cial to her safety in a storm or heavy sea. You wonder 
 if it may not be difficult or dangerous to manage such 
 a huge affair, if something will not give out to render 
 the leviathan an unmanageable mass at the mercy of 
 the waves. A single voyage in rough weather, how- 
 ever, will change one's doubts into the belief, as it did 
 mine, that this giant of navigation is a paragon of 
 safety and comfort, as far as comfort can ever be said 
 to be experienced by those who cross the ocean. 
 
 Owing to the size of the ship and the enormous 
 power of her machinery, there is steadiness to her in 
 comparatively rough seas that in smaller vessels would 
 cause rolling and pitching to a marked degree. Then, 
 the wide stairways, spacious, very spacious cabins, 
 grand dining-hall, music-hall, ladies' private cabin, 
 smoking and card room and servants' cabin, and 
 withal the great promenade deck, broad, wide, and 
 long — the length of the ship is very nearly one-tenth 
 of a mile — make a fair-weather passage on one of 
 these ocean greyhounds luxurious travelling indeed. 
 
 Ah! but how is it in rough and stormy weather? 
 
 Well, the ship, by reason of her immense power of 
 machinery, does not remain long in the locality where 
 the storm prevails ; it is not with these ships as was 
 the case with sailing vessels and slow steamers which 
 made but a few miles a da} 7 and consequently remained 
 long in the radius of a storm. This big ship, in a 
 storm that sent waves away over her upper deck and 
 
CUTTING THROUGH THE STORM-BELT. 5 
 
 the spray to the top of her enormous funnels, rolled 
 and was unsteady, and the weather sent two-thirds of 
 her passengers to their state-rooms sea-sick ; but she 
 kept right on, cut right through storm, wave, and tem- 
 pest, on, on ; — no tacking or stopping or finding that 
 we were detained by the storm, but when the steward, 
 with a cup of porridge, staggered to our state-room 
 the next morning, it was with the cheerful intelligence 
 that the run for the day just ended was 245 miles, and 
 that ten hours more would carry us entirely clear of 
 the storm-belt there prevailing. Best of all, his pre- 
 diction was fulfilled. 
 
 Though we were all day below, the steady and rapid 
 progress of the great ship, and the comparatively little 
 effect which wind and wave had upon her as she faced, 
 encountered, and overcame both with such ease, gave 
 us a feeling of safety which we could not have so fully 
 experienced in a ship of less power, and, we may per- 
 haps add, less skilfully managed. 
 
 The dimensions of such ships as the Etruria and 
 Umbria, of the Cunard line, fairly stagger those un- 
 acquainted with the size to which steamship-building 
 has been carried in this nineteenth century. They are, 
 iu fact, the natural results of all that lias been done in 
 the development of ocean-going steaming, especially 
 Atlantic steaming, for the past thirty years. 
 
 The gradual development of the lines of ocean-going 
 steamers to the proportions of the yacht, combined 
 with the adoption of well tested new methods, have 
 reduced the designing of high speed to matters of cer- 
 tainty. This ship has made the trip to Queenstown in 
 six days, fourteen hours, twenty minutes, and on an- 
 other occasion in six days, eleven hours, and ten min- 
 utes, and it is expected to bridge the Atlantic in six 
 
b TREMENDOUS PROPORTIONS. 
 
 days. The engines of this ship are a magnificent sight 
 and in perfection of simplicity ; they are said to be the 
 most powerful in use. 
 
 The great breadth of the vessel has provided an 
 abundance of room round their tremendous propor- 
 tions, and the sight of the massive cranks revolving 
 with perfect smoothness and regularity, at a speed of 
 sixty-seven revolutions a minute, is interesting and 
 wonderful. The horse-power of the engines here 
 reached is something over one thousand two hundred 
 and fifty, which is a trifle over the minimum, the max- 
 imum not having been reached at the time the author 
 made his voyage. 
 
 The Umbria is 520 feet long, 57 feet broad, 41 feet 
 deep, and of over eight thousand tonnage. She is the 
 largest steamer afloat. The City of Rome is forty feet 
 longer, but the Umbria is five feet broader and four feet 
 deeper, and it is in depth and breadth that sea-sick 
 people find comfort and consolation, and the steadiness 
 of this ship is a most agreeable feature. The great 
 breadth of the vessel gives room for the spacious stair- 
 cases I have alluded to, which are as broad as those 
 of a first-class hotel, and the means of access from one 
 deck to the other are numerous as well as broad. The 
 great saloon, extending from side to side, is 76 feet 
 long and nine feet high, and is lighted from a cupola 
 skylight above, which also lights a sitting or music 
 room above, through the centre of which the light de- 
 scends. At night the whole is lighted by incandescent 
 electric lights, placed near the ceiling so that the view 
 is not obstructed, thus replacing the odorous and 
 even dangerous oil-lamp so loathed by qualmish pas- 
 sengers. 
 
 I do not recall the number of state-rooms in the 
 
CAPACITY OF THE CMBRIA. 7 
 
 Umbria, but she can carry 720 first-class passengers, 
 and on the trip we made in her there were btib first- 
 class passengers, yet the size of the ship was such that 
 it was difficult to realize that there were half that num- 
 ber on board, except in smooth weather, at dinner-time, 
 when they were brought together at the two dinners 
 in the great cabin, one set dining at 5 and the other at 
 6 P. M. I mention details respecting the size and ac- 
 commodations of this great vessel as illustrating what 
 has thus far been accomplished to render the journey 
 across the ocean comfortable as well as speedy. 
 
 The lines of the ship are unusually fine ; she does 
 not by any means look her size, and the disturbance of 
 the water-way when at her greatest speed is compara- 
 tively trivial. The two funnels, upon which eighteen 
 extra braces were put during one of our experiences 
 of a two-days blow, are gigantic affairs, and three ordi- 
 nary-sized men could stand one above the other 
 within their diameter. The upper deck extends the 
 whole breadth of the ship, obstructed only by the nec- 
 essary hatchways and twelve life-boats, a space of 300 
 feet by 57 feet. 
 
 Everything is on a gigantic scale as compared with 
 other steamers I have voyaged in ; here was a huge 
 air-pump that forced fresh air along the whole length 
 of the corridors on the lower decks, through iron 
 shafts perforated with holes an inch in diameter and 
 two feet apart. By the force of this artificial current 
 the ventilation is continuous and uniform in all 
 weathers, and none of what is known as the between- 
 deck odor is observable. The huge steam-boilers, the 
 hull of the vessel, the crank-shaft and the more vital 
 parts of the engine are all of steel. A feature of the 
 great boilers that I had never seen before is that they 
 
 \ 
 
8 NEEDED REFORM. 
 
 were double-ended, that is, they had a set of furnaces 
 at each end. 
 
 As steamers have increased in size and speed, the 
 boiler has grown in size ; but it has grown in circum- 
 ference, not in length. The Umbria consumes three 
 hundred tons of coal per day, and the total of her 
 crew, including firemen, sailors, stewards, coal-passers, 
 etc., is two hundred and eighty men. Although so 
 much has been done in the past score of years as 
 regards speed, convenience, and comfort, yet in the 
 latter characteristic there is still much room for im- 
 provement in the matter of cuisine and attendance, 
 and, I doubt not, it will be closely studied. 
 
 The majority of people making the voyage are sea- 
 sick, at least for a portion of the time, and, though 
 having the best of attention from stewards and stew- 
 ardesses, could be still better served by a little depart- 
 ure from the old, established way of doing things, which 
 has prevailed so many years on the ships of the Cunard 
 line. For instance, the hours for meals were : breakfast, 
 8 o'clock ; lunch, 1 to 2 ; dinner at 5. Thus the patient 
 or the hungry convalescent must wait from 8 to 5 for 
 a hot meal, for at lunch only cold meats are served. 
 One wakes very early in the morning at sea, and it is 
 a terrible time to wait until 8 o'clock for the warm 
 breakfast. Again, the best of beef-tea, oatmeal-por- 
 ridge, Oolong tea, and hot gruel ought to be kept on 
 tap at all hours, and just as easily attainable by sea- 
 sick passengers as liquors or wines. 
 
 A writer on ocean-voyages has written at length 
 against passengers being obliged to furnish their own 
 steamer-chairs, but this feature I think a good one as 
 it enables one to provide for his own exclusive use 
 such as he may desire. The price of this exclusive 
 
 
AMUSEMENTS OX BOARD. 9 
 
 comfort is very small, and the opportunities, on a big 
 ship like the Umbria, of removing one's couch or seat 
 from point to point of observation, and always being 
 sure of it, are many and afford entertainment to the 
 voyager. 
 
 We found on this trip the same old amusements for 
 passing away time that have prevailed for a score of 
 years and more. The tossing of rope rings over an 
 upright stake about ten feet distant from the pitcher ; 
 shuffleboard, or the thrusting of a sort of big checker 
 or draught by means of a gigantic pudding-stick at a 
 chalked-out diagram on the deck ; and pitching pennies 
 into a pint pot. In the smoking-room, the games of 
 chess and checkers, whist, poker, and other games of 
 cards, drew a strong representation from the male por- 
 tion of the passengers, and caused a change of owner- 
 ship of a very respectable number of sovereigns and 
 bank-notes. Of course, the usual concert that is 
 always given for that English Marine Orphan Asylum, 
 that must be accumulating a handsome income from 
 ocean-travellers by this time, took place on our voyage 
 over; and the affair, being run by an English passenger, 
 was conducted in true English style, by calling with 
 some ceremony a titled Englishman to take " the chair/' 
 Englishmen at a meeting, a private concert, and, 
 I believe, at a sewing circle, if they ever had such an 
 assemblage, always contrive to have some Sir Peregrine 
 Poke or Lord Addington Adlehed on hand to " kindly 
 consent to take the chair." Those who are present 
 find that, besides having this fact reported in the news- 
 papers or talked about in certain circles, the object of 
 selecting such a chairman seems often to result in the 
 obtaining of some one who can the most successfully 
 muddle the whole affair. 
 
10 ENGLISH SERVILITY. 
 
 The author recalls on one of his voyages, when we 
 assembled to hear the amateur performance, vocal and 
 instrumental, of several clever people who were on 
 board, that the English gentleman who engineered the 
 affair announced that "Sir Benjamin Baucher, K. C. 
 B., had kindly consented to take the chair on this 
 occasion," which the aforesaid Sir Benjamin, after 
 being approached, did, looking quite red and uncom- 
 fortable. However, in a sort of beery bass, he ex- 
 plained the object of the charity, by aid of his prompter, 
 and then proceeded to announce the performers set 
 down in the programme, but, not having previously 
 perused it, he announced some of the performers in 
 the wrong places and mispronounced the names of 
 the others. But the sea was smooth, passengers all 
 well and in good-humor, the performances clever, and 
 the usual toll taken up for the hospital was very 
 respectable in amount. 
 
 It was a little bit of harmless exultation on our part 
 to pass, just before entering Queenstown harbor, a 
 steamer (the Britannic) that had left New York two 
 days previous to our sailing, and to beat her in gaining 
 port in such aggravating style. 
 
 The American Exchange in Europe, under the man- 
 agement of Mr. H. F. Gillig, is of great service to 
 American travellers, and saves them a vast deal of 
 trouble and annoyance. It has offices at London, 
 Liverpool, Paris, and Berlin ; and at each place, 
 although somewhat of a seasoned tourist, I found its 
 service to be of great advantage and at quite a small 
 expense. At Liverpool its agent meets you as you 
 disembark, has a carriage ready to convey you to rooms 
 which you may have ordered in advance (as you should 
 do, through him) at the hotel. You leave your keys 
 
A USEFUL INSTITUTION. 11 
 
 with him at the landing, and he expeditiously gets your 
 baggage through the Custom House, and saves a world 
 of fussy annoyances that it is pleasant to avoid in your 
 anxiety to exchange the bustle and confusion attendant 
 upon landing for a "good square meal" on shore and 
 a wide and steady bed in which to sleep. 
 
 There is nothing puts the life into one after the sea- 
 voyage more than a good dinner after getting on shore, 
 for it is without that indescribable ship-flavor, — half- 
 way style of serving, lack of heat in vegetables, and 
 other concomitants that characterize ship-cooking, — 
 and is, of course, a more legitimate meal in all respects 
 than those served on shipboard. 
 
 In a day or two, with digestive apparatus in good 
 order, lungs filled with land-breezes, and sea-legs off, 
 you are in condition to note the inferiority of English 
 hotels in general, the great advantage possessed by the 
 average American workman, employe, or day-laborer, 
 over his English rival, in quickness of apprehension, in 
 the adoption and use of an improvement, in the belief 
 that anything may be improved, or that anything that 
 is new can for any reason whatever be better than that 
 which is old. In fact, the average Englishman seems 
 to cling to the past, and look backwards, while the 
 American is eager to leave even the present well 
 enough for something in advance that may be an 
 improvement. 
 
 Many of the American improvements now in use in 
 England in machinery, manufactures, hotel-keeping, 
 and travelling, though at first forced upon them and 
 after long and persistent effort reluctantly adopted, 
 now, after having come into common use, are claimed 
 as English inventions. 
 
 Liverpool has changed but little since I saw it, seven 
 
12 LIVERPOOL. 
 
 years ago ; it has the same well paved streets, general 
 seaport aspect in the business part of the cit} T , and 
 there is at the great hotels during the summer season 
 that ever-changing rush of arrival and departure of 
 American travellers by the great steamship lines. 
 There through its streets is now laid the tramway or 
 horse-railroad track, with double-storied cars crowded 
 with passengers running over it. These tramway- 
 tracks, it will be recollected, were torn up by the indig- 
 nant people, and an injunction or something of the kind 
 laid, twenty-five years ago, upon George Francis Train, 
 to prevent his placing what was then called " this ob- 
 struction to public travel " in the street. 
 
 Train was clear-headed enough in those days ; his 
 only error of judgment was that he was fifteen years 
 ahead of the average English intellect in appreciating 
 an improvement in transportation. It was no novelty 
 even then, for horse-railroads had been successfully 
 running in America ten years previously. But in those 
 days nothing American was thought to be of value ; 
 now, if a grand improvement is spoken of, a new inven- 
 tion referred to, or a superior article of goods exhibited, 
 the first question asked by the English questioner is, 
 " Is it American ? " It is gratifying to find not only 
 that articles bearing the American stamp now command 
 the readiest attention in England, but also that many 
 articles of American manufacture are dispkryed in the 
 shop-windows, conspicuously labelled as such and com- 
 peting successfully with similar goods of English 
 make. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Any person that visited England a score or more 
 years ago, and who goes there to-day, cannot fail to ob- 
 serve what enormous advance the United States has 
 made in its manufactured products. In many of these 
 we seem to have marched forward with giant strides, 
 while our competitor has remained comparatively sta- 
 tionary ; in other words, our protective tariff has 
 enabled us to equal and rival him, as in the production 
 of Bessemer-steel rails, or to outstrip him completely, 
 as in the manufacture of watches. 
 
 Though I do not propose to write a tariff essay, I 
 cannot leave the matter without alluding to the strong 
 feeling that prevails, and which is gaining strength 
 every day, against free trade in England. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph of London, a paper of very 
 large circulation, published, in 1887, a series of letters 
 from large and well known manufacturers, in various 
 parts of England, calling attention to the fact that 
 their business is being seriously injured, and in some 
 cases ruined, by the influx of goods from some of the 
 continental countries. Against these the labor, and the 
 superior facilities of English manufacturers, could not 
 compete, and some protection Avas called for against the 
 free flooding of the English markets with foreign goods, 
 and attention directed to the fact that, owing to the 
 American tariff, that market was not only closed to 
 them, but American manufactured goods were displac- 
 ing theirs in British colonies. An ably edited weekly 
 
 13 
 
14 FREE TRADE AND FAIR TRADE. 
 
 paper, entitled Fair Trade, published in London, was 
 an outspoken opponent of English free trade as it 
 then existed. 
 
 Our recently formed Protection League in New York 
 has not yet, I believe, followed the example of the Cob- 
 den Club, and sent over pamphlets advocating the pro- 
 tective policy, to be distributed to voters on the eve of 
 elections, or put up money prizes at England's educa- 
 tional schools for the best essa} T s on the American 
 Protective Tariff. Such a course might cause them 
 over there to slowly consider the matter and to put a 
 tariff upon American goods, perhaps by the time we 
 get strong enough to manufacture all the goods Eng- 
 land and the rest of the world wants, tariff or no tariff. 
 Then how we should scold about England's Chinese 
 wall and advocate freedom of trade in the admission of 
 all American manufactured goods into British ports ! 
 
 The change in the Liverpool hotels during the last 
 twenty years has been great, although gradual. The 
 fault-finding of Americans, their persistent demands, 
 coupled with their readiness to pay liberally, seem to 
 have had some little effect upon the English hotel- 
 manager. Pie is gradually being forced to admit that 
 he should try to conform to the demands, wishes, and 
 desires of his patrons, and not endeavor to make them 
 conform to his rules and regulations, even if such a 
 course necessitates a departure from methods in use by 
 his fathers before him, and now obsolete outside of his 
 own island. The introduction of elevators and gas- 
 lights into English hotels seems to have been fought 
 with the most obstinate pertinacity, and is successfully 
 opposed even now in several of the great hotels of 
 London, as well as in York and other equally large 
 In like manner has the heating of 
 
ENGLISH HOTELS. 15 
 
 halls or rooms by hot-air furnaces or steam been kept 
 out to this clay, to the positive discomfort of guests, as 
 I can attest from my own experience during the raw, 
 cold, and damp weather that prevails in London during 
 the late fall season. 
 
 One obstacle to improvement in English hotels in 
 large cities is the fact that they are owned by stock- 
 companies, who manage them in that ponderous Eng- 
 lish way in which they conduct a coal-mine or cotton- 
 mill, with a force of men, from manager down to boots 
 and porter, acting under a set of cast-iron rules and 
 regulations laid down by the board of directors, men of 
 little or no experience, and with few ideas as regards 
 the demands of a modern first-class hotel. 
 
 The clerical force of these houses is largely composed 
 of men who do their duties mechanically, and simply 
 serve their number of hours and then go off to their 
 homes in the suburbs, giving place to their successors, 
 and in turn take their places when their time comes 
 round for them to return, but with apparently no sort 
 of interest in what has been done or what arrange- 
 ments made during their hours off duty, using no sort 
 of judgment, and utterly careless and indifferent as to 
 the convenience and comforts of the guest. 
 
 If any one desires to know the value of the bright, 
 alert, well posted, and much abused American hotel 
 clerk, let him sample a few of the ignoramuses that are 
 placed in that position in the great London hotels. It 
 was a notorious fact that pleasure-seeking Americans 
 rushed over the ocean in such swarms at the close of 
 our civil war as to completely crowd up all the London 
 houses. Their demands for enlarged accommodations 
 were such as to cause the erection of the Langham, 
 Westminster Palace Hotel and others. The manage- 
 
16 IGNORANT CLERKS AND SLOW SERVANTS. 
 
 ment of these English hotels was exasperating to the 
 last degree to Americans, from the fact of their pre- 
 tending so much and performing so little. 
 
 Large rooms and no gas-light, ignorant clerks and 
 slow servants, a roundabout, slow-coach, and red-tape 
 style of doing things, not at all in keeping with the 
 quick despatch prevailing in America. The Langham 
 Hotel at first became a resort for Americans. It had 
 spacious drawing and smoking rooms, a fine dining- 
 room, good cuisine, and was in a very desirable locality. 
 Always full of Americans during the travelling season, 
 the attaches had the impertinent independence to tell 
 aggravated guests who complained of imperfect attend- 
 ance, or who threatened to give up their rooms, that it 
 made no difference — other Americans would be along 
 to take them. And no special effort was made to 
 please them or to cater to their tastes. 
 
 This, however, was several years ago. The influx of 
 American travel and American dollars has continued, 
 and it has dawned upon the sluggish British intellect 
 that it would be best to encourage and not retard this 
 influx ; so new hotels, like the Metropole and Grand, 
 were projected and built, and a third, still larger, is pro- 
 jected. The Langham no longer turns a cold shoulder 
 to complaints, nor is it independent of American trav- 
 ellers, but actually advertises for them and solicits 
 their patronage. " Think of that, Master Brooke ! " 
 
 The two hotels in Liverpool most affected in 188T 
 by Americans were the Adelphi and Grand. The 
 former is much improved and enlarged over the old- 
 time affair ; the greatest objection is that which at- 
 taches to most large English hotels, of contriving the 
 entrances so that the lower halls and corridors are 
 perfect sluiceways of cold, raw, and damp air, chilly 
 
A COLD RECEPTION. 17 
 
 and penetrating in early spring and fall, when Ameri- 
 cans most frequent them. Then, in lieu of a warm, 
 steam-heated drawing-room for guests, they provide a 
 little, contracted, old-fashioned parlor, at one end of 
 which is a fireplace containing two lumps of soft coal 
 the size of brick-bats, that give out an enormous quan- 
 tity of smoke and no heat, so that in cool weather, if 
 you desire to keep warm in them, you must do as I did 
 — wear j^our overcoat. 
 
 The great dining-room was heated (?) in a similar 
 manner by a few lumps of coal in distant grates. This 
 may have accounted for the action of two young Eng- 
 lishmen who came in one day and took a table near 
 several others occupied by American ladies and gentle- 
 men, and sat without removing their hats after order- 
 ing their dinner. This being observed by an American 
 at one of the tables, he bade the waiter bring him an 
 umbrella, which he immediately hoisted above his 
 table. The other offenders against good manners took 
 the hint and removed their hats, their act being fol- 
 lowed by the immediate furling of the umbrella. At 
 one of the Liverpool hotels the introduction of the 
 "lift" or elevator was obstinately opposed, I under- 
 stand, until a progressive stockholder agreed to put it 
 in at his own expense. 
 
 Here we found the same exasperating English delay 
 in responding to bells rung by guests. Chamber-maids 
 for each floor, instead of bell-boys, attend to that service, 
 or pretend to attend to it, for one to whom I gave an 
 order at 10 p.m. went off duty, her time having arrived 
 to do so, without telling her successor to fill my order, 
 and, after waiting a long time for her return, her suc- 
 cessor was by the second summons brought to give me 
 that information and consume another fifteen minutes 
 
18 EXASPERATING DELAYS. 
 
 in executing the order, muting the time in all about 
 three-quarters of an hour -jfe perform "a service that 
 would have been rendered in an American hotel in ten 
 minutes at longest. 
 
 It really was not of much use to complain of such 
 service (you are charged for it in your bill) to the 
 woman occupying the little den, on the first floor, where 
 the register and keys were kept, for she remarked that 
 10 P. M. was rather late for the order (it was for a pitcher 
 of water) and the chamber-maid was probably tired ! 
 The manager — there is always a "manager" at these 
 big English hotels, the title a misnomer from the fact 
 that there appears to be no management in them — the 
 manager comes out of his private office, smirks, smiles, 
 and washes his hands with invisible soap, is quite 
 indignant at our complaint, and begins at once to 
 summon seven or eight chamber-maids, from various 
 parts of the house, to account for the affair, creating an 
 excitement and loud talk in the entrance-hall, from 
 which we were only too glad to withdraw. 
 
 It is surprising that, in all these years in which 
 Americans have visited London in swarms, there should 
 not have been one great hotel built and managed upon 
 the American plan, or that some of them should not 
 change their cumbersome methods and adopt a few of 
 the American customs in dealing with so large a pro- 
 portion of guests of that nationality. 
 
 When the Grand Hotel in London was built, it was 
 announced that such was to be the case, and English 
 people who watched its large proportions when it was 
 in course of erection gravely stated that it was to be a 
 great Yankee caravansary, in which no English people 
 would think of living. I noticed, however, during my 
 stay that as large a proportion of English as Americans 
 made use of it. 
 
A GREAT "YANKEE" CARAVANSARY. 19 
 
 This house, which looks out upon one side of Trafal- 
 gar Square, is built upon a sort of semi-circular lot, 
 and has the appearance of a large open fan. The 
 rooms in the stories above the first floor are of that 
 shape, the wider part of the room being at the two 
 windows, the space narrowing off towards, the door. If 
 you have a fire in your sleeping-room, as I did, even in 
 what is deemed a good-sized apartment it is so uncom- 
 fortably near the foot-board of the bed as to afford you 
 the opportunity of shuffling off the mortal coil like 
 John Rogers — with warm feet. 
 
 The annoyances here to Americans are many. Chief 
 among them is the number of persons employed, and 
 the gauntlet the guest must run to gain information, 
 be served, or find any one who has the slightest knowl- 
 edge of anything out of his individual department. 
 Thus the man who receives your letters and room-keys 
 is utterly ignorant respecting where a theatre is, at 
 what hour its performance begins, or respecting the 
 arrival or departure of any train from London. The 
 man who assigns you a room can tell you the name of 
 a good hotel in scarcely a town or city on the island, — 
 and so on. 
 
 When I arrived at the Grand Hotel, in damp, dismal, 
 cold November, the fresh-air or ventilating mania was 
 prevailing as usual. 
 
 Arrived at the entrance of the house, the gilt-capped 
 porter was at the cab-door to let me out ; he summoned 
 the house-porter to take my luggage ; another porter, 
 with gilt-striped pantaloons, opened the valve-doors, 
 and held them open till I came in with my luggage* 
 and admitted at the same time a full rush of chill wind 
 into the lower hall, and through the opened doors, and 
 into the great reception and reading room, containing 
 
20 
 
 numerous ladies and gentlemen. Next I went to 
 the room-clerk, where names were registered. Great 
 books of plans of the rooms were spread out upon 
 desks and tables, and the office had the appearance of 
 the headquarters of a major-general in active cam- 
 paign. 
 
 My rooms had been engaged in advance, but it was 
 now nine o'clock in the evening, and the day-clerk not 
 on hand, and his successor, as usual, was oblivious 
 respecting the matter, which had been arranged two 
 days previously. Finally, after various explanations 
 and the production of the day hotel-clerk's letter ac- 
 knowledging that the apartments would be ready, some 
 were assigned me. All this time the ladies of the party 
 were out in the cold hall, by the main entrance, which 
 the uniformed door-opener contrived to keep as uncom- 
 fortable as possible, by holding open the doors for 
 those who wished egress or ingress, for a minute or two 
 before they could possibly reach them. There was no 
 more need for the fellow at the door than for a light- 
 ning-rod on a wash-tub. 
 
 The corridors and halls above the second floor were 
 poorly lighted, and unhealed ; and made more chilly 
 and uncomfortable in damp, foggy November weather 
 by the windows being kept down at the top. Thus 
 } T ou step from the atmosphere of your room, made com- 
 fortable by a fire, out into entries and hallways with a 
 difference of fifteen to twenty degrees of temperature. 
 The " lift," which carries you to the upper stories, is 
 contrived with swinging doors, which the man who 
 runs it is obliged to push open. He must also step 
 out at every landing before the passenger can leave or 
 enter. The automatic slide door, as was the case of the 
 " lift " itself, will finall} T , after years of persuasion of 
 
CLUMSY MANAGEMENT. 21 
 
 the " board of direction," be probably solemnly voted 
 in by them, at some regular meeting, where the motion 
 will be duly made and seconded. 
 
 Besides the porter, or man outside the lower door to 
 call cabs and receive guests, there were two more 
 within, including the individual who opened the doors 
 and acted as a sort of champion guest-cooler and pneu- 
 monia-promoter. Then, there was a luggage-porter in 
 one corner ; another, who received parcels for guests, 
 in another ; on the other side of the passage, a boy to 
 change money and sell stamps, and further on the room- 
 office, with the great plans and enormous bother of de- 
 termining your rooms, requiring as much ceremony as 
 if selecting an architectural plan for an eight-story 
 mansion. 
 
 An inner office held the manager ; next outside was 
 a cashier, — of course, he knew nothing except how to 
 receive money and receipt bills; then another small 
 enclosure held two men, who kept the room-keys and let- 
 ters ; then the coat room ; then, at the door of the great 
 breakfast-room, stood a large, solemn, uniformed indi- 
 vidual, whose sole duty was to bow when any one ap- 
 proached, and hold the door wide-open when any one 
 went in or out the room, to the infinite annoyance of 
 those inside, who were deluged with cold draughts 
 of air, coming in from the other great doors opening 
 into the street, held open b}^ the other supernumerary. 
 
 All these men were scattered round so thickly, from 
 the portal to the elevator, that you almost fell over 
 them, and in attempting to get information of any kind 
 you were referred from one ignoramus to another until 
 driven to the verge of madness by the dense stupidity 
 prevailing where you should find quick perception, 
 certainly ordinary intelligence. 
 
22 "PLEASE SHUT THAT DOOR." 
 
 "But, then, the English are not an inquisitive people I 
 They don't ask questions, like you Americans, and 
 they have certain set customs, that it is hard for them 
 to change," exclaimed a good-natured Briton to me. 
 
 It is not only that, but in the Anglo-American hotels 
 they have great reluctance to depart in the least degree 
 from a certain set of rules which they appear to have 
 laid down, even if such departure is demanded by 
 guests, and will contribute to their comfort. Com- 
 plaint to any subordinate short of the manager, re- 
 specting an open window, a smoky chimney, an expiring 
 fire in the public room, is treated with supreme indif- 
 ference. The management evidently arranges the 
 conduct of the establishment not with the idea that the 
 hotel is to be managed to give the largest degree of 
 satisfaction to the guests, but that the guests are to 
 conform, in their comings, goings, and orders, to the 
 satisfaction of the management. 
 
 "Please to shut that door!" said a shivering Amer- 
 ican to one of the head waiters in the dining-room, 
 pointing to the open portal. 
 
 " Door, sir ? yes, sir," and he hurried off in another 
 direction. 
 
 The American rose from the breakfast-table and 
 walked to the door, the swinging sides of which had 
 been propped open, to save the great creature in gold- 
 banded cap and breeches the trouble of opening and 
 shutting them. 
 
 " Shut this door ! " 
 
 " Er — I beg yer pardin ? " 
 
 " Shut this door, it's too cold," said the speaker, kick- 
 ing out the chocks, and letting the doors swing together. 
 
 " I beg yer pardin, but — er — the manager told me to 
 keep' em hopen." 
 
THE MENU. 23 
 
 " How long ago ? " 
 
 " Oh, months ago, sir." 
 
 " I thought so. Now I tell you to close them and 
 keep them closed except when people desire to come 
 in or go out, for I don't intend to freeze as well as 
 starve while I'm here." 
 
 The doors were not, after this dialogue, propped 
 open again. 
 
 The meals at these great hotels are : breakfast from 
 8 to 10 : 30 ; luncheon from 12 : 30 to 3 , and dinner 
 from 6 to 8:30. 
 
 The American who has been accustomed to the 
 luxurious first-class hotels of New York, Boston, Phila- 
 delphia, Chicago, in fact any of the great cities of his 
 own country, where abundance, variety, prompt ser- 
 vice, and admirable cuisine are the rule, is simply 
 astounded that there should be here, in the great 
 metropolis of the world, such a comparatively meagre 
 bill of fare, so little variety from day to day, and so 
 close a calculation as to quantity served. 
 
 At breakfast he finds two kinds of fish, sole and 
 whiting, and for hot meats perhaps steak with ham 
 and eggs. The next day the fare was varied by 
 leaving out the sole for another kind of fish and sub- 
 stituting chops for the steak, with the addition of 
 sausages. As a favor, I got chops on the beefsteak 
 day, after bribing the waiter, — the steak was one of 
 the English sole-leather kind. 
 
 The thought of a Fifth Avenue Hotel breakfast bill 
 of fare, beginning with fruit, grapes, oranges, pears, 
 and including five or six kinds of fish, eggs in every 
 known form of cooking, pork and mutton chops, lamb 
 cutlets, broiled chicken, oysters, steak, potatoes in 
 every form — but why go on? That breakfast bill of 
 
24 PARSIMONY OF THE HOTEL-KEEPERS. 
 
 fare would drive an English hotel-keeper crazy, to say- 
 nothing of the menu for dinner. 
 
 Why, a Fifth Avenue Hotel dinner, if served in one 
 of these London hotels at their rate of charge and 
 their style of serving, would cost fifteen dollars a head 
 and require ten hours between o} T sters and coffee. 
 
 Some of the courses at the Grand and Metropole 
 were ludicrous in the extreme. Fancy being solemnly 
 provided with a hot, clean plate, and, after waiting 
 patiently till the dish reached you by the table cThote 
 waiter, rinding that the whole course was string-beans, 
 and, the spoonful that you took being disposed of, 
 you were next served with another course, say of 
 lettuce or some other cheap grass stuff. 
 
 The great English hotels are very liberal in cheap 
 greens, but economical in serving good roast solids that 
 cost much. Who ever ate a good roast turkey dinner 
 with cranberry jelly, mashed brown potatoes, celery, 
 squash, sweet potatoes, macaroni, and three or four 
 other side-dishes of appetizing vegetables in an Eng- 
 lish hotel? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Much as the good living of England is vaunted, it 
 cannot approach the American. Its principal staples 
 are beef, mutton, and chops, ham (with eggs) for meats, 
 sole and turbot for fish, sour gooseberry pie or rasp- 
 berry tarts for "sweets," with a hunk of cheese and a 
 few grapes by way of dessert, and, as an irate Yankee 
 once said, the damnable frequency with which these 
 are set before one at last makes one's very gorge rise 
 with disgust at the sight. It will be understood that 
 the author's criticism is chiefly levelled at hotels. For 
 the sake of comparison, I give below the breakfast and 
 dinner bills of fare of the Grand Hotel, London, and 
 of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, of New York. 
 
 The Grand Hotel, London. 
 
 MEXU DU DEJEUXER. 
 FISH. 
 
 Fried Soles. Fresh Herrings. Finnan Haddock. 
 
 ENTREES. 
 
 Ham and Fried Eggs. Scrambled Eggs aux Fines Herbes. 
 
 Stewed Kidneys and Mushrooms. 
 Home-made Sausages. Mutton Chops. 
 
 Potatoes a la Maitre d' Hotel. 
 
 SUNDRIES. 
 
 Oatmeal Porridge. Cold Viands. 
 
 Table d'Hote Breakfast, consisting of Tea, Coffee, Cocoa, or Choco- 
 late, including the Dishes mentioned above, 3s. 6d. 
 
26 
 
 A COMPARISON OF MENUS. 
 
 Fruit. 
 
 Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York. 
 BREAKFAST. 
 Radishes. Cucumbers. 
 
 FISH. 
 
 Fried Codfish, with pork. 
 Broiled Salt Mackerel. 
 Broiled Fresh Mackerel. 
 Broiled Shad. Hashed Fish. 
 
 Salt Codfish, with cream. 
 Smoked Salmon. 
 Fried Smelts. 
 Digby Herrings. Fish-balls. 
 
 Beefsteak. 
 Yeal Cutlet. 
 Calf's Liver. 
 Mutton Kidneys. 
 
 BROILED. 
 
 Mutton Chops. 
 Pork Chops. 
 Pig's feet, breaded. 
 Smoked Bacon. 
 
 Lamb Chops. 
 Ham. 
 
 Pickled Tripe. 
 Honey-comb Tripe. 
 
 FEIED. 
 
 Pig's Feet, breaded. Oysters, with crumbs. 
 
 Pickled Tripe. Calf's Liver. Tripe, plain. Clams. 
 
 Sausage. Pork Chops. 
 
 STEWED. 
 
 Clams. Mutton Kidneys. Oysters. 
 
 Hashed Meat. Hashed Chicken. 
 
 EGGS. 
 
 Omelets, plain, or with parsley, onions, ham, kidneys, or cheese, 
 boiled, fried, scrambled, or dropped. 
 
 COED MEATS. 
 
 Hashed, with cream. 
 
 TOTATOES. 
 
 Lvonnaise. 
 
 Brown Bread. 
 Graham Muffins. 
 English Muffins. 
 Plain Muffins. 
 Fried Indian Puddim 
 
 Fried. 
 
 Baked. 
 
 BREAD. 
 
 Graham Bread. 
 Bolls. 
 
 Oatmeal Mush. 
 Cracked Wheat. 
 Hominy. 
 Dry and Dipped Toast. 
 
 Corn Bread. 
 Bice Cakes. 
 Milk Cakes. 
 Buckwheat Cakes. 
 Fried Hominy. 
 
 Coffee, Chocolate; Oolong, Green, and 
 English Breakfast Tea, 
 
DISGUISED DISHES. 27 
 
 The Grand Hotel, London. 
 
 TABLE D'HOTE DINNER. 
 POTAGES. 
 
 Consomme a la d' Orleans. Creme a la Condorcet. 
 
 POISSONS. 
 
 Turbot a la Hollandaise. Whitebait. 
 
 ENTREES. 
 
 Fontanges de Volaille Soufflees 
 Tournedos aux Champignons. 
 
 EELEVES. 
 
 Saddle of Welsh Mutton. Dindes a la Perigueux. 
 
 LEGUMES. 
 
 Flageolets a la Maitre d'Hotel. Pommes de Terre Noisettes. 
 
 ROTI. 
 
 Becasses sur Canapes. 
 
 ENTREMETS. 
 
 Abricots en Bellevue. Cassolettes a la Duchesse. 
 
 DESSERT. 
 
 Glace Japonaise. Fruits Assortis. 
 
 The reader will observe that a great deal of impor- 
 tance is given to the above by putting into French 
 some very ordinary dishes. Especially is this done 
 when "words of learned length and thundering sound " 
 can be employed, as, for instance, those ignorant of 
 the French language should know that " Flageolets a 
 la Maitre d'Hotel" is not a musical-instrument dish, 
 but haricot beans, cooked in the landlord's style ; 
 "Pommes de Terre Noisettes," simply signifies potato- 
 balls, like hazel-nuts in size or color. Champignons is a 
 grander-looking word for something to eat than mush- 
 rooms, and some of the other titles were incomprehensi- 
 ble until the production of the dishes they designated. 
 
28 "studies" in philology. 
 
 A friend who consulted his small pocket French dic- 
 tionary, to ascertain the signification of " Cassolettes 
 a la Duchesse," closed the book in disgust after finding 
 the definition of the first word, which ran thus : " Cas- 
 solette, scent-box, perfuming-pan, odor, stench." The 
 fact is that these French bills of fare, the world over, 
 contain words that are coined from the brains of French 
 cooks, and which cannot be found in the dictionary. 
 They are often wrought into magnificent titles for the 
 purpose of giving an insignificant production a grand 
 designation. Putting the above all into plain English 
 would have caused the list to have shrunk in impor- 
 tance to the uninitiated eye. Americans visiting Lon- 
 don for the first time naturally expect to find hotel 
 accommodations in that great eity i equal, if not supe- 
 rior, to their own, and their disappointment at the 
 English style of management, and the impossibility of 
 being served in the American style, has caused London 
 hotel accommodation, or what Americans call the lack 
 of it, to be one of the most prominent of the features 
 of their European tour. Again, Americans are such 
 frequenters of hotels in their transient visits to differ- 
 ent cities in their own country, and so many are accus- 
 tomed to make them a permanent abiding-place, that 
 the subject is a familiar topic with them abroad. With 
 these facts in view, the author has thought best to de- 
 vote considerable space to the subject, in giving the 
 result of his observations from an American point of 
 view. For the sake of comparison, therefore, the din- 
 ner bill of fare at an American hotel is here given, in 
 which the French titles are confined to "entrees" and 
 even there so skilfully mixed with English terms as to 
 leave little doubt as to their character in the mind of 
 the unlettered guest : — 
 
DINNER MENU AT THE FIFTH AVENUE. 29 
 
 Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York. 
 
 DINNER. 
 
 Little Neck Clams. 
 
 SOUPS. 
 
 Chicken Gumbo. Tapioca. 
 
 FISH. 
 
 Boiled Kennebec Salmon, cream sauce. 
 
 Broiled Spanish Mackerel, parsley sauce. 
 Small Potatoes. 
 
 BOILED. 
 
 Leg of Mutton, caper sauce. Corned beef and cabbage. 
 
 Turkey and Oysters. Jole and Spinach. 
 
 Beef Tongue. Ham. 
 
 COLD DISHES. 
 
 Beef Tongue. Roast Beef. Ham. Boned Turkey. 
 
 Lobster, plain. Chicken Salad. Lamb. Lobster Salad. 
 
 ENTREES. 
 
 Sweetbreads larded en macedome. 
 Lamb Chops a Fltalienne. 
 Bouchees au Salpicon. 
 
 Croquettes of Green Turtle, anchovy sauce. 
 Macaroni a la Nicienne. 
 
 Cream Fritters a la vanille. 
 
 ROAST. 
 
 Capon. Ham, Champagne sauce. Mongrel Goose. 
 
 Beef. Spring Lamb, mint sauce. Turkey. 
 
 VEGETABLES. 
 
 Boiled Potatoes. Onions. Stewed Tomatoes. 
 
 Mashed Potatoes. Bermuda Beets. Baked Potatoes. 
 
 Rice. Corn. Turnips. 
 
 Green Peas. Asparagus. 
 
 PASTRY. 
 
 Baked Cup Custard. 
 
 Rice Pudding. Rhubarb Pie. 
 
 Apple Pie. Lemon Kisses. 
 
 Jelly Puffs. Almond Cake. 
 
 Charlotte Russe. 
 
 DESSERT. 
 
 Almonds. Oranges. Raisins. Pecan Nuts- 
 
 Apples. Strawberries. Bananas. 
 
 Pineapple. English Walnuts. 
 
 Vanilla Ice-cream. Coffee. Punch a la creme. 
 
30 
 
 The style of charging dinners at the Metro-pole and 
 Grand Hotel in London is to submit to you a printed 
 blank upon which what you have ordered is written, 
 and just before rising from the table you are desired to 
 approve it by signature before the waiter carries it to 
 the cashier to be charged to your account. If stay- 
 ing at the hotel for a few days you are only permitted 
 to pay the bill on leaving, or, if remaining more than a 
 week, at the end of each week, when the huge bill of 
 items is handed in. It is of course impossible to tell 
 then if the charges for the various meals have all 
 been correctly posted from your order slip, unless one 
 is blest with a memory not vouchsafed to ordinary 
 mortals. A friend of the author who was staying 
 there with his family made daily record of every- 
 thing ordered in his pocket memoranda, by which he 
 discovered errors of account necessitating an overhaul- 
 ing of thirty or forty order slips for the week. 
 
 " In future," said he to the book-keeper, " I will pay 
 the waiter for each meal as I finish." 
 
 "Quite impossible, I assure yah, sir." 
 
 " Why so ? I observe people do it every day." 
 
 "Er — yes, beg your pardon, but those are tran- 
 sients, sir." 
 
 "Well, consider me a transient and I'll pay as 
 they do." 
 
 "Really! we couldn't! AVe — ah — "ave to 'ave a 
 system ; — our enormous business, cloudier know ! " 
 
 "Enormous business! What do you call an enor- 
 mous business?" said the now irate American. 
 
 "Why, immense dinner trade; why, we often have to 
 dine two hundred and fifty persons a day hyar ! " and 
 the young man leaned back as if half expecting the 
 American to reel under this announcement. 
 
THE BENT OF MANAGERIAL ENERGY. 31 
 
 " How many ! " said the latter. 
 
 " Two hundred and fifty a day ! " 
 
 " Now look here, young man, don't ever tell that to 
 any other American ; if you do, he will laugh in your 
 face for calling it a big business. Why, I am from a 
 second-rate city where at one of our regular hotels 
 from five to six hundred are dined daily, while three 
 or four clubs of thirty to forty members each are hav- 
 ing dinners in different parts of the house at the same 
 time." 
 
 " Really ? — most extwardinary ! " 
 
 "Extraordinary! No, sir; I have sat down in a 
 dining-room at Saratoga Springs where over a thou- 
 sand were dined at once, with four times the variety to 
 the bill of fare and with not half the trouble of getting 
 served that there is in this country." 
 
 But why go on. The improvement over the small, 
 stuffy, beer-saturated, antique, old-fashioned hotel of 
 London thirty years ago is already so great that they 
 are not now over twenty years behind us in America, 
 and our sons and daughters in their visits twenty years 
 hence to London will probably then find accommoda- 
 tions, regulations, and management up to to-day's 
 American standard. 
 
 The reading and reception-room, or general sitting- 
 room, as it might be called, at the Grand Hotel is very 
 well supplied with English daily and weekly papers 
 and magazines, among the latter two American ones. 
 There was but one American newspaper, however, 
 among the score or more journals upon the tables. 
 
 A large and well arranged public parlor and smaller 
 writing-room are above-stairs for the convenience of 
 guests. The managers of the great hotels here have 
 not yet provided the convenient newspaper and peri- 
 
32 THE PUBLIC RECEPTION-ROOM. 
 
 odical stand with attendant railroad and theatre ticket- 
 offices within their halls. 
 
 Their whole minds are given to big dining-halls, 
 committee-rooms, rooms for wedding-breakfasts or 
 corporation dinners, grand vestibules, entrance-halls, 
 liveried servants, and to forcing people to take suites — 
 that is, a room and parlor — instead of single rooms. A 
 man loses as much in an English hotel-keeper's esteem 
 by taking but one room for himself and wife, and rely- 
 ing upon the public sitting-rooms, as he does by ap- 
 pearing in public in London or travelling about with any 
 different kind of head-covering than a tall black hat. 
 
 The tyranny of the tall hat is such that the indi- 
 vidual who presents himself at a banker's or should 
 dare to call on a family at the West End in a soft or 
 low-crowned hat of the American style, no matter how 
 rainy the weather, would be looked upon askance and 
 his respectability questioned until endorsed. Worse 
 than that, no Englishman would dare go to church 
 in any continental city in any head-gear except the 
 regulation stovepipe. The comfort of the American 
 soft hat must be foregone if you wish to be considered 
 anybody among Englishmen. So let every American* 
 as soon as convenient after landing in England, buy a 
 good, heavy-timbered, well braced English hat and a 
 leather fire-bucket hat-box to carry it in, botli of which 
 he will find to be badges of value at English hotels 
 and in English compan}^ 
 
 The public sitting-room or reception-room we have 
 mentioned is the resort of ladies and gentlemen who 
 come from distant points in the city or suburbs, dine 
 at the house, and go to the theatre or opera in the 
 evening. Here, for perhaps half an hour before start- 
 ing, ladies would sit of a cold Xovember day with their 
 
ENGLISH CONSERVATISM. 33 
 
 remarkably decollete dresses, a wonder to us Ameri- 
 cans at their hardihood and endurance as well as their 
 apparent indifference at what seemed to some of us 
 rather an immodest exposure. 
 
 "But," said a good-natured English friend, "we 
 have, to be sure, chilly weather, but none of that tre- 
 mendous cold that you have in America, necessitating 
 the terrrible hot-air furnaces that we English cannot 
 abide. Indeed, I have been brought up to live in a 
 parlor where the temperature at the fireside was about 
 60° to 68° and other parts of the room not above 50° to 
 60°, and we prefer to endure a little cooler temperature 
 than the 75° to 80° that prevails in } T our American 
 houses and into which you are obliged to walk with 
 the suit of clothes that you wear for an outside temper- 
 ature of from only five to ten degrees above zero." 
 
 I confess there is something in this, but I observe 
 these terribly decolletee-dvessed women are troubled with 
 bad colds. Influenza is prevalent. Upon asking a 
 salesman who was suffering from it, in a store where I 
 was making some purchases, why the door near which 
 we stood was left wide-open, and if it could not be 
 closed, on account of the chill air, he at once politely 
 assented, with the remark, that he should be glad when 
 it was two weeks later, as that was " the date ourselves 
 and neighbors close the shop-doors, and put fires on." 
 
 Closed doors and fires probably would be refrained 
 from till that date, even if the temperature had gone 
 below the freezing-point, rather than break over an old 
 and long established custom. 
 
 " Yes," said our English friend, " but you must re- 
 member that a country that has been a thousand years 
 in existence gets into grooves, and has little else to do 
 but to grow. You, with your cosmopolitan population, 
 
34 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH LENSES. 
 
 can and do take the best points of all nations and weld 
 them into a fashion for yourselves — invent new fash- 
 ions. With yon novelty is the rule, with us conserva- 
 tism. Educated here into certain habits and customs, 
 under which we have got along very well generation 
 after generation, you must admit it is natural for us to 
 go slowly in adopting what has been foreign to our 
 ideas of comfort and convenience." 
 
 There is some reason in this, and perhaps we Ameri- 
 cans err in expecting the adoption of American fashions 
 in England ; but one thing is certain, I do not remem- 
 ber that any American travellers in England who have 
 given their experiences have made more numerous and 
 laughable blunders than Florence Marryat, in her book 
 entitled " Tom Tiddler's Ground," which contains, 
 some ridiculous statements with regard to Americans, 
 such as would convince one that she must have been 
 thoroughly hoaxed by designing persons. Note the 
 coarseness of the writer in alluding to the display of 
 her arms and bust at her readings, at the length of her 
 legs; and such expressions as the following: "As 
 far as I am concerned, however, I never saw them 
 (American ladies) drink anything but 'slops,' and 
 I am afraid they must have been very much shocked 
 at my brandies and sodas. But then I did all my 
 drinking — not being ashamed of it — at the public 
 table." 
 
 There is but little evidence in this, and other coarse 
 vulgarities, that the author was or could be ashamed 
 of anything, unless it might be lady-like courtesy and 
 deportment. She remarks in the next paragraph in her 
 book to the one above quoted : — 
 
 "With regard to American children, I am thankful 
 to say I have seen but little. Doubtless they are as 
 
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LANGUAGES. 35 
 
 nice as most other people's brats, which is not saying 
 much for them." 
 
 If the English people take, without any grains of 
 salt, all the misrepresentations and collection of ego- 
 tistic extravagancies that this Marryat woman presents 
 in her book, as the truth about America, then we may 
 not wonder that those who have not visited us should 
 set their faces against anything said to be an improve- 
 ment coming from this country. 
 
 Speaking of " The Truth about America," an Eng- 
 lishman named Edward Money, who travelled in this 
 country for four months, recently published a book 
 bearing that title, which is a collection of such outrag- 
 eous blunders and falsehoods as to be veritably comic 
 to the American reader, who, so far from being vexed 
 at its glaring inaccuracies, can only roar with laughter 
 as he reads page after page of its curious blunders, 
 dense stupidity, and snobbishness. 
 
 Years agfo, before English and Americans had made 
 themselves so well acquainted with each other, we often 
 heard of Americans who visited England being compli- 
 mented upon the perfection with which they spoke 
 English. Now the American discovers that there really 
 is a difference in the language of the two countries. I 
 do not refer to the cockney dialect of England, or the 
 drawling, nasal tones of the burlesque Yankee, now so 
 rapidly disappearing, nor the peculiar slang of the 
 backwoods and frontiersmen, so often paraded as the 
 genuine American every-day talk in English stories and 
 English melodramas. As well might Americans cite 
 Yorkshire, Lancashire, or Welch dialect as the every- 
 day expressions and usual tongue of the average Eng- 
 lishman. 
 
 What at once attracts the attention of the newly 
 
36 A GLOSSARY. 
 
 arrived American in English conversation is the rapidity 
 of utterance and the upward inflection of the voice, 
 which is the opposite to what he has been accustomed 
 to. Indeed, I believe the sole cause of the failure of 
 one of the most popular of London's comedians (Toole) 
 in America was owing to the extreme rapidity of his 
 utterance, rendering it difficult for the average Ameri- 
 can to follow him. But all Englismen are not rapid 
 speakers. There is a class that 
 
 " stick on conversation's burrs, 
 And strew their pathway wdth those dreadful ' ers.' " 
 
 Some of our older readers will recall the perform- 
 ances of Mr. Macready, the eminent tragedian, which 
 were criticised as marred by this habit in his most ef- 
 fective soliloquies and speeches, as for example : — 
 
 " Is this — er — a dagger that I — er — see before 
 me, — er — the handle towards — er — my hand ? " 
 
 Or : " To be — er — or — er — not to be — er — that 
 is the question." 
 
 Then, there are different appellations given to the 
 same things by Americans and English, but readily 
 understood by both after a little experience, but, as an 
 American once remarked, making the languages so dif- 
 ferent that we ought to claim our language for our- 
 selves, and call it the American language and not the 
 English. 
 
 The following glossary of a few well known terms 
 and expressions will be readily recognized by those-who 
 have visited England : — 
 
 American. English. 
 
 Immediately j 
 
 Right away ) • • j- 
 
 Baggage Luggage. 
 
" AMERICAN " DRINKS. 37 
 
 Trunk Box. 
 
 Ticket-office Booking office. 
 
 Ticketed Booked. 
 
 Elevator Lift. 
 
 Conductor Guard. 
 
 Driver Coachman. 
 
 Engineer (locomotive) Driver. 
 
 Fireman Stoker. 
 
 Switched Shunted. 
 
 Cars Coaches. 
 
 Railroad The line. 
 
 Rails . . Metals. 
 
 Horse-railroad Tramway. 
 
 Policeman Bobby. 
 
 Boy Lad. 
 
 Cane Stick. 
 
 Uncomfortable) Beastly. 
 
 Unpleasant ) 
 
 Sick 111. 
 
 Twenty-five Five-and-twenty. 
 
 Excuse me Beg yer pardon. 
 
 A drink A " go." 
 
 Overcoat Topcoat. 
 
 Suspenders Braces. 
 
 Overshoes Goloshes. 
 
 Molasses Treacle. 
 
 Pastry Sweets. 
 
 Candy . Sweetstuff. 
 
 Powdered sugar Castor sugar. 
 
 Rare Underdone. 
 
 The popular idea of American drinks in London as 
 paraded on programmes at some of the hotel and pub- 
 lic bars seems to have been derived from the Western 
 stories of Davy Crockett's time or the dime novel 
 series of cow-boys and mining life. Perhaps the 
 author has not been in the right locality in America, 
 but certainly, in a pretty extensive series of rambles in 
 his own country he has failed to find such titles for 
 mixed drinks as Pick-me-up : Corpse Reviver, Buck- 
 shot, Bull's Eye Hitter, Lay me out, Cock of the 
 
38 AN AMUSING EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Walk, Cowboy's Delight, Lightning Swizzle, Sherry 
 Slap Up, Whiskey wake'em up. Why, in the name of 
 all that is absurd it should be thought such appella- 
 tions as these are American and would be attractive to 
 Americans in London, none but the genius who con- 
 trived them can tell. 
 
 A couple of Americans had quite an amusing expe- 
 rience in one of the great public bars, where a conspic- 
 uous placard announced " American Drinks," and a 
 small programme included the supposed attractive titles 
 of American beverages above enumerated. Seating 
 themselves at one of the small tables, the following 
 dialogue took place between one of the Americans and 
 the English waiter who came to serve them : — 
 
 "Do you have all kinds of American drinks 
 here?" 
 
 44 Certainly, sir. Everythink, sir. "What'll you please 
 to border, sir ? " 
 
 44 Bring us two sherry chickens." 
 
 "Beg yer pardon, sir; we 'aven't any chicken, sir; 
 would you 'ave a 'am sandwich?" 
 
 "Ham sandwich! No, I want nothing to eat! It's 
 to drink — a couple of sherry chickens." 
 
 "Beg yer pardon, sir — must 'ave yer joke — but 
 drinkin' chickens, yer know — can't drink chickens! " 
 
 "Look here, what are you talking about? Don't 
 you keep American drinks here ? " 
 
 "Yessir, certainly, sir." 
 
 44 Well, sherry chicken is an American drink • go and 
 get a couple of 'em — do you hear ? " 
 
 " Yessir, certainly, sir " ; and the waiter left with a 
 look of mingled surprise and wonder on his counte- 
 nance. 
 
 In a few moments the proprietor, a rotund individ- 
 
u SHERRY CHICKENS." 39 
 
 ual in a bald head, mutton-chop whiskers, and white 
 apron, appeared on the scene. 
 
 " Beg yer pardon, sir. Waiter made some mistake 
 in his horder — did you want some sherry and a couple 
 of chickens ? " 
 
 "Nothing of the kind; we ordered some American 
 drinks — a couple of sherry chickens." 
 
 " Sherry Chicken ! Bless my 'art, sir, must be a new 
 thing. We can give you Prairie 0} r ster, Corpse Reviver, 
 Buckshot — but we 'aven't airy of the chicken drinks." 
 
 " Why don't you keep some American drinks ? You • 
 have a sign up." 
 
 " We do, sir : hall these are Hamerican, I assuah 
 yer." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. I'm an American — been all over 
 the country. My friend here has lived on a cattle- 
 ranch and the frontier these five years, and never heard 
 of these Corpse Revivers, and other absurd things you 
 have here. Got any eggs? " 
 
 " Eggs ? Yessir." 
 
 " Bring a couple and a pint of sherry, and I'll show 
 you what a sherry chicken is." 
 
 The materials were brought, the yolks of two eggs 
 dropped into two glasses of sherry, then thoroughly 
 shaken together in the usual long glass used for that 
 purpose, turned into clear glasses, and a dash of brown 
 nutmeg thrown upon the foaming crest of the contents 
 of each glass. 
 
 " There, sir, that's an American drink ; that's a sherry 
 chicken, and don't } r ou forget it." 
 
 That the proprietor did not forget it, was proved by 
 the fact of his having the next day prominently dis- 
 played a placard behind his bar, " Sherry Chickens," 
 about the only title familiar to American eyes among 
 
40 THE ENGLISH COUNTRY INN. 
 
 the fanciful ones designating his other concoctions of 
 liquid refreshments. 
 
 There are numerous small family-hotels in London 
 where you can live comfortably and expensively, and, 
 barring the hum and whirl of the busy travelling 
 world, which the American learns to like and can enjoy 
 without inconvenience at hotels in his own country; 
 these lesser family-hotels are at present the most com- 
 fortable and best kept in London, because they are 
 managed by one man or those who are individually 
 interested in them, and not by a set of uninterested 
 employe's whose chief aim is to earn dividends for a 
 syndicate or stock-company. 
 
 Indeed, lack of conveniences or comfort in English 
 country inns can in no way be compared to those that 
 exist in America. The horrors of some of the country 
 hotels, even in our own New England, to say nothing 
 of those at the West and South, must be experienced 
 to be appreciated. England, however, in London and 
 her other great cities, in the matter of hotels, ought to 
 rival in comfort and convenience such cities as New 
 York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington. 
 
 There is one thing to be said about the second and 
 third rate hotels in England as compared with those in 
 America. The latter are pitiful imitations in their bills 
 of fare of the first class and one can rarely get anything 
 good whatever at them, while the second or third rate 
 English country inn, if it has nothing but eggs and 
 bacon and ale, will generally have those of good 
 quality. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The following communication was received by the 
 author of these sketches : — 
 
 Tremont House, June 13, 1887. 
 
 Sir: — This morning occurred the proudest moment of 
 my life. About 7 A. M. I bade adieu to an exceedingly 
 civil conductor and attendant, descended thankfully 
 from an inconceivably stuffy car, and for the first time 
 in a course of wanderings as devious if not quite as 
 prolonged as those of the Aryan race, I placed my foot 
 upon the Hub of the Universe. 
 
 A fly — a genuine British " fly " — quickly conveyed 
 me to the hotel from which I date, the pleasantest, the 
 most homelike, I have found on this side of the water, 
 and I was soon ensconced in a quiet room overlooking 
 a shady green. What happened next? Well, this. 
 As an old member of the London press, I looked 
 eagerly for the first Boston paper I could find. There- 
 upon the Commercial Bulletin not unnaturally pre- 
 sented itself, and the first thing that met my eye was 
 an article on " English hotels." 
 
 Now, I am very far either from maintaining the per- 
 fection of the ordinary British hotel, or of denying the 
 bona fides of your talented correspondent. In fact, 
 though I have had experience of a good many of the 
 principal hotels over here, as well as in London, Paris, 
 Rome, Calcutta, and elsewhere, I have certainly avoided 
 
 41 
 
42 "an englishman's" lp:tter. 
 
 the American " caravansaries," as your correspondent 
 calls them, which have grown up on English soil. For 
 the attempt of the easy and the quiet-loving English- 
 man to imitate the rapid, restless, and rushing Amer- 
 ican always reminds me of the well known fable of the 
 jackass and the terrier — make what you will out of the 
 illustration; and I am quite contented with such old- 
 fashioned comfort as ma}^ be encountered at the Gros- 
 venor or the Great Western. 
 
 It is possible, therefore, that in the establishments 
 to which your correspondent alludes there may be a 
 special servant told off to open and shut a particular 
 door, and a special order issued that that same door 
 should always be kept open and never be shut at all ; 
 nay, it is even just conceivable that the obtaining of a 
 mutton chop, in a hotel of that kind, may be a matter 
 of favor, though I confess that to an Englishman that 
 last statement appears rather " steep." But whatever 
 truth or taste may dictate in regard to these matters, I 
 venture respectfull} r to protest against your lending 
 your influence to confound gluttony with gumption 
 and gorging with gorgeousness. 
 
 Your correspondent complains because he had only a 
 choice of two or three sorts of fish and the same num- 
 ber of dishes of meat ; and I know there are American 
 hotels which act upon the principle of the greatest 
 gluttony for the greatest number. Nay, I have my- 
 self counted no less than seventy dishes upon a bill of 
 breakfast fare — not one of them by the by betraying 
 the slightest effort at any delicacy of dressing, and have 
 been fitly rewarded by utter satiety before commenc- 
 ing the meal. But even here there are some hotels 
 which recognize that temperance and moderation are 
 an essential ingredient in eating no less than in drink- 
 
THE AUTHOR'S REPLY TO "ENGLISHMAN." 43 
 
 ing, and that to overload and embarrass the choice 
 tends to pall and disgust the appetite very little less 
 than overfeeding to destroy the stomach. 
 
 My breakfast here this morning consisted only of 
 an excellent omelet and a beautifully cooked mack- 
 erel. My dinner this evening was just such as we 
 might find at a first-rate English or French hotel — no 
 more and no less. And if anybody is not satisfied with 
 that, but wants the earth upon his bill of fare — well, 
 let him go to Chicago. That is, I believe, the great 
 place for feeding pigs. 
 
 I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 An Englishman. 
 
 The author has, like the writer of the above, wan- 
 dered somewhat at home and abroad, and his descrip- 
 tions in these sketches are a record of actual experiences 
 — no more, no less. 
 
 We are glad that the correspondent made the Tre- 
 mont House his home in Boston. There he will be 
 served far more promptly than at either the Grand, 
 Metropole, or Great Western, as the author knows 
 from personal experience. With regard to confounding 
 "gluttony with gumption," our English visitor falls 
 into the common error of many of his countrymen that 
 guests are to go through an entire bill of fare such as 
 furnished by the great hotels in this country. 
 
 In America the proprietors of the hotels in our great 
 cities, recognizing that their hundreds of daily chang- 
 ing guests may, even from fastidiousness, have different 
 tastes, provide viands in such variety that individuals 
 may suit their especial taste. 
 
 Take, for instance, the bill of fare of the Fiftli 
 Avenue Hotel, published in the last chapter. In that 
 
44 A CONTRAST. 
 
 the invalid (not glutton) may select from ten different 
 kinds of bread, which are always ready for breakfast at 
 five minutes' notice from 6 till 11 A. m. He may order 
 oatmeal, cracked wheat, hominy, or Indian pudding, 
 any one of which will be served him with equal 
 promptitude. 
 
 At the English hotels we have mentioned only oat- 
 meal was obtainable, and but bread, muffins or toast, 
 the latter served, after long waiting, cold, in an inven- 
 tion admirably contrived to keep it so, and now out of 
 date in this country, called a toast-rack. 
 
 The very best reply to the correspondent is that 
 while the author has no intention of " confounding 
 gumption with gluttony," yet in criticising the great 
 English hotels he cannot subscribe to meanness as 
 enterprise or complete lack of business tact in catering 
 for the requirement of guests as a characteristic to be 
 commended. 
 
 Our correspondent, who has evidently enjoyed the 
 creature comforts of Chicago, naturally falls, Briton- 
 like, into another error. Chicago is not the great 
 place for " feeding pigs," but for slaughtering and dis- 
 posing of them. 
 
 Singularly enough, the very next day after receiving 
 the above letter came another, of quite a different char- 
 acter, from a well known New York merchant but just 
 returned from London, whose comments upon the 
 author's criticisms are in an entirely different vein, 
 and more than endorse what has been set down in 
 these pages. The following is his letter : — 
 
 New Yoijk, June 13, 1887. 
 I have read your letter on the English hotels, and 
 it bringeth the tear to my eye. I have come back a 
 
a "merchant's" experience. 45 
 
 victim to the infernal London Hotel Metropole, aided 
 and abetted by its rivals in imbecility in France and 
 Italy. I have got a bad case of rheumatism induced 
 by the damp winds that search for you all over that 
 house, and encouraged by a weak, anaemic state of the 
 blood, which has been attained by an almost entire 
 absence of food from the stomach. The Metropole 
 coffee at breakfast, if persisted in for three days, will 
 produce paralysis, and in a week utter imbecility, and 
 the balance of the breakfast — whew! I once ordered 
 a " filet steak," which it was agreed would be ready in 
 half an hour ; and at the appointed time we were 
 ready, waited fifteen minutes more, got the alleged 
 steak — which might have as well been veal for all we 
 could tell — cooked to death and very cold. 
 
 I reached America alive only by the aid of an old res- 
 taurant up a back alley in the " city." It was called 
 "The Salutation," and you were saluted with a steak 
 or a chop cooked before your eyes in a manner that 
 braced one up, and with a result — perfection. By 
 this one meal a day I existed, and my wife, who is 
 never hungry, existed on Metropole slop and by dining 
 at private houses, which we did much of. Fine din- 
 ners, but in cold, damp dining-rooms, where drafts 
 from unseen corners made merry with one's back hair. 
 Well, I hope that I have escaped with my life. Three 
 doctors have already experimented with my water- 
 logged condition, and a dentist has given valuable 
 advice. 
 
 This fact should be impressed on all would-be trav- 
 ellers abroad: "A preparation of six months in an 
 Avenue A boarding-house in New York, with meals in 
 the basement, shady side, no fires (except for over- 
 cooking the food), and the lightest of clothing, is 
 
46 AT DARLINGTON. 
 
 indispensable." If the patient lives through his prepa- 
 ration he can go, but let any one who has boarded at 
 the Fifth Avenue Hotel understand that he taketh his 
 life in his hand when he lands at Liverpool. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Merchant. 
 
 What the average American misses sadly in many of 
 the English country hotels is the lack of any visible im- 
 provement in their fittings, furniture, or appointments. 
 Modern improvements seem to have been considered 
 unworthy of adoption. This was brought strikingly to 
 mind when, after a pleasant ride one day over the 
 Eden Valley road, we arrived at the King's Head 
 Hotel at Darlington, where it seemed as though we 
 had stepped back into the year 1842. 
 
 The hotel here was a tj'pical English inn. We 
 descended from the coach and found no one to show 
 us to any public sitting-room — there was none, except 
 a commercial room and a tap-room, — and the ladies of 
 the party stood in the draughty, chilly passage until I 
 went back to the little den at the end of it, where land- 
 lady or bar-maid was installed with her pumps, liquor 
 measures, etc., and made known my want of rooms, of 
 course taking a private room for sitting accommoda- 
 tion and meals, in addition to bedrooms. 
 
 The furniture, fittings, bedding, and table-ware had 
 evidently descended through successive ownerships or 
 had done duty with successive landlords for more than 
 half a century. There were the old pressed glass salt- 
 cellars of my boyhood's days ; old chairs and carpets 
 whose very patterns bring back memories of designs 
 that were popular four decades ago and out of which 
 all the flush of youthfulness and feeling of comfort had 
 
ILELICS OF DAYS GONE BY. 47 
 
 long since been exhausted ; candles to illuminate the 
 close, stuffy rooms ; beds that yon had to climb into, 
 and feather beds at that, down into the depths of 
 which yon slumped until brought up by the iron-like 
 barrier of the antique mattress of straw or cotton 
 beneath, that years of pressure had wrought into a 
 couch of adamant ; the cold linen sheets clung around 
 you till your teeth chattered from the vain endeavor of 
 jour body to impart animal heat thereto in the Cim- 
 merian darkness that followed the extinguishing of the 
 one or two feeble candles that had imperfectly lighted 
 you to your couch. 
 
 "Well," said an American friend, "this is not 
 nearly as bad as the hotel accommodations that you 
 and I have had to put up with at the West in 
 America." 
 
 "Very true, but there they had not been keeping 
 hotels for nearly a thousand years." 
 
 Apropos of English travellers' mistakes, quite an 
 amusing one is related of an English tourist who was 
 finishing up a six weeks' tour in America. He was 
 about to leave New York for Boston, where he was to 
 take passage on one of the Cunard steamers, and was 
 advised to start a day earlier in order to spend a day 
 looking around Boston, of which he had heard much 
 as a centre of literary culture and a beautiful city. 
 This he decided to do, and in communicating the fact 
 to a second friend later on, regretted that the steamer 
 started so early in the morning of the day of sailing, 
 necessitating his rising at six or going on board the 
 night previous. 
 
 " Tell you how to manage that," said friend No. 2 ; 
 "go to the Maverick House, which is quite near the 
 steamer landing at East Boston, and you will save an 
 
48 an englishman's amusing mistake. 
 
 hour or more in the morning of the day of sailing and 
 be able to get your comfortable breakfast on shore." 
 
 The tourist cherished this advice, and, on arrival at 
 the station in Boston late at night, bade the hack 
 driver : — 
 
 "Take me to the Maverick Hotel, Boston, east, 
 please." 
 
 " Oh ! you mean Maverick House, East Boston, I 
 s'pose." 
 
 " Quite near the English steamer the place is." 
 
 "All right, sir! jump in! "and the passenger got into 
 the carriage, leaned back and dozed over what appeared 
 a long ride, crossing a ferry, and finally bringing up at 
 a hotel where he was received and bestowed for the 
 night. 
 
 Next morning, after breakfast, he prepared for a stroll 
 around Boston, and asked a lounger near the door what 
 there was " worth seeing hyar." 
 
 "Nothin' but docks," was the reply of the party 
 interrogated, as he withdrew his cigar to expectorate. 
 
 The tourist passed out, and returned in two or three 
 hours, dust-covered and disgusted, when he remem- 
 bered that he had heard much of Boston's beautiful 
 suburbs, so, after refreshing himself, he applied to the 
 host to obtain him a carriage for a pleasant drive in the 
 country. 
 
 The vehicle was duly provided and the traveller 
 again set out. He returned in a pet, and departed- 
 early next morning with sundry expressions of disgust 
 at the attractions of Boston and the rates of carriage- 
 fare in that city. 
 
 Among those to whom he related his experiences on 
 his return was a well known citizen of Boston, who 
 expressed surprise at the denunciations of the traveller. 
 
THE "hub" libelled. 49 
 
 "Very dusty, cheap city, no public buildings of 
 any note, principally a mere shipping and workshop 
 town. Was told to see the docks. Docks ! They 
 call old wooden piers there docks. Many of the streets 
 unpaved. Only one good hotel." 
 
 " What is that ? " said the American. " Why, where 
 did you stay ? " 
 
 " Maverick Hotel, sir." 
 
 " Why, that is in East Boston, across the water, 
 and not the city proper." 
 
 " Eh ? Ah, yas ; Boston, east ; went there to be 
 near steamship, you know." 
 
 " But were you never in Boston before, and did you 
 not go over the ferry? " 
 
 " Ferry ! Oh, yas, went over that late at night, when 
 I arrived." 
 
 " And you did not go back over it next day ? " 
 
 " Bless me, no ! I supposed that was the outskirts 
 and business part of Boston. No use seeing that, you 
 know." 
 
 "Well, you spoke of an afternoon ride to the 
 suburbs." 
 
 "Oh, ah, yas; blarsted humbug — Boston suburbs. 
 Coachman took me to a place called Chelsea ; no 'ospi- 
 tal like ours, nothing to see. Boston docks — another 
 humbug; why, there's not a bit of stone like we have 
 in Liverpool. And then the streets and churches and 
 all that sort of thing, you know; beastly place — great 
 disappointment, I assuah yar." 
 
 Even after the American had taken pains to con- 
 vince the traveller of his mistake in having seen but a 
 small portion of the city, divided from the more popu- 
 lous and attractive portion by water, and devoted 
 chiefly to wharves, factories, railroads, and machinists' 
 
50 PATRONAGE AND Pit ICES. 
 
 shops, and that in so doing he had entirely missed 
 seeing the real metropolis of New England, the latter 
 was hardly convinced, and wondered how men of 
 literary tastes could live among so much dust and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 English shops the author has fully described in for- 
 mer volumes, but this bit of advice may be given, that 
 those who parade as butchers, bakers, or candlestick- 
 makers " to the Queen," " His Royal Highness the 
 Prince of Wales," or any of the royal family, generally 
 charge you a shilling or two more than you pay for the 
 same articles elsewhere, and have a stock that is limited 
 in variety. Then, there is that provoking charge, " a 
 guinea," a coin that you never see except in a numis- 
 matic collection. The guinea charge is used by fashion- 
 able physicians and swell jewelry, china, print, and 
 book stores as an excuse for getting an extra shilling 
 on each pound sterling charged. 
 
 I recall a young dealer in rare books and prints that 
 I used to visit ten or a dozen years ago, in an odd, 
 old-fashioned store at the corner of an alley in Lon- 
 don, whose tumbled-together merchandise on crammed 
 shelves in his little shop was a delight to bibliomaniac 
 or bibliophile to overhaul. One could pick up choice 
 bits, too, at a fair price. There were ragged pamphlets 
 that one might buy for threepence, and choice old 
 black-letter tomes for ten pounds. Books for a shill- 
 ing and books for a sovereign; volumes for "three 
 pun' ten " and a concession made you for a round lot. 
 But one day a friend saw more money in the business, 
 joined him in partnership, put in a good bit of capital, 
 and wisely moved up into a good, aristocratic neighbor- 
 hood. The shop, with its plate-glass windows and 
 dark shelves with richly bound books carefully 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A BIBLIOPOLE. 51 
 
 arranged, was eminently respectable, not to say aristo- 
 cratic, and literary "swells" were induced to patron- 
 ize it. 
 
 When T visited my former acquaintance some years 
 after this successful move had been made, I was struck 
 by the different style of my reception than that of 
 former days. Then it was, " This is a nice copy of the 
 book, price only sixteen shillings " ; or, " Here is one, 
 with worn binding, you can have for seven shillings, 
 and put any binding on you fancy"; "Very good 
 copy, this, three pounds, and well worth it too, sir. 
 Look on that shelf, sir ; there you will find some bar- 
 gains from an auction sale last week. This little 
 volume, with damaged cover, only three shillings." 
 
 Now, at this later day, as I entered, I found choice 
 old illustrated books had been put into sumptuous 
 bindings. Regiments of old friends shone in new 
 uniforms — rare specimens of old tomes in clean and 
 perfect condition astonished the book-buyer, and, it 
 may be said, so did the prices. The dealer had good 
 specimens, and was bound to have good prices. No 
 worn-out covers or ragged tomes for you to buy cheap,, 
 and furbish up at the binder's. The old stock, what 
 there was of it, was carefully stowed out of the way, 
 at the rear of the store, and the choice specimens were 
 wisely kept on view in front. 
 
 Recognizing bibliomaniacs or bibliophiles at once, 
 the dealer never molested them as they entered, and 
 pulled down volume after volume in their explorations, 
 but wisely occupied himself at some little distance 
 away, making no sign or remark that he noted their 
 presence, until spoken to. Then it was they found 
 that choice stock, store, and surroundings were to be 
 paid for by the guinea exaction. 
 
52 THE GUINEA EXACTION. 
 
 "What is the price of this?" 
 
 " Four guinass." 
 
 " How much for these ? " 
 
 " Six guinass." 
 
 "And this little book?" 
 
 " One guinaa." 
 
 " Confound it, man ! do you not sell anything here 
 for pounds, shillings, and pence ? " 
 
 " Beg yer pardon, nothing for pence, yer know ; 
 rarely anything for less than 'arf a guinaa — hurt our 
 trade hyar." 
 
 The merchandise was rare, choice, well cared for; 
 hut the charm of the fusty, musty old literary mine 
 was gone, and, with a sigh, the wandering book-lover 
 turned away in search of some place where he might 
 dig, delve, and exhume for himself some literary rarity, 
 and, after purchasing, gloat over it by right of discov- 
 ery. But the old opportunity of picking up rare books 
 for a trifle has passed. Nearly every dealer, large and 
 small, owing to the largely increased demand, is now 
 well posted as to the value of rare and scarce books. 
 There is this difference in a shop like the one above 
 mentioned to others, and that is, one will have to pay 
 guineas instead of pounds for his purchases. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A shout ride from Darlington, and we were at 
 Ripon, where the great cathedral and the beautiful 
 ruins of Fountains Abbey are the historic sights that 
 will claim the attention and interest of the tourist. 
 The city of Ripon is in the county of York, and nearly 
 midway between London and Edinburgh, being two 
 hundred and twelve miles from the former, and one 
 hundred and ninety-one from the latter city. It stands 
 on a slight eminence, which gradually rises from the 
 two little rivers Yore and Shell, and over the Yore is 
 one of those beautiful English bridges, built entirely of 
 stone, with graceful arches, seventeen in number, sup- 
 porting its two hundred and sixty yards of length. 
 
 Of course Ripon is one of those old English towns 
 that have many antiquities, and much history to interest 
 the student and antiquarian, and dates back to the 
 seventh century, the grant of lands for the foundation 
 of a monastery being made, it is said, in 660. The 
 site of Fountains Abbey, however, according to local 
 history, was granted in 1182 by Thurstan, Archbishop 
 of York, out of his liberty of Ripon, to certain monks 
 who had separated themselves from what they deemed 
 the lax discipline of the Benedictine Abbe}^ of St. Mary 
 in York, and it became in time one of the richest and 
 most important monasteries in England. 
 
 A pleasant day renders a drive in the country in 
 England doubly enjoyable, and such we enjoyed as we 
 rolled over the smooth, well kept roads, amid English 
 
 53 
 
54 A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 rustic scenery, until we reached the entrance to Studley 
 Park, where we descended for our walk of about a mile 
 to the ruined abbey. 
 
 The grounds of Fountains Abbey are owned by the 
 Marquis of Ripon, and are magnificent in extent and 
 in exquisite landscape effects. Lofty, luxuriant trees 
 are there, and closely shaven lawns, evergreens of 
 stately growth, and gigantic beech-trees that throw 
 a grateful shade over the well kept driveway, which 
 leads one along past shelving crags or beside a swift- 
 fit )wino* stream, the banks of which are adorned with 
 statues and fountains. Pathways and rambles lead up 
 over the steep embankments, and in the dense hedges, 
 ever and anon, are openings through which the most 
 lovely stretches of scenery are obtained. A little 
 temple crowns an elevated point from which a beau- 
 tiful panoramic view is had, and a view through a 
 great opening in the foliage made by pulling aside 
 a sliding door is indeed a " Surprise," as its name 
 indicates. It shows a great reach of scenery, which 
 appears as if especially laid out for the view, as, 
 doubtless, much of it was, forming one of the most 
 charming landscape effects I ever looked upon. But 
 on the regular, broad walk we soon caught sight of the 
 abbey as we approached it. In every respect it was 
 the picturesque old ruin that one reads of in song, 
 legend, and story — the lofty Gothic entrance, tall, 
 Gothic window, square tower, and long stretch of 
 ancient walls with their green mantle of ivy swaying 
 in the summer breeze. 
 
 The tall tower of the abbey, at the end of the north 
 transept, we were told, w T as 168 feet in height, although 
 not appearing so high as we stood within the area of 
 its base, which covers about twenty-five feet. Of course, 
 
FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 55 
 
 the floors of its several chambers, glass of its windows, 
 and the ornamental pinnacles have fallen, but the 
 great, square, massive walls of masonry are solid as 
 ever, and far up on each of the four sides are ancient 
 Old English inscriptions interspersed with the carved 
 arms of the abbey, three horse-shoes, mitre and keys, 
 figures holding shields and palm-branches, and other 
 devices. 
 
 Then we wandered through the whole of this 
 beautiful ruin, which is kept clear of rubbish, and 
 convenient for visitors, and with all that can be pre- 
 served as much in the original form as possible. 
 
 There was the old choir with its aisles o£ elegant 
 
 o 
 
 design ; the nave, which one sees at its best on entering 
 the great western door, giving impressive effect with 
 its massive columns 23 feet high and 16 feet in circum- 
 ference, without a triforium intervening between them 
 and the plain splayed windows above ; the transept 
 with its supporting arches of Norman architecture. 
 The eastern transept is about one hundred and fifty 
 feet long, and has a great east window of Gothic archi- 
 tecture. The cloister court, a great area of 128 feet 
 square, is still surrounded by the buildings of the mon- 
 astery ; two sides of this were occupied by the monks, 
 where they studied, and were also used for the instruc- 
 tion of novices. 
 
 The ruins of the chapter-house show it to have 
 been a splendid hall in its day. Its dimensions are 85 
 feet long by 41 feet in width. There were ten round 
 marble columns, the ruins of which still remain, which 
 divided this hall into three aisles. The remains of a 
 triple tier of stone seats are pointed out as those 
 occupied by the monks when they assembled here for 
 deliberation. According to the old Cistercian rule, 
 
Ob LUXURIES OF A MONASTERY. 
 
 abbots should be buried in the chapter-house, and 
 the curious visitor may here find several stone coffins 
 that have been exhumed, and interest himself in 
 trying to decipher the rudely sculptured Latin in- 
 scriptions., upon the slabs that formerly were set in the 
 flooring. We were shown the seat said to have been 
 occupied by John de Cancia in presiding as tenth 
 abbot of the monastery for over twenty years (from 
 about 1220 to 1240), and directly beneath it the 
 memorial slab that was placed over his grave. 
 
 On another side we were shown the remains of the 
 lay brethren's dormitories, refectoiy, buttery, kitchen, 
 lavatory, etc., till it seemed like inspecting the ruins 
 of a magnificent hotel of the olden time, where every 
 creature-comfort that could have been devised for the 
 occupants was provided. Even the lavatories were 
 splendidly drained by water running beneath their 
 sixty-foot hall. The refectory was originally a splen- 
 did room, about one hundred and ten feet by fifty, and 
 the buttery is a curiously contrived room opening into 
 it, in which are still remains of a stone drain, boiler, 
 and lead piping. 
 
 At one side of the building used as a kitchen was a 
 huge heap of ashes and other rubbish that had been 
 cast out of a back window. This was dug over a few 
 years ago to see if any relics could be discovered. 
 Amid the oyster and mussel shells, with here and 
 there beef and venison bones, were discovered a curi- 
 ous old silver spoon, coarse antique smashed jugs, 
 ornaments evidently broken off silver plate, and other 
 articles of trifling value, but interesting as connecting 
 the monastic life in which they figured centuries ago 
 with that of to-day, as the curious delver exhumed 
 them from where they had been cast by careless hands 
 
THE GEE AT HALL. 57 
 
 of olden time, much after the same manner as char- 
 acterizes the servants of to-day. 
 
 Nor were the provisions for sickness neglected, as we 
 were shown in the ruins of the infirmary and the Great 
 Hall, as it is called, connected with it. This .must have 
 been a magnificent apartment, for it was 171 feet by 
 70, and the roof was supported by eighteen cylindrical 
 columns, the bases shafted and banded with marble, 
 the positions of which show that it was divided into 
 a nave and two aisles. All these cloisters, church, 
 halls, infirmary, etc., are reached by connecting pas- 
 sages, it should be borne in mind, for this monastery, 
 in its prime, was one of the richest in the kingdom, 
 and these ruins cover many acres of ground, while 
 the ancient boundaries of St. Wilfred of Ripon were 
 an uninterrupted space of thirty miles. 
 
 But I will not attempt descriptions of cloisters, 
 granaries, chapels, chapter-houses, and the vast range 
 of various buildings used for this truly regal residence 
 of the monks that inhabited them in this charming 
 and fertile part of the country. The abbey was one 
 of the grandest and most complete monastic residences 
 of its times, as its ruins and history attest, and, being 
 favored by popes, prelates, and kings with various 
 immunities and -privileges, enriched by a succession of 
 princely gifts and the purchase of sepulture within its 
 walls by large donations of money from persons of opu- 
 lence and rank, it was an institution of no mean power 
 in the kingdom. 
 
 It certainly is one of the most extensive and pictu- 
 resque ruins in England, and one that will fully come 
 up to the imagination of those who have only read of 
 ruined abbeys and castles. 
 
 Before leaving Ripon, we visited the cathedral. It 
 
58 RIPON CATHEDRAL. 
 
 was in the afternoon, when a service was being held, 
 in which the cathedral choirs of Ripon, York, and 
 Durham united in rendering the vocal portion of the 
 service. This was superbly given, and the beautiful 
 soprano and alto of the boy vocalists, combined with 
 several magnificent bass singers (men), sent a flood of 
 melody through the great building, that made its arches 
 ring with glorious harmony. 
 
 The ancient name of Ripon was Inrhypum, and the 
 foundation of this church was a Benedictine monas- 
 tery. St. Wilfred, who appears to be the patron saint, 
 I find, on looking up his history, was an abbot before 
 A. D. 661, and some accounts say that he was the 
 founder of this religious establishment. 
 
 One of the chief benefactors of the monasteiy at 
 Ripon was King Athelstan, who made it a sanctuary, 
 and extended the privileges of it a mile from the town 
 in all directions. He who violated it Avas liable to lose 
 both life and property. The boundary of this sanc- 
 tuary was marked by eight crosses, at the close of the 
 thirteenth century, called mile crosses ; the positions 
 of three are still indicated. The present cathedral 
 dates from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and, 
 although not so large and imposing as others in Eng- 
 land, yet is a stately edifice of grand proportions. 
 
 The north-west front, by which we entered, has two 
 tall, square towers, with a pointed gable between. The 
 entrance was through one central portal and two each 
 side of it, all of pointed Gothic architecture, and above 
 were three divisions, each with its tall pointed win- 
 dows filled with stained glass. We could get but an 
 imperfect view of the interior, as service was going on. 
 A richly carved stone screen — a perfect mass of carv- 
 ing, nineteen feet high, on which are represented the 
 
SUPERB DECORATIONS. 59 
 
 Deity and angels — separates the choir from the tran- 
 sept. There are lofty and graceful arches on each side 
 of the choir, supported by clustered columns. 
 
 The great east window is a superb piece of stained- 
 glass work. Its different decorations contain the coats- 
 of-arms of different benefactors of the church. It was 
 placed there in 1854, at a cost of £1000. The carving 
 of the wood-work of some of the stalls of the dean, 
 prebendaries, and other church officials is beautifully 
 done, and on a portion of the wood-work the date of 
 1494 was pointed out to us. From the centre of the 
 choir the view is beautiful and impressive. One 
 should look first to the east end, which terminates 
 with the great Gothic window, and then to the west 
 end, where, within another great Gothic arch, jut out 
 the decorated pipes of the organ, below which are the 
 carved and ornamented canopies of the stalls, and on 
 the sides the open pointed arches. 
 
 There are very few monuments in this cathedral ; 
 the most remarkable is of marble, and in the nave, on 
 which is rudely sculptured a man kneeling and a lion. 
 It is said to represent an Irish prince and knight who 
 was buried here, who returned from one of the Cru- 
 sades bringing with him a lion that followed him 
 about like a dog. 
 
 The length of this cathedral (interior) is 266 feet 
 from east to west. The nave is 167 feet and the choir 
 101. The breadth of the nave and aisles is 87 feet. 
 The transept is 182 feet long by about thirty-five 
 broad, and the height of the towers is 110 feet. The 
 people of Ripon boast that their cathedral, although it 
 may not be the largest, is one of the best proportioned 
 churches in the kingdom. 
 
 In the big, square market-place is a monument, 
 
60 ROBIN HOOD'S WELL. 
 
 nearly a hundred feet in height, erected to William 
 Aislaby, who represented the borough for sixty years 
 in Parliament. Most of the streets are narrow, like 
 those of other ancient English towns. 
 
 It will be recollected, by those who have read the 
 history of Eobin Hood, that it was the " Curtail Friar 
 of Fountains Abbey " with whom the merry outlaw 
 had an adventure in crossing the stream, each com- 
 pelling the other to carry him across the little river 
 Shell until the Friar ended by throwing Robin into 
 the stream. During a bout that followed between the 
 two, Robin Hood, with his bugle-horn, summoned a 
 score of bow-men, while the Friar, with a silver whistle, 
 summoned a pack of fierce hounds. A truce followed, 
 and the Curtail Friar (Tuck) and Robin struck hands, 
 and became friends. 
 
 The romantic dale near the river, as you approach 
 the abbey, seems a fitting spot for the scene of Robin 
 Hood's romances, and you are shown " Robin Hood's 
 Well," near a green knoll, as proof positive that this 
 was the scene of some of the bold outlaw's exploits. 
 
 And this was "in ye oldenne tyme." Indeed it was; 
 and, when the author was at Ripon, preparations were 
 in progress for celebrating the thousandth anniversary 
 of that city's civic life. 
 
 Only think of this ! We juveniles who have recently 
 been pluming ourselves in this country on our centen- 
 nials ! There was a city about to celebrate the mil- 
 lenary festival of its civic life ! This celebration was 
 to include a grand procession, in which Robin Hood 
 and Ids men, including Friar Tuck and Allen a Dale, 
 were to figure, as well as other historic personages of 
 the past. Special service was to be held at the 
 cathedral, where the Archbishop of York was to 
 
A MILLENNIAL FESTIVAL. 61 
 
 preach ; a grand luncheon to be given in the public 
 market-place, the festivities of the first day winding 
 up with a torch-light procession. 
 
 The three days' public festivities began August 25, 
 1886. The houses and market-places were all gayly 
 decorated. Venetian masts held long streamers and fes- 
 toons of flowers, and great wreaths twined about them. 
 The motto of the city was conspicuously displayed : — 
 
 " Except tlje ILorU kttu tfjc cttg, tfjc foatrijman foaftctij out in bain." 
 
 The public buildings were all decorated with flags 
 and streamers. The bishops of Chester and Durham 
 and the mayors of Darlington and Stockton took part 
 in the proceedings. 
 
 The first day was delightful as to weather, and the 
 reception of dignitaries, the procession of yeomanry 
 escorting visiting mayors and other officials, in purple, 
 black, and scarlet robes, the mayors wearing those- 
 huge chains of office and having great maces borne 
 before them, was a feature of the day. 
 
 At the cathedral, the choir sang a modern version 
 of a processional hymn written by King Alfred, to a 
 tune taken from a MS. of the thirteenth century. A 
 grand public luncheon was then given, of which twelve 
 hundred people partook, but the feature of the day Avas 
 the antique procession and old English " revels." 
 
 The master of the revels, clad in an Elizabethan 
 dress of old-gold velvet, with a train of cloth-of-gold 
 embossed with figures of animals, ships, and birds, 
 read a proclamation at the market-cross, stating the 
 revels should begin that night. He was surrounded 
 by his pages, chamberlains, and marshals, all dressed 
 in quaint old English costumes. After this procla- 
 
62 THE "BEVELS." 
 
 mation a most grotesque procession paraded the 
 streets. There was an advance-guard of boy dogs, 
 a band of dancing satyrs and ogres, a cavalry band of 
 men in hobby-horses, a band of huge brewers with a 
 great car of beer-casks (what would any celebration 
 in England be without beer ?), then millers, cloth- 
 workers, and other trades, not forgetting the makers 
 of the celebrated Ripon spurs. The various civic 
 dignitaries brought up the rear, the procession and 
 streets being illuminated by bands of torch-bearers. 
 
 The grand affair, however, was on the last of the 
 three days, the 27th of August, when a procession 
 representing England in the olden time marched 
 through the streets of Ripon and on through the 
 beautiful grounds of Fountains Abbey lent for the 
 occasion by the Marquis of Ripon. The route of 
 the march was along the borders of the beautiful 
 sheet of water which extends through the grounds out 
 and in along the broad walk under the grand old trees. 
 It was an effective and beautiful pageant. There were 
 Druids with their oak-crowns, white robes, and long 
 staffs, and arch-Druids with their golden sickles, — 
 bards with long flowing beards and their golden harps, 
 the jester in his blue and white silk motley and cap 
 and bells, — the Emperor Hadrian in his Roman char- 
 iot, guarded by a whole troop of Roman soldiers in 
 brazen helmets, crimson tunics, and shining greaves 
 and breastplates. 
 
 The huge boat of the Viking, with its crew, the sides 
 of the boat hung with shields, and the boat itself filled 
 with the wild, shaggy-bearded Norsemen, grasping 
 their gleaming weapons ; the old Ripon abbot and 
 Prince Alefrid in Saxon costume, various Saxon kings 
 and queens in their chariots, surrounded by attendants 
 
A THOUSAND YEARS OF CIVIC LIFE. 63 
 
 in the costume of the period. King Athelstane, Arch- 
 bishop Odo and a train of monks, King Henry IV. and 
 his queen, and a troop of Norman knights who visited 
 Ripon to escape the plague that raged in London 
 during their time. 
 
 Robin Hood and a Avhole troop of his merry men in 
 Lincoln Green, with cloth yard shafts and long-bows, 
 St. Wilfrid and a troop draped in white and crimson 
 and bearing shields, arms, and emblems of the ancient 
 kings of Northnmbria ; King Alfred, strong and stal- 
 wart, with the standard bearing the emblem of the old 
 Saxon Horse ; May-pole dancers, shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses, harvest queens and hobby-horse riders. The 
 whole formed a wonderfully curious and admirably 
 costumed set 1 of characters, in a procession over a 
 mile in length. 
 
 The play of Robin Hood and the Curtail Friar was 
 enacted, a grand luncheon served to the characters of 
 the procession in the cloisters of the abbey, a tourna- 
 ment of knights on hobby-horses held in the tilting- 
 ground, tilting at the quintain and ring, archery, single- 
 stick, quarter-staff, and other old English sports were 
 indulged in, and altogether the three days of revel and 
 jollity were thoroughly enjoyed. 
 
 Really Ripon could have celebrated the thousandth 
 anniversary of its distinct historical existence two 
 hundred years ago, for the life of the town extends far 
 beyond a thousand years. It was a thousand years ago 
 that Doomsday Book was compiled, and the original 
 abbey prior to Fountains was then a heap of ruins. 
 Three hundred years before William the Conqueror's 
 time the King of Northumbria presented the monastery 
 and adjacent land to Wilfred, who, on becoming Arch- 
 bishop of York, erected Fountains. 
 
64 "OLD" ENGLAND, INDEED. 
 
 A thousand years of civic life, however, may be 
 reckoned as something more than respectable an- 
 tiquity. There were honest, steady-working folks in 
 Ripon, in the very infancy of the feudal system, when 
 there was not a king's justicer going circuit in Eng- 
 land, and when the crime of murder might be purged 
 by a money payment. Ripon tradesmen were weaving 
 at their looms and measuring their cloth when the 
 news reached them of the first Crusade, and doubtless 
 many of her sturdy sons joined in that expedition. 
 Ripon was a thriving and busy place before Ireland 
 was conquered, Wales subdued, or Magna Charta 
 signed at Runnymede, and its men fought gallantly at 
 the battles of Crecy and Poictiers. The Scots ravaged 
 the place in 1319, the Parliamentary troops, like vandal 
 Puritans as they were, sacked the minster in 1643, and 
 various other historic events fiorire in the life of the 
 
 o 
 
 ancient city. Truly it seems old England, indeed, to 
 us of " states unborn in ancient lore," when we begin 
 to search the musty chronicles of the lives of her 
 ancient tuwns and cities. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 A ruin second only to Fountains Abbey in extent 
 is Furness Abbey, which the tourist should not fail to 
 visit during his trip through the English lake country. 
 The author took train from Liverpool at about 10 
 A. M., via Preston and Lancaster, for Windemere. 
 
 It is a beautiful ride by the west margin of Der- 
 wentwater, Borrowdale, through a valley six miles 
 long watered by the river Grange, — a stretch of 
 lovely English scenery ; Grange appeared to be a 
 lovely seaside place with Park Hotel and lovely cot- 
 tages and villas. 
 
 We whirled past Ulverston and Lancaster and the 
 celebrated Seven-Mile Sands, the railway track passing 
 near the very edge of them for three or four miles, and 
 we had an excellent opportunity of seeing this remark- 
 able expanse, which is nothing more nor less than a 
 wide estuaiy between Lancaster and Furness, which 
 lias been filled up by two rivers with mud and fine 
 sand. 
 
 When the tide of the sea is out, the sand-bed is laid 
 bare for a mile or more from shore, and its smooth, 
 sandy surface may be crossed by a coach and four at 
 quite a distance from shore. We passed when the tide 
 was out and vehicles could traverse without difficulty ; 
 a few hours later and several feet of water covered the 
 widely spreading sandy expanse, with vessels sailing 
 where the stage-coach and wagons had been. 
 
 65 
 
66 CIVILIZATION PROFANING NATURE'S TEMPLE. 
 
 About six miles from Ulverston our train pulled up 
 at Furness, where we debarked to remain a short time 
 and visit the ruins of the abbey. The rush and rattle 
 of the railroad train seemed almost a profanation of 
 this beautiful and sheltered glen, so well adapted for a 
 quiet old abbey, where its sandalled monks might enjoy 
 all that was soothing and beautiful in nature, for their 
 abbey was charmingly situated in the lap of an 
 exquisite little glen watered by a little river which 
 flowed through it. 
 
 Formerly, the great forests spread over the surround- 
 ing country, and it would have been difficult to have 
 found a more secluded spot. The surroundings now 
 render the fine old ruins all that one would imagine as 
 picturesque ; the rich verdure around contrasting with 
 the grand old arches of crumbling red stone, and the 
 masses of ivy upon its walls festooning them like vast 
 curtains of living green. 
 
 The abbe} r was founded in 1127, by Stephen, after- 
 wards king of England, and richly endowed by him. 
 The abbot of Furness was a sort of king himself in 
 his domain, which covered quite an extent of territory 
 in the vicinity, and neighboring proprietors were glad 
 to retain his favor by gifts, and his military powers in 
 defence of their estates against Border tribes or other 
 outlaws, from whose incursions or depredations they 
 were likely to suffer ; for certain Norman nobles, to 
 whom lands had also been granted in the vicinity, came 
 with the monks, and tributary herdsmen, with their 
 flocks, settled down over these verdant slopes. 
 
 The lords' lands were divided into tenements, and 
 each tenement, besides paying a proper rent, was to 
 furnish an armed man to be always ready for battle 
 when called upon. Each tenement was divided into 
 
THE " COMMUNITY " OF FUBNESS ABBEY. 67 
 
 four portions, and each portion held by an emancipated 
 serf, one of the number being always in readiness for 
 defence or to go to the wars. Shepherds, also, by per- 
 mission of the abbot, made enclosures about their huts 
 for their flocks, and these people all availed themselves 
 of the religious privileges and influence of the institu- 
 tion, besides paying tribute to it in one way or another. 
 
 The abbots maintained quite a small army, number- 
 ing twelve hundred able-bodied men, and exercised as 
 supreme power in Furness as the rulers of a principality. 
 Their revenue, in the time of Edward L, was equal to 
 nearly a hundred thousand dollars of our money per 
 annum, which is some indication of the wealth of the 
 institution. 
 
 The monks that inhabited this abbey were Benedic- 
 tines, called "gray monks," from the color of their 
 habits. After some years, they were changed to the 
 Cistercian order, to which they belonged at the time 
 the abbey w T as given up and abandoned, in 1537, four 
 hundred and thirteen years after its first establishment. 
 It contained, at the time of its dissolution, thirty-three 
 monks and one hundred lay brethren. The monks 
 consisted of two distinct classes : the clerical, who at- 
 tended the choir, and were wholly devoted to religious 
 duties ; and the lay brethren, who tilled the land and 
 performed the servile work of the monastery. The lat- 
 ter were treated the same as the former, except not 
 being allowed the use of wine. 
 
 The abbey property, after passing through various 
 hands, finally came into the possession of the present 
 owner, the Duke of Devonshire. The grounds are 
 kept in good order, and the owner allows free ingress 
 to all parts of the ruins, which extend through a vast 
 extent of park. A wall enclosed the church and other 
 
68 A FAIR DEMESNE. 
 
 structures, while a second wall enclosed the old fish- 
 ponds and a park of about eighty-four acres. 
 
 We had not walked a dozen yards from the little 
 railway station before we stumbled over the base of 
 ruined pillars half-buried in the earth, the remains of 
 the abbot's chapel and some forgotten out-buildings ; 
 and, as we pass on, there is a comfortable hotel, built on 
 the site of the abbot's house. A short distance further 
 on, by the public road at the rear of the hotel, we find 
 this beautiful dell bears the somewhat startling name 
 of " Valley of the Deadly Nightshade." The mould- 
 ering walls, roofless church, and outlines of buildings 
 still visible, show what a huge religious house Furness 
 Abbey must have been in its time. There is a charm 
 in the still exquisite designs of even the ruins of these 
 old abbeys of England, that makes one love to linger 
 among them in silent admiration of their graceful and 
 picturesque proportions. 
 
 The north entrance to the transept, through which I 
 passed, was a high-arched Norman door-way ; above it 
 was the open space of what was once a huge, magnifi- 
 cent Gothic window, and in the wall that stretched 
 away at one side, other narrower windows, with pointed 
 Gothic arches. It is difficult, without the use of plans 
 or engravings, to give the reader a correct idea of the 
 extent of these old abbeys or the magnificence of their 
 proportions, for they were vast religious palaces with 
 their churches, guest-halls, chapels, infirmaries, cloisters, 
 chapter-houses, dormitories, and kitchens. Fill up these 
 gracefully arched windows with stained glass, once 
 more crown the walls with lofty roof, replace the fallen 
 pillars and clustered columns in erect position, and re- 
 store the lofty towers, the beautiful carvings and 
 decorations of the great nave and transept, and sur- 
 
INTERIOR OF THE ABBEY. 69 
 
 round all with gentle slopes, grand park, winding river, 
 and well stocked fish-pond, and it must have been a 
 paradise to have enjoyed a life of peace in, rather than 
 a place to retire from the world as an act of duty or 
 penance. 
 
 But even now, as we enter the grass-grown enclosure 
 of the roofless church, we obtain some idea of what it 
 must have been in its prime, from its present condition ; 
 for the walls, with the exception of the north one, are 
 in good preservation. 
 
 The church is 304 feet long and 66 feet wide. The 
 nave had alternate clustered and solid pillars. The tran- 
 sept is 129 feet long and the walls massive, being from 
 four to six feet in thickness. The chancel is sixty feet 
 long from the transept, and here at one end of it is the 
 magnificent east window, which now is but a great 
 opening 47 feet high and 23 feet broad. Fortunately, 
 the glass, which is a superb specimen of the stained 
 glass of the Middle Ages, was carefully removed after 
 the abbey was given up, and it is now placed in the 
 church at Bowness. 
 
 There are two other great windows in this chancel 
 each forty feet in height. The grand altar was situated 
 immediately under the east window, and at the right of 
 it still remain the sedalia or seats occupied by the white- 
 robed officiating priests during the ceremony of high- 
 mass. These are separated from each other by richly 
 carved stone-work, and above them is a canopy, also of 
 elegant work of the sculptor's chisel. From the south 
 transept, you obtain access by a stone staircase to the 
 dormitory, from which one may look down into what 
 was once the refectory, where the abbot and monks of 
 old assembled to discuss creature-comforts at their 
 bounteous board : — 
 
70 GRANDEUR IN DECAY. 
 
 " And the abbot meek, 
 With his form so sleek, 
 Was the heartiest of them all, 
 And would take his place 
 With a smiling face 
 When refection's bell would call." 
 
 For the abbey grounds held bakeries, breweries* 
 fish-ponds, and granaries, and, doubtless, good fat deer 
 were to be had for the hunting, as well as other game, 
 in the adjacent forests. 
 
 The position of abbot in these rich monasteries was 
 one not only of dignity, but of power and importance, 
 and the office was sought for by wealthy families for 
 their sons who had entered the church. 
 
 Here in Furness, besides being at the head of the 
 monastery, he was chief lord or petty prince of the 
 estate, with certains powers over the liberties of 
 the district. 
 
 At the west end of the church are the remains of 
 the great belfry-tower, with massive walls, eleven feet 
 in thickness, supported by buttresses. 
 
 Our attention was called to a vast parallelogram, 
 two sides of which were formed by one wall of the 
 church and another of the refectory, in which were 
 the foundations of another great building. Then came 
 the cloisters and the remains of the once beautiful 
 chapter-house, about sixty feet by forty-five, now an 
 open waste of weeds, wild-flowers, and shattered stone- 
 work, and above, indicated by a close range of windows, 
 was the scriptorium. Beneath those windows, in their 
 cool and cosey niches, the monks wrote those beautiful 
 missals which have come down to us, specimens of 
 long and patient labor and of beautiful work in the 
 art of illuminating, exquisite specimens of penman- 
 
THE GUEST-HALL. 71 
 
 ship, drawing, and coloring, which no typography can 
 equal. 
 
 The curious antiquarian will find within the church 
 enclosure, not far from the high altar, various monu- 
 ments and tombstones that have been collected here 
 from different parts of the ruins. One is of a cru- 
 sader, cross-legged, with his sword and armor, and 
 others of mailed warriors with shields and helmets, 
 and the sculptured stone coffins of long forgotten 
 abbots. 
 
 The guest-hall is a large building distinct by itself, 
 one hundred and thirty feet by fifty, and is forty feet 
 high to the roof. This was also the abbot's lodging, 
 and at one end of it is a private chapel, and at the 
 other a private kitchen, and close by a ruin of mills, 
 ovens, stables, and store-rooms, while huge heaps of 
 shells near the kitchen bear witness that the monks 
 of old had a weakness for oysters. Great windows, 
 including an east window, light the guest-hall, the 
 beautiful roof of which still remains. 
 
 Guests of Furness Abbey were royally entertained, 
 if old chronicles are to be believed, and its retainers, 
 tenantry, and other dependents, at the time of its 
 dissolution, sadly missed its aid. But Henry VIII. 
 decided for the suppression of the smaller monasteries, 
 on account, as his bill before Parliament expressed it, 
 of the " manifest synne, carnel, and abominable living 
 daily used and committed," etc. Henry VIII. on 
 abominable living! — Satan reproving sin! 
 
 So the old abbey, that seems, from what remains of 
 it, to have been built to have resisted time's assaults 
 for a thousand years, went rapidly to decay after its 
 abandonment in 1537, and three centuries have left 
 but massive walls, ruined arches, pillars, and sculp- 
 
72 ENGLISH MONASTIC POWER SUPPRESSED. 
 
 tured fragments, to recall the glories and triumphs of 
 its past history. 
 
 Three hundred and seventy-six monasteries, with all 
 their estates and belongings, were by this act confis- 
 cated to the king and his heirs, and from that time 
 monastic power and influence in England became a 
 thing of the past. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 How many old English histories and chronicles have 
 been ransacked, how many authorities have been looked 
 up and references investigated, with regard to the his- 
 tory of old Boston in England ? 
 
 An unpretending, ordinary English town, the chief 
 port of Lincolnshire, and, on looking up its history, 
 found to be what many others in England once were, 
 a Roman town or fortification, it is in the midst of a 
 flat and what was once a barren country, and situated 
 on the river Witham, where it broadens near the sea. 
 
 No seaport on the eastern coast of England was 
 more convenient for Holland than old Boston, situ- 
 ated in the rich level fens of Lincolnshire, and reach- 
 ing the sea by the river Witham. A town of impor- 
 tance in 1204 : when a duty was laid on goods, the 
 merchants of London paid ,£836, and Boston the 
 next largest amount, £780. Boston, also, furnished 17 
 ships and 361 men for a navy in 1359. But Boston's 
 commercial prosperity began to decline in 1470, on 
 account of the departure of the Hanseatic merchants ; 
 and the dissolution of the monasteries within its cir- 
 cuit, soon after, was another loss to it. In the middle 
 of the eighteenth century it had got into a state of 
 commercial decay, but has revived, and is now doing a 
 good business in the corn and cattle trade, giving 
 occupation to a large number of coasting vessels. 
 
 It may be said, without perhaps taking too much 
 
74 OLD BOSTOX. 
 
 credit to ourselves here in New England, that it is the 
 growth and importance of old Boston's modern name- 
 sake that caused the former's history to be more care- 
 fully looked up in response to the natural curiosity of 
 those of later days to know the early history of the 
 place from whence the name was derived. 
 
 The original name of Boston, it is supposed, was 
 derived from St. Botolph, a pious Saxon, who lived 
 about the middle of the seventh century, and who 
 founded a monastery there, which was destroyed by 
 an army of marauding Danes. In 1541 an author 
 (Leland) wrote of it as " Botolphstowne," with its 
 "three colleges of Friars — Gray, Black, and Augus- 
 tine," and in 1565 its population was about 2380 per- 
 sons, according to a MS. in the British Museum. In 
 1791 it is noted as a flourishing town on both sides of 
 the river Witham, and protected from overflow by 
 artificial banks. But old Boston was not so progres- 
 sive as its modern namesake, for the returns of its 
 population from 1768 to 1831 showed an increase from 
 3500 to about 11,250 population. But old Boston 
 probably sent more than any other town in England 
 of its best and worthiest citizens to colonize America. 
 
 Old Boston is where the spirit of Puritanism was 
 kept alive and flourishing, chiefly through the agency 
 of John Cotton, during the period of whose ministry 
 Winthrop and his company took their departure for 
 the New World. Cotton himself followed a short 
 time afterwards. Interesting to modern Bostonians, 
 therefore, is this ancient town of Lincolnshire, thus 
 associated with the Pilgrim Fathers, who laid the 
 foundations of this country, the mightiest of republics. 
 
 The Lincolnshire fens are now so well drained and 
 cultivated that they are no longer the barren morasses 
 
THE GRAND CHURCH OF OLD BOSTON. 75 
 
 and desert lands described in the old chronicles, but 
 simply a long, level stretch of green meadow-land that 
 we traverse as we approach old Boston, and the first 
 indication of it that we get is the tall tower rising 
 far into the air, a notable landmark, which was of 
 service, in ancient times, to mariners in determining 
 their course. 
 
 But there is nothing that savors of antiquity in the 
 large, well appointed railway station, and, leaving the 
 train, we take an omnibus for the Peacock and Royal 
 Inn, situated upon the public square or market-place. 
 We at once established our respectability and impor- 
 tance by ordering two rooms and a private parlor. It 
 was the same class of country inn so familiar to trav- 
 ellers, with its commercial room, tap-room, bar and bar- 
 maid, curious and bewildering passages, low-ceiled 
 rooms and old furniture. 
 
 But we must look around the old town, which is now 
 the centre of a rich, agricultural district. Its chief 
 glory is its cathedral, which the American pilgrim of 
 to-day visits with peculiar interest, as the one where his 
 pious forefathers worshipped. 
 
 St. Botolph's Church in old Boston, where for twenty 
 years John Cotton promulgated his religious teachings, 
 was indeed in striking contrast with the humble build- 
 ing in which he afterwards officiated in our new Bos- 
 ton, for this grand, gray, and lofty-towered cathedral 
 will take in thousands of worshippers within its walls. 
 Cotton left England in 1633 (a graduate of Trinity 
 ■College) for America. The settlement of the modern 
 Boston was so small at that period that but one small 
 meeting-house was required for the whole community 
 down to 1648, and that until 1640 had mud walls and 
 a thatched roof. This primitive building in new Bos- 
 
76 INTERIOR OF ST. BOTOLPH's. 
 
 ton, history tells us, was situated on what is now the 
 south side of State Street, but was succeeded in 1640 
 by a more commodious wooden building on Washington 
 Street, nearly opposite State Street, where it stood for 
 seventy years, until destroyed by fire. 
 
 But let us turn our attention to the grand church of 
 old Boston. The foundation of this church is very 
 ancient. History says the church was given to the 
 great Benedictine abbey of St. Mary, in York, by Alan 
 Bufus of Brittany, in the reign of William the Con- 
 queror. The abbot and convent made an exchange of 
 it with the crown in the reign of Edward the Fourth 
 (about 1475), and the Knights of St. John of Jeru- 
 salem exchanged some of their lands in Leicestershire 
 for it, soon after, and held it until the dissolution of 
 religious houses in England. 
 
 The magnificent tower of this church, the loftiest in 
 the kingdom, is said to have been laid on wool-sacks, 
 from the fact that, at the period when it was built, Bos- 
 ton was one of the ten shipping ports of England, and 
 the principal one as to the extent of its shipments, doing 
 a large business in wool, leather, and hides, especially 
 the first named commodity, and, curiously enough, 
 Boston in New England is the principal wool-market 
 of the United States to-day. Lincolnshire is also to-day 
 one of the principal wool-growing districts of England. 
 
 The tower of the church is said to have been built 
 after the model of the great church of Antwerp, and 
 is 262 feet 9 inches in height. It is very graceful, 
 with great Gothic windows on each of the three sides 
 in the lower story to the height of the roof of the nave. 
 This story contains what is known as the great west 
 window, as well as the west door. Above, in the sec- 
 ond division of the steeple, are two Gothic pointed 
 
MARVELLOUS ARCHITECTURAL BEAUTIES. 77 
 
 windows on each of the three sides. Above this, in a 
 third division, is one window on each side again. This 
 is the bell-chamber, and at the base of this division an 
 external gallery runs around the tower ; and above this 
 is a great lantern, formed by arches bent diagonally 
 over the angles of the tower, making an octagon of the 
 upper part. 
 
 This lantern served as a beacon, and was lighted at 
 night, and "rose like a Pharos above the surrounding 
 levels." 
 
 The external surface of this superb tower is covered 
 with panel-work, and the first story has effective shafted 
 buttresses and statues. The great western door has 
 some beautiful carved work, and the lantern, with its 
 two-light window in each face of the octagon, is a light 
 and graceful crown to the whole structure. 
 
 A history of Lincolnshire churches says that, from 
 the changes of architecture which are visible in the 
 building, it took two hundred years in erecting, and 
 was carried forward, during the reigns of the different 
 sovereigns. Entering by the Gothic archway of the 
 south porch and through the curious and elaborately 
 carved ancient doors, we find ourselves directly in front 
 of an elegantly carved font, capacious in size, present- 
 ing a perfect wealth of carved work, the upper part or 
 brim being encircled by a wreath of vine-leaves ex- 
 quisitely wrought from the stone. This font was made 
 from a solid block of what is called Ancaster stone, a 
 white, clear, grained material, and was presented to the 
 church by A. J. Beresford Hope, in 1853. 
 
 Once inside, you may look far up to the grand stone 
 vaulting of the tower, which is 156 feet above the 
 floor. There, in different sections of the beautiful 
 groined ceiling, with its rings or octagons of carved 
 
78 THE COTTON CHAPEL. 
 
 work beautifully executed, in the centre of each, are 
 sculptured bosses bearing appropriate religious designs, 
 such as Agnus Dei, angels, and emblems. A few steps 
 forward and the eye may take in the interior. The 
 nave, with its seven pointed arches on each side, on their 
 clustered pillars, the magnificent west window, and the 
 panelled surface of the lofty walls form a grand and 
 imposing view. 
 
 The lofty roof appears to be of carved oak, and the 
 whole of the nave is filled with oaken seats facing the 
 •east. The pulpit, which is against one of the pillars 
 on the south side of the nave, is a fine piece of carved 
 work in oak, hexagonal in shape, and its decorations 
 the handiwork of artificers in Queen Elizabeth's time. 
 
 The only ancient monuments we saw in the church 
 were in one of the aisles ; one of an unknown knight, 
 a full-length figure in full armor, helm on head, and 
 sword at his hip, and feet resting on a lion. The figure 
 was recumbent on a tomb, with representations of 
 crowned angels bearing shields, the whole cut from 
 alabaster. Another monument was that of a reclining 
 lady, upon an altar of black marble. 
 
 In the beautiful chancel are the ancient stalls, over 
 seventy in number, many of which have been restored 
 and their small turn-up seats decorated, as was usual 
 by the ancient wood-carvers, with grotesque caricatures, 
 saints and burlesque scenes, as if trying to divert the 
 mind of the probable occupant from his devotions or 
 serious thoughts. Uncomfortable as these ancient seats 
 were, they were contrived so that, should the occupant 
 slumber and lose the pose required to keep the seat up- 
 right, he would be tumbled upon the pavement, so that 
 really he performed penance with his devotion. 
 
 The carved oak communion-table of St. Botolph's, and 
 
THE "GENEALOGY OF OUR LORD." 79 
 
 the two tall candelabra, twelve feet high, bearing seven 
 lights each, will attract the visitor's attention, and the 
 magnificent east window command his admiration. 
 
 This window contains seven great upright divisions 
 or sections, above which is the pointed Gothic arch, of 
 stone tracery. The lower sections are filled with what 
 is called the " Genealogy of our Lord," portrayed in 
 the beautiful colored glass. There are large-sized fig- 
 ures representing the Virgin and Child, the Magi bring- 
 ing offerings, the four Evangelists, the Crucifixion, Jesus 
 Sitting in Judgment, and other figures, to the number of 
 twenty-one, all beautifully executed and surrounded by 
 a wealth of ornamentation. Above, in the openings of 
 the stone tracery of the arch, are representations of the 
 archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, surrounded 
 by numerous beautiful designs and decorations. 
 
 Americans, especially New Englanders, will, of 
 course, be interested in and visit the South-west Chapel, 
 which is known as the Cotton Chapel. This was re- 
 stored in 1855, mainly through the efforts of our distin- 
 guished fellow-citizen Edward Everett, who raised a 
 subscription in this country, and was aided by George 
 Peabody, Russell Sturgis, and Joshua Bates, then 
 American bankers in London. 
 
 An amount was realized sufficient to cleanse, repair, 
 and thoroughly restore the entire chapel, as well as to 
 place a beautiful window, filled with stained glass, at 
 the west end of it, and a memorial tablet upon the wall. 
 
 The following is a translation of the Latin inscription, 
 composed by Mr. Everett, which is upon the tablet : — 
 
 " In perpetual remembrance of John Cotton, who, during the reign 
 of James and Charles, was for many years a grave, skilful, learned, 
 and laborious Vicar of this Church. Afterwards, on account of the 
 lamentable troubles in religious matters in his own country, he sought 
 
80 "IN MEMORIAM." 
 
 a new settlement in a new world, and remained, even to the end of his 
 life, a pastor and teacher of the greatest reputation and of the greatest 
 authority in the first church of Boston, in New England, which re- 
 ceived its venerable name in honor of Cotton: ccxxv. years having 
 passed away since his migration, his descendants and the American 
 citizens of Boston were invited to this pious work by their English 
 brethren, in order that the name of an illustrious man. the love and 
 honor of both worlds, might not longer be banished from that noble 
 temple in which he diligently, learnedly, and sacredly expounded the 
 divine oracles for so many years ; and they have willingly and grate- 
 fully caused this shrine to be restored, and this tablet to be erected, in 
 the year of our recovered salvation 1855." 
 
 I venture to give also a list of the subscribers to 
 the fund, as being names of typical Bostonians of the 
 New England city, and standing for men who have been 
 foremost in adding to and upholding those attributes 
 which make modern Boston honored among its peers : — 
 
 "Charles Francis Adams, William Turrell Andrews, Nathan Ap- 
 pleton, William Appleton, George Bancroft, Martin Brimmer, Edward 
 Brooks, Gorham Brooks, Sidney Brooks, Peter Chardon Brooks, John 
 P. Cushing, Edward Everett, Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham, John 
 Chipman Gray, Abbott Lawrence, John Amory Lowell, Jonathan 
 Phillips, William Hickling Prescott, David Sears, Nathaniel Brad- 
 street Shurtleff, Jared Sparks, John Eliot Thayer, Frederic Tudor, 
 John Collins Warren." 
 
 The dimensions of St. Botolph are given as 245 feet 
 long and 98 feet w T ide within the walls, and we were 
 told that there were 365 steps to the top of the tower, 
 equalling the number of days in the year ; twelve col- 
 umns supporting the main roof, the number of months 
 in the year ; fifty-two windows, equalling the weeks ; 
 seven doors, the days in the week ; twenty-four steps 
 to the south porch library, hours of the day ; and sixty 
 steps to the chancel roof, minutes in the hour. The 
 church is said to be the finest parish church in the 
 kingdom, and it certainly impresses one by its perfect 
 
AN OLD ENGLISH TOWN. 81 
 
 harmony of proportions, of clustered pillars, massive 
 arches, groined roof, and lofty tower. 
 
 Old Boston town is like many other English towns 
 that one visits, and has little of interest to the tourist 
 except the church. The houses of the older part of the 
 town are not over two or three stories high, and built 
 of dark-red bricks. It can rival modern Boston as it 
 once was in some of its narrow streets and quaint old 
 alley-ways. 
 
 The inhabitants of old Boston do not appear to have 
 appreciated the commercial value of antiquities, and 
 the traveller who looks for memorials of the Pilgrims 
 and John Cotton will be doomed to disappointment. 
 The old vicarage in which Cotton lived was taken 
 down in 1850. The only two antique buildings of any 
 particular significance are the old town-hall and Shod- 
 friars' Hall, both near the market-place. 
 
 The former is an old, blackened brick edifice, with a 
 Gothic door and big Gothic window over it, and it is 
 here that Brewster and others of the Pilgrims were said 
 to have been brought up for examination before the 
 magistrates, and in the lower story of the building are 
 said to have been imprisoned, in some dark little dens 
 that are shown there. 
 
 In the basement story is an ancient kitchen, of con- 
 siderable size, where cooking used to be done for civic 
 feasting in the great hall above, in the second story, 
 where two or three hundred guests could be accommo- 
 dated. This building is really all, except the church 
 already described, that can in any way be connected 
 with the Pilgrims. 
 
 Shodfriars' Hall is a quaint old building, of wood and 
 plaster, that has been braced up and restored. Old 
 Boston is to-day busy improving some of its advantages, 
 
82 MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 that have long been neglected, for clown at the river- 
 front we find the work of building a new dock for ship- 
 ping had been performed in excellent, solid, substantial 
 style. Boston owed its early commercial importance to 
 its geographical position and its river and harbor, while 
 for a port of transit to the north of France, Holland, 
 and Flanders it was one of the best on the east coast of 
 England. In their modern improvements for shipping 
 and receiving merchandise, the people of the place 
 wisely conclude to make the most of the position, 
 which still has many commercial advantages for receiv- 
 ing goods from the interior for export and merchandise 
 from abroad for distribution. A large area is enclosed, 
 on the river front, and storehouses have been built for 
 merchandise, and tracks been laid connecting with dif- 
 ferent railways of the kingdom, so that the wool, corn, 
 and cattle business may be fostered, pushed, and im- 
 proved by old Boston's merchants of to-day. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BERLIN. 
 
 It is a long leap from old Boston to Berlin, but the 
 reader is spared the details of the journey, including 
 the discomforts of the British Channel, which have, 
 after so many years, only been partially alleviated. 
 Since my last visit to the Prussian capital, some dozen 
 years ago, there has been a notable improvement in the 
 hotels of that city. A fine new one, the Continental, 
 at the time of my visit (1886), was admirably kept, 
 and with most of those appurtenances and appoint- 
 ments that Americans know so well how to appreciate, 
 such as a good elevator, luxurious bath-rooms, and a 
 fairly good cuisine — except the iron-clad bread that pre- 
 vails here. The outer crusts of the breakfast-rolls 
 require a blacksmith's hammer, or the teeth of a croco- 
 dile, to crack them. Berlin is a good point from 
 which to start for St. Petersburg, I was told, and so I 
 found it to be, as the sequel will prove. 
 
 The American flag, hanging out from a window on 
 the Unter den Linden, had a most homelike and friendly 
 look to it, and the hospitable quarters of the American 
 Exchange in Europe, which it indicated, are pleasant 
 indeed to the wandering American tourist, for here he 
 can hear his own language spoken, read Boston and 
 New York newspapers, and hear the latest news from 
 home by telegraph, including embezzlements, forgeries, 
 flights to Canada, railroad accidents, and terrible con- 
 
 83 
 
84 A STAID GERMAN CITY. 
 
 flagrations ; all these events, having precedence as 
 news to be sent over the ocean, make America appear 
 a perfect pandemonium of crime and horror when it is 
 seen at this distance. 
 
 Large, enterprising, and well governed as Berlin is, 
 the American cannot fail to notice how much more 
 quiet, methodical, and deliberate everything is there 
 than in any of our American cities. The tremendous 
 rush, hurry, and spirit of briskness and enterprise are 
 lacking, although, since I was last there, horse-cars 
 traverse the streets, conductors signal you and shout 
 out the streets and localities as they pass, and the gilded 
 youth dash rapidly through the broad avenues in their 
 carriages, and crowds throng the great retail business 
 streets ; but there is not that restlessness or nervous- 
 ness that characterizes an American city, and to the 
 average American tourist there is a feeling of restful 
 comfort. I certainly felt some degree of it in noticing 
 that three or four days were required to make a new 
 turn-out and to relay about one hundred feet of horse- 
 railroad track in one of the streets, which would have 
 been accomplished in one-fourth of the time in New 
 York or Boston, and, it is but justice to add, been 
 about one-fourth as well done in the matter of thorough- 
 ness of workmanship and the good condition in which 
 street and pavement were left. 
 
 " But I am going to Russia in a day or two," I 
 remarked to a friend whom I met one day on Unter 
 den Linden. " What step shall I take first ? " 
 
 " Secure James Pilley, the English guide there, if 
 you can ; he lias lived over twenty years in St. Peters- 
 burg, speaks Russian like a native, knows every sight 
 and everything worth seeing in the country." 
 
 Prompt use of the telegraph, and of letters from a 
 
FROM BERLIN TO PETERSBURG. 85 
 
 friend of the noted guide, in Berlin, achieved the 
 desired result. 
 
 Now, then, as to the method and manner of going 
 from Berlin to St. Petersburg. First, it is absolutely 
 necessary to have a passport, and this must first be 
 vised by the American and then by the Russian consul. 
 Then you must get some money changed into Russian 
 paper currency for immediate use, if required on the 
 road or on arrival. Of course, in Russian cities like 
 St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, etc., your letter of 
 credit is as promptly recognized as elsewhere. 
 
 The journey by rail from Berlin to St. Petersburg, 
 which you begin at 8 : 30 in the morning, occupies 
 all that day and all night, and all the next day until 
 10 P. M. 
 
 First to obtain through tickets, which are bought at 
 a railroad ticket office on the Unter den Linden, and in 
 which transaction we called in the aid of one of the 
 English-speaking clerks of the American Exchange. 
 
 The price of a ticket from Berlin to the Russian 
 frontier was 67 marks and a fraction in the first-class 
 carriages, or about $17 United States currency ; from 
 the frontier to St. Petersburg you pay, in Russian 
 roubles, an additional 86 roubles, the value of a rouble 
 being about fifty cents, which makes $18 additional, 
 or $35 for the whole distance. The proper thing to 
 do is to buy a through ticket two days in advance, at 
 the office above mentioned, and also to have the ticket 
 clerk telegraph on to the frontier and get answer to 
 your despatch, securing a sleeping-compartment for 
 you in the train that will leave there soon after your 
 arrival and custom-house examination. 
 
 As an old traveller I took this precaution, and like- 
 wise to get answer back that the compartment was 
 
86 RAILWAY CUISINE. 
 
 secured. I then had the name of the official at the 
 Russian frontier station, to whom this despatch had 
 been sent, written down for me, both in Russian and 
 German, by the clerk in attendance at the Berlin office, 
 with a line from him in the former language to the 
 clerk at the frontier. 
 
 The effort to procure a modern guide-book was fruit- 
 less. Murray's latest was twelve years old (1875), 
 Badaeker has issued none, and Harper's was unattain- 
 able. As to luggage, each passenger is allowed fifty-six 
 pounds free, and no charge was made for the hand-lug- 
 gage ; for some unaccountable reason, however, it cost 
 more to bring the same amount of luggage out of Rus- 
 sia than it did to carry it into that empire. I could 
 not get much information respecting meals en route, or 
 where they were to be taken ; in fact, very little of the 
 real practical information one really wants ; but, hav- 
 ing had experience at German and Prussian railroad 
 restaurants, where beer, sausage, raw-ham sandwiches, 
 and tobacco are the chief creature-comforts provided 
 for hungry mortals, we took the precaution to have a 
 cold fowl, some of the sweet, iron-crusted bread, and a 
 bottle of claret put up, to provide against accidents ; 
 and it was well we did, for as long as we were in Prus- 
 sian territory, it was one unceasing deluge of beer, 
 while the sausage, raw-ham sandwiches, cheese, and 
 similar comestibles were anything but inviting. But, 
 presto ! after entering Russian territory, the style 
 changed to the well appointed French restaurant, with 
 light, soft bread, coffee, clean, nn-beer-stained buffets 
 with French cakes, light wines, appetizing goodies, and 
 fruits. 
 
 The first-class railway carriage in which we started 
 from Berlin was built somewhat after the style of what 
 
A CONTINENTAL NUISANCE. 87 
 
 is known in America as the Mann Boudoir Car. Our 
 compartment had seats for six persons, and the approach 
 to it was by an aisle running along the side of the car, 
 which was furnished with lavatories at each end. Our 
 compartment was abundantly furnished with racks and 
 hooks for small baggage, which are so much needed and 
 so seldom provided in the Pullman and Wagner cars of 
 America. The seats were arranged as in the English 
 cars — three back to the locomotive and three facing 
 it. There were five of us occupying the compartment 
 — two German or Prussian merchants, a Russian young 
 gentleman, myself and companion. 
 
 It is the rule posted up that, if none of those in the 
 carriage object, any one may smoke ; and two of our 
 companions were puffing like furnaces, to m}^ own infinite 
 disgust at least. Indeed, upon the continent the inflic- 
 tion of tobacco smoke that. a non-smoker has to endure 
 will rival any of the same nuisance, coupled even 
 though it is with expectoration, in America. It does 
 seem as if some travellers cannot enjoy a mountain 
 ascent, a railway ride, a sight-seeing stroll, or a diligence 
 journey, without sucking at cigarettes or pipes, and 
 blowing this offensive cloud into the faces of their fel- 
 low-travellers. 
 
 I remember that the open carriages of the railway 
 up Mt. Rigi, in Switzerland, were an excuse for the 
 half-dozen Frenchmen and Germans to puff their vile 
 cigarettes and abominable pipes, sending back their 
 vile odors into the nostrils of those seated behind 
 them, and seriously interfering with one of the grand- 
 est panoramic views ever seen. And the notices re- 
 specting smoking in all the railroad carriages of the 
 continent, the carriages provided especially for smokers 
 there as well as at home, prove what tyranny is exer- 
 
88 UNPKONOXJNCEABIiE NAMES. 
 
 cised by the tobacco-smoker over the rest of the com- 
 munity. One satisfaction to the man who does not 
 smoke is having a lady as his travelling companion 
 abroad ; she saves him this infliction of smoke in rail- 
 way carriages, diligences, and elsewhere ; whereas, if 
 alone, being a man, it is presumed he has no right to 
 object. 
 
 One of our smoking companions left after a four- 
 hour ride, and another when we reached Kreuze, and 
 the other two at Konigsberg, the ancient Prussian cap- 
 ital. The remaining passenger, a little, light-haired 
 Russian whose acquaintance we made over a glass of 
 claret, proved to be the private secretary of the Duch- 
 ess of Edinburgh, on his way to St. Petersburg. He 
 spoke English fluently, and was of much service to us. 
 
 The railroad route which we took from Berlin was 
 via Kreuze, Konigsberg, Eydkuhnen, Wierzbolow, 
 Wilna, Dunaburg, Pskov, Luga, and other towns with 
 unpronounceable names. Eydkuhnen and Wierzbolow 
 are respectively the Prussian and Russian frontier sta- 
 tions, and are about one mile apart. Luggage is exam- 
 ined at the latter as yon go into Russia, and at the 
 former as you come out. The distance from Berlin to 
 the Russian frontier is 450 miles, and from thence to 
 Petersburg 560, a total of 1010 miles. It might be 
 accomplished in much less time than is taken, Avere it 
 not for the comparative!}" low rate of speed, and the 
 Russian custom of stopping twenty minutes or half an 
 hour at every large station. 
 
 They have a custom on the railroad line of ringing a 
 bell just outside the station, as a warning for passen- 
 gers, which is peculiar and effective where stops of any 
 length of time are made, which is this : Five minutes 
 before the train is to start, an official runs the tongue 
 
" PASSPORTS." 89 
 
 of the bell sharply around its rim, and concludes with 
 one sharp tap ; two minutes later the tongue is again 
 scraped around it, concluding with two smart taps ; and 
 two minutes later still, it is scraped around three times, 
 concluding with three smart taps, the last signal, and 
 that for closing the car doors ; for one minute after 
 this last bell-tap, the conductor or guard sounds his 
 sharp whistle that all is right, the engineer responds 
 with a like blast, and the train starts. 
 
 This system prevailed all along this line in Prussia 
 and Russia, and was a good one, being easily under- 
 stood by all, the first alarm giving time to pay for one's 
 meal and start, and the second letting you know that 
 two minutes remained to return to your carriage. 
 
 At midnight we arrived at the Russian frontier, and, 
 on descending upon the brilliantly lighted platform of 
 the station, the first person we encountered was a tall 
 soldier, in gray overcoat, dog-skin and scarlet shako, 
 surmounted by a pompon. He was also booted and 
 spurred, and wore a long sabre, as if just dismounted 
 from a cavalry troop. He pointed to an open door, and 
 ejaculated : 
 
 " Passe-ports." 
 
 We delivered our passports, and, on entering, found 
 ourselves in one of those large rooms with a raised 
 platform running round its entire length for the bag- 
 gage examination, so familiar to European travellers 
 who have crossed frontiers on the continent. 
 
 The luggage was rapidly brought in, and the pro- 
 duction of a few copecks (a live-copeck piece is the 
 size of an old-fashioned United States cent) caused the 
 porters to j)lace your trunks as you want them. It is 
 well to remember that Russia is pre-eminently a coun- 
 try of bribes, and that the quiet passage of a few 
 
00 VALUE OF DEFERENCE. 
 
 copecks to laborers, or of roubles to higher officials, 
 accomplishes wonders in the way of convenience, espe- 
 cially for American travellers, who seem to be, when 
 known as such, regarded with more favor than those of 
 other nationalities. 
 
 The passports were all carried to one end of the room, 
 to the desk of a uniformed official, and from thence 
 were brought forward, two or three at a time, by his 
 subordinates, and held up for the owners to claim, who 
 afterwards pointed out their luggage for examination. 
 Observing that this examination was more thorough 
 with some trunks than others, my companion proceeded 
 to the official desk, and. after profoundly salaaming with 
 marked respect the great man at that post, proceeded in 
 the German tongue to acquaint him that two American 
 tourists had honored him with their company, and 
 would he deign to detail two of his officers to examine 
 and affix his vise to their luggage, etc? Moreover, 
 would he accept the assurances of our distinguished 
 consideration? 
 
 The effect of this profound deference by two first- 
 class passengers to this great chief, before a circle of 
 third-class passengers, as well as his subordinates, sur- 
 rounding him, had its effect. Our passports were 
 promptly handed over with a deferential bow, two 
 officials were detailed, who proceeded at once to our 
 luggage, which went through the slightest form pos- 
 sible of inspection, and we were handed cards which 
 passed us by the guard at the door into the buffet and 
 waiting-room. 
 
 At this place we were to obtain our tickets and 
 places in the sleeping-car for St. Petersburg, which had 
 been telegraphed for from Berlin : and here the fore- 
 sight of having the official's name in Russian, and the 
 
A COMFORTABLE JOURNEY. 91 
 
 line from the Berlin clerk, came in play, for, although 
 the old fellow spoke and understood German, he at first 
 stoutly denied the receipt of any dispatch, until that 
 paper was shown him, when he promptly produced two 
 tickets for what proved an excellent sleeping-compart- 
 ment. 
 
 We were detained for over an hour at the frontier, 
 and it was nearly 2 A. M. before our couches were 
 made ready by the car porter. The car was divided 
 into a series of two and four-berthed compartments, 
 opening upon an aisle running the whole length of the 
 railway carriage, with lavatories at each end. The run- 
 ning was remarkably easy and comfortable, and we en- 
 joyed a good night's rest, breakfasting in the morning, at 
 eight, at a good, clean, well kept buffet, upon chops, eggs, 
 hot rolls, and deliciously flavored tea, served, Russian 
 fashion, with thin slices of lemon floating on its surface. 
 Chocolate, cold meats, fowls, good sandwiches, and all 
 the eatables usually found at French restaurants were 
 provided at these buffets, which, as a general thing, I 
 am constrained to say, were far superior to those on the 
 lines of many of our great lines of railroads in America. 
 
 We found our Russian railway carriage to be com- 
 fortable and well ventilated, and one peculiarity of the 
 water-faucets was that they send a stream upwards so as 
 to fall upon the hands, and no stopper was in the basins 
 to retain the water. While at the stations where we 
 stopped, the women who were in waiting with water 
 for those passengers who desired to perform their ablu- 
 tions poured the water upon their hands, in the Eastern 
 style and according to Russian custom. 
 
 The scenery through which we passed was of but 
 little interest, the surface of the country reminding one 
 of some of the wilder parts of the State of Maine, 
 
92 ARRIVAL AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 while the stations gave us but little opportunity to see 
 anything of the towns except a distant view of them. 
 The houses of the common people appear to be rough 
 log shanties, and the fields rudely and poorly culti- 
 vated. 
 
 The uninteresting character of the landscape, as seen 
 from the windows of the railway carriage, made the 
 English novels, which all old travellers take care to 
 provide themselves with, welcome companions ; but we 
 were heartily glad when, at half-past ten that night, the 
 train rolled into the well lighted railway station at St. 
 Petersburg, and, as we emerged from the railway car- 
 riage we were greeted by a well dressed Englishman, 
 calling us by name in our own language, and stating 
 that a carriage was in waiting for us. 
 
 This was James Pilley, the English guide, a com- 
 pact, well built man, about forty-five years of age, who 
 gave a few rapid orders to some men in attendance 
 respecting the conveyance of our luggage, and then 
 escorted us, through the crowd of drosky-drivers that 
 surrounded the station, to a well appointed two-horse 
 carriage, into which we stepped with him, and were 
 soon speeding along through the broad streets to the 
 hotel, some two miles away. On through the well 
 lighted streets we rode, until at last the Grand Hotel 
 d'Europe was reached, a building nearly as large, and 
 with a much more extensive frontage, than the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel, New York. 
 
 The entrance hall of the hotel was far better arranged 
 and more comfortable than the Grand or Metropole 
 in London, and the room accommodations were better 
 and cheaper. 
 
 Here, on arrival, we were received, at the foot of the 
 marble steps that led up to the main floor, by a head- 
 
RUSSIAN PRESS-CENSORSHIP. 93 
 
 waiter, who spoke English and French. Inside, at the 
 right, was a large office, where the chief porter, also a 
 linguist, ran the business of the hotel, such as receiving 
 letters, caring for room-keys, and in all respects like the 
 American hotel clerk except that there was no counter 
 separating his domain from public intrusion. At the 
 left was a large, convenient, and well lighted reading- 
 room, with newspapers and magazines, including Amer- 
 ican and English newspapers, but I noticed portions of 
 the latter had been blacked out, or completely erased 
 with black ink, by the post-office authorities, before 
 being permitted to be displayed. 
 
 A whole page of the London Punch had been thus 
 treated, which, I afterwards ascertained, contained a 
 caricature of the Russian Bear and Bulgaria ; and a half- 
 column of the London Times, reflecting upon Russia's 
 policy, had been similarly obliterated. 
 
 This is performed by the censor of the press, through 
 whose hands all publications that come into the empire 
 pass before being delivered to the parties to whom they 
 are directed. 
 
 He has a large office, which, in general appearance, 
 resembles the editorial rooms of a great American 
 daily newspaper. A large corps of assistants open the 
 mails, and submit to him all questionable matter. Any-* 
 thing reflecting upon the government or its policy, or 
 the royal family, is promptly tabooed, and a roller of 
 black ink is passed over it, in newspaper or magazine, 
 leaving a dense black space, through which not a single 
 word can be discerned. 
 
 Newspapers in Russia, even those favoring and flat- 
 tering the government, do not amount to much. The 
 censorship of every article referring to the subjects 
 above named, or even to visits of the royal family or 
 
94 RUSSIAN ILLITERACY. 
 
 facts relating to the army, causes so much delay in the 
 delivery of the paper that it is hardly worth while to 
 attempt the publication of news relating to politics, or 
 to any one or anything connected with the empire. 
 Then, Russia is far from being a newspaper-reading 
 nation. Right here in St. Petersburg it was amazing 
 how few of the common work-people and artisans 
 could read and write. Not one in a dozen of the 
 drosky-drivers could read the signboards in the streets, 
 and I do not recall a single instance of seeing one of 
 them, or any of the artizan or laboring class, reading a 
 newspaper or printed sheet. 
 
 The Russian alphabet is different from that used in 
 the rest of Europe, and is composed of thirty-six char- 
 acters, which seem to have been adapted from the Greek 
 alphabet, with the addition of a certain number of new 
 characters. These characters are Greek, however, to 
 the common people, and for their information the front 
 and sides of most of the stores are adorned with picto- 
 rial representations of what may be had within. 
 
 The butcher has legs of mutton, joints, or an ox de- 
 lineated on his sign ; the baker, heaps of bread ; the 
 music-dealer, horns, fiddles, and drums ; the clothing- 
 dealer, portraits of coats, stockings, and other garments ; 
 — and this illustrative sign-painting is carried to such 
 an extent that some of it had to be translated to us by 
 our guide — such as, for instance, that of a midwife, 
 and another of a surgeon, or some practitioner who 
 drew teeth and applied leeches. 
 
 It is stated that the proportion of ignorant to educated 
 people in the empire is nearly seventy per cent., and 
 that of the one hundred million inhabitants of Russia 
 sixty million were either among the serfs freed by Alex- 
 ander II., twenty-five years ago, or their children. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Grand Hotel d'Europe is situated upon the cor- 
 ner of Place Michael and Nevski Prospect, the latter a 
 very wide and straight street three miles long, with a 
 modern horse-railway running through the middle of it. 
 This grand thoroughfare is the great Broadway of the 
 city, and lias seyeral superb churches, the Alexander 
 Theatre, Imperial Library, and other notable buildings 
 upon it. We were escorted to our room, a large 
 double-bedded apartment in the third story, the four 
 windows commanding an extensive view of the broad 
 avenue as far as the eye could reach. This apartment 
 was handsomely furnished, like the leading hotels of 
 America, with mirrors, sofas, arm-chairs, French clocks, 
 and with the addition of screens to place before the 
 beds, which were excellent, and writing-tables for the 
 guests. The waiters who answered our bell spoke Ger- 
 man, and we got on very well with them. The price per 
 day for this room was three dollars for two persons, 
 with an additional charge of twent}^-five cents a day for 
 service. A good table d'hote dinner was served for a 
 rouble and a half, about seventy-five cents ; indeed, I 
 was surprised at the excellence of the cuisine, the 
 promptness of the service, and the moderate rate of 
 charge, as I had been led to expect the opposite from 
 all English accounts I had read, George Augustus 
 Sala's included. 
 
 As soon as we were fairly domiciled in our apart- 
 ment, we were waited upon by the English-speaking 
 
 95 
 
9b THE NEVSKI PROSPECT. 
 
 head-waiter with the hotel book, in which we inscribed 
 our names, and then surrendered to him our passports, 
 for which the landlord of the hotel became responsible, 
 as he must report us and take them to the chief of 
 police. 
 
 Indeed, the landlord thus becomes the custodian of, 
 and in a measure responsible for, his foreign guests, 
 inasmuch as they cannot leave St. Petersburg without 
 these important documents, or, if required while there, 
 can be held till they are produced ; it will be seen also 
 there is not much danger of the hotel guest's departing 
 without satisfying his host as to his intention and 
 where he is going, as he must notify him the day pre- 
 vious, in order that the passport may be obtained prop- 
 erly vised for that purpose. 
 
 On rising after a good night's rest, we looked out 
 upon the broad avenue from our windows upon the 
 novel sights before us ; nearly opposite was a little one- 
 story, open-fronted temple, erected to some saint or for 
 some holy deed, and within was a shrine with burning 
 candles, a holy-water font, and the usual decorations. 
 Every Russian who passed this on foot raised his hat 
 and crossed himself ; some of the more devout halted, 
 crossed their arms upon their breasts, bowed three 
 times, and repeated a prayer. Others, besides dipping 
 the ringers in the font, took a drink therefrom in a tiny 
 tin cup prepared for that purpose. 
 
 The healthfullness or cleanliness of drinking water in 
 which hundreds of hands have been dipped, including 
 the begrimed ones of workmen and those of filthy 
 beggars, may well be questioned. Indeed, it is affirmed 
 that infectious diseases have been transmitted in this 
 manner. The more superstitions Russian, however, 
 may imagine that by drinking the water he carries 
 
NOVEL SIGHTS. 97 
 
 away more holiness than can be conveyed to the fore- 
 head by a touch of the finger. 
 
 It was a novel sight to see a modern street-car pass 
 with the roof crowded with passengers, every one of 
 whom took off his hat and made the sign of the 
 cross as they went by this shrine. Those who passed 
 without reverence, we were told, were Tartars. They 
 are largely employed as laborers and servants in St. 
 Petersburg, and may be distinguished from having 
 neither beards nor moustaches, all hair being carefully 
 plucked from their faces. 
 
 The curiously lettered signs, the bulb-topped steeples, 
 reminding one of Turkish or Moorish architecture, and 
 in some cases having the cross rising from out the 
 crescent on their steeples, the tall fire or watch towers, 
 the curiously costumed drosky-drivers, and the occa- 
 sionally sheepskin-clad peasant, all were novelties. 
 
 The costume of the working-people seems to be in- 
 variably a pair of long boots, into which the coarse 
 trousers are thrust, after the style of a California 
 miner. Then the Russian wears his red or blue flan- 
 nel shirt outside his pantaloons, and over it a coarse, 
 brown, dirty, crash-towel-looking blouse. A face of 
 dense stupidity, surrounded by a forest of unkempt 
 hair and beard, completes his description. 
 
 Acting upon the suggestion of our guide, we en- 
 gaged a first-class two-horse open carriage by the day. 
 In fact, having but comparatively brief time for our 
 sight-seeing, we gave our guide carte blanche to do the 
 best possible, in order that we might make the best use 
 of the time at our command. 
 
 The ordinary droskies are common and dirty enough, 
 but good ones can be had by those who want them. 
 The drosky is a low, four-wheeled carriage drawn by 
 
98 THE ISVOSTCHIK AND HIS DROSKY. 
 
 one horse and with seats for two passengers. The 
 driver sits upon a seat slightly elevated, in front, and 
 the space for the passenger is barely sufficient to 
 accommodate his drawn-np knees. 
 
 The drosky is to St. Petersburg what the cab is to 
 London and is found at all railway stations and on the 
 principal streets. Many of the drivers are young 
 countrymen who have been attracted to the city by 
 the large wages paid to drosky-drivers, about a dollar 
 a day. The more fashionable carriages are of the same 
 model as our victorias, well fitted, with good springs, 
 and as comfortable as could be desired. 
 
 It is said the Russian drosky-driver has no regular 
 charge, and, like his prototype all over the world, con- 
 siders those who use his vehicle his regular prey. How 
 tourists with no knowledge of the Russian tongue get 
 on with him, I am at loss to know. Our excellent 
 guide spared us all difficulties of this description, how- 
 ever. 
 
 A drosky engaged by the day means from about 8 A. m. 
 till midnight, and the price of our carriage, which was 
 a sort of open barouche, better than ordinary droskies, 
 was ten roubles a day, with an extra rouble and a half 
 for the driver. . 
 
 Our guide sat upon the box with the driver, and we 
 occupied the back seat of the vehicle, which was drawn 
 by two splendid black stallions. The harness, with the 
 exception of traces, was exceedingly light, and we sped 
 through the streets at the rate of six or eight miles an 
 hour, at a smart trot, the peculiar cry of our driver 
 warning all humbler vehicles, and wandering pedestri- 
 ans, to get out of the way, which they did most 
 promptly and speedily. 
 
 Our ride was made all the more enjoyable from the 
 
A CITY OF MAGNIFICENT DISTANCES. 99 
 
 fact that the wheels of the vehicle were tired with in- 
 dia-rubber, so that we were spared the rattle of the 
 wheels as an interruption to conversation or our guide's 
 descriptions. The driver — or isvostchik, as he is called 
 in Russian — has an odd costume. His hat looks like an 
 old-fashioned bell-crowned beaver, that had been razed 
 by taking out the middle portion ; a long, green sort of 
 dressing-gown, reaching nearly to the heels, was but- 
 toned over to the left, and ornamented with bunches of 
 silver buttons at the right side, and bound round with 
 a bright-colored sash ; the long boots, into which the 
 baggy pantaloons were thrust, completed the costume. 
 The Russian driver seldom whips his horses ; ours merely 
 held a short-handled whip out at right angles with his 
 body, and his horses were off at full speed. He was a 
 capital driver, and whirled us through the streets by 
 aid of voice, rein, and whip signal with great skill. 
 
 What strikes one, at first, in St. Petersburg, is the 
 grand scale on which everything is laid out ; the long 
 streets, twice as wide as Broadway, or like the great 
 avenues at Washington, enormous squares in which 
 thousands of troops might be manoeuvred, huge pub- 
 lic buildings and churches, great barracks with thou- 
 sands of feet of frontage, — everything appears to have 
 been projected as for some stupendous capital and huge 
 population yet to be. 
 
 The population of St. Petersburg is said to be over 
 seven hundred thousand ; its great, broad, and regular 
 streets and huge squares cover more than thirty square 
 miles of territory. And when you come to reflect that 
 this vast and magnificent city is built upon a quaking 
 morass, and its huge churches and palaces, that over- 
 whelm you with their vastness and splendor, are built 
 upon a forest of piles, sunk in a trembling bog, but a 
 
100 A STUPENDOUS UNDERTAKING. 
 
 little above the level of the Baltic Sea, and that snow 
 and ice reign here for five months of the year, yon are 
 astonished at the pertinacity of Peter in choosing a 
 spot with so many natural difficulties to overcome, and 
 still more astonished at the manner in which those 
 obstacles were met and defeated, and at the extent 
 and splendor of a city that two centuries ago was not 
 in existence. 
 
 The first brick building here was built in 1710, and 
 the great structure known as the Admiralty started in 
 1711. The difficulties of building the city must have 
 been tremendous. But, tremendous as they were, that 
 gigantic, irrepressible, savage genius, Peter the Great, 
 overcame them, but at a terrific expense of human life. 
 The conscripted peasants from every part of Russia, 
 that like the ancient Israelites wrought under the task- 
 master's lash, must have perished by thousands in the 
 effort. But the effort was successful, and stands a 
 wonder to the generation that to-day contemplates the 
 result. 
 
 The river Neva runs into the Bay of Cronstadt, 
 breaking up as it does so into little branches, and form- 
 ing numerous islands near the mouth. St. Petersburg 
 rests on the bank of the river, and these islands are 
 connected with the latter by the superb Nicholas Bridge, 
 a structure with grand iron arches, and piers of granite 
 of great strength, built, evidently, to resist the fall 
 floods and spring outgo of ice. There are other 
 bridges, floating ones, so constructed as to be removed 
 during the winter. The Nicholas Bridge, however, is 
 a broad and beautiful highway, as well as a splendid 
 specimen of bridge-building. 
 
 The tall fire-towers, with their watchmen, are a feat- 
 ure here. These lofty towers communicate with each 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 101 
 
 other at night by means of a series of colored lanterns, 
 and by day by other signals, indicating in exactly what 
 quarter a fire breaks out, and where assistance is 
 wanted. Fires are dreaded here, especially during the 
 winter, when the river is frozen over ; these towers and 
 the spires, huge churches, the enormous and splendidly 
 built government buildings, the massive granite qua} T s, 
 bridges and canals, with their crowd of boats and 
 shipping, strike the stranger with astonishment. The 
 streets are all broad and well kept, narrow lanes and 
 alleys being the exception. 
 
 There are soldiers in groups, singly, and in pairs, seen 
 at every turn, in their long and not over-clean coats 
 and flat caps, the Cossacks of the Guard appearing to 
 be the cleanest, best kept, and most soldier-like. 
 
 There were said to be eighty thousand troops in the 
 garrison ; one does not need to be long in Russia to be 
 impressed with her great military strength and re- 
 sources. A recent article published in England by Sir 
 Charles Dilke, extracts from which were published in 
 the Russian papers, states that Russia is the gainer 
 from the awe she inspires on all hands as a power of 
 unknown strength. She has not only a large army on 
 paper, but also in fact. In times of peace, the army 
 of Russia — including the " irregulars " and the Cos- 
 sacks — numbers eight hundred and ninety thousand 
 men, while in war she can and would raise an army of 
 four million, and, in case of need, six million men. 
 The Russians have as many field-pieces (cannon) as the 
 French or the German, while the Russian cavalry is 
 equal in numbers and efficiency to the cavalry of both 
 these western powers combined, and would outnumber 
 the combined cavalry of Germany and Austria. Sir 
 Charles, besides, fails to see anything desperate in the 
 
102 COMPARATIVE STATISTICS. 
 
 financial difficulties of Russia, considering that, with 
 her practically limitless natural resources, — Siberia 
 alone equalling the United States in extent of terri- 
 tory, — the country seems bound to yield large rev- 
 enues. 
 
 The official report on the Russian army lately pub- 
 lished contains the following particulars: On the 1st 
 of January, 1886, there were 824,762 men, including 
 8000 volunteers, in the active army. 
 
 The reserve amounted to 1,600,815, in addition, thus 
 making a total of 2,425,557 soldiers whom Russia could 
 bring into the field at need. In Germany the maxi- 
 mum of the regular army and the landwehr combined 
 is computed at 1,800,000 men. Moreover, Russia has 
 at its disposal 2,160,000 militia, liable to be called upon 
 in time of war to recruit the ranks of the regular army. 
 
 The number of young men annually liable to the 
 conscription is 852,000, of whom about one-half are 
 exempted by lot. If the term of service were reduced 
 from five to three years, the state would, in a short 
 time, be able to have 4,000,000 regular troops, without 
 having recourse to the militia reserves. The Russian 
 journals refer with jubilation to these practically in- 
 exhaustible resources as compared with other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 At present there is no such thing as a force of irreg- 
 ulars, but it is pointed out that nuclei for troops of 
 that description exist in ample measure among the 
 tribes of Central Asia, of the Caucasus, and of the 
 Transcaspian provinces. 
 
 In addition to 235,000 conscripts to be called out 
 this year, 2400 new recruits are to be raised in Kuban, 
 Terek, and the Transcaucasian province. 
 
 Our first day's sight-seeing took us to St. Isaac's 
 
st. Isaac's cathedral. 103 
 
 Cathedral, which is at one end of the Nevski Pros- 
 pect, the monastery of Alexander Nevski, three miles 
 away, being at the other. 
 
 St. Isaac's stands in one of the largest open spaces in 
 the city, and is surrounded by other magnificent build- 
 ings and monuments ; on approaching it we passed 
 through a grand and lofty archway, from each side of 
 which, in a sort of semicircle, extended wings of tall 
 and handsome buildings, forming one side of a vast 
 square, in the centre of which stood the Alexander 
 Column, surmounted by the figure of an angel bearing 
 a cross. It is a monolith of red granite, eighty-four 
 feet in height, and stands on a pedestal twenty-four 
 feet high, the whole height being one hundred and 
 fifty feet. The shaft is the largest monolith in the 
 world. The pedestal is a beautifully finished piece of 
 work, and weighs four hundred tons. It is an enor- 
 mous cube of twenty-five feet, of red granite, and 
 bears the inscription : " To Alexander I., Grateful 
 Russia." 
 
 Opposite stands the Winter Palace, which, with the 
 exception of the palace of Versailles and the Vatican 
 at Rome, is the largest palace in the world designed for 
 a residence, and at the left rises the magnificent cathe- 
 dral, grand in its proportions and simple in its architec- 
 ture. One should stand and view it for a while, to 
 take in all its noble porticos, magnificent dome, grand 
 entrances, superb, highly polished monoliths, and its 
 wealth of carved stone-work. It is the grandest cathe- 
 dral in Northern Europe, and I cannot recall one, save 
 St. Peter's at Rome, that so impressed me with its 
 grandeur and beauty. 
 
 It is built in the usual form of a Greek cross, of four 
 equal sides, having an imposing entrance at each of 
 
104 THE GRAND ENTRANCES. 
 
 these sides. At each of these entrances are three 
 broad flights of steps, of Finland granite, and each one 
 of these flights of steps is cut from one solid block of 
 granite, implying an enormous outlay of labor and 
 expense. Indeed, the display of the products of Rus- 
 sia's quarries and mines of granite, malachite, por- 
 phyry, lapis lazuli, rhodonite, and other stones, as seen 
 in the superb columns in this church, both within and 
 without, strikes the visitor with wonder and amaze- 
 ment by their size, cutting, and exquisite finish. 
 
 Each of the great entrances to the cathedral has 
 twenty-eight magnificent pillars supporting its portico, 
 and each of these is sixty feet in height, seven feet in 
 diameter ; all are monoliths or single pieces of granite, 
 perfectly round and beautifully polished and wrought. 
 Their Corinthian capitals are of bronze, and uphold an 
 enormous frieze of stone, above which is the ornamen- 
 tal pediment — that triangular part of the portico 
 bounded by the edges of the roof; upon the point or 
 summit of each of the pediments was a group of huge 
 bronze figures. Recollect there are four of these grand 
 entrances, each with pillars sixty feet high, with their 
 Corinthian capitals and bases of bronze ; one hundred 
 and twelve pillars in all, as smooth as if made from 
 run metal, and larger than those in the Pantheon at 
 Rome. 
 
 In the pediments and at the angles and corners of 
 the building are huge bronze figures of martyrs, saints, 
 and apostles. The cupola which rises from the centre 
 is two hundred and ninety-six feet in height, and, as I 
 looked up at its great dome glittering with its golden 
 covering, I counted the beautiful granite pillars up 
 there that supported it, thirty in number, and just 
 above them a circle of about that number of openings 
 
AN ARCHITECTURAL WONDER. 105 
 
 or windows ; then came the glorious dome, and rising 
 above it, flashing in the sunlight, was the huge gilded 
 cross, at an altitude of three hundred and thirty-six feet 
 above the ground. There are four smaller cupolas, at 
 angles of the building, in which bells are placed. 
 
 The great bronze figures that adorn the pediments 
 are eight feet high, and my guide stated that there 
 were no fewer than sixty-three statues and fifty-one 
 bas-reliefs, and nearly a hundred alto-relievo busts. 
 The principal dome is built of iron, and is sixty-six feet 
 in diameter. It is covered with copper and overlaid 
 with gold, one hundred and eighty-five pounds (avoir- 
 dupois) of the precious metal being required for the 
 gilding. 
 
 Round and round this architectural wonder and tri- 
 umph you should go again and again to get a realizing 
 sense of its wonderful proportions, to grasp it in your 
 mind and carry away the never-to-be-forgotten impres- 
 sion that it creates, like St. Peter's at Rome. How this 
 vast weight could be sustained- upon the swampy soil 
 of St. Petersburg is a wonder. . It is said that myriads 
 of piles, each twenty-one feet in length, were driven 
 for its foundation, and at an expense of over a million of 
 dollars. The whole building had cost, when completed, 
 with its magnificent marble carvings and decorations, 
 over fifteen millions of dollars. The cathedral was 
 consecrated in 1858. 
 
 But if amazed at the grand proportions and simple 
 architecture of the exterior, how much more is the 
 visitor astonished by the splendor and wealth of the 
 interior ! It is a bewildering mass of magnificent mar- 
 ble, precious stones, gilding, and sumptuous carving 
 and decoration. Ingenuity seems to have been ex- 
 hausted in the elegant working of obdurate and stub- 
 
106 BARBARIC SPLENDOR. 
 
 born stone into beautiful architectural proportions, and 
 in presenting costly material in such abundance as to 
 render its value, there at least, apparently insignificant. 
 
 There are great malachite pillars thirty feet high, 
 huge columns of lapis lazuli worth thirty thousand dol- 
 lars each, superb rhodonite work, a sort of rose-colored 
 granite, and another the color of black lead, nearly as 
 hard as iron, but susceptible of exquisite polish, and 
 wrought so beautifully by the stone-cutters and sculp- 
 tors that it looked like run metal. 
 
 The entire floors and walls of the cathedral are of 
 the costliest and most elegant native marbles, of various 
 colors ; on every side, jasper, porphyry, and other valu- 
 able stone are wrought into the building from floor to 
 ceiling. There is a small sanctuary or inner temple, 
 which is a gorgeous affair, its beautiful dome being 
 upheld by eight Corinthian pillars of malachite, each 
 eight feet high. These pillars, my guide-book tells me, 
 contain thirty-four thousand pounds of malachite, and 
 cost twenty-five thousand pounds sterling. 
 
 The magnificent proportions of the great dome, 
 the gorgeousness of the golden screen, or iconastos, 
 which shuts off a sort of inner sanctuary for the 
 priest, the superb mosaics and paintings, the blaze of 
 man}* little candles before decorated shrines, the soft 
 mellow twilight that pervades the interior, all combine 
 to impress the beholder. Added to this, I was fortu- 
 nate enough to arrive while service was going on, and 
 heard some of that superb intoning, that marvellous 
 bass singing, to be heard only in Russia. The priest 
 who stood before the altar-screen had a wonderful 
 voice ; it was like that of a full-toned organ-pipe, and 
 rang clear and musical, filling the building with its 
 melody. 
 
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. 107 
 
 St. Isaac's was forty years in process of building, 
 being completed in 1858, and its name is derived from 
 a saint in the Greek liturgy, St. Isaac the Dalmatian, 
 not the patriarch we read of in the Bible. The bell 
 of this cathedral weighs fifty-three thousand pounds. 
 
 Dressed in a long black robe, with a sort of brimless, 
 bell-crowned hat upon his head, the priest chanted, in 
 deep, sonorous tones, a sort of service, which was taken 
 up and repeated in a different key by eight or ten 
 others, whose voices were in perfect unison, and 
 sounded like an organ performance, as the notes re- 
 sounded through the vast edifice ; there was no musi- 
 cal accompaniment whatever. 
 
 There are no seats in Russian churches ; the worship- 
 pers all stand when not kneeling. The poor people 
 come in, and near the entrance purchase for a small 
 fee one or two candles, about the size of a lead-pencil, 
 of a priest who has them for sale. After lighting one, 
 each goes to one of the shrines, that of his patron 
 saint, — every Russian has one, — and, after bowing 
 before it, lights his candle at the holy lamp, and sticks 
 it in a large gilt or silvered frame placed there for 
 that purpose. He then kneels or prostrates himself 
 till his head touches the pavement, and there remains 
 a short time, repeating his prayers, or rises to his 
 knees and reverently crosses himself. The sale of wax 
 candles seems to be quite a productive traffic for the 
 church. 
 
 In departing from the churches, you find on each 
 side of the porch, just outside, a line of begging nuns 
 and monks, from four to twelve in number. These 
 are authorized beggars, from different monasteries and 
 nunneries. They stand with a prayer-book — open at 
 a certain text, I suppose — or with a plate, in which 
 
108 BEGGING MONKS AND NUNS. 
 
 is a bit of cloth, on which is embroidered a cross, and, 
 as you pass by, smilingly solicit alms for their institu- 
 tions. I was told that the begging nuns, after having 
 obtained a certain sum, were comfortably supported 
 during the remainder of their lives. 
 
 There are said to be about eight hundred convents in 
 Russia. Abbots of some of the larger monasteries get 
 an income, in some cases, of ten thousand pounds a 
 year, and abbesses nearly as much. A large income is 
 derived from the sale of holy relics, images, charms 
 against sickness, holy tapers, and wedding rings. Rus- 
 sians of wealth, also, pay large sums for sepulture with- 
 in monasteries, and most families of rank are buried 
 within monasteries or churches. 
 
 The churches seem at all times to have a throng of 
 worshippers, and each shrine, image, and chapel a 
 group crossing themselves before it. The poorer 
 people are very devout and very superstitious, and pay 
 far more attention to their devotions and demonstra- 
 tions of reverence than I have ever seen in Latin 
 countries. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The poor, wretched, sheepskin-clad peasant that is 
 spoken of by travellers one seldom sees in St. Peters- 
 burg, for that is the Paris of Russia ; indeed, the 
 accommodations at our hotel, and the general appear- 
 ance of the interior of the large stores, reminded 
 me of those in New York. Then, the broad and 
 beautiful avenues, — there seemed to be no alleys or 
 narrow streets, — the grand squares and magnificent 
 piles of buildings ranging block after block in long 
 lines on the Nevski Prospect and other great streets, 
 and the grand public buildings astonished us, for so 
 little has been written and said of them that it was a 
 new revelation instead of the actual realization of 
 others' descriptions. 
 
 The grand and splendidly built bridges over the 
 river excited our admiration, and broad, well built 
 quays with the lofty stone palaces and residences ; 
 but these, as well as the quays themselves, we were 
 told, were not what they seemed, of solid stone, but 
 imitations in stucco and plaster. 
 
 Of the interior of these imposing structures we had 
 little opportunity of judging during our brief sojourn, 
 but if they were on the scale as regards apartments that 
 their exteriors indicated they must have been vast and 
 magnificent. I was told that many of the Russian 
 noblemen and men of wealth had banquet-halls, 
 conservatories, and elegant winter gardens enclosed in 
 their residences. 
 
 109 
 
110 OUK LADY OF KAZAN. 
 
 We started out behind our waiting steeds early one 
 Sunday morning to see the "Cathedral of our Lady of 
 Kazan," as it is called, going there first in preference 
 to another church at which it was rumored the 
 emperor would visit for his devotion, and on account 
 of which the public would not be admitted until after 
 twelve o'clock, noon. It is rarely that tourists, unless 
 remaining at Petersburg for several days, get a good 
 sight of the emperor ; like all royal personages, his 
 carriage is driven very rapidly through the streets, and 
 his intended movements under the present state of 
 affairs are not publicly known. 
 
 On our route we passed one of the entrances of the 
 royal palace, about the door of which were lounging and 
 waiting about twenty Cossacks of the royal guard, and 
 upon the other side of the street a crowd awaiting the 
 emperor, who was expected to come out at that portal — 
 very likely to wait in vain, as our guide informed us 
 many English and American tourists had done, this 
 assemblage of guards being often a ruse designed to 
 deceive as to the point at which he was likely to 
 emerge. The string of guards, police and extraor- 
 dinary precautions to guard the czar that we read of 
 in the newspapers, we saw nothing of. 
 
 The Kazan Cathedral is on the Nevski Prospect, 
 and any one who has seen St. Peter's at Rome at once 
 recognizes the imitation of its colonnade of pillars. 
 This church is built in the' shape of a cross. It is 238 
 feet long from end to end of each bar of the cross, and 
 182 feet wide. 
 
 The interior is imposing and magnificent. As we 
 drove up to one of the three grand entrances, our 
 driver halted discreetly about a score of paces away 
 from another carriage — like our own, except that a 
 
LOST IN IMMENSITY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 uniformed officer sat on the box, beside the driver, and 
 a couple of mounted guards were near it. At first we 
 thought the czar was to be the occupant, as we saw a 
 tall uniformed figure emerge from the cathedral, but it 
 proved to be the Grand Duke Michael, his uncle, who 
 .seated himself in the vehicle, drove directly past and 
 within three or four yards of our carriage, courteously 
 and smilingly returning our salute as he passed. 
 
 Upon entering the cathedral, we found but very few 
 persons within, certainly not over twenty or thirty, 
 who were lost in its immensity, and we considered our- 
 selves fortunate, as there would be no service for two 
 hours, in having abundance of time to inspect the 
 interior. The view upwards into the great cupola, that 
 rises 220 feet above the floor, is very fine ; the cupola 
 is supported by four huge pillars of Finland granite, 
 and from each of these four pillars extends a row to 
 the screen between nave and altar, and the three 
 grand entrances of the church. 
 
 These pillars are monoliths, 56 in number and 35 
 feet in height. Like those of St. Isaac's, they rest on 
 bases of solid bronze, and have Corinthian capitals of 
 the same material. This church is named for Our 
 Lady of Kazan, on account of a legend, that an image 
 of the Virgin which it possesses was miraculously 
 preserved amid the ashes of a conflagration of the old 
 Tartar city of Kazan, about 1570, and brought to 
 St. Petersburg about 1820. 
 
 We viewed the beautiful perspective views of the 
 church at different points, and the groups of captured 
 flags taken from Turkey, Persia, and France by the 
 Russians, those of the latter being the historic French 
 eagles captured from Napoleon during his memorable 
 Russian campaign. There were also the huge keys of 
 
112 AN" IKOXASTOS. 
 
 captured fortresses, suspended from the church pillars — 
 among them those of Hamburg, Dresden, and Utrecht, 
 also the captured baton of Davoust, one of Napoleon's 
 marshals, who earned his title of Prince, at the battle 
 of Eckmiihl, in one of the fiercest cavalry fights on 
 record. 
 
 But the most wonderful thing here is the screen, — or 
 ikonastos, as they call it, — a partition in Russian 
 churches between the nave and the altar. This screen 
 is made of solid silver, which was originally plundered 
 from different Russian churches by the French, but 
 was recaptured from them by the Cossacks, during the 
 disastrous retreat from Moscow. Not only is the 
 screen of silver, but so also is a balustrade in front of 
 it. In the centre of the screen, the name of God is 
 wrought in precious stones, and before it stand four 
 huge solid silver candelabra. 
 
 By virtue of the persuasive powers of our guide, we 
 enjoyed the largest liberty, and were permitted close 
 examination of the wonderful portrait of the Virgin 
 which is hung upon the screen. This picture, which 
 is the usual portrait size, is entirely covered, with the 
 exception of the face, with gold and precious stones of 
 rare value,- diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, 
 one huge one of the latter description being that pre- 
 sented by a grand-duchess. This altar-screen and its 
 surroundings were one blaze of gold, silver, and gems, 
 and in such abundance as to cause them to appear as if 
 but of comparatively small value, for it seemed almost 
 incredible that real stones should be distributed so 
 plentifully and lavishly as they were here. But they 
 were real, nevertheless. 
 
 As we were standing near to and closely inspecting 
 this jewelled wonder, a bell rang violently behind the 
 
A VIEW OF THE CZAK. 113 
 
 screen. Pille} r , our guide, rushed to us, and, in startled 
 tones, said : — 
 
 " Come away quickly as you can ! Here comes the 
 emperor ! " 
 
 We stood not upon the order of our going, and had 
 scarcely got outside the rail ere the tall figure of the 
 emperor, followed by the empress, passed in and on to 
 a position in front of the jewelled picture, where they 
 knelt for perhaps five minutes, and, let us suppose, 
 said a prayer or two. 
 
 Standing some thirty paces away, where our guide 
 had pulled us, and not having the " dread and fear of 
 kings," I determined upon having a nearer view of His 
 Majesty, and therefore approached to within ten paces 
 of the silver rail, opposite the point of exit. Rising 
 from his knees, the emperor advanced with a rapid 
 step, and, catching sight of us, recognized our saluta- 
 tion by a courteous bow, a pleasant smile, and a raising 
 of his hand to his helmet cap. He wore a gray mili- 
 tary overcoat, cavalry sabre, riding-boots with spurs, 
 and a military helmet cap, like the Russian helmet 
 except that it lacked the projecting spike on the 
 crown. His form was broad, heavy, and stalwart, and 
 he had the air of a coarse, overfed man, stout but not 
 fat with good living. He walked at an ordinary gait, 
 bowing now and then in response to the salutes of the 
 few persons in the church, and, as he passed out, we 
 heard the shouts of the people, as his carriage drove 
 away. 
 
 The empress was habited in a close-fitting dress of 
 dark green cloth, a dark bonnet and lace mask veil, 
 and, from the hasty glimpse we caught of her, seemed 
 quite a pretty woman. Not a single guard or attendant 
 came in with the royal pair or escorted them out: 
 
114 THE WINTER PALACE. 
 
 from the door to the altar-screen they were utterly 
 without attendants, and we might easily in a dozen 
 paces have crossed their path or intercepted them, for 
 there certainly appeared to be no one to have pre- 
 vented our so doing. 
 
 Our guide congratulated us upon our rare good-for- 
 tune in obtaining this near view of His Majesty with 
 so little' trouble ; it was, he declared, an unusual 
 occurrence, and tourists generally counted themselves 
 fortunate who saw him at a distance, as he rapidly 
 drove through the streets of the city. It certainly 
 upset all my preconceived ideas of caution on the part 
 of the czar, who, I supposed, would have been guarded 
 by a double line of soldiers, and every one excluded 
 from the church in which he made his devotions. 
 
 There is so much to claim the attention of the sight- 
 seer and tourist in St. Petersburg that an attempt to 
 see all thoroughly would occupy many months' time, 
 and a description thereof occupy many hundreds of 
 pages. This, I presume, accounts for what appear to 
 be the very meagre descriptions that we find have been 
 thus far given of the wonders of the Russian capital. 
 
 I can give but passing mention of the magnificent 
 Winter Palace, which is the residence of the emperor 
 and court during the winter season. This building is 
 450 feet in length by 850 in width, and during the 
 court season is occupied by six thousand persons. The 
 palace contains superb galleries of paintings, chiefly 
 representations of Russian victories and portraits of 
 celebrated Russian generals. Its great audience-cham- 
 ber is an apartment 140 feet long and 60 feet wide. 
 Other notable rooms are Peter the Great's throne-room 
 and the beautiful White Saloon, so called from its dec- 
 orations of pure white and gold. The grand staircase 
 
THE HERMITAGE. 115 
 
 is another feature, and among the wonders that the 
 tourist must not miss are the Russian crown-jewels, in- 
 cluding the Orloff diamond, which weighs 194J carats 
 and is said to be the largest in the world. 
 
 The vast national museum, known as the Hermitage, 
 like the British Museum or the Vatican, is of such 
 extent that the tourist wonders if he can carry away 
 a correct impression of any portion of it, in the all too 
 brief period which his sojourn, be it even one of weeks, 
 allows him. 
 
 The Hermitage was founded by that remarkable 
 woman, Catherine the Great, and was designed by her 
 as a place of retirement from the cares of state, and 
 where she might receive men of letters, great artists, 
 sculptors, and philosophers. Here she proposed to 
 gather together specimens of the works of great 
 artists, and to rival the collections in the great Euro- 
 pean capitals and in the art galleries. The work 
 which she began has been faithfully carried out, as 
 the traveller who visits them will see for himself 
 that the collections of Rome, Florence, and Paris are 
 dwarfed by it. 
 
 Here is a collection of magnificent pictures, one of 
 the finest in Northern Europe ; for here may be seen 
 fine examples of Teniers, Rubens, Guido, Rembrandt, 
 Velasquez, Carlo Dolci, Van Dyck, Snyders, Correggio, 
 and many other celebrated masters. The building is a 
 great parallelogram, 515 by 375 feet, with a magnificent 
 entrance. A vestibule upheld by ten caryatides, twelve 
 or fifteen feet high, cut from granite, with statues of 
 sculptors : artists and painters are placed in niches, and 
 you enter a great hall supported by the usual beautiful 
 colonnade of pillars, cut from Finland granite. 
 
 The picture galleries are arranged for different 
 
116 ART GALLERIES. 
 
 schools of art. For instance, one is devoted to the 
 Italian school, in which the superb picture of the "Dis- 
 pute of the Doctors," by Guido Reni, and his " David 
 with the Head of Goliath," figure, the " Feast of Cleo- 
 patra," by Tiepolo, " St. Cecilia," by Carlo Dolci, and 
 scores of others, each one of which is a feast to the 
 art-lover. In this hall were four large candelabra, of 
 beautiful violet jasper. Russia seems to be the home 
 of elegant and precious stones, and of workmen who 
 rival the old sculptors in their skill of carving them. 
 Another large hall is filled with works of Flemish 
 artists, a third with those of the Spanish school, 
 another with works of French artists, and another 
 contains an English collection. 
 
 The numerous examples of the works of great 
 artists strike the inexperienced traveller, visiting 
 Russia for the first time, and who has a vague idea 
 that he has left artistic collections behind him on 
 crossing the frontier, with astonishment. For instance, 
 here is one room full of beautiful specimens from 
 Raphael's pencil, sixty in number, and another con- 
 taining his frescos, another with several fine Titians, 
 another full of Potter, Teniers, and Wouvermans, some 
 of the best of the last-named artist's I ever saw, and 
 one, as our guide-book truly informed us, without the 
 usual white horse. Then, besides these are beautiful 
 Rembrandts, Rubenses, Gerard Dows, Correggios, great 
 pictures of fruit and game by Snyders, twenty fine 
 Murillos, over thirty Van Dycks, and many others I 
 cannot recall, to say nothing of the beautiful collection 
 of the works of artists of more modern date, of the 
 German, French, and Russian schools. Nowhere ex- 
 cept in Spain is there such a fine exposition of Spanish 
 art as is exhibited in these galleries. 
 
THE GALLITZIN GALLERY. 117 
 
 Two of Canova's mdst famous statues — the "Danc- 
 ing Girl " and " Hebe " — stand at the head of a marble 
 staircase in the Hermitage. 
 
 The Emperor of Russia had, at the time of the 
 .author's visit, just purchased the famous Gallitzin 
 collection of pictures, for the Hermitage Gallery, the 
 price being one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. 
 The Gallitzin collection, which is one of the finest 
 in Russia, was principally purchased in Germany and 
 Italy, during the early part of the present century. 
 The gem of the gallery is one of the two Crucifixions 
 painted by Raphael in his early days, which was long 
 attributed to Perugino. The other Crucifixion by 
 Raphael, belonging to the same period, is at Dudley 
 House, having been bought in Italy by the late Lord 
 Dudley. 
 
 But, besides the wealth of pictorial art, there is much 
 else in the Hermitage to claim the attention, and it is a 
 pity that no popular exposition in the English lan- 
 guage of the contents of this wonderful museum has 
 yet been published. Its archaeological collection ap- 
 pears to be one of great value and interest : the results 
 of the excavations at Kertch ; the collection of Greek 
 vases is a superb one ; the numismatic collection is 
 quite large, including a splendid series of the coinage 
 of Russia. 
 
 Archaeologists find the collection from the excavations 
 of Kertch to be the most unique and extraordinary 
 in existence. Kertch was the ancient Panticapaeum, 
 one of the chief Greek colonies of the Euxine, and the 
 excavations and discoveries made by the explorers of 
 the Russian government have brought forth a collec- 
 tion of beautiful goldsmithery and antique vases that 
 exceeds in extent that of any museum in Europe. 
 
118 PRICELESS ARCHAEOLOGICAL TREASURES. 
 
 The gold-work is of various races and ages. The 
 earliest Greek examples date from about the fifth 
 century B. C. ; and there is a quantity of curious 
 Scythian work, that defies exact chronology. 
 
 The splendor and delicacy of some of the gold work 
 is wonderful, when we consider the age in which it 
 was produced, and the visitor finds not a meagre or 
 even moderate collection to study, but is fairly bewil- 
 dered among the numerous cases of gold bracelets 
 and necklaces, ear-rings, finger-rings, buckles, figures 
 of animals, crowns of gold-leaf, silver vases, chains, 
 charms, and ornaments of all kinds. There was a 
 splendid pair of gold ear-rings, bearing the head of a 
 goddess, beautifully executed, the head, hair, face, and 
 ornaments of the head all superbly wrought, and in a 
 manner that a workman of to-day might feel proud of, 
 and yet it was made in the fifth century B. C. 
 
 Then, there were beautifully wrought necklaces, one 
 ornamented with figures of beasts, and another with 
 a delicately interlaced pattern covered with gold-dust, 
 the style of which modern jewellers have striven in 
 vain to imitate. Curious ancient silver-work, includ- 
 ing beautifully ornamented vases, are placed here, and 
 belong, I am told, to the Sassanian period, and furnish 
 partial explanation of the origin of Arab and Mesopo- 
 tamian metal work. 
 
 Among the Grecian antiquities was a helmet, exactly 
 such a one as we see in the illustrated books of the sto- 
 ries of the old Greek heroes, and the curious thing re- 
 specting this helmet is that the head of the owner is still 
 with it, and was found in it. The copper head-piece 
 was not proof, however, against the tremendous force 
 with which it was hit, evidently by a stone from a sling, 
 judging from the smashed-in fracture, which bent the 
 
GRECIAN ANTIQUITIES. HO 
 
 metal like paper, and cracked the skull of the wearer 
 likewise, as that remnant of mortality shows to-day. 
 Another interesting object is the sarcophagus of a 
 young man ; upon the sides of this is beautifully sculp- 
 tured the story of his life as a student and young- 
 man, showing his resistance of temptation, and his 
 advancement in wisdom and scholarship. As one 
 looks upon the artistic beauty of such work, even 
 after time had wrought its work of so many years 
 upon it, he cannot help imagining what a city of artis- 
 tic splendor the ancient Grecian capital must have 
 been in its time, and doubting if much advancement in 
 artistic skill lias been made since. 
 
 The Russian government is prosecuting discoveries 
 far north of the Ural Mountains, and near Samarcand, 
 and has an unparalleled collection of other antiquities 
 displayed here, such as rude Tartar silver-work, early 
 Russian cloisonne enamels, gold bracelets with Arabic 
 inscriptions, and curious Gneco-Scythic terra-cotta 
 ware dug up at Samarcand. There is also a collec- 
 tion of three thousand Greek vases, many bearing 
 beautiful designs, such as ships, animals, and chariots ; 
 some of the finest of these are of the seventh century 
 B. C. The numismatic collection is very large, and 
 must be of immense value ; the Russian and oriental 
 sections are the most remarkable ; the oriental, I was 
 told, numbers over eight thousand pieces, among which 
 is the splendid gold indemnity that was paid by the 
 Shah of Persia after the war of 1828 ; it also includes 
 some curious pieces of great weight. 
 
 There are over two hundred thousand specimens in 
 the entire collection, and one of the most interesting 
 portions of it is the section devoted to the coins of 
 ancient Greece and Rome, with which are displayed 
 
120 NUMISMATIC CURIOS. 
 
 several hundred curious Athenian coins. Among the 
 curiosities of this collection are some rough junks of 
 silver, a quarter of a pound each, the " roubles " of the 
 fifteenth century, and the square copeck and half-copeck 
 of iron. 
 
 A most interesting collection is one contained in 
 three cases of ancient English coins. Only think of 
 rinding in a Russian museum a collection of coins of 
 the reigns of the English kings Ethelred II., Canute, 
 and Hardicanute ! Certainly this collection is most 
 remarkable, and one that, I should judge, numismatists 
 would find to contain many rare and even unique 
 specimens. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Peter the Great is canonized as a saint. He seems 
 to be considered almost a god by the lower order of 
 Russians ; the peasants rub their foreheads in the dirt 
 before the house he lived in, and bow and cross them- 
 selves before his pictures with the same reverence they 
 bestow upon saints of the church. Peter was one of 
 the heroes of our school-boy days; one of the principal 
 figures in our story-books, and the prominent one in 
 the meagre sketch of Russia given in school histories, 
 his cruelty and tyranny being carefully kept out of sight. 
 So we were curious to see, and glad to have opportu- 
 nity of inspecting closely, the relics of this remarkable 
 man, preserved in one of the rooms of the Hermitage. 
 We grasped in our hands the iron rod he was said to 
 have used as a walking-stick, saw the wax cast taken 
 from his face while living, took in hand the mathemat- 
 ical instruments that he used, saw the clothes that he 
 wore, the turning-lathe and carving-tools, and speci- 
 mens of engraving on copper executed by him, a 
 notched stick, showing Peter's height to be six feet 
 eight inches, that of his valet seven feet, and many 
 other interesting relics. 
 
 Peter unquestionably did more than any other 
 monarch to advance Russia in civilization. Possess- 
 ing enormous power of endurance, perseverance, and 
 great versatility, he appears to have acted under the 
 impression that, under his direction and force of will, 
 Russia could gain or advance in his reign to the point 
 
 121 
 
122 ELEGANT AND FANCIFUL TRIFLES. 
 
 that it had taken other nations hundreds of years to 
 attain. 
 
 It is a wonder to see what mechanical work this 
 monarch made himself master of, and what he accom- 
 plished was so very far in advance of his time in his 
 own country that we cannot cease to wonder at it. 
 He built and navigated his own boat, translated works 
 into Russian, learned the carpenter's trade, how to 
 engrave on copper, built navies, and erected the first 
 schools in Russia to teach arithmetic. 
 
 After passing Peter the Great's room, we came to 
 another, in which was a wonderful collection of snuff- 
 boxes, such as would have made the eyes of a virtuoso 
 or collector sparkle with delight. They were chiefly 
 the gifts of sovereigns, and were resplendent with 
 jewels, or adorned with beautifully painted miniatures 
 of their donors, or monograms and ciphers in pre- 
 cious stones. Following still further this wonderful 
 museum, the visitor finds case after case of the most 
 elegant and costly bric-a-brac and jewelry, till the 
 brain is weary, and the limbs fatigued, in endeavor- 
 ing to give even a cursory glance at them. 
 
 For instance, there is a whole case of curious 
 watches, Nuremberg eggs, watches shaped like ducks, 
 and other quaint conceits ; a case of carved ivory 
 work; the silver and gold to}^s of Catherine II.; 
 caskets covered with great pearls and precious stones ; 
 plumes made of diamonds and other gems; crystal 
 cups covered with diamonds; huge silver goblets, 
 elaborately engraved ; bouquets of flowers, formed 
 entirely of emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and other 
 precious stones ; Dresden china ornamented with 
 diamonds: cups of rock-crystal: superb ivory carved 
 work; Chinese jade work; gold and silver filigree 
 
A CHAOS OF IMPRESSIONS. 123 
 
 work, a large and curious collection; then a case hold- 
 ing a collection of curious and historic finger-rings. 
 
 I am giving but the briefest glance at this wonderful 
 array of curios, before which the celebrated Green Vaults 
 of Dresden, wonderful as they are, are fairly dwarfed. 
 
 Among the droll but at the same time interesting 
 collections was a great case full of curious and historic 
 pocket-books ! Here was one ornamented with 
 diamonds and rubies, that belonged to the wife of 
 Frederick William the Great ; another of King 
 Augustus of Poland ; another that was given to the 
 first queen of Prussia, by Peter the Great. Verily, if 
 any artful dodger could have stolen one of these 
 pocket-books, it would have been a rich haul, even 
 though not "lined," as Fagin expressed it. 
 
 After all this lavish display of fanciful work, the 
 collection of gems, although one of the largest in 
 existence, seems tame till one begins to examine the 
 beautiful designs and the antique and wonderful 
 cutting displayed. 
 
 This collection is one of the largest in existence. 
 Among them I remember a superb ruby, four inches 
 long, cut into a bust of Peter the Great. 
 
 Library and sculpture gallery are included within 
 this great museum, which might occupy weeks of one's 
 lime, had he it to spare, but from which I emerged 
 with a handful of guide-books, and a chaotic impres- 
 sion of pictures, diamonds, emeralds, snuff-boxes, coins, 
 rich antiques, rare vases, curious relics, wonderful 
 antiquities, and rich rarities, such as it is seldom the 
 lot of man to look upon, and this, too, in what previous 
 impressions had led me to believe was the least likely 
 country in which to find them. And here let me say 
 that, without such a guide as James Pilley, whom we 
 
124 AN INDEFATIGABLE CICERONE. 
 
 took care to engage for our entire stay, I doubt 
 whether we could have seen one-half that we saw, 
 gained admission to half the places of interest that we 
 did, or have comprehended what we did see so 
 thoroughly as he made us through his skilful guidance. 
 
 The man deserves mention as quite a remarkable 
 personage in many respects, especially as compared 
 with the various valets de places I have encountered 
 and employed in various other countries. 
 
 An Englishman, he has lived and been a guide 
 thirty years in Russia, speaks the language fluently, 
 and appears to be personally acquainted with every 
 custodian in Petersburg, Moscow, and Nijni. He 
 shakes hands with head-priests and nuns, is greeted 
 by abbots and lady superiors, knows officers, police- 
 men, janitors, and door-keepers, and, moreover, under- 
 stands how to economize time and keep his party hard 
 at work every moment. I think he rather enjoyed 
 having two men that did not tire down with day after 
 day of sight-seeing, — i. e., during the day, — but, after 
 an all-day work of eight or ten hours or more, it did, 
 after a while, seem rather a test of endurance for this 
 indefatigable man to call, after he had allowed us an 
 hour and a half for dinner, and say the carriage was 
 "ready for the evening concert garden, gentlemen — 
 carriage is engaged for all day, gentlemen, up to 
 midnight." After one or two evening excursions, 
 however, we gave our guide and driver the benefit of 
 the time that was ours after 7 P. M., for the reason 
 that rest was absolute^ necessary. 
 
 Besides a good guide, assuming that you get a 
 good one, who is reasonably honest, let the tourist not 
 stint him, if any pinch comes, for a bribe or douceur 
 where it will be of service. This, in Russia, procures 
 
RUSSIA — THE DREAM AND THE REALITY. 125 
 
 much very desirable and prompt service, and also some 
 quite important privileges, as I shall show further on. 
 
 We found no difficulty on account of any stringent 
 police regulations, which we had reason to expect from 
 various published accounts of travellers who have got 
 into difficulties. It may be because our guide 
 thoroughly arranged matters for us, or because the 
 much-talked-of espionage as regards foreigners, es- 
 pecially Americans, does not now exist in the large 
 Russian cities. Our guide laughed at some of the 
 stories that we rehearsed to him, and, on inquiry as to 
 any line of conduct, remarked that one had only to 
 behave like a gentleman, as he would in any other 
 large city, and not deliberately break the laws of the 
 land, and no difficulties would be experienced. 
 
 It might be as well not to be too outspoken on politi- 
 cal matters, and especially in condemning the govern- 
 ment and advocating revolutionary measures, in mixed 
 company or public places. A curious case was related 
 to me of an adventure which occurred a few years ago 
 here to an American traveller, who, with that freedom 
 of speech which characterizes, some of our countrymen 
 in foreign countries, was especially bitter in his con- 
 demnation of the policy of the Russian government. 
 Not only this, but, in the matter of regulations at 
 places of interest which he visited, he did not hesitate 
 to find fault without scruple or reserve. 
 
 Just after he had finished dinner one day, the land- 
 lord of the hotel, pale and trembling, came to him 
 with the intelligence that a messenger of the police 
 desired to see him. On repairing to the next room, he 
 was greeted in English, with but a slight accent, by a 
 gentlemanly-appearing individual, who said: — 
 
 " I have the honor to address Mr. Blank?" 
 
126 A BLUSTERER CONGED. 
 
 " That is my name." 
 
 " I have the honor to be the bearer of your passport, 
 and also to state that the train leaves for the German 
 frontier to-morrow morning, at half-past eight o'clock." 
 
 " But I am not going by that train ! I intend visit- 
 ing Moscow." 
 
 " That will be impossible." 
 
 "Impossible! Why?" 
 
 "Because I have special orders to escort Monsieur 
 to the frontier." 
 
 " You have orders ! I want no escort. What if I 
 refuse ? " 
 
 "But you will not refuse, I am certain, when I 
 inform you I act by the orders of the imperial po- 
 lice ! " 
 
 " The imperial police ! " 
 
 " Certainly. The utmost courtesy will be shown 
 Mr. Blank if he promptly complies and is ready with 
 his baggage at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. If 
 he refuses, why — (shrugging his shoulders) — but I 
 know Mr. Blank will be too wise to refuse." 
 
 And the officer bowed himself out, without a glance 
 at the landlord, who stood in one corner, a mute wit- 
 ness of the interview. 
 
 After listening to that individual's explanations as 
 to the probable cause of this expulsion, and the conse- 
 quences of a refusal to obey the order of the police, the 
 American concluded the better part of valor was dis- 
 cretion, and was ready with his luggage at the time 
 appointed, when his caller of the previous evening 
 appeared promptly with a drosky, and both drove to 
 the railroad station. 
 
 Nor did they part here. A comfortable compart- 
 ment on the train was placed at the American's dis- 
 
HOW HE CONSOLED HIMSELF. 127 
 
 posal, while his companion took seat in an adjoining 
 one, and lie soon found the Russian was one vested in 
 authority, from the deference which was paid to him 
 by railroad officials along the route. 
 
 He was affable and polite, and conversed fluently, 
 carefully avoiding any reference to politics. In reply 
 to the query as to why he was escorting his charge, 
 and how the latter had offended, he replied that it was 
 only his duty to carry out the commands of his supe- 
 rior officers, and he must beg to be excused explan- 
 ations. 
 
 The American was sensible enough to press the 
 matter no further, and found his custodian quite an 
 agreeable companion, and his cigars unexceptionable. 
 
 Arrived at the frontier, on dismounting, the official 
 politely remarked to his charge that at this point it 
 would be necessary for him to purchase a ticket for 
 the remainder of the journey, and that here also he 
 had the honor to present hiy adieux, with best wishes 
 for a safe journey to Berlin. He then handed the 
 traveller his passport, which was endorsed with certain 
 Russian characters, and, after the ticket was procured, 
 bowed him into the train, courteously waving his 
 white handkerchief to his late prisoner, as he sped 
 away. 
 
 The latter, in telling the story, is said to have re- 
 marked, with true American satisfaction, that he "got 
 a free pass to the frontier out of the Russian govern- 
 ment, anyhow." 
 
 One of the most remarkable exhibitions we visited 
 in St. Petersburg was the Museum of Imperial Car- 
 riages, a wonderful collection of rich and curious 
 vehicles. Besides the carriages, the rooms contain a 
 splendid collection of Gobelin tapestry, suspended 
 
128 MUSEUM OF IMPERIAL CARRIAGES. 
 
 upon the walls, which alone is worth a visit. Here 
 is one splendid but rather cumbersome vehicle, sent 
 by Frederick the Great to the Empress Elizabeth, a 
 magnificently decorated affair, rich in gilding and 
 splendid upholstery, the arms of Russia on the panels 
 in imitation and real precious stones, but not the most 
 valuable, and surmounted with the imperial crown. 
 Several elegant vehicles are more or less connected 
 with the history of that luxurious Empress, Catherine 
 II. One made in England for her lias the driver's 
 box upheld by carved and gilded eagles, its panels 
 beautifully painted with representations of allegorical 
 subjects, exquisitely done, while on the outside and 
 back are representations of Apollo and the Muses. 
 Another is richly lined with lace, and the panels 
 adorned by beautiful pictures by Gravelot — of Venus 
 bathing, and other subjects ; another, on which gilding, 
 velvet, and imitation precious stones seem to have 
 been exhausted in decorating even to the steps, is also 
 ornamented with paintings on its panels, any one of 
 which would be a valuable addition to a picture gal- 
 lery. These grand carriages are all brought out at 
 each coronation at Moscow, when they are carefully 
 put in order and restored for the occasion. 
 
 But, amid all this collection of richly gilded vehicles, 
 which suggests, to the average American, the " Golden 
 Chariot" of the -circus, the object that attracts the 
 most attention is the sledge built by Peter the Great, 
 with his own hands — indeed, we begin to wonder if 
 there was any species of industry this remarkable mon- 
 arch did not turn his hands to. The vehicle alluded 
 to is rather a clumsy affair, like a small hut, with 
 mica windows, and has a box behind it for clothes 
 and provisions. 
 
A TERRIBLE REMINDER. 129 
 
 The carriage of Alexander II., with the back part 
 all split and shivered by the Nihilist bomb from which 
 he escaped only to be killed after descending therefrom 
 is here, and a reminder and relic of that affair. Still a 
 stronger reminder which we saw is the pavement 
 spattered with his blood, and his sword and other 
 articles bearing the same gory stains, that have been 
 preserved, near the very spot where he fell, in a small 
 temporary temple erected over them, and guarded by 
 a priest, who receives offerings from the faithful, who 
 stop there to pray, in aid of a church which is to be 
 raised on the spot to his memory. 
 
 Stepping into an adjoining apartment, we found it 
 to be a harness and livery room, containing the richly 
 mounted harnesses for all these equipages, and the 
 liveries of nearly a thousand men. All the harness, 
 wherever metal is used, is of silver. The reins are of 
 silver thread and silk. A huge heap of old harness 
 trimmings, a bushel or two of what I took to be plated 
 metal, I was told was solid silver, and so I found it to 
 be on examination, silver that had been taken from old 
 harnesses to be refitted, the metal to go to the melting 
 pot. These royal people seem to deal in gold and 
 silver by the bushel, and diamonds by the quart. 
 
 The imperial stables, near by, are a vast extent of 
 buildings, accommodating nearly five hundred carriage 
 and saddle horses. Murray says: "They will give an 
 idea of the magnificence of the Russian court, as the 
 sum expended in feeding the horses alone is about ten 
 thousand pounds per annum." 
 
 A most interesting place to visit is the Academy of 
 Sciences, an institution founded in 1724, and which 
 contains various collections of great interest and im- 
 portance, and a library of nearly two hundred thousand 
 
130 INTERESTING ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 
 
 volumes and MSS.; among the books are about four- 
 teen hundred in the Chinese language, and nearly ten 
 thousand in various dialects of the East. 
 
 The zoological collection is perhaps the most inter- 
 esting department to foreign visitors. It certainly was 
 to me, for here I saw the unfossilized remains of the 
 gigantic mastodon that I had read and wondered at as 
 one of the wonders of modern times, as it certainly is, 
 being one of the relics of that age of the world, far 
 back in the antediluvian era, that the geologists tell of. 
 
 The skeletons of the great rhinoceros and mastodon 
 are wonderful remains, and more wonderful from the 
 fact that when they were discovered, it will be recol- 
 lected, they were encased in Siberian ice, where they 
 had been preserved for countless ages, and so perfectly 
 preserved that, when revealed by the breaking-away of 
 the ice-cliff, when they were discovered, in 180(3, the 
 bears and wolves came to feed on the flesh that had 
 been preserved for centuries from decay. 
 
 The skeleton of this mastodon, although over ten 
 feet high and about fifteen in length, was that of a 
 young beast, for the entire leg-bones of others that 
 were afterwards found dwarf this, as it in turn does the 
 skeleton of an elephant set up by its side for compari- 
 son. The huge skull of another mammoth, one-third 
 larger than the one on the entire skeleton, also shows 
 that the latter is the remains of a youngster. Some 
 of the mammoth tusks exhibited here are eight and 
 one-half feet in length. A laro-e section of the skin 
 taken from this mammoth is preserved, and still has 
 the reddish-brown hair upon it that distinguished the 
 animal in northern latitudes. 
 
 A capital restoration of this enormous creature, with 
 tusks, hide, hair, etc., all carefully reproduced complete, 
 
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC DEPARTxMENT. 131 
 
 under the direction of skilled naturalists, was exhib- 
 ited, in 1885, at the International Exposition at New 
 Orleans. 
 
 Scarcely of less interest were the remains of a 
 huge species of extinct rhinoceros, upon the head of 
 which still remain the skin and hair, which also still 
 adhere to the feet. Science lias even been able, by 
 analyzing the particles found in the cavities of the 
 teeth of this huge beast, to determine that its food 
 was the branches of young fir-trees. Other fragments 
 of the great beasts of early periods will interest the 
 scientific student. 
 
 One curious feature of the collection was the Eth- 
 nographic Department, which was an exposition of the 
 dresses, arms, implements, etc., of the various races 
 that are under the Russian government, an assortment 
 of wonderful weapons, costumes, and household goods, 
 that was a museum of itself. Bows and arrows, spears 
 and battle-axes, primitive war-clubs, and the chain 
 armor, and decorated Eastern helmets, figures clad in 
 mere skins, and the gay costumes of Circassian sol- 
 diers, head-dresses of peasants, and the bone ornaments 
 of the savage were displayed, and formed a rare and 
 interesting object-lesson respecting the extent and 
 diversity of territory and people under the sway of 
 the Russian sceptre. 
 
 The collection of coins here shows the regular 
 progress of coinage in Russia from the earliest period, 
 when stamped leather passed current, down to the 
 bright gold pieces of the present day. 
 
 The mineralogical collection shows the wonderful 
 mineral resources of the empire, and the anatomical 
 cabinet contains many wonderful curiosities in medical 
 science, of interest not only to the pathological stu- 
 
182 MONUMENT TO PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 dent, but to the ordinary visitor who wishes to be 
 astonished by the monstrosities and curiosities of 
 humanity. 
 
 The skeleton of Peter the Great's valet, who was 
 seven feet in height, is preserved here, and the head 
 of a favorite mistress of Peter is also shown, not a very 
 attractive object now. One must, of course, not leave 
 St. Petersburg without seeing all the relics of Peter 
 the Great, and everything that specially relates to him. 
 He will find them in every direction — in museum, 
 church, palace, and monastery. In one of the great 
 squares, known as Admiralty Square, stands his eques- 
 trian statue, so well known from pictorial representa- 
 tions. It is a spirited and beautiful production, and, 
 like many other celebrated foreign works of art that I 
 had read and heard of, fully came up to my ideal of 
 the reality. 
 
 The attitude is bold and spirited, but is one which is 
 also used in other similar works, the equestrian statue 
 of Jackson, for instance, at Washington, although the 
 latter has nothing like the graceful pose, nor the figure 
 the ease and majestic grace of that of the Russian 
 group. 
 
 The huge rock that forms the pedestal of this statue 
 is in itself a wonder ; it is of granite, weighing fifteen 
 hundred tons, and was brought from a point four or 
 five miles distant from the cit}% by means of rollers 
 and other contrivances, with an infinite deal of labor 
 and expense. 
 
 A story is told of a couple of American sailors who, 
 while out on a frolic, invaded the sacred precincts of 
 this statue, and the bolder of the two climbed, not 
 only upon the pedestal, but upon the bronze horse, 
 and seated himself behind the figure of the great czar, 
 
and was waving his hat in triumph when he was 
 pounced upon and borne off by the police. Next clay 
 before the magistrate, through his captain and the 
 American consul's intervention, he was let off on con- 
 dition that he paid a fine of three hundred roubles. 
 
 It was remonstrated that the fine was a large one 
 for so small an offence. " Quite the contrary," replied 
 the magistrate; "lie who would ride with emperors 
 must pay accordingly." 
 
 Not far from here, on the other side of the cathedral, 
 stands a most elaborate equestrian statue of the Em- 
 peror Nicholas, he that was on the throne at the time 
 of the Crimean War. In addition to the figure of the 
 emperor are life-size figures, those of the empress and 
 her three daughters, which are placed at each corner 
 of the pedestal. In artistic finish and elaborate work 
 this far excels the other, and is a superb and costly 
 affair. But that of Peter, in its grand and spirited 
 attitude and simplicity of surrounding, leaves a more 
 lasting impression. 
 
 The cathedral founded by Peter the Great, known 
 as the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, is named 
 after him and also the Emperor Paul, who is buried 
 there ; it is within what is known as the fortification or 
 fortress. Its spire is, as usual, surmounted by a cross, 
 that glitters in the sunlight three hundred and seventy- 
 one feet above the street — ten feet higher than St. 
 Paul's of London. 
 
 The dome also shines with gilding. All the sov- 
 ereigns of Russia, with the exception of Peter II., are 
 buried here, many of them noted for their barbarous 
 cruelty — deeds that make one shudder to read of. 
 Even Peter himself, with all his ability and his ad- 
 vanced mind, that brought Russia so far from semi- 
 
134 "KUSSIAN " SAINTS." 
 
 barbarism to a civilized nation, was guilty of crimes 
 that were a disgrace to humanity. Within the very 
 fortress in which this cathedral stands, he imprisoned 
 his oldest son, put him to torture under examination 
 for treason ; from the effect of this treatment he died 
 soon after his father left him. 
 
 The bodies of the royal rulers are deposited under 
 the floor of the cathedral, and the spot of the inter- 
 ment is marked by a stone sarcophagus above each. 
 That of Peter the Great is opposite a statue of St. 
 Peter, i. e., Peter the Great canonized, and an inscrip- 
 tion states that he was "nineteen inches long and five 
 inches and a quarter broad at the time of his birth." 
 A similar image of the Emperor Paul (as St. Paul) 
 opposite his tomb gives his length and breadth at 
 birth, and a long row of other tombs of Pauls. Alexis', 
 Nicholas', and Constantine's may be studied by those 
 familiar with Russian histoiy. 
 
 That which interested us most, next to Peter's, was 
 the grave of that wonderful, ambitious, and sensual 
 woman, Catherine IT., whose reign forms some of the 
 most interesting pages of Russian history — a woman 
 who, after living a life of unrestrained licentiousness, 
 made her reign remarkable for the rapid increase of 
 the extent and power of Russia, and the vigor and 
 ability with which she carried on the government, and 
 made her court noted by literati and philosophers of 
 France, whom she invited there, many of whom did 
 not hesitate to flatter and exalt her, notwithstanding 
 her utter and open shamelessness in vice. 
 
 There is a splendid monument to Catherine, which 
 was erected as late as 1873, on the Nevski Prospect, in 
 front of the Alexander Theatre. It is a figure of the 
 empress, upon a great pedestal of red granite, sur- 
 
PETER THE GPwEAT's COTTAGE. 135 
 
 rounded by statues of various distinguished Russians 
 of her reign. The monument is eighty feet high, and 
 cost half a million dollars. 
 
 The interior of the Peter and Paul church is deco- 
 rated with standards taken from the Turks, French, 
 and Swedes, which are placed upon the walls, and the 
 ponderous keys of various captured fortresses. 
 
 From here we went to Peter the Great's cottage, 
 which he lived in, on the banks of the Neva, while he 
 was superintending the building of St. Petersburg. 
 It is a little house about fifty feet by twenty, contain- 
 ing three rooms, and is entirely covered by a casing, to 
 protect it from decay and relic-hunters. Of course, 
 the principal room has been fitted up as a chapel, with 
 an image which Peter used to carry about on his mili- 
 tary campaigns, before which is a cross and holy water, 
 and the crowd of pious Russians was too great for us 
 to gain admission there. But in another room we saw 
 the bench and chair upon which he sat, a boat that he 
 built and used for his excursions across the river, and 
 other articles that belonged to him. 
 
 Near here is an extensive parade-ground, or Champ 
 de Mars, where troops, both foot and cavalry, are 
 drilled and exercised. It is a vast square area, in 
 which twenty thousand troops can be manoeuvred at 
 once. 
 
 We next visited his Summer Palace — in fact, his 
 first state residence. A modest residence enough it 
 seems now, about as large as a moderate country-house 
 in America, its reception and ball-room being but little 
 larger than great old-fashioned drawing-rooms, and his 
 dining-room communicating directly with the rather 
 small-looking kitchen by means of a slide in the wall. 
 The cramped quarters and rude conveniences for cook- 
 
136 MONASTERY OF ALEXANDER NEVSKI. 
 
 ing would hardly serve to stew and boil and roast for 
 people of very moderate means of to-day. 
 
 The monastery of St. Alexander Nevski, at one end 
 of the Nevski Prospect, we were fortunate enough to 
 visit during a singing or chanting service of the 
 monks — a wonderful specimen of vocalization. The 
 monks wear long beards, and their long, light hair 
 is crimped. The beard and hair are said to be worn 
 in imitation of those of our Saviour. This monastery 
 is in large and beautiful enclosed grounds, with 
 church, monastery, and other buildings, and where, 
 as far as we could see, the occupants lived most com- 
 fortably. The grounds are celebrated as being the 
 battle-field where the Grand-Duke Alexander defeated 
 the Swedes, in 1241. The church and monastery were 
 not built, however, till five hundred years after. 
 
 The church, which is one of the largest in St. Pe- 
 tersburg, is finely decorated with marble fittings, gild- 
 ing, and precious stones ; but the principal attraction 
 is the tomb of Alexander, which stands in a side 
 chapel, which is of solid silver to the amount of three 
 thousand two hundred and fifty pounds of the precious 
 metal. It is surmounted by a catafalque, with angels 
 five or six feet in height, blowing their trumpets, while 
 numerous bass-reliefs represent scenes in Alexander's 
 life. The value of the silver alone as raw material in 
 this monument is over one hundred thousand dollars. 
 The church and convent were founded by Peter the 
 Great. In the cloister, they show you the crown of 
 St. Alexander and the bed on which Peter the Great 
 died, besides a collection of pontifical robes, mitres, 
 and staffs of unexampled richness. 
 
 One peculiarity of the Russian churches, to which 
 allusion has before been made, is the arrangement of 
 
PECULIARITIES OF RUSSIAN CHURCHES. 137 
 
 the altar and screen, or iconastos, as it is called. There 
 is a rail separating the steps leading to the altar ; at 
 the top of these steps the officiating priest stands when 
 performing a portion of the service. Behind him is 
 the screen, always richly and superbly decorated with 
 gold, silver, or precious stones. In this screen are 
 three doors, the middle one being the Holy Door. 
 After passing behind the screen, you find the Holy 
 Table — really the altar, I suppose, as I saw no such 
 altars as in Roman Catholic churches. Above this 
 table are a canopy, upheld by four small pillars, and a 
 dove, as the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Beyond and 
 fronting this table is an elegant raised seat or throne, 
 upon which no official below the rank of a bishop is 
 allowed to sit. 
 
 There are no seats in Russian churches. Everybody 
 stands, except when kneeling at some particular part 
 of the service, or when some are prostrating them- 
 selves, as many, especially of the poorer class, do, 
 before some saint's picture or shrine, or even in the 
 midst of a crowded congregation, should the spirit 
 move them, at any time, to do so. 
 
 I have spoken of the begging nuns that stand just 
 inside the doors of all the churches ; they are a curi- 
 ously costumed set, with high pointed hoods and dif- 
 ferent cuts of robes — according to the nunnery they 
 represent, I suppose. Outside the porch, as in Roman 
 Catholic countries, is the usual swarm of other beggars. 
 
 The beautiful miniature palace, a short ride from 
 St. Petersburg, known as "Mine Own," and owned, I 
 think, by the empress, is in the middle of some charm- 
 ingly laid-out grounds, and awaits the royal family 
 whenever they should please to come to it ; but it had 
 not been occupied by them for more than a year when 
 
138 
 
 we visited it. Its rooms are all fitted with exquisite 
 taste, and without that tawdry and lavish display of 
 gilt and frescoing that distinguishes royal palaces. In- 
 deed, this was like the residence of a gentleman of 
 perfect taste and abundant means. 
 
 An attempt to keep intelligible memoranda or to 
 describe the endless display of riches and splendor 
 in these Russian palaces and churches is futile, unless 
 one should make a business of it, like cataloguing for 
 an auction sale, and even then life would be too short 
 fur the task. 
 
 Those who visit Russia for the first time, with the 
 somewhat popular idea that it is a sort of semi-barbaric 
 country, and that most of the wealth and art of the 
 world is held in other portions of Europe, are sim- 
 ply astounded with the wonders and treasures of St. 
 Petersburg and Moscow. It must be remembered, 
 however, that Russia has had the treasures of the East 
 for years to draw upon, to say nothing of her mines 
 and quarries, which are unsurpassed in richness and 
 extent. 
 
 Not only is the tourist and pleasure-seeker who has 
 visited London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome surprised at 
 the novelties that he encounters, the wealth of art, 
 and the wonderful beauty of churches and public 
 buildings that he sees, but that more popular descrip- 
 tions have not been given, and better guide-books 
 written of the country and the people. 
 
 Russian novelists just now, however, are the fashion 
 in American literary circles, and information about 
 this great nation and its people will on that account 
 be more sought for and more generally disseminated 
 than ever, before. There are only about six hundred 
 periodicals of all kinds published in the Russian em- 
 
PETERHOF PALACE. 139 
 
 pire, of which two hundred are in other languages than 
 Russian. In other words, it takes one hundred and 
 seventy-five thousand Russian subjects to support one 
 periodical, while in the United States there is one peri- 
 odical to every four thousand people. Of the four 
 hundred Russian periodicals, fifty-five are daily, eighty- 
 five weekly. Much of our information respecting Rus- 
 sia has come through English sources, and has been 
 tinctured by prejudice and marred by misrepresenta- 
 tions, as the author found from personal experience in 
 many respects. 
 
 Besides this, many changes have been made for the 
 better as regards the privileges of travellers, within a 
 few years. The accounts of the perplexities of pass- 
 ports, surveillance of police, and rigorous regulations 
 respecting tourists must have been greatly modified, 
 or are customs of the past, as we experienced very 
 little inconvenience in that respect. 
 
 The palace of Peterhof, is fairly crammed with 
 room after room of rich articles of bric-a-brac, such as 
 vases, silver statuettes, porcelain paintings of battles, 
 carvings of ivory, and also, of course, including some 
 carvings by Peter the Great, whose handiwork seems 
 ubiquitous in and about Petersburg. One of the great 
 rooms has over eight hundred portraits of females of 
 different provinces of the Russian empire. These were 
 painted by order of Catherine II., who commissioned 
 an artist to travel over the empire, and obtain them 
 from the best peasant models he could secure. 
 
 The drives and grounds round and about Peterhof, 
 as well as the immediate vicinity, are charming. In 
 front of the palace, a fountain sends a jet of water, 
 with a mighty rush, eighty feet into the air, and on 
 either side are other fountains, throwing their jets in 
 
140 THE SUMMER PALACE. 
 
 different directions. Down at the foot of the elevated 
 ground upon which the palace stands are great basins 
 and other fountains, the water of which flows away 
 through an artificial channel, lined on each side with 
 smaller fountains. The rides about the grounds, 
 which are elegantly laid out, continually bring you in 
 view of most charming effects of fountains, basins, 
 trees, and landscape. 
 
 But near a place called Marly is a magnificent foun- 
 tain, in the shape of a Greek temple, in the middle of 
 a lake, with streams of water spouting from various 
 parts of it, flashing in the light in every direction. 
 All around in the vicinity were lesser fountains, and 
 artificially contrived Avater-works in such variety that 
 I left the grounds of Peterhof and Marly with* a 
 confused impression of great foaming waves dashing 
 over marble steps before a grand palace, or jets and 
 streams leaping high as the tree-tops in broad ave- 
 nues, or spouting from the mouths of Tritons or dol- 
 phins and splashing into marble basins in shady nooks, 
 which met us at every fresh turn in these magnificent 
 parks. 
 
 The favorite royal residence of the Russian imperial 
 famil} r is known as the Summer Palace, and is situated 
 about fifteen miles from St. Petersburg by rail. After 
 riding into the grounds, we passed by the front of this 
 palace, seven hundred and eighty feet in length, pro- 
 fusely ornamented with columns, vases, statues, and 
 other ornaments. It was originally covered witli gild- 
 ing, but is now white, except that portion towards the 
 garden, which is painted a greenish hue. A detailed 
 description of this ro} r al palace, somewhat celebrated for 
 being a favorite abiding-place of Catherine II., would be 
 but a repetition of that of other Russian royal palaces. 
 
THE WONDERFUL AMBER ROOM. 141 
 
 The private chapel of the royal family which we 
 visited in the palace is an elegant affair, richly dec- 
 orated in blue and gold, the ceiling completely covered 
 with gilding. The places for the royal family are in a 
 sort of organ-loft or gallery, at one end of the chapel, 
 opposite the screen (not even royalty can sit in 
 church), where they can see all without being them- 
 selves exposed to view, and direct communication is 
 had from this gallery to apartments in the palace. 
 Some of these rooms are so rich and wonderful in dec- 
 oration that I cannot pass them without brief mention. 
 
 The most wonderful is that known as the amber 
 room, a large apartment, the walls, furniture, and dec- 
 orations of which are entirely composed of amber. 
 Dark yellow, delicate gold tint, and beautiful translu- 
 cent straw color, of the rarest description, were be- 
 stowed here with Russian prodigality. The walls were 
 sheathed with it, chandeliers wrought from it, pict- 
 ures framed in exquisite carved work of it ; tables ele- 
 gantly inwrought and chairs curiously fashioned of 
 it; statuettes carved from it, coats-of-arms inlaid in 
 amber, elegant vases and artistic carvings and decora- 
 tions all of the same material, — a most remarkable 
 display. The amber was a present to Catherine, from 
 Frederick the Great. 
 
 Another elegant apartment, called the lapis-lazuli 
 room, was inlaid with elegant specimens of that 
 stone, and had a floor of ebony inlaid with flowers 
 of mother-of-pearl, giving a gorgeous effect to the 
 apartment. 
 
 In other apartments the walls were completely 
 sheathed in rich silks instead of paper hangings or 
 wood-work. One bedroom had hangings of blue silk, 
 another those of a delicate rose tint with furniture and 
 
142 PRODIGAL LUXURIANCE. 
 
 upholstery of some pleasing contrast, producing an 
 extremely beautiful and luxurious effect. 
 
 Ingenuity seems to have been exhausted in prodigal 
 expenditure to produce wonderful effects in these 
 palaces ; another room, called the Chinese room, con- 
 tained some of the richest and rarest specimens of 
 Chinese work I ever looked upon — beautiful vases, 
 silks, rich hangings, brilliant embroideries in silk, jade 
 vases, ornaments, and everything beautifully disposed 
 in ravishing profusion and excellent taste. The bed- 
 room of the Empress Catherine II. was an apartment 
 with porcelain-decorated walls and pillars of rich purple 
 glass. 
 
 Then there were the grand banqueting-rooms, which 
 seemed to be almost sheathed in gold, the grand ball- 
 rooms elegantly ornamented, and one large room fitted 
 up as a gymnasium, with the usual apparatus, and in 
 addition a toboggan-slide of broad, perfectly polished 
 planks, the toboggan used being a small rug or carpet, 
 and, we being the only visitors present, the slide was 
 then and there satisfactorily tested. The guide who 
 went about with our guide and ourselves was evidently 
 a substitute for the regular officer, who probably 
 thought that an expert like our well known guide only 
 needed a man with him for form's sake, and so pocketed 
 a douceur and deputed a fellow good-naturedly full of 
 vodki to accompany us, who permitted us to do pretty 
 much as we chose, even to handling the personal effects 
 of Alexander I., that remain in his private apartments 
 as he left them ; the tiying-on of the former emperor's 
 hat and gloves by the author he considered to be more 
 of a joke than an extraordinary liberty. 
 
 The Alexander Palace, near at hand, is a tame affair 
 after this one, and contained nothing that specially im- 
 
A FINE MILITARY COLLECTION. 143 
 
 pressed itself upon my memory, except a series of small 
 models, either of papier-mache or plaster, of each of the 
 different cavalry regiments of the empire, beautifully 
 done ; the uniforms and accoutrements all being correct 
 reproductions of those in use in each of the different 
 bodies of troops, forming a fine military collection. 
 Each figure is about twenty inches in height, and they 
 are kept in glass cases. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow occupies 
 from fourteen to fifteen hours. We left at 8.30 p.m., 
 and arrived at Moscow at a few minutes past 11 a.m. 
 the next day — the distance between the two points 
 being four hundred miles. The sleeping-cars were 
 exceedingly comfortable, and similar to those between 
 the frontier and St. Petersburg, and in no way inferior 
 to the best in the United States. 
 
 There is but little to interest one on the route, or 
 that portion of it we saw during the few hours of day- 
 light before arrival at Moscow, whose curious-looking 
 spires and bell-shaped cupolas, as we approached it, 
 gave the impression of a city of the East. 
 
 Emerging from our comfortable railway carriage, we 
 were soon mounted in a two-horse drosky and whirling 
 away for our hotel. But not through such broad, ele- 
 gant streets as in St. Petersburg, though the newer 
 part of the city has some fine broad avenues. There 
 was a more semi- Asiatic appearance to things here : 
 curious and grotesque-looking spires ; peasants with 
 matted hair and unkempt beards, and who were clad 
 in sheepskins that looked as though they had been 
 owned by several generations, were among the crowds 
 in the street; the Greek-letter-lookinGf sisrns seemed 
 more undecipherable, the droskies smaller and more 
 dirty, and the vodki shops more frequent; Tartar 
 laborers were more plentiful, and the Asiatic type of 
 face was oftener met, and there seems to be a greater 
 
 144 
 
MOSCOW AND ITS PEOPLE. 145 
 
 quantity of poorly dressed people in the streets than 
 in St. Petersburg. 
 
 Moscow is a manufacturing city ; it contains nine hun- 
 dred manufactories, of various kinds, including many 
 for weaving silk, and employing about one hundred 
 thousand persons. In the whole province of Moscow 
 there are 2506 factories, employing nearly one hundred 
 and ninety thousand work-people, nearly five times as 
 many factories and operatives as are found in St. 
 Petersburg and its environs. Moscow, in fact, is one of 
 the great workshops of Russia. The principal portion 
 of goods manufactured here, I was told, was exported 
 to Central Asia, Asia Minor, and South-eastern Europe. 
 
 The cotton industry in Russia has reached great pro- 
 portions. There are now over one thousand mills and 
 factories turning out cotton fabrics of different kinds, 
 valued at one hundred and fifty million dollars per 
 annum, and giving employment to over two hundred 
 thousand hands. Cotton is raised in Turkestan, Cen- 
 tral Asia, and the Caucasus, but, instead of being en- 
 couraged and developed, this important industry is 
 neglected. Russia pays annually for imported cotton 
 (mostly from the United States) about seventy-five 
 million roubles in gold, which surpasses three times 
 the annual yield of gold in that country. The parties 
 interested in the cotton industry suggest to the Rus- 
 sian government that it should assist them in devel- 
 oping the cotton plantations in the Merv oasis, the 
 Caucasus, and Turkestan by advancing them sufficient 
 funds. They say that on five hundred thousand acres 
 of choice land they will raise all the cotton Russia 
 will need for her mills. It is improbable, however, 
 that the Russian government will venture in this new 
 business, after so many signal failures. 
 
146 RUSSIAN FINANCE. 
 
 Two great businesses of national importance, the 
 building of railways and the redemption of land from 
 the former serf-owners, says a recent writer, will par- 
 ticularly drain the imperial treasury for many years. 
 For the former item it has spent since 1848 the enor- 
 mous sum of 1,440,000,000 roubles ($720,000,000). 
 Finding that the official running of railways did not 
 pay, the government has leased most of its railroads to 
 private companies. Up to this date the government used 
 to guarantee a certain dividend on railroad shares, thus- 
 paying to the shareholders about ten million dollars- 
 per annum. The railroad companies never pa}^ in full 
 their annual debt to the government, their arrears usu- 
 ally amounting to fifteen million dollars. Up to Feb- 
 ruaiy 1, 1887, the government had spent for redemption 
 of land for the former serfs $454,000,000, which sum 
 cannot be returned to the treasury for many years to 
 come. As the Russian government does not conduct 
 its finances on business principles, its credit is very 
 poor, be it peace or war. The imperial legal tender — 
 the paper rouble — is now worth only a half of its face 
 value in gold or silver. Though the government pays 
 annually about eighteen million dollars on account of 
 the decline of that paper rouble, yet it is very slow in 
 redeeming it. 
 
 The Russian minister of finance, in presenting the 
 state budget for 1887, estimated a deficit of about 
 fifty million dollars, and statistics show that the deficit 
 for the last five years has ranged from twenty-five to 
 fifty millions. 
 
 Determined efforts are being made, however, to bet- 
 ter the financial condition of affairs. In response to 
 a petition of merchants and statesmen, the czar ap- 
 pointed (1887) a new minister of finance, one Yshono- 
 
STREET SCENES IN MOSCOW. 147 
 
 gradsy, who was formerly a professor of mechanics and 
 a railroad-builder, and other changes were made, so that 
 some new system of political economy may be put 
 forward. 
 
 The Great Bazaar at Moscow is an exposition of 
 itself, in which each trade has a separate section : 
 jewellers, holy relics and images, bright kerchiefs, 
 fruits, tea-stores, cloth, clothing, boots, shoes, caps, 
 everything in the retail line that one can desire. 
 
 That some of the Asiatic customs were prevalent 
 here was evident from the fact that in the Bazaar 
 I noticed clerks in some of the shops figuring out 
 their accounts by the aid of the little wire frame and 
 balls that are in general use among Chinese accountants. 
 
 The streets, with very few exceptions, are poorly 
 paved, and you miss the long, stately rows of archi- 
 tectural display that adorn certain quarters of St. 
 Petersburg; for here in Moscow church, hut, and palace 
 are often in close proximity — in fact, everything seems 
 to be more thoroughly mixed in Moscow, and lacking 
 much of the systematic order of the former city. 
 
 Here also are the street shrines, little sort of relig- 
 ious shops with the whole side towards the street open 
 and an attendant begging priest or nun or two inside 
 to receive offerings. These shrines are wonderfulty 
 numerous, and all receive thorough attention, from the 
 rich man who rolls by in his carriage to the filthiest 
 sheepskin-clad beggar. Not only are the bowing and 
 crossing done by those who pass, but at all hours of 
 the day there are little crowds of men and women at 
 these places bowing and crossing and saying a prayer 
 or two or getting a sip of holy water. 
 
 There are, beside the sheepskin-clad peasants that I 
 referred to that one meets, others in the rough blouse 
 
148 PRIMITIVE VEHICLES. 
 
 that covers a red shirt worn outside the trousers and 
 confined at the waist by a leathern belt, their coarse 
 trousers thrust into a mass of strappings or bandages 
 of bark which serve as boots or shoes. They come 
 into town with loads of wood or other stuff from the 
 country, drawn in carts fashioned in the roughest 
 manner from bent poles and old fragments of wood in 
 the rough, built round four wheels. The wagons used 
 for all purposes that we saw were of a very rude char- 
 acter. Any vehicles corresponding to an American 
 truck, dray, or common express-cart seemed entirely 
 unknown. An American farm-wagon or tip-cart was 
 a far more civilized machine of its kind than any we 
 saw in the streets of Moscow or Petersburg. 
 
 We observed that the Russian draught-horses had 
 no traces, but the shafts of the vehicle were attached 
 to their collars. This explains the Use of the pictu- 
 resque, but heavy, high wooden yoke which is worn by 
 these horses in Russia ; it holds the shafts a few inches 
 away from the animal, so that he is not shaken by 
 every jolt of the vehicle. 
 
 The troika or Russian travelling-carriage drawn by 
 three horses abreast was familiar to us in school days 
 from the woodcut in our school geographies of one 
 containing two fur-clad individuals with a driver in 
 front of them urging his horses to full speed, and under 
 which appeared the word " Russia." It also appears 
 in some of Schreyer's snow-storm pictures and in the 
 paintings of other artists, so that we imagined the 
 troika to be a carriage quite in common use. As far 
 as the cities of Petersburg and Moscow are concerned, 
 however, this is not the case, for we saw none in Mos- 
 cow and but two in St. Petersburg, and those were the 
 private turnouts of wealthy men. 
 
MONKS AND NUNS. 149 
 
 The shock heads of matted hair and full, unkempt 
 beards (growing up to the very eyes) of the peasants, 
 combined with their low foreheads and often brutish 
 countenances, gave some of them the appearance of 
 huge Skye terriers rather than human beings. In cheap 
 bazaars and at crowded church services the sheepskin- 
 clad individuals should be given a wide berth by the 
 tourist, as close contact is by no means pleasant. 
 
 The monks here, as in Petersburg, wear long, black 
 robes and tall, cylinder-shaped, black, rimless hats, and 
 from the front of some of the hats fell a veil, partly 
 covering the face. There are two hundred convents and 
 48-1 monasteries in Russia, and recent statistics set the 
 number of monks at nearly six thousand and the nuns 
 seven thousand. Until a monk is thirty years of age he 
 is considered a novice, and no woman can become bound 
 to monastic life till she is fifty ; at any time before reach- 
 ing that age she is at liberty to leave the nunnery and 
 marry. There are now attached to the monasteries 
 4133 lay brethren or novices, and to the convents 
 14,200 lay sisters. 
 
 The singing at the great monastic churches, as I 
 have before remarked, is magnificent, and entirely with- 
 out musical accompaniment. One of the most remark- 
 able hymns, I was informed, was called the " Thrice 
 Holy," on account of the word "holy" being thrice 
 repeated in its performance. 
 
 This and other portions of the service are not in the 
 Russian tongue, but in old Slavonic, as unintelligible 
 to most of the worshippers as the Latin chants and ser- 
 vice in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 It never happened to be my fortune to hear a sermon 
 preached in a Russian church ; but an English writer 
 speaks of them as being peculiarly adapted to the Rus- 
 
150 A MIMIC CONFLAGRATION RECALLED. 
 
 sian mind, because they appeal to the feelings rather 
 than the intellect. 
 
 The peculiar bulb-shaped domes of the churches con- 
 tinually suggested to me the mosques of an Eastern 
 city, heightened as they were in barbaric appearance by 
 being painted green, or glittering with copper or gilding. 
 
 The story of Bonaparte's invasion of Russia, the 
 conflagration of Moscow, his disastrous retreat there- 
 from, and the annihilation of his spendid army has 
 done more to excite a desire to see that city, among 
 English-speaking people, than anything else in its his- 
 tory. I remember, years ago, an exhibition that was 
 thought to be quite a wonderful affair, called " The 
 Conflagration of Moscow," which was exhibited in all 
 the principal cities of America, in conjunction with 
 that wonderful piece o£r deception known as Maelzel's 
 Automaton Chess-Player. This panoramic exhibition 
 was a most effective affair in its way ; on the curtain 
 rising, the city by moonlight was revealed, with its 
 bulb-like towers and domes glittering in the moon's 
 rays. The Kremlin occupied the foreground, and tur- 
 rets, spires, and bridges were seen in the distance. 
 Soon, afar off, were heard the drums of the approaching 
 French troops, and at the same time a distant flame 
 lighted up a small space of sky with its rays, and the 
 great bells began to boom the alarm. 
 
 The Are spread and clouds of smoke rolled upwards ; 
 meantime, the people could be seen flying with their 
 household goods ; the glare of the increasing conflagra- 
 tion now lighted up the whole scene. The city, with its 
 spires, pinnacles, bridges, walls, and the Kremlin were 
 now visible ; so were little figures of incendiaries, with 
 torches busy with the work of destruction. The peal 
 of the fire-bells was incessant, the great clouds of 
 
"HOLY MOSCOW," A CITY OF CHURCHES. 151 
 
 smoke rolled skyward, and walls of houses and steeples 
 crashed down amid myriads of sparks. Now the drum 
 of the troops and the military bands were heard dis- 
 tinctly, and we saw them in the panoramic representa- 
 tion, crossing the bridges and entering the city ; the 
 brass cannon glittered in the fire-light, and the shining 
 bayonets of the foot-soldiers were seen as they marched 
 in solid columns. 
 
 At the very height of the conflagration, according to 
 the printed programme, " the Kremlin is blown up, 
 with a terrific explosion, by the mines of gunpowder 
 placed beneath it by the Russians." And so concluded 
 a very effective panoramic exhibition, which, together 
 with the story of Napoleon's campaign, always made 
 me long to see Russia's ancient capital, whose inhabi- 
 tants sacrificed it rather than yield to the invader. I 
 found it well worth the brief visit made it, and in 
 many respects a more thoroughly Russian city than 
 St. Petersburg. It is, as is well known, a much older 
 one, and is generally considered a very good specimen 
 of the old Russian cities. 
 
 Moscow is celebrated for its churches, of which there 
 are said to be nearly four hundred. It has been the 
 scene of the coronations of the czars and of the cruelties 
 of Ivan the Terrible, the reading of which makes one 
 inclined to wish, if he does not believe there is a state 
 of future punishment, that a hell might have been 
 invented for the especial torture of that human fiend. 
 
 Moscow is named after the river Moskva. It seems 
 to be a vast circle in form, with the triangular fortress. 
 of the Kremlin in the centre. Our headquarters were 
 the Hotel Dusaux, a well kept, large hotel, with fine, 
 clean apartments, excellent cuisine, and moderate rates 
 of charge, entirely at variance with English accounts, 
 
152 THE KREMLIN. 
 
 which had led us to believe that the accommodations 
 were inferior and charges high. Neither the hotel in 
 Moscow nor that in St. Petersburg was inferior to the 
 Grand or Metropole in London, as regards apartments, 
 cuisine, and attendance. 
 
 I could hardly realize being in the old Russian 
 capital, until, looking out of the windows, we saw the 
 walls of the Kremlin, with its quaint towers, and 
 heard the rattle of droskies, saw the Russian drivers 
 in their curious costumes driving them, the curious signs, 
 and the rough-looking people passing and repassing. 
 
 But our guide has the team of black stallions ready 
 at the door, and we start for our first view of the sights 
 of the city. 
 
 The Kremlin ! 
 
 This is the first feature of Moscow that rises in your 
 imagination when you read or speak of the city before 
 you visit it, the one sight of all others you desire to 
 see and the most interesting one that you do see after 
 arrival in this ancient and sacred city of the empire. 
 
 "Kremlin " really means fortress or citadel, and comes 
 from a Tartar word having that signification. It is 
 really a great enclosure, two miles in circuit, which is 
 crowded with churches, palaces, arsenals, watch-toAvers, 
 and steeples of every conceivable design. The best 
 collective view of it is had from the river-side, and 
 within its walls are the most interesting historical 
 sights in Moscow. It is looked upon by the Russians 
 with something of the veneration with which the English 
 regard the Tower of London, and its history, although 
 not beginning so earlv, £oes back to 1367, since when 
 down to 1812 it went through various vicissitudes and 
 was largely added to and improved. Napoleon, on 
 leaving after his invasion, made unsuccessful attempts 
 
"THE REDEEMER'S GATE." 153 
 
 to destroy it, but it still stands a proud and central 
 monument of Holy Moscow. 
 
 There are rive great gates of entrance to the Krem- 
 lin, and the one that we first entered was that we had 
 heard so much of, called "The Redeemer's Gate," from 
 its having a picture of our Saviour suspended over the 
 archway, which, it is said, has been there since the 
 foundation of the city, and which is believed to have 
 such miraculous power that in ancient times the Tartar 
 hordes were never able to pass it, nor could in latter 
 days the powder-mines of the French army destroy it. 
 
 The archway is beneath a magnificent square tower, 
 surmounted by various small spires and a lofty steeple. 
 The whole Kremlin seems to be girdled with odd-look- 
 ing towers of ancient construction, some dating back 
 to 1485. 
 
 We were warned bv the omide to uncover our heads 
 as we passed through the archway of the- Redeemer 
 Gate and beneath the picture, as every one, even the 
 emperor himself, is expected to do so, and does, so that 
 even American travellers are not an exception to this 
 rule. Before ascending the tower of Ivan, we halted 
 to look at the great bell that stands on a little raised 
 brick platform at its base. This big bell is twenty -six 
 feet high, sixty-seven feet in circumference, and two 
 feet in thickness ; a great piece seven feet high, which 
 is broken out of its side, stands near it. 
 
 The weight of this metallic giant is four hundred and 
 forty-four thousand pounds, and as one gazes upon its 
 vast bulk the question arises how it could be raised to 
 the proper home of a bell, a steeple, and what force 
 beside steam-power could ring it effectually, and how 
 it would sound when it was rung. 
 
 Speaking of bells, the tower of Ivan the Great is a 
 
154 IVAN THE TERRIBLE'S BELL-TOWER. 
 
 veritable tower of bells, for we found four or five 
 stories, one above another, as we ascended, filled with 
 bells, of various descriptions and dimensions, sizes and 
 tones, which we amused ourselves by tapping with our 
 knuckles and pocket-knives in an endeavor to bring 
 out some indication of musical tones, for which they 
 are celebrated. 
 
 In one tier we saw two small bells entirely of silver 
 and of exquisite tone ; in another the monster of the 
 collection, weighing sixty-four tons, a huge and pon- 
 derous affair, but not one-half the weight of the broken 
 monster we had inspected outside the tower. 
 
 This tower is the loftiest in the city, and is built in 
 five different stories, the last cylindrical and sur- 
 mounted by the bulb, Tartar-looking cupola so com- 
 mon here, but which has such a foreign, Asiatic look 
 to American eyes. The bells, which are thirty-four in 
 number, are suspended in the three lower stories. 
 
 The dome is brightly gilded and glitters in the sun- 
 light, and from its height attracts attention from what- 
 ever point one views the city, for the top of the great 
 cross above our heads is 825 feet- above the pavement. 
 A fine view of the city and surrounding country was 
 had after our tiresome climb, showing us the Moskva 
 River at our feet, the closely crowded buildings inside 
 the Kremlin, the circle after circle of the city's struc- 
 tures, bounded by ramparts, the innumerable towers 
 and steeples golden, green, silver, red, and white, and 
 beyond all the green fields and foliage of the country. 
 It is a striking and indescribable panoramic view, and 
 unlike any other I have seen in Europe. 
 
 Riding past the arsenal in the Kremlin, we saw 
 displayed the cannon taken from and abandoned by 
 Napoleon during Lis disastrous retreat from Moscow. 
 
THE RIDING-SCHOOL. 155 
 
 They are 365 in number, and ranged along on raised 
 platforms outside the walls of the building; some of 
 these were left in the city, and others captured by the 
 Russians and Cossacks hundreds of miles away, as they 
 hung upon the flanks of the retreating army, which was 
 harassed by cold and hunger and the fierce onslaught 
 •of its incensed adversaries. 
 
 Besides these French cannon there are numerous 
 others, that have been captured from Austria, Sweden, 
 Italy, and Spain, the entire lot forming a big park of 
 about nine hundred pieces of artillery. There was also 
 a huge Russian cannon standing not far from the tower 
 we had just left, its bore big as a hogshead, and the piece 
 weighing forty tons; it was cast in 1586 and is called 
 the Czar cannon, and would doubtless do more damage 
 to those operating it than to those against whom it was 
 directed. The arsenal is said to contain arms sufficient 
 to equip one hundred and fifty thousand men. 
 
 A wonderful building of its kind in Moscow is a 
 huge structure known as the Riding-School and de- 
 signed for the use of drilling cavalry or infantry in 
 severe weather. The vast extent of roofing is unsup- 
 ported by pillar of any kind, affording a space of one 
 hundred and sixty feet in width by nearly six hundred 
 in length, in which, it is said, two entire regiments of 
 cavalry can go through with their evolutions. The 
 heating apparatus consists of huge earthen stoves, and 
 the sides of the walls are decorated with trophies of 
 arms. A peculiar arrangement of trusses and stays 
 supports the vast roof; but, as the whole was undergoing 
 repairs at the time of our visit, we were not permitted 
 to examine its peculiar structure. It is undoubtedly 
 the largest riding-school in the world. 
 
 The Cathedral of the Assumption, situated within 
 
156 CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 the walls of the Kremlin, is another one of those won- 
 derful Russian churches teeming with wealth, and 
 which one can get but an imperfect idea of in the hour 
 or two occupied by the tourist in inspecting it. This 
 church is interesting as being the one in which the 
 Russian emperors are crowned, and as retaining very 
 nearly its original form. It was built in 1325. 
 
 When the French occupied Moscow, this church 
 yielded rich spoil to the soldiers, for they stripped it 
 of over twelve hundred pounds weight of silver and 
 five hundred pounds of gold. Much of the silver was 
 recovered from the plunderers and replaced. 
 
 The height of this cathedral is one hundred and 
 twenty-eight feet. It has five magnificent domes,, 
 which we stood under and gazed upon the beautiful 
 pillars supporting them, the gilded walls, statues, and 
 frescos on every side forming a grand display of riches 
 and architectural beauty. The screen is rich in the 
 possession of a painting of the Virgin, of course pos- 
 sessed of miraculous powers, and is literally over- 
 whelmed with rich jewels, such as diamonds, sapphires, 
 emeralds, and rubies. 
 
 There are nearly two hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars worth of jewels upon this painting, including 
 a huge emerald worth over forty thousand dollars. 
 The screen is adorned with numerous other paintings 
 of religious subjects and scenes. A great silver shrine 
 stands on the right of the screen, and contains the body 
 of St. Philip, a priest who was bold enough to rebuke 
 that human fiend Ivan the Terrible, and suffered death 
 therefor. Splendid tombs at different corners of the 
 church mark the resting-places of priests or other 
 dignitaries. 
 
 Being admitted behind the great altar-screen, we saw 
 
VENERATED EELICS. 157 
 
 more of the treasures of this wonderful church. Here 
 was a representation of Mt. Sinai, made of solid gold 
 and silver, containing the Host ; about twenty pounds 
 of each of the precious metals were used in its con- 
 struction. Among other rich relics is a huge Bible, so 
 large that it requires the united strength of two men 
 to carry it. This was presented to the church by 
 Peter the Great's mother, and the binding is one mass 
 of precious stones, a perfect mine of them, worth 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
 
 The eye grows weary of this profuse and prodigal 
 display of wealth, so that we turn from rich golden 
 cups studded with jewels, magnificent jasper vases, 
 golden crosses sparkling with gems, golden marriage- 
 crowns, and magnificent vestments, to the relics which 
 the church considers of a most sacred character, such 
 as a piece of the true cross, the hand of St. Andrew 
 and head of St. Gregory, a portion of the robe of the 
 Saviour, and others that I cannot recall, all of which 
 were kindly and reverently displa}^ed to us by an at- 
 tendant priest or sacristan, who had been encouraged 
 by a handsome fee and was courteous and deferential 
 to his curious American visitors. 
 
 Within the nave of the church was the ancient 
 throne of the czars, also that of the patriarch of the 
 church, and a throne for the empress. The walls were 
 lined with paintings — in fact, a perfect mass of gilded 
 pictures. 
 
 Close by the cathedral we had just visited was 
 another, that of the Archangel Michael, a square, 
 white-looking building, with five gilded domes shining 
 above it. This church is remarkable for containing 
 the tombs of Russian sovereigns previous to Peter the 
 Great ; there are fortv-five of these tombs in the 
 
158 TROPHIES IN THE TREASURY. 
 
 church, each covered with a pall, and above them are 
 painted pictures of the departed, clad in loug white 
 robes. 
 
 Next to the altar, probably from the fact of his 
 being the greatest sinner known in Russian royal 
 history, is the tomb of John the Terrible, and behind 
 the altar-screen you are shown a cross that once be- 
 longed to him, covered with huge pearls, with an enor- 
 mous emerald in the middle of it. 
 
 The Treasury here is, as its name indicates, a deposi- 
 tory of rich and valuable objects. Like many other 
 places of interest, I can give but the merest sketch of 
 the contents of this wonderful collection. To give a 
 complete account would require repeated lengthy visits, 
 and space that would fill a volume. Rich plate, pre- 
 cious stones, gold and silver vessels and vases, trophies 
 of arms, specimens of barbaric splendor and costly 
 manufacture, which Russia has been collecting for 
 years from India, Persia, Turkey, and Greece, are 
 here in profusion, and indicate the prodigal magnifi- 
 cence of the Russian court. 
 
 Gifts, trophies, and relics are on every side of the 
 bewildered visitor. One room is full of Russian and 
 Circassian armor of every description,. elegantly fash- 
 ioned and inwrought with gold ; in another, in which 
 were trophies captured by the Russian troops on dif- 
 ferent occasions, was the sword of Charles XII., the 
 Lion of Sweden ; a third contained a complete assort- 
 ment of Russian fire-arms, from the rude inventions of 
 the fifteeth century clown to the rifles used at the present 
 time — a most interesting collection of arms ; here also 
 were groups of military standards, all historical, having 
 been carried during different wars. One was that 
 used by John the Terrible in 1552. 
 
THE WARDROBE. 159 
 
 Time permitted only a glance at a room full of por- 
 traits of the Romanoff family, and another of relics 
 relating to the Russian royal family. Were Americans 
 generally as familiar with the history of Russian sov- 
 ereigns as they are with that of English and French, I 
 doubt not this would be a most interesting portion of 
 the collection. As for us, we could only ask our guide 
 to jot clown, in note-book or memory, the names of such 
 as by their peculiar appearance attracted our attention. 
 
 We visited a room called the Wardrobe, containing 
 crowns upon pedestals standing before empty thrones 
 of departed monarchs. These crowns and thrones are 
 weighty with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, some of 
 them big as walnuts or horse-chestnuts. One of these 
 crowns was conspicuous even among this collection of 
 prodigal wealth. It was a tall, mitre-shaped affair sur- 
 mounted by a big ruby, from which rose a splendid 
 diamond cross ; the crown itself contained no less than 
 nine hundred sparkling diamonds : this valuable head- 
 piece was that of John, the brother of Peter I. The 
 crown of another Russian emperor, whose name I 
 understood to be Michael, had a huge emerald upon 
 the top of it and about two hundred other precious 
 stones about it. An orb used at coronations was pro- 
 fusely ornamented with diamonds and eight of the 
 biggest sapphires I ever saw. 
 
 It was hard to believe that the gems ornamenting 
 these crowns could be real, so large was there size and 
 so profusely were they used. But prodigality outdid 
 itself in the wonderful crown made by order of Peter 
 the Great for the Empress Catherine I. Just think of 
 the weight and value of this affair, which contains, be- 
 sides other costly stones, two thousand five hundred 
 and thirty diamonds ! Other crowns, with the same 
 
160 A WONDERFUL THRONE. 
 
 profuse display of pearls, diamonds, turquoises, ame- 
 thysts, and elegant enamel-work, seemed but repetitions 
 of lapidaries' efforts to produce novel specimens of 
 their work. 
 
 Among these were two famous thrones, one the 
 royal throne of Poland, taken in 1833 from Warsaw, 
 and an ivoiy throne that was brought from Constanti- 
 nople, which was curiously carved with figures repre- 
 senting some allegory or fable. But a throne that 
 carries out one's youthful ideas of what a throne 
 should be, a sort of Arabian-Nights-entertainment or 
 fairy-legend affair, is one that was brought from Persia 
 in 1660, which is studded all over with a wealth of 
 precious stones, as though it had been out in a hard 
 shower of turquoises, sapphires, diamonds, and rubies ; 
 — of these there are over one thousand two hundred 
 rubies and 875 diamonds. 
 
 Here also are an orb, crown, and collar sent to Vladi- 
 mir, Grand-Duke of Kief, by the Emperors Basilius and 
 Constantine, from Greece — one perfect blaze of dia- 
 monds and rubies. The orb has 58 diamonds, 89 rubies, 
 23 sapphires, 50 emeralds, and 37 pearls. 
 
 Such profuse and lavish display of costly gems and 
 precious metals as one sees in these Russian treasuries, 
 churches, and palaces has the effect of belittling their 
 value in one's mind; and the practical financier cannot 
 help estimating how much of the .empire's national 
 debt they would extinguish if disposed of at present 
 market-value, or how much good this dead capital 
 might do in advancing the cause of education among 
 the densely ignorant peasantry of the country. 
 
 In this room were various articles of wearing-apparel 
 of different noted members of the royal family, as 
 well as the magnificent coronation-robes of others : the 
 
A UNIQUE EXHIBIT OF SILVER-WORK. 161 
 
 military dress of Peter II., the books of Peter I. and 
 Paul I., the English Order of the Garter sent by Queen 
 Elizabeth to John the Terrible ; the coronation-robes of 
 Catherine I. and Catherine II., and those of Alexander 
 I., Paul, Nicholas I., and others, including those of the 
 present emperor and empress. The throne of Boris 
 Godunof was another gorgeous affair, covered all over 
 with rubies, pearls, and turquoises. 
 
 Then we were shown a curious double-seated throne, 
 said to have been made for Peter I. and his brother 
 John, witli a concealed recess behind it, which was con- 
 trived for John's sister Sophia to prompt him on 
 occasions. She was literally " the power behind the 
 throne," and perhaps this may be the origin of that ex- 
 pression. 
 
 From this hall of wealth and riches we passed into 
 another scarcely less wonderful, for it was one that 
 reminded us more than anything else of a grand ex- 
 hibition of the silver-workers of the world. It was a 
 collection, apparently, of every known domestic utensil, 
 fashioned from the precious metal. Not only those of 
 the present day, but rare and curious antiques, some 
 of priceless value and by the best artificers of all 
 nations. One great pitcher, beautifully wrought, 
 weighed twenty pounds ; a beautiful antique cup 
 bore an inscription of the twelfth century. Then 
 there were gifts innumerable from various royal per- 
 sonages to the czar ; salvers with elegant hunting- 
 scenes carved on them ; pitchers with handles wrought 
 into flowers, birds, or animals ; jugs surmounted by 
 knights in armor, and a bewildering museum of ele- 
 gant and artistic models in silver-work. 
 
 It would be like a descriptive catalogue to enume- 
 rate the curious objects of lesser note in the other 
 
162 ANTIQUE AND CUMBROUS CARRIAGES. 
 
 rooms of the Treasury, but I will mention the model 
 of a new palace which that extravagant sovereign 
 Catherine II. planned, which would have been a quar- 
 ter of a mile long when completed, but, as she died 
 soon after the corner-stone was laid, the ambitious and 
 costly project was abandoned. 
 
 The museum of carriages here in the Treasury, 
 although not so extensive a collection as that at St. 
 Petersburg, is still an interesting one. Conspicuous is 
 one of those huge affairs that one sees pictures of in 
 old English story-books or illustrations of Queen Eliza- 
 beth's time, and is in fact a specimen of the carriage- 
 building of that age, as the vehicle was presented by 
 Queen Bess to the Czar Boris Godunof. It is ele- 
 gantly gotten up, and its panels are adorned with 
 paintings of battle-scenes. Then there is a little car- 
 riage used by one of the emperors when a child ; an- 
 other, a huge affair, belonging to the Empress Eliza- 
 beth, which could be used as a dining-room for herself 
 and twelve of her suite. The panels of this are also 
 beautifully painted. We regarded with interest two 
 of Napoleon's camp-bedsteads, captured from him dur- 
 ing his Russian campaign. 
 
 Another depository of richness, of a somewhat dif- 
 ferent description, was the Patriarch's Sacristy. This 
 place contains many very curious articles connected 
 with the history of the Greek Church, and some of 
 great antiquity. Here is kept a wonderful collection 
 of silver vessels, massive in size and weight, used in 
 the preparation of a sacred mixture for baptismal and 
 anointing purposes. According to the rule of the church, 
 every true Russian should be baptized with the sacred 
 oil, or mir, so called. 
 
 The original of this sacred mixture was, it is said, 
 
THE PATRIARCH'S SACRISTY MIR. 163 
 
 sent from Constantinople to Russia on its being con- 
 verted to Christianity, and we were shown the beautiful 
 vase said to contain the precious liquid. A few drops 
 of this are taken each year to mix with the huge 
 quantity of mir prepared by the priests, with much 
 ceremony, to be distributed to churches in different 
 parts of the empire. The ingredients composing the 
 sacred mixture are over thirty in number, including 
 .essential oils, gums, perfumes, herbs, spices, etc., which 
 are boiled together with great care in three huge sil- 
 ver kettles, one a veritable caldron presented by Cath- 
 erine II. After boiling and cooling, the few drops of 
 original sacred oil are dropped in, which are supposed 
 to pervade and sanctify the whole. It is then turned 
 off into sixteen or eighteen great silver jars and ready 
 for distribution as above mentioned. The ceremony of 
 preparing this mixture occurs once in every three 
 years, and is performed during Lent, by the highest 
 officials of the church. 
 
 The vases, basins, ladles, great caldrons and strainers 
 used for this purpose, which were shown to us, were all 
 of sterling silver, and their value may be estimated 
 from the fact that their weight, as our guide told us, 
 was about fourteen hundred pounds, avoirdupois. The 
 place was in care of a venerable and noble-looking 
 Russian priest, of the most courteous and dignified 
 bearing, and who, strange to relate, refuses to receive 
 any fee from visitors. Our guide was careful to advise 
 us, however, that, he would appreciate highly a cere- 
 monious and deferential leave-taking, as he was a man 
 of noble family. Thereupon, after having inspected 
 the treasures of which he was the guardian, on our way 
 out, as we were about to pass him, we halted and made 
 a profound obeisance. This he returned, rising from 
 
164 THE HOUSE OF THE HOLY SYNOD. 
 
 his seat, bowing in deferential style, and bidding us 
 adieu with a graceful wave of the hand. 
 
 This house of the Holy Synod, as it is called, con- 
 tains the holy robes, ornaments, church-vessels, etc., of 
 the various patriarchs of the church, some of which 
 were brought here from Constantinople. The patri- 
 archs of the church were invested with their holy robes 
 at consecration, and one of the oldest of these, which 
 was shown to us, was one worn in the year 1308. The 
 most remarkable one of this collection, which, despite 
 its richness, reminds one of the wardrobe of the Grand 
 Opera, is an elaborate one presented by that inhuman 
 monster, John the Terrible, to the patriarch of his 
 time. Royal murderers and tyrants like him seem to 
 have believed they could purchase forgiveness for their 
 wickedness and crimes by gifts to the church, seeking 
 to ease their consciences in this manner, often by wealth 
 wrung from their subjects by cruel oppression. This 
 robe is of rich crimson velvet and thickly covered with 
 pearls, gold plates, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds — so 
 thickly covered that it weighs fifty-four pounds. A 
 description of the numerous others would be, as the 
 lawyers say, only " cumulative evidence " of velvet 
 dresses lavishly ornamented with jewelry. 
 
 The mitres, like the crowns I have referred to, are 
 simply wonderful specimens of jeweliy-work. The 
 largest one weighs nearly six pounds, and is encrusted 
 with big diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls. Among 
 the rarest articles in this collection that I recall were 
 some huge gems beautifully carved, and worn in chains 
 by the priests. . 
 
 Only think of such jewels strung on a chain for a 
 priest's necklace as two great sard onyxes, 3| inches 
 long and 21 inches wide, beautifully carved and en- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL JEWELRY. 165 
 
 graved with holy scenes and religious subjects! A 
 great onyx bore upon it a fine carving representing the 
 Crucifixion, and at the back of another is shown a frag- 
 ment said to be of the robe of our Saviour, and a piece 
 of stone from Calvary! Richly decorative croziers, 
 vases, goblets, and dishes, of solid gold and silver, and 
 other ecclesiastical treasures, also are kept here. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 One of the very oldest churches in the Kremlin, and, 
 in fact, in Moscow, is that known as " The Church in the 
 Wood," because when it was built it was literally in 
 the woods, though now close to the palace. It is a 
 curious little building to visit, and in striking contrast 
 to its more magnificent neighbors, with its rude frescos 
 upon its walls and narrow passages. It was used as a 
 nunnery in the fifteenth century, and as a forage-stable 
 by Napoleon in 1812. 
 
 Near the Redeemer's Gate, just outside the walls of 
 the Kremlin, is the church known as St. Basil the 
 Beautiful. It is a curious conglomeration of Eastern 
 architecture, a heterogeneous collection of domes, spires, 
 and steeples. There is a central octagon spire sur- 
 rounded by eight smaller ones with the Tartar or bulb- 
 shaped cupolas. Then there is an indescribable mix- 
 ture of pinnacles, peaks, and domes springing out in 
 every direction, and the whole building is richly gilded, 
 fluted, carved, and ornamented till it shines like a 
 Chinese pagoda and reminds one of such a temple on a 
 large scale as Barnum, the American showman, might 
 put up. It certainly is the most curious exhibition, as 
 a specimen of indescribable architecture, I ever saw. 
 It might be called Tartar architecture from the general 
 appearance. 
 
 I counted twelve domes, every one of which was of 
 different design, and many of these presented different 
 colors and were ornamented in a different manner. 
 
 166 
 
CHURCH OF ST. BASIL. 167 
 
 These domes and others stand over the chapels of differ- 
 ent saints within the building, which you reach by pass- 
 ing through narrow passages between the walls, thick 
 enough for a fortress and decorated with frescos repre- 
 senting old tapestry. There were a great number of 
 small chapels in this church, some rich with votive 
 offerings, and we saw nothing worthy of note except 
 several heavy iron chains that St. Basil was said to 
 have worn as necklaces and sashes by way of penance 
 and mortification during his lifetime, and which are 
 now hung up above his tomb. 
 
 The great cathedral of St. Saviour here is evidently 
 designed to rival St. Isaac's of Petersburg ; it is a mag- 
 nificent structure, grand beyond description, and one 
 which meets your eye from every prominent point of 
 view in the city. Its form is that of a Greek cross, 
 and it has the usual magnificent domes of the Russian 
 churches ; the great central dome is three hundred feet 
 in circumference, and there are four smaller ones. 
 
 These five great cupolas, we were told, were of 
 copper, and in gilding them over nine hundred pounds 
 of pure gold were required. Everything about the 
 building, within and without, is on a scale of grand 
 proportions and the most prodigal splendor. Its ap- 
 pearance is one mass of shining white marble, with the 
 gorgeous cupolas rising above, and its great cross thirty 
 feet high flashing against the sky, three hundred and 
 forty feet above the ground, is stupendous and over- 
 whelming. 
 
 This church was erected as a memorial temple of 
 Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, and it is but quite 
 recently that it has been completed. Its expense must 
 of course have been millions, inasmuch as the site alone 
 cost nearly a million of dollars before the foundations 
 
168 ST. saviour's. 
 
 were laid, and the doors alone of the edifice, now that it 
 is completed, cost over three hundred thousand dollars. 
 It stands upon a beautiful natural slope overlooking 
 one of the principal bridges, and has fine grounds or 
 gardens about it, filled with trees, plants, and flowers. 
 The exterior is richly decorated with carved figures in 
 alto-relievo. I omitted to mention that the church has 
 what no Russian church would be complete without, a 
 splendid chime of bells. The monarch of the group is a 
 deep-toned giant of twenty-six tons weight. 
 
 Within, all is one gorgeous display of magnificently 
 wrought marble, jasper, and porphyry. The sides are 
 of different kinds of marble, beautifully polished ; great 
 columns of jasper and rhodonite support the roof. The 
 inside of the dome is richly frescoed with scenes from 
 the life of Christ, and the screen one mass of elegant 
 wrought work and gilding. All along one side of the 
 church are scenes from the War of 1812, painted by 
 Russian artists. The view looking up as one stands 
 beneath the great dome is superb. 
 
 The church, as stated, having been finished but a 
 few years, was at the time of our visit in its newest 
 gloss as regards richness of gilding, freshness of fres- 
 cos, and sheen of polished marbles. 
 
 The height from floor to ceiling, within, is 230 feet, 
 and the floor, which is entirely of marble, is 225 feet 
 square, and cost a million and a half dollars. You feel 
 dwarfed amid such grand proportions, for the building 
 will hold over ten thousand people, and your guide, 
 knowing the American propensity to ask the cost of 
 things, launches out the big figures of some of the 
 items, like 375,000 roubles, or over one hundred and 
 thirty thousand dollars, for six hundred and forty great 
 candelabra that stand in one row, and which, when 
 
VISITING THE SANCTUM SANCTORUM. 169 
 
 filled with lighted wax candles, must produce a superb 
 effect. There are over twelve hundred of these can- 
 delabra in all, costing about two hundred thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 Behind the screen, in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the 
 patriarch, were some very fine modern paintings of 
 scriptural subjects, besides relics and rich vessels be- 
 longing to the church, which we were desirous of see- 
 ing, but an incorruptible guardian stood at the entrance. 
 Our guide, however, was equal to the occasion. He 
 bade us stand quietly while he went to interview the 
 principal priest, a tall, venerable man, who stood not 
 far from us, engaged in conversation with two other 
 priests or monks. 
 
 As soon as the latter left the priest, our guide ap- 
 proached with profound obeisance, which was returned, 
 took him by the hand, said a few sentences to the rev- 
 erend father, who turned towards where we were 
 standing with a grave bow of the head. We returned 
 the salutation with hand on heart, after the manner of 
 the tragedian called before the curtain at the end of a 
 successful performance. 
 
 This was followed by an imperative wave of the 
 hand by the priest to the official on duty at the en- 
 trance of the sanctuary, which had a magical effect, 
 changing him from the inflexible guardian to the most 
 deferential of servitors as he conducted us within the 
 sacred limits, where were some superb large paintings 
 by native artists, one (if memory serves me) from the 
 pencil of the artist who painted the " Russian Wedding," 
 which has excited so much attention in America. The 
 light is so managed, by windows above, as to give a 
 wonderfully fine effect to these paintings. 
 
 The spacious interior of this church is less floridly 
 
170 LAST LOOK AT A MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE. 
 
 decorated than the older Russian churches, but the 
 marbles and stone-work are equally elegant and expen- 
 sive. The gilding upon the live domes cost an amount 
 equal to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of 
 our money. 
 
 This magnificent temple we rode around again after 
 leaving it, to take in its grand extent and beautiful 
 proportions. Its foundation is entirely of granite 
 brought from the quarries of Finland, and the structure 
 covers an area of over seventy-three thousand feet, and 
 is surrounded by grounds beautifully laid out and 
 bright with many-colored flowers at the time of our 
 visit. I am in doubt as to whether this or St. Isaac's 
 is the most imposing structure. The former is grand 
 and imposing, but the prevailing characteristic of St. 
 Saviour's is its beauty, and the visitor lingers from 
 point to point, loath to leave so luxurious a treat of 
 exquisite finish and proportions. 
 
 Upon reentering our carriage, after visiting this 
 church, I inquired of the guide what words he used 
 with such magical effect upon the priest by whose 
 favor we received such attention. 
 
 " I mentioned to him," said he, " that it was a pity 
 that the American consul and his secretary should 
 be debarred from visiting all parts of this church, 
 of which they had heard so much and travelled so far 
 to see." 
 
 " American consul ! Why, I hold no such office ! " 
 
 "I am aware of it, and did not say that you did. 
 Nevertheless, that reference gained you the bow that 
 you were thoughtful enough to return." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 "Yes. I then intimated that you desired me to 
 make a small offering to the church, which was done 
 
THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 171 
 
 when I shook hands with him and conveyed three rou- 
 bles to his palm." 
 
 "That accounted for the withdrawal and courtesy of 
 the guard? " 
 
 "Yes, that and another rouble to the aforesaid 
 guard ; roubles purchase many privileges in Russia." 
 
 One of the most wonderful institutions in Moscow is 
 the foundling hospital. This is an enormous building, 
 not far from the Kremlin. Some idea of its size may be 
 had from the fact that it has 2228 windows and that it 
 receives over fifteen thousand children annually. While 
 we sat in the office of reception, three came in within 
 half an hour. No questions are asked, except if the 
 child has been baptized and what are its name and age; 
 these are at once entered upon a book and ticket, the 
 boys' on a ticket of one color and girls' upon a ticket of 
 another color. Neither are these children deposited sur- 
 reptitiously at the door, but brought in by relatives and 
 even their own mothers. After being properly registered 
 by three young women (themselves former foundlings), 
 the infant has a number placed around its neck, corre- 
 sponding to a number given to the person bringing it 
 to the institution; it is then taken into another room, 
 where it is received by trained nurses, and then given 
 in charge of one of the numerous nurses in attendance, 
 who washes it and dresses it. Soon after it is sub- 
 jected to a thorough medical examination to see if it is 
 suffering from any disease, and if found to be is sent 
 at once to a ward of the hospital devoted to such, 
 where it has the best of medical care and attention. 
 Infants remain in the institution one month, during 
 which time they are vaccinated, and then, if found in 
 healthy condition, they are sent with their nurse to the 
 village to which the latter belongs, she receiving a sum 
 
172 TRAINING OF THE INMATES. 
 
 equal to about a dollar and a quarter per month for 
 care of the infant until it becomes of age, and under 
 the supervision of the doctor of the district, who is 
 accountable to the government authorities. 
 
 Of course, a very large proportion of these children 
 are of illegitimate birth, but the mothers contrive (if 
 they desire it) to keep track of their offspring by means 
 of the ticket given them, and also, as many of them do, 
 by tattooing a small mark upon the arm or some por- 
 tion of the body. Furthermore, as nurses are in con- 
 stant demand, mothers do not hesitate to apply for 
 positions in that capacity, and seek with good success 
 to obtain their own children. So it would appear that 
 the mother of an illegitimate child receives a premium 
 of a dollar and a quarter per week for its support. 
 The mother may claim the child at any time before it 
 is ten j'ears of age "by proving property and (without) 
 paying charges." 
 
 The boys, when old enough, are liable to military 
 service ; some are taught trades at an industrial school 
 in Moscow, others become agricultural laborers. The 
 girls are trained in various occupations, including 
 domestic service ; many of them are taken back to the 
 hospital and taught to be trained nurses, and here let 
 me say a more perfect S}~stem of faithful, thorough, 
 and careful treatment does not seem possible than that 
 which we saw in passing through the wards of this vast 
 hospital. 
 
 Every part of it is scrupulously neat and under the 
 best of medical and domestic management, even to the 
 minutest details. The infants are bathed in conven- 
 iently shaped flannel-lined tubs, dressed upon pillows 
 made for the purpose, and handled with the utmost care 
 and dexterity by the nurses, who seem to be wonderful 
 
AN ADMIRABLE SYSTEM. 173 
 
 adepts at their work. The corps of physicians and 
 surgeons is large, and the most rigid skill is exercised 
 not only in the care of the infants, but as regards the 
 food and comfort of the wet-nurses. 
 
 It is something of a sight one sees in going into this 
 great community of twelve or fifteen hundred babies 
 and nearly a thousand wet-nurses. In one of the great 
 wards it was visiting day, and there were many young 
 mothers in to see and some to take farewell of their 
 offspring, giving instructions to the nurses to whom 
 they had been assigned, or covertly taking a farewell 
 kiss and tearful adieu of some little slumberer in its 
 white cot. Some of these were by no means from the 
 poorest walks of life. Many of the latter contrive to 
 get employment and assignment to their own children. 
 
 From the wards where the new-comers were washed, 
 inspected, and fed on first arrival, we passed through 
 room after room of others who were passing their 
 month of probation in the institution ; and the moder- 
 ate amount of outcry, the comfort and cleanliness 
 of cots and nurses and all the surroundings attested 
 the degree of perfection to which the management of 
 the establishment and the care of the infants have 
 been carried. 
 
 The sick-wards are characterized by the same care, 
 and have nurses who have been trained in the treatment 
 of different complaints, even to those of many poor little 
 creatures whose hours of life were already numbered. 
 Not only this, but one department was devoted to the 
 care of children of premature birth. These little crea- 
 tures are placed in large, egg-shaped, copper cradles, 
 lined with soft flannels, the bottom and sides of the 
 cradle being filled with hot water, kept at carefully 
 regulated temperature, and provided with a glazed top 
 
174 THE BAKERIES AND LAUNDRIES. 
 
 affording a view of the occupant who is undergoing 
 this process of bringing forward. 
 
 The bodies of such as die during the month are sub- 
 jected to post-mortem examination, and a full report 
 made by the examining surgeons as to the cause of 
 death, and other facts resulting from the examination, 
 so that it will be seen the hospital affords to the stu- 
 dent also one of the best and most practical medical 
 schools for the study of the diseases of children. -After 
 a walk through the different wards of the vast building, 
 we next visited its refectories for nurses, the laundries, 
 bakery, kitchen, etc. 
 
 In a room off the bakery were great frames or open 
 shelves where hundreds and hundreds of loaves of bread 
 were stored ; the coarse brown bread of the country for 
 ordinary attendants, and more nutritious loaves for the 
 wet-nurses. The latter were also allowed a certain 
 amount of a sort of beer, a mild and cheap Russian 
 concoction said to contain many nutritive qualities. 
 
 The laundries, bakeries, and cooking arrangements 
 seemed to be of the most approved description, and on 
 the extensive scale required for this institution, which 
 must employ some thousands within its walls. The 
 women serving as nurses get about a dollar and thirty 
 cents per week besides the good fare provided for them 
 by the institution. The } r early grant of the govern- 
 ment to it is about one million of dollars. Although 
 this hospital seems to encourage immorality and fraud, 
 yet the Russians tell us that not 5 per cent, of the 
 births of Russia are illegitimate, although statistics also 
 show that in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where these 
 foundling hospitals are located, the percentage runs up 
 to over 25 or 35 per cent. — Moscow taking the lead, 
 and also leading Paris 10 per cent. 
 
STATISTICS OF ILLEGITIMACY IN RUSSIA. 175 
 
 The managers of the hospital informed us that a 
 very large proportion of the children brought to the 
 hospital were of legitimate birth, their parents being of 
 the laboring class, and at service at such low wages 
 that they could give neither the time nor the means to 
 bring up their children, and, being assured of better 
 care than they could give, resigned them here, with the 
 hope of claiming them before they reached the age of 
 ten years. Notwithstanding its excellent management, 
 the institution may perhaps in many respects be con- 
 sidered a questionable charity. 
 
 The yearly grant to this hospital from the govern- 
 ment is nearly a million of dollars. The number of 
 foundlings left annually here has reached the number 
 of 13,865, but it is a question whether any increase of 
 population is effected by these foundling hospitals, for 
 there is said to be great mortality among the children 
 after leaving the hospital, owing to the rigor of the 
 climate and the rough peasant-fare they are obliged to 
 put up with ; for the dull, monotonous life of the Rus- 
 sian peasantry must be dreary in the extreme — indeed, 
 far below that of the North American savage as far as 
 liberty, freedom, and exercise are concerned, and the 
 brutish faces of some of them that we saw were below 
 those, in point of intellect, of the Digger Indian of 
 North America. 
 
 No visitor to Moscow will think of leaving the city 
 without a ride out to Sparrow Hills, the point where 
 Napoleon Bonaparte obtained his first view of Moscow, 
 when he made that most wonderful crusade of modern 
 times, the invasion of Russia, with his vast and well 
 equipped army — a wonderful achievement by the great- 
 est soldier of the age, followed by his most disastrous of 
 defeats — the complete annihilation of his mighty host. 
 
176 MOSCOW — HISTORICAL RESUME. 
 
 Moscow, it will be remembered, is a far more ancient 
 city than St. Petersburg. It was founded nearly eight 
 hundred years ago, defended against Tamerlane the 
 Tartar, burned by Tartar invaders, but, rising Phoenix- 
 like from repeated conflagrations, it was recognized as 
 the Muscovite capital in the fourteenth century, and was, 
 and is still, dear to the heart of every true Russian. 
 
 The burning of this holy city of Russia is described 
 as the grandest sacrifice ever made by a nation, that, 
 finding it could not be defended from victorious foes, 
 chose to destroy the dearest treasure of the Russian 
 heart, the holiest of her shrines, and the precious 
 memories of centuries, rather than they should be 
 enjoyed by the conquerors. 
 
 There are said to be 350 churches in Moscow, or, 
 counting all places of worship, 365 — one for every 
 clay in the year ; and the city itself seems to be sur- 
 rounded by two or three grand boulevards or cause- 
 ways, which are said to mark the site of ancient 
 fortifications against incursions of the Tartars. But 
 Moscow is fast becoming a great centre of manufac- 
 tures and a commercial and business city, the railway 
 system affording means for reception of material and 
 distribution of products, so that ere long the semi- 
 barbaric architecture and flavor of Eastern life which 
 it now possesses will gradually give way to the advance 
 of European ideas and the pronounced features of 
 modern civilization. 
 
 It was over a bridge across the Moskva River, near 
 Sparrow Hills, that one of the main columns of the 
 French army passed on entering the city. The ride to 
 this point is over a very bad road, but, the point once 
 gained, the view is worth seeing. A small hotel is 
 built upon a prominent point here, with a brotid covered 
 
SPARROW HILLS. 177 
 
 platform, upon which you may sit and enjoy the fra- 
 grant and delicious glass of Russian tea with its float- 
 ing slice of lemon, and such other light refreshment as 
 you may order, and look down upon the glittering dis- 
 play of spires, domes, steeples, and churches, with 
 their gilded points flashing in the sunshine and their 
 odd and variegated colors seeming like a huge kaleido- 
 scope in the distance. 
 
 Near here, on Salutation Hill, Napoleon sat, sur- 
 rounded by his staff, on the 14th of September, 1812, 
 gazing upon the walls of the distant Kremlin, the glit- 
 tering spires and gilded domes of the city, while a 
 division of his army in battle array at the foot awaited 
 in vain the advance of the Russian army that he ex- 
 pected would defend their holy city. But none came, 
 and his advanced guard, under Murat, entered the city 
 and took possession of the Kremlin, Napoleon himself 
 following the next day. 
 
 No sooner, however, was the conqueror within the 
 ancient palace than the development of Russian tac- 
 tics began with the conflagration, and, after a stay 
 of a little over a month, Napoleon was compelled to 
 abandon the city and began his disastrous retreat, in 
 which onty forty thousand men out of the Grand Army 
 escaped the general wreck. 
 
 It is interesting to imaginative minds to stand upon 
 spots like this, so celebrated in history. Here where 
 the great soldier gazed upon the goal of his ambition, 
 or at Waterloo, where lay the Guards whose withering 
 fire hurled back the hitherto invincible Imperial Guard 
 and settled the fate of the modern Csesar, the mind 
 must be dull indeed not to be stirred by the recollec- 
 tion of the stirring scenes that were there enacted. 
 
 On our ride back to Moscow we passed the houses 
 
178 A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 of the Russian peasants, rough-looking cabins made of 
 peeled logs, somewhat after the style of Western 
 American log cabins. In Russian villages, even ot 
 considerable size, all the houses, with the exception of 
 two or three, which are the residences of officials, are 
 poor and wretched-looking affairs, but the church will 
 be found rich, and often blazing with precious metal 
 enough to purchase the whole settlement. 
 
 The poorer class of peasants we saw on the road, 
 when returning, were in rough, coarse clothing and 
 sheepskin garments, and at the corner of one house or 
 workshop was a group about to enjoy their evening 
 meal, which appeared to be a round tub of sour beer 
 into which chopped-up bits of cold cabbage and 
 cucumbers had been thrown. 
 
 But soon after passing this group we met a sadder 
 sight — a procession of Siberian exiles guarded by 
 mounted Cossack soldiers, on their long march to that 
 region of banishment and captivity. This band was 
 thirty or forty in number, chained together in couples, 
 some wearing chains from the wrists to the ankles ; 
 the latter were said to be either thieves or murderers. 
 Behind these prisoners, who were on foot, came six or 
 eight rude carts in which were the wives and children 
 of some of the prisoners, who were permitted to accom- 
 pany them. According to the laws of the empire, a 
 man exiled to Siberia is legally dead, and his wife may 
 marry again. These gangs of convicts march from 
 eight to twelve miles a day and are served with rations 
 of biscuit aiid salt beef, and such water as they can 
 get by the way. There is, however, a general feeling 
 of pity felt for them all along the route, and the in- 
 habitants of the villages through which they pass set 
 out bread, cabbage soup, and jugs of beer for them 
 
FATE AND SYMPATHY. 179 
 
 by the roadside, which they are permitted to take as 
 they pass. No one is allowed to approach or speak to 
 them on the march, which is a long and painful one, 
 and the fatigues of which, combined with the sufferings 
 of having often to bivouac in the pine-forests or on the 
 barren steppes with insufficient shelter, cause many to 
 perish on the six or eight weeks' terrible march. The 
 group which passed us had few whose countenances or 
 appearance gave any indications that they were other 
 than degraded specimens of their class. 
 
 Later on, when we encountered another group near 
 Nijni Novgorod, there were many of a much better 
 personal appearance that might have been political 
 prisoners, but they were chained together, men and 
 women, with others of the vilest and most brutal 
 physiognomy, and I am told that alleged women con- 
 spirators and female thieves and murderers are linked 
 together in the gang, or delicate females who have 
 been accused of promoting treasonable plots were 
 chained together with the lowest scum of female 
 criminals. Men are mixed together in like manner, 
 the murderer and the scholar, the drunken robber, 
 suspected school-teacher, brutish assassins, and young 
 students. 
 
 In one of these groups that were passing, I noticed a 
 tall, dejected-looking man, evidently of better grade 
 than his immediate companions, who looked at us with 
 such a gaze of inexpressible sadness that on the im- 
 pulse of the moment I tossed a piece of silver towards 
 him. As he stooped to pick it up, one of the Cossack 
 guard rushed up, and, giving him a brutal blow, that 
 nearly felled him to the ground, seized the coin, while 
 another rode up to our carriage, which was drawn up 
 at the roadside, and roundly berated the driver. 
 
180 SIBERIA — DEATH IN LIFE. 
 
 It must be a terrible region in some portions of 
 Siberia to which these exiles are sent by clemency (?) 
 of the czar. In some parts of the country, notably 
 beyond Tomsk and Ienissa, there are but three months 
 that are not winter, and for three months in the long 
 winter the days are but six hours Long, and the labors 
 and terrors of the servitude there, under governors, 
 task-masters, and soldiers (who themselves have been 
 sent there as offenders), although they have from time 
 to time been described, are probably beyond what can 
 be imagined. Once there, it is almost impossible to 
 escape, owing to the long distance to be travelled, as 
 well as the extreme difficulty of procuring proper 
 supplies, passport, or means to preserve life on the 
 journey. 
 
 Capital punishment does not prevail in Russia, but 
 it may be considered a worse punishment to be con- 
 demned to the slow but sure death in the shaft of 
 quicksilver mines, under the lash of brutal task-masters. 
 Those condemned to these mines are supposed to be 
 of the worst class of convicts, such as thieves and as- 
 sassins, and their lives rarely last more than ten years, 
 health being exhausted in much less time, as they live, 
 work, and sleep in the mines, and have but two holi- 
 days a year, Christmas and Easter. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Occasional stories of the escape of prisoners from 
 Siberia have been told, but I think the most interest- 
 ing and reliable one of modern date is that written by 
 Mr. William Westall, a year or two ago, in the Contem- 
 porary Revieiv, of the escape of a political prisoner from 
 Eastern Siberia. Mr. Westall says that, although the 
 difficulty of escape is great from Western Siberia, it is 
 still greater from Eastern, and, although a compara- 
 tively easy matter to elude the officers, it is almost 
 impossible to leave the country. 
 
 The following is the prisoner's story, in his own 
 words, which Mr. Westall says can be vouched for as 
 being in strict accordance with the truth. All that the 
 writer has done is to omit giving the names of the 
 persons, and to pass over some minor facts which might 
 be of interest to the Russian police. The narrator is a 
 man not more than thirty years old, and of quiet de- 
 meanor. To look at him, one would never think that 
 he had passed through such an eventful life. 
 
 "I was born at St. Petersburg, and at an early age 
 I entered the Royal G}nnnasium of that city, and gradu- 
 ated from that institution at fifteen. I determined to 
 study medicine, and after three years entered the Im- 
 perial Pharmacy of St. Catherine in St. Petersburg, 
 and was in the employ of the government. As every 
 one has to serve the government in some way, I deter- 
 mined on this course, as being nearest to my chosen 
 profession. I was assigned to various pharmacies es- 
 
 181 
 
182 THE STORY OF AN EXILE. 
 
 tablished in Russia by the government, and also served 
 in the medical department attached to the army in the 
 war with the Turcomans. In time I returned to St. 
 Petersburg. I always had a taste for literary pursuits, 
 and contributed some chapters to a book published 
 about five years ago, 'The Four Brothers,' the title of 
 which bore reference to Alexander II. and his three 
 brothers, who led profligate lives, misusing the money 
 wrung from the blood of the people. My article 
 severely censured these princes. These sketches were 
 afterward followed by articles published in ' The Will 
 of the People,' a Nihilistic organ, the numbers of which 
 were issued monthly, and printed in a cellar of St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 " On the 13th of February, 1882, at 2 o'clock in the 
 afternoon, as I was walking home from the Pharmacy 
 St. Catherine, I was accosted by an elderly man, who 
 commanded me to follow him. Thinking lie was jest- 
 ing, I turned to him with some trivial remark, when 
 he told me he was an officer of the secret service, and 
 that I was arrested as a Nihilist ; at the same time he 
 showed me his badge. I must have been betrayed by 
 some one, as no one not in sympathy with my Nihilistic 
 ideas knew anything about my actions outside of my 
 position. 
 
 " I was taken to the police-station, searched, and all 
 my valuables were confiscated. In less than an hour 
 I was summoned before a court-martial, and sentenced 
 to Siberia, to go with the next body of prisoners. No 
 time was specified as to how long I was to remain in 
 exile. As whatever happens to a Nihilist is at once 
 known by his friends, my father was instantly informed 
 of my arrest. He hurried to the police-station to see 
 me. Of course, my father had much to tell me. We 
 
FAREWELL TO HIS FATHER. 183 
 
 were, however, obliged to carry on our conversation 
 aloud, in Russian. Any secret communication was 
 apparently impossible. My father (God bless him !) 
 overcame this great difficulty. Surrounded as we were 
 by the officers and guard, not a word could be spoken 
 but what they could hear. But he had arranged for 
 this emergency. He had bribed the jailer, for money 
 will do anything in Russia. At a stated signal, the 
 jailer was to come in and attract the attention of the 
 officers. Then my father, in a few words, rapidly 
 spoken, in French, assured me that he had made the 
 fullest arrangements for my escape. 
 
 " This interview with my father, which brought some 
 hope to me, only took a few moments. Still, the future 
 was so uncertain, and the chances of escape so difficult, 
 that I quite despaired of ever seeing him again. My 
 father had not the time to give me the full details of 
 the plan, but, still, what he told me I retained in my 
 memory, and recalled on my weary journey afterward 
 even the inflections of his voice. 
 
 " My father threw his arms around my neck, whis- 
 pered a word of consolation in my ears, and we were 
 parted. I was transferred to the city prison, and put 
 in a cell thirty feet under ground. In this horrid 
 dungeon I could not tell night from day. I remember 
 it w T as cell No. 14 — a celebrated one, as nearly all the 
 political prisoners of the last twenty years have been 
 confined there. I suppose I must have stayed there 
 twenty-four hours, but, as it was pitch-dark, it might 
 have been longer. I was taken from the cell on the 
 15th of February ; my clothes were stripped from my 
 back. Prisoners' clothes, I have every reason to sup- 
 pose, are stolen by the police, being considered as their 
 perquisites, and sold for their benefit. I was clad in 
 
184 THE CONVICT GARB. 
 
 the convict's dress, a long cloak made of the coarsest 
 cloth, resembling a horse-blanket. On mj back was 
 painted a yellow diamond, the mark of a political con- 
 vict. I was ironed hand and foot and placed between 
 two friends of mine, who had been arrested a short time 
 before. In the etapes were murderers, thieves, and 
 criminals of every description. 
 
 " From St. Petersburg we proceeded by rail to 
 Moscow, thence to Nijni Novgorod, and from there by 
 steamer to Samara. We next took the train to Oren- 
 burg, the last town on the Russian frontier. Then we 
 crossed the border into the Kirghiz country. When 
 in Siberia we travelled on foot, though the political 
 prisoners might ride if they wished to. We usually 
 travelled nearly twenty American miles a day. In 
 Siberia our irons were removed ; and we were allowed 
 to converse freely among ourselves, a privilege before 
 this denied us. Our guards were generally good- 
 natured, but strict discipline was enforced. All we 
 had to eat was three pounds of Russian black bread a 
 day, made of the coarsest barley. A little salt was 
 given with the bread. Those who had money could 
 purchase brandy or vodki. Our halts on our weary 
 march were made at numerous kabalcs along the road. 
 A Jcabalc is a large barnlike structure, consisting of a 
 bare room with benches around it. In entering one of 
 these places there is a general rush for the benches. 
 Those who are weak and ill, or are not lucky enough 
 to get a bench, pass the night in the middle of the 
 floor. 
 
 " The first important town we reached in Siberia 
 was Tobolsk, and from there we pushed on to Tomsk, 
 which was to have been our last station. The time 
 occupied in going so far had been fully two months, 
 
A DISGUISED FBIEND. 185 
 
 and on our weary journey we had tramped nearly two 
 thousand miles. During all this time, you can well 
 imagine, I sometimes lost courage and despaired of 
 ever being rescued. 
 
 "Now comes the most interesting part of my story. 
 We did not go into the town of Tomsk, but stopped at 
 a kabak about twenty miles outside of the place. 
 While in the kabak I noticed a man who acted as if 
 he were drunk. This person asked us who was going 
 to treat. We told him we had no money. 4 Well,' 
 said he, ' I'll treat you.' While we were drinking some 
 vodki, the man managed to tell us who he was, for he 
 was so disguised that it was impossible for us to recog- 
 nize him. It was a friend, an engineer, the man my 
 father had employed to save me. He had been in 
 Tomsk, so he told us, some time, and had enlisted as 
 a blacksmith. A portion of his duty was to shackle 
 and unshackle the prisoners. He told us we must ask 
 permission of the guards to take a bath. 
 
 " Baths in Russia and Siberia are far different from 
 those in America. Nearly every peasant's house has 
 its bath. This consists of a small out-house in which 
 stones are heated red-hot and water thrown over them. 
 The bather stands in the vapor. Consent to bathe 
 was granted us. After we had finished our bath, my 
 friend replaced our irons, but failed to lock them. 
 While we were in the bath, the blacksmith had plied 
 the officers and guards with so much vodki that they 
 all were in a kind of half-drunken stupor. The man 
 who examined our irons was too much fuddled to 
 notice that they were not locked. 
 
 44 We lay down and kept perfectly still till mid- 
 night. Then, quietly slipping our irons, we stole softly 
 out of the kabak, running as hard as we could until 
 
186 DELIVERANCE. 
 
 we were out of sight of the house. We made for a 
 small ravine near the icabak. Here my rescuer was 
 waiting for us. He had secured a horse and wagon. 
 We scrambled into the wagon, and, lashing the horse, 
 madly plunged into the densest part of the forest. 
 After going along at a breakneck speed for about ten 
 miles, we stopped the horse and stayed in the forest 
 till morning. 
 
 " There was a change of clothes in the wagon, and 
 we threw aside our convict garb and assumed the 
 uniform of Russian officers. While on our way to 
 Tomsk we heard a terrific sound of trampling hoofs, 
 and were in momentary fear of being overtaken. We 
 thought it might be a troop of Cossacks. Unfortu- 
 nately for us, the animal which pulled our wagon was a 
 mare, and a herd of wild horses had scented her. We 
 turned the animal loose, when, rejoicing at her freedom, 
 she ran away with the rest of her newly found friends. 
 We burned our wagon and proceeded on our way to 
 Tomsk on foot. Here we remained only long enough 
 to hurry off in the next post to Yeniseisk. Up the 
 Yenisei River we took a canal-boat to Techoul-Kora. 
 
 " I forgot to state that all prisoners in Russia have 
 one-half their heads shaved. So, while hiding in the 
 forest around Tomsk, we took turns in cutting one 
 another's hair. How different was our journey home- 
 ward ! With plenty of money, given us by our res- 
 cuer, Ave took the fastest boats and had the speediest 
 horses. If we happened to pass a fortress or band of 
 prisoners, the officers saluted us, and the peasants 
 treated us as if we were the truest friends the czar 
 ever had. From Techoul-Kora we made our way back 
 to Russia. As soon as we crossed the border, we 
 changed our dress to that of civilians. I was dis- 
 
MEETS HIS FATHER IN VILNA. 187 
 
 guised as a coachman. In Russia great care had to 
 be taken. We travelled only on the most unfre- 
 quented roads, and associated with no one whom we 
 did not know to be friendly to our cause. After reach- 
 ing Ekaterinburg we crossed the Ural Mountains to 
 Kazan, where I parted from my friends and the engi- 
 neer. Picture to yourself the sorrow of leaving the 
 man who had risked his life to save ours. It was easy 
 enough to travel in Russia ; any one can do that, pro- 
 viding he has plenty of money. 
 
 "From Nijni Novgorod I went to Vilna, a small 
 town in Poland, where, to my intense delight, I met 
 my father. He told me that all his fortune had been 
 confiscated by the government, and that I must leave 
 the country at once. Giving me a small sum of money, 
 my gold watch and chain, he bade me good-bye. From 
 Vilna I went to Koons, where I took a steamer on the 
 Niemen River to Judgeborg, a small town in Poland, 
 only twenty miles from Germany. Now the question 
 was, how was I to get out of Russia without a pass- 
 port ? That difficulty was easily overcome. There are 
 any number of people who, for the sum of from three 
 to five roubles, will smuggle you across, though you 
 stand in constant danger of being captured by a kind 
 of mounted police, wdiose duty it is to guard the 
 boundary line. 
 
 "After running some great risks in Judgeborg, I 
 finally came across one of these people whom I thought 
 could aid me in getting out of the blackest country on 
 the face of the earth. The man was to meet me" at 
 12 o'clock at night. I went to bed and stayed there 
 till nearly the appointed hour. Then rising and dress- 
 ing myself, I left the house. I found my wagoner 
 waiting for me. These men secure fourteen days' 
 
188 CROSSING THE FRONTIER. 
 
 passes from the government, which allows them to 
 take travellers and baggage into Germany. During 
 my drive all my former adventures, even to the 
 simplest incidents of my childhood, were vividly 
 recalled to my mind. I rejoiced at leaving Russia, 
 but thought of my father, mother, sisters, brothers, 
 and friends, whom I might never see again. 
 
 "The Russian border is separated from Germany by 
 a narrow creek, not wider than an ordinary room. My 
 preozschick ordered me to get out of the wagon. He 
 alighted first, taking the precaution of lying flat on the 
 road. He placed his ear to the ground so as to listen 
 if there was not an obejschick in the neighborhood. 
 Not hearing any sound, he told me to push on. Leap- 
 ing across the creek, I was for the first time a free 
 man, though not yet entirely out of the clutches of the 
 Russian government. I ran as fast as my legs would 
 carry me, when suddenly I stopped. Directly in front 
 of me I saw a man. He was lying flat on his back. 
 Good God ! He was a police guard. There he lay, 
 sleeping soundly, holding his horse's bridle, the horse 
 quietly cropping the grass. The animal had his head 
 turned away from me. The man must have been 
 drunk. Drawing my knife, the only weapon I had, I 
 made up my mind that it was a question of life or 
 death. I jumped over the body of the prostrate man. 
 Had he risen from his sleep or made a motion to stop 
 me, I should have tried to have given him a death- 
 thrust with my knife. 
 
 " How far I ran I don't know, but in my confusion 
 I took the wrong road and ran in a circle almost to the 
 Russian border. I was about to enter the guard-house, 
 a large white building, which bore some resemblance 
 to a hotel my wagoner had directed me to. I had 
 
GOING TO THE NEW WORLD. 189 
 
 nearly reached the building when, on the entrance, 1 
 espied, above the door, the Russian arms. Fortunately, 
 it was early in the morning, and no one was awake. I 
 can assure you I lost no time in regaining the road. 
 After a while I reached the hotel I was seeking. I had 
 barely strength enough to knock at the door, and when 
 I got inside I had to be assisted to my room. I trav- 
 elled through various small towns in Germany until I 
 reached Berlin. I intended staying in Germany, but, 
 as I could get no work in my profession, I went to 
 Havre. Here my means were exhausted. I pawned 
 my watch, and, hearing that there would be a steamer 
 for New York, I made up my mind to try my fortune 
 in America, bought a steerage ticket, and landed in 
 New York City in April, 1883, with seventeen dollars 
 in my pocket." 
 
 It is generally understood that many of the political 
 arrests in Russia and banishments to Siberia have been 
 quietly and secretly done by the government, in some 
 cases, as asserted, the victims disappearing so suddenly 
 as to leave no clew, even to friends and relatives, of 
 their whereabouts. 
 
 The worst feature of some of these political arrests 
 is that many who are but suspected of conspiracy 
 against the government are subjected to imprisonment 
 and often have the greatest difficulty in communicat- 
 ing with their friends, while others who have inno- 
 cently transacted business with Nihilists or conspirators, 
 not knowing them as such, are torn from home and 
 friends, and, if we can believe English accounts, given 
 no opportunity to know what charges are made against 
 them or opportunity to disprove them. 
 
 A recent case was recorded by a correspondent of 
 the Levant Herald of the strange meeting of a learned 
 
190 A STRANGE RENCONTRE. 
 
 professor in the wilds of Siberia by one of his former 
 students, who, as a civil engineer, was in Central Asia 
 for some time. 
 
 The monotony of his residence in those remote 
 provinces was broken by an occasional hunting expe- 
 dition into Siberia. On one of these trapping expedi- 
 tions, which included a younger member of one of the 
 grand-ducal families, the party was one evening be- 
 lated in a pine-forest and at some distance from the 
 day's bivouac. They were utterly astray. A sten- 
 torian view-halloo, reverberating through the silent 
 recesses of the forest-depths, brought to the assistance 
 and guidance of the party a wood-cutter — an old man, 
 of some threescore years, with tangled locks, coarse 
 caftan, and bark-swathed feet. Under the old man's 
 guidance, the party found a rude hut, a charcoal fire, 
 and some simple cooking-utensils. 
 
 The engineer noticed that the old wood-cutter, when 
 unobserved, scanned his face rather attentively. He 
 took a quiet opportunity of asking the old man if he 
 observed in him any resemblance to some one he had 
 previously known. 
 
 " A very strong resemblance," was the reply. " Were 
 you not some fifteen years ago a student of the Riche- 
 levski Gymnase in Odessa?" 
 
 The engineer answered affirmatively. 
 
 "And do you remember Professor ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; he was a man beloved by every student 
 in his class. I shall always remember kindly the ami- 
 able and learned professor who disappeared so suddenly 
 and mysteriously from Odessa. But what do you know 
 of him ? " 
 
 The old wood-cutter for the first time smiled. The 
 heavy moustache and beard had hidden the lines of the 
 
THE VICISSITUDES OF A PHILOLOGIST. 191 
 
 mouth in repose. The young engineer had not forgot- 
 ten the peculiarly sad sweetness of his old professor's 
 smile. The ragged and picturesque wood-cutter and 
 the former learned professor of Sanscrit and compara- 
 tive philology were the same. 
 
 " The rencontre," continues the correspondent, "was, 
 under the circumstances, naturally at once both pleas- 
 ing and painful to my friend, to whose immediate and 
 anxious inquiries the old man replied sadly : — 
 
 " ' All God's will, my boy. As to the suddenness and 
 mystery of my disappearance from Odessa, the secret 
 police might have explained. Nothing beyond an un- 
 founded suspicion of disaffection to our Little Father 
 and a preposterous charge of disseminating a revolution- 
 ary doctrine have sent me to this life-long banishment. 
 But I do not repine. I have sufficient philosophy left 
 to apply myself to the felling of pine-trees with the 
 same zest as that with which I formerly delighted to 
 pursue a knotty philological problem. 
 
 " ; Am I not wise in m}^ generation and old age ? I 
 am deprived of the sight and companionship of old 
 friends, but God gives me health and a portion of con- 
 tentment. My masters pay me with but few unkind 
 words and two roubles a week. My old Odessa pupils 
 paid me six roubles an hour. But what of that? I 
 have sufficient. Sometimes old memories draw tightly 
 round the heart and give me infinite pain. Then I 
 swing my heavy adze with greater force, and endeavor 
 to forget. It is to me a joy to look upon the still 
 youthful face of my old pupil, but do not probe my 
 heart, child. I ask you not to speak to me at parting. 
 You were alwa} T s obedient, and you hear me. God 
 keep you ! Good-bye ! ' " 
 
 The old man would not allow the friend to convey 
 
192 THE BLESSING OF LIBERTY. 
 
 any messages to relatives or acquaintances, who, he 
 said, had probably long since forgotten his existence, 
 and he would not disturb dead memories, so that 
 nothing could be done beyond an affectionate pressure 
 of the hand, without a word, at leave-taking. 
 
 How many others are there like the old professor, 
 men also of birth, breeding, and brilliant intellectual 
 parts, languishing out their lives in the dreary wilds of 
 Siberia for a baseless suspicion ? The reflection is 
 saddening, and it also comes home to us after inspect- 
 ing the laboriously cut and elegantly carved pillars of 
 churches, from stone of almost adamantine hardness, 
 pedestals, stone steps, pediments, columns, and other 
 work from Siberian quarries. 
 
 For one thinks that this beautiful work, that repre- 
 sents years of painful and careful application, may 
 have been wrought with aching hearts and washed by 
 the hopeless tears of those longing for the sight of 
 loved ones and far distant home. 
 
 On the other hand, portions of Siberia are repre- 
 sented as flourishing and even pleasant places for the 
 average Russian to live in, and with better opportuni- 
 ties than are afforded in the generality of Russian 
 villages. But while not much can be said in praise of 
 the villages of Russian peasants, it is a fact among all 
 peoples that it is rare that any compensation can be 
 found for the deprivation of one's liberty. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Having occasion to make a remittance to a friend 
 in Germany while I was in Moscow, I was about to 
 enclose a ten-pound note in my letter, when I was 
 cautioned not to do so, as there is a law forbidding the 
 transportation of any money into or out of the kingdom 
 through the mails, and post-office officials have author- 
 ity to open letters which they suspect and seize any 
 money they may find therein, one-third going to the 
 government and two-thirds to the official. All remit- 
 
 o 
 
 tances, therefore, to ensure safety, must be made by 
 means of bankers' drafts. I presume this is to enable 
 the government to keep track of funds received or ex- 
 pended for plots or conspiracies, but that such regula- 
 tion exists it is fortunate for the tourist to know, lest 
 he unwittingly contribute to the funds of some govern- 
 ment official in the post-office department. The only 
 way to get foreign newspapers in Russia is to have them 
 mailed to your consul or minister ; at the Russian post- 
 offices they will be examined on arrival, and all ob- 
 jectionable passages blacked out of them as before 
 described. 
 
 It is a ride of about five miles out to the Simonof 
 Monastery, one of the richest and most important 
 monastic institutions in the empire, and founded here 
 about the year 1390. It is a large and beautiful extent 
 of ground, enclosing dormitories, chapels, little houses 
 with gay gardens, and other buildings, including no 
 less than six churches within its walls. The central 
 
 193 
 
194 THE SIMONOF MONASTEKY. 
 
 church, surmounted by five great cupolas, has a sort 
 of semi-Chinese or Saracenic aspect, and the old red 
 walls, the huge monastic gate, and the beautiful 
 avenue of trees gave a very picturesque aspect to the 
 scene. 
 
 This monastery, in olden times, was a regular feudal 
 institution, owning numerous villages and enabled to 
 call into the field a regular army of its own of over 
 twelve thousand serfs about the year 1764. It lias had 
 a notable history, having been conquered and sacked 
 by invading Lithuanians and Poles in 1(312, made a 
 plague hospital in 1771, suppressed in 1778, and re- 
 stored in 1795, to be again partially destroyed in 1812. 
 
 We drove into the enclosure, and, after some diffi- 
 culty, our guide found a man in charge, but, it being 
 just 12 o'clock, priests, monks, and all were asleep, and, 
 like the Spaniards and Italians, had all retired for noon 
 siesta and would not be awake and about for two or 
 three hours. The ever and all-powerful roubles, how- 
 ever, brought out a long-robed and bearded official 
 from his slumbers, who showed us about the Church of 
 the Assumption, and sleepily descanted upon the altar- 
 screen, the great gilt cupola, and the two towers, one 
 85 and the other 125 feet high. In the sacristy were 
 the rich robes, heavy with gold embroidery — so heavy, 
 indeed, that it would seem like doing penance to wear 
 them any length of time. 
 
 Here also were rich cups, huge gold tureens or ves- 
 sels, and other ecclesiastical treasures, including the 
 gospels bound in gold and ornamented with precious 
 stones — which seems to have been a favorite present 
 of monarchs to monasteries. This one was given by 
 Mary, the daughter of Alexis. 
 
 The chief object for which the monastery is visited, 
 
MONASTERY OF THE NEW REDEEMER. 195 
 
 however, is to ascend the bell-tower, three hundred 
 and thirty feet high, where, looking out through a trap- 
 door in the very top of the cupola, you have a magnifi- 
 cent panoramic view of Moscow and the surrounding 
 country, and again realize what an important part the 
 walled-in Kremlin, beautiful monastery grounds, the 
 numerous parti-colored roofs and spires, gilded domes 
 and glittering steeples, play in presenting a novel and 
 thoroughly foreign, as well as picturesque, view to the 
 eye of the American tourist. 
 
 This monastery is on the edge of a steep rise of 
 ground, and in quite an advantageous and command- 
 ing position, and is approached by a narrow road be- 
 tween its walls and the cliff -side ; its central gate, 
 under the great bell-tower, is kept closed, and the circle 
 of towers on the walls were of service in resisting some 
 severe sieges years ago. 
 
 On our way back we pass another great monastery, 
 that of the New Redeemer, surrounded by high walls 
 which enclose several churches within their limits. 
 The monastery was plundered by Napoleon's soldiers, 
 and its antique stone walls date back to 1642. The 
 belfry, like that of the Simonof, is a striking object and 
 rises to the height of 235 feet. Near here are the 
 ruins of a beautiful arch or gate, said to be the entrance 
 to a former archiepiscopal palace. 
 
 But we soon leave the country behind, and, nearing 
 the city, we ride along beside the river and in sight of 
 a beautiful view of the Kremlin from that side, show- 
 ing the battlemented walls, huge buildings, turreted 
 towers, and glittering spires, all grouped above us in 
 the sunlight, strikingly reminding one of Martin's 
 picture of tier above tier of palaces that surrounded 
 Satan as : — 
 
196 THE ROMANOFF HOUSE. 
 
 "High on a throne of royal state, which far 
 Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind, 
 Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand 
 Showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold, 
 Satan exalted sat." 
 
 The Romanoff House, which all tourists are expected 
 to visit as the former residence of the Romanoffs, the 
 present royal family of Russia, is simply a restoration 
 of the ancient building of 1613, in which the first 
 Romanoff czar was born. The exterior walls are said 
 to be the same, but the interior was restored and fitted 
 up in 1858, in the style of a Russian gentleman's house 
 of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and as such 
 the interior, with its massive and cumbersome fittings 
 and appliances, is a curiosity and sort of ancient art- 
 museum. 
 
 The building is four stories in height, and the differ- 
 ent rooms, readied by narrow stairways, are furnished 
 in the antique Russian st}de. The great chamber has a 
 sort of Gothic roof, richly decorated, and in this room 
 were kept many curious and massive pieces of ancient 
 furniture and plate ; some of the latter formerly belong- 
 ing to the family is of massive silver richly wrought. 
 A great German stove, with its colored tiles, was the 
 heating apparatus of the apartment. Then there was 
 the nursery, with its clumsy, great, heavy cradles and 
 rude chairs for children of the period, their wooden 
 dolls and primers, and in the bedchamber the ceiling 
 and walls were all beautifully carved in wood, in various 
 designs, and the old, heavy four-post bedstead and huge 
 chairs, I presume, were Russian antique furniture, and 
 in a glass case was a long robe and a pair of slippers, 
 said to be those of the first czar and czarina of the 
 Romanoffs. The whole is a collection of ancient 
 
"A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT TO SEE." 197 
 
 domestic art, illustrative of the manner and customs 
 of domestic life when the Romanoffs first came into 
 power. 
 
 The numerous curious relics that are presented 
 relating to the former sovereigns of Russia — in fact, the 
 many interesting objects connected with the past his- 
 tory of the empire, of which the average American has 
 so superficial a knowledge — cause him to realize his 
 ignorance in that respect, and create a desire, as in 
 my case, to go home and more thoroughly read up the 
 history of Russia and its people. 
 
 More than once did I meet tourists who, like myself, 
 were making but a brief visit to the country, who ex- 
 pressed their wonder and surprise at what (as an 
 American of considerable experience as a tourist ex- 
 pressed it) " a tremendous amount to see there was in 
 St. Petersburg and Moscow." 
 
 That there is much to interest the intelligent trav- 
 eller may be gathered from these very sketchy descrip- 
 tions of only the leading sights seen, and jotted down 
 after a long day's work visiting them, and the traveller 
 visiting St. Petersburg and Moscow for the first time 
 will find that there is far more to see and more time 
 required to do it than he imagined at the outset. 
 
 Were it not for diary and note-book, how palaces, 
 churches, and monasteries would become mixed up in 
 one's memory, and, after having visited two or three 
 churches, a certain general similarity seems to strike 
 one, and, in the endeavor to give a pen-picture of one 
 after another of these grand temples to the Most High 
 in this distant land, the impression naturally forces 
 itself into my mind that such description in Russia 
 can in no degree be so interesting as that of an old 
 English abbey, for instance, that has figured in history, 
 
198 THE ROYAL PALACE AT MOSCOW. 
 
 romance, and story, till generation after generation had 
 heard, dreamed, and imagined of it, and longed to look 
 upon the crumbling walls or stand upon the ground 
 where have been enacted the scenes sung of by poets,, 
 illustrated by painters, or represented upon the stage. 
 
 But rarely visited as Russia is by the rush of pleas- 
 ure-seekers abroad, I have wondered that such as do 
 go and who write about it do not give us a little more 
 of the actual detail of description, which is of so much 
 service to those who come after. This I have en- 
 deavored to do, at the risk of being tedious, although 
 mention of the contents of church after church and 
 palace after palace becomes something like an inven- 
 tory of possessions. 
 
 The Royal Palace at Moscow is really quite a modern 
 affair, being finished about thirty-five years ago. The 
 interior is magnificent, the apartments being distin- 
 guished for their beauty and grandeur. You first pass- 
 through a grand entrance and vestibule supported by 
 a series of beautiful monoliths of gray marble, and on 
 through beautifully decorated corridors to what are 
 known as the ro} T al apartments, which are a series of 
 elegant and richly furnished rooms decorated with 
 different-colored silk hangings. The empress' draw- 
 ing-room is furnished in beautiful white silk and gold, 
 her cabinet in a dark ruby-colored silk, and her bath- 
 room is rich in elegant marble, with a superb malachite 
 mantel-piece. 
 
 Then there are the halls and antechambers, as usual 
 in palaces, richly gilded and frescoed, but containing 
 nothing of note till we entered one known as the Em- 
 peror's Cabinet, in which were paintings of the entrance 
 of the French into Moscow, and their retreat, also views 
 of the battles of Borodino and Smolensk. The Rus- 
 
GRAND APARTMENTS. 199 
 
 sians like to keep prominently in mind the defeat of 
 the hitherto invincible chieftain who dared to invade 
 their territory and despoil their holy city. A statuette 
 in bronze of Napoleon stands in the middle of the room, 
 as if to say, This is the man whose invading battalions 
 were hurled back, beaten, and destroyed by Russian 
 valor (and Russia's winter ). 
 
 A glance at a room of regimental standards which 
 belong to the different regiments of the Russian army, 
 and we step out to the grand granite staircase that 
 leads to the state apartments. Here, on the great cir- 
 cular landing round the gallery at the head of the 
 staircase, is a fine and spirited battle-piece, represent- 
 ing a victory of the Russians over the Tartars. 
 
 We passed from here into a splendid apartment, 200 
 feet long, 68 wide, and about sixty feet in height, ele- 
 gantly decorated. The military order of St. George 
 was founded by Catherine II., in 1769, and the names 
 of all the individuals and regiments that have ever 
 been decorated with the order are inscribed upon the 
 marble walls of this apartment, in golden letters, and 
 number thousands. 
 
 The grand columns of this hall are a delusion, being 
 formed of zinc, but have a fine and imposing appear- 
 ance. They are surmounted by figures bearing shields, 
 upon which are inscriptions of Russian victories. The 
 superb vases and candelabra are notable features of 
 this room. The candelabra sustain about three thou- 
 sand five hundred lights. The furniture and fittings 
 of this grand hall are of the colors of the order of 
 St. George, black and orange. 
 
 Another magnificent hall in the palace is that known 
 as the hall of St. Andrew, an order of knighthood that 
 was founded by Peter I., in 1698. 
 
200 THE HALL OF ST. ALEXANDER NEVSKY. 
 
 In this hall, which is 160 feet long by 68 wide, is a 
 magnificent royal throne, and the whole is furnished and 
 hung with blue silk, the color of this order of knight- 
 hood ; it is also decorated with numerous coats-of- 
 arms and knightly devices, which I supposed to be 
 those of distinguished knights, but which turned out, 
 on inquiry, to be the arms of different provinces of the 
 empire. 
 
 Still another grand hall, dedicated to another order 
 of knighthood, is that of St. Alexander Nevsky, a 
 hall 150 feet long and about seventy wide, lighted by 
 four thousand five hundred candles. This order of 
 knighthood was founded b} T that industrious sovereign, 
 Catherine II., in 1725, and, its colors being pink, the 
 room is gorgeous in pink and gold decorations. 
 
 There are six great pictures here representing scenes 
 in the life of the saint of the order. One is a spirited 
 representation of a battle on the ice, another a marriage- 
 scene, and a third a triumphal entry into some city ; 
 these are the most f remarkable. 
 
 After these grand apartments, that of St. Catherine, 
 68 feet by 45, looks small, and, sated with sight-seeing 
 of this description, you pass through the great state 
 drawing-room with its rich furniture, the state bed- 
 room, gorgeous with mosaic work and jasper mantel- 
 piece, and then out through a prett}^ garden to other 
 apartments, only one of which we looked into, a dining- 
 room hung with tapestry representing scenes in the life 
 of Don Quixote. 
 
 There Avere other halls, of no special note, but we 
 now entered an older part of the structure, known as 
 the Granite Palace ; we were shown the celebrated 
 " Red Staircase," a structure famous as being the scene 
 of many noted events in Russian history. 
 
THE FAMOUS "RED STAIRCASE." 201 
 
 From the top of this staircase the czars were wont to 
 show themselves to the people, and here is the scene of 
 one of the acts of that cruel tyrant, John the Terrible, 
 who struck his sharp, iron-pointed staff into the foot of 
 a messenger bringing him unfavorable news, and held 
 him thus pinned to the floor while he read the de- 
 spatches. From these steps rebels, pretenders to the 
 crown, unpopular rulers, and others have been hurled 
 upon the pikes of the soldiery below, or seized, dragged 
 down, and cut to pieces, and up these steps the victo- 
 rious Napoleon and his marshals mounted to take pos- 
 session of the Kremlin. 
 
 Next came the room where coronation banquets are 
 served — an apartment with a huge column in the centre, 
 from which spring vaulted arches. 
 
 Here the emperor dines, with his nobles, after the 
 ceremony of coronation. The great theatrical-looking 
 chairs upon a dais at one end of the apartment mark 
 the position of the emperor, who appears here in his 
 royal robes, and none but crowned heads are allowed 
 at his table, and no women admitted to the hall. A 
 window opposite the throne, high up in the wall, marks 
 the spot where a few ladies of high rank may have an 
 opportunity of looking in upon the royal banquet. 
 The imperial plate used at these banquets is preserved 
 here in glass cases, and forms a perfect museum of ele- 
 gant design and workmanship, ancient and modern, of 
 the silver-smith's art. 
 
 It seems here in Moscow that they have something 
 everywhere to show you to recall the name of Napoleon 
 and his invasion. Here is pointed out the point of his 
 entrance into the city; there the point of departure; 
 here are his camp-bedsteads, and there the church which 
 he plundered and stabled horses in ; here are shown 
 
202 MEMENTOS AND TEOPHrES. 
 
 captured standards, the celebrated French eagles, and 
 there is evident pride in the disaster to the invading 
 force, which is ascribed to the invincible character of 
 the Russian soldiers, and little or no credit is given to 
 the Russian winter, which had so much to do with the 
 annihilation of the retreating host that went down by 
 thousands before the whirling snow-wreaths. 
 
 The cannon that were taken from the retiring enemy 
 are pointed to proudly as trophies, many of which were 
 doubtless captured in the fierce charges of the Cossacks 
 upon the thinned and exhausted rear-guard as they pain- 
 fully urged their way back over barren wastes, chilled 
 and exhausted with the fierce blasts of winter that had 
 overtaken them, and others by scores were, as we know, 
 abandoned for lack of horses to drag or men to man 
 them. 
 
 The tactics of the Russian generals, after the battle 
 of Borodino and subsequent advance of Napoleon, 
 proved most successful, and, instead of entering a 
 populated city and dictating terms to the Russian 
 people, who should humbly come to him suing for 
 peace, and proffering an indemnity, the invader found, 
 to his mortification, that the population had fled. None 
 remained save convicts, whom the Russians had liber- 
 ated from the prisons, and some of the most miserable 
 of the lowest class, who were unable to leave. 
 
 The holy city was given up to be sacrificed for the 
 benefit of the empire. Negotiations were refused, 
 propositions for treaty and armistice disregarded by 
 the Russian generals, and, after a month's stay, the in- 
 vading army — 150,000 men, 50,000 horses, and 500 
 pieces of cannon — started on its return, stretching 
 away from burning Moscow in three great columns 
 over the open country, followed by forty thousand 
 
NIJNI NOVGOROD FAIR. 203 
 
 stragglers and a huge train of wagons bearing cap- 
 tured booty. When this mighty host started, then the 
 Muscovite commanders grimly announced that their 
 •campaign had just begun. How disastrous it was to 
 the French emperor, the history of the retreat from 
 Moscow attests. 
 
 The travellers' stories about the fair of Nijni Nov- 
 gorod, until quite recently, have given one to under- 
 stand that the place during the fair was a regular 
 congress of nations. Imagination revelled from these 
 descriptions, picturing trains of camels bearing their 
 spicy loads from the East ; turbaned Turks seated upon 
 rich carpets, puffing chibouks or the fragrant hubble- 
 bubble, with embroidered slippers and rich stuffs for 
 sale ; Arabs of the desert ; crowds of pig-tailed Chinese, 
 with their tea-chests ; tall, sedate Persians, or curious 
 Kalmucks, Copts, Tartars, and Greeks mixed all together 
 in a kaleidoscopic and picturesque confusion, engaged 
 in bartering the richest products of their respective 
 countries. 
 
 Perhaps in the old times of the fair, when men 
 "brought their merchandise on camels and by caravan 
 trains (for it dates back to 1366), this may have been 
 to a certain degree correct ; but modern improvements 
 and the railroad line to Moscow, which puts the fair in 
 direct communication with the other lines of railway and 
 with all parts of Europe, have wrought a vast change. 
 
 The distance from Moscow to Nijni, which is said to 
 be the centre of European Russia, is 273 miles, and the 
 price in a first-class railway carriage is fifteen roubles, 
 and we were told that the journey would be accom- 
 plished in thirteen hours, but we were really fourteen 
 hours and a half accomplishing it. The train left at 8 
 at night and we arrived at 10 : 30 next morning. 
 
204 THE WAY TO " DO " NIJNI. 
 
 The sleeping-cars on this route are not so comfort- 
 able as those between St. Petersburg and Moscow. 
 The contrivance for sleeping consists in the pulling- 
 out of a slide from beneath the seat to meet one from 
 the opposite seat. Then, with the cushions for a couch, 
 and your wraps, you make yourself tolerably comfort- 
 able for the night. 
 
 As we found that the car-compartments held five, 
 and there being but three in our part}^, we found it 
 contributed to our comfort to have the conductor or 
 guard interviewed previous to starting from Moscow, 
 which insured us the compartment exclusively for our 
 own use and free from any intrusion during the jour- 
 ney. A very good breakfast of chops, eggs, coffee, and 
 excellent French rolls was had at the Nijni station, 
 costing about a rouble and a half (seventy-five cents) 
 each, and we were ready for the drosky, with its 
 impatient steeds and long-robed driver, that was await- 
 ing us. 
 
 The best way to proceed in sight-seeing at Nijni is 
 to breakfast, as we did, at the railway station imme- 
 diately on arrival, after which to engage a good two- 
 horse carriage and driver for the day, and proceed at 
 once with your guide to the fair-grounds and points, 
 of interest. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Nijni Novgorod (Lower Novgorod) is so called to 
 distinguish it from Novgorod the Great, an old and 
 celebrated city in Russia, said to be the cradle of the 
 Russian empire, and which once covered an area of 
 forty miles, and was a place of immense wealth. But 
 it is Nijni Novgorod that the traveller has heard most 
 of and desires to see. 
 
 Nijni is an older town than Moscow, and from its 
 peculiar position admirably adapted for a distributing- 
 point or sort of grand depot for the merchandise of 
 Central Asia, the East, and the vast region of Siberia, 
 which is to be sent from here to the West, and vice versa. 
 It is, in fact, a sort of connecting commercial link be- 
 tween the continents of Europe and Asia, a rendezvous 
 of the merchants of both continents. The town is 
 spread over a large amount of territory, but has, I am 
 told, but fifty thousand inhabitants. It is situated at 
 the junction of the Volga and Oka rivers, and the fair 
 is held upon a great tract of land immediately between 
 these two streams. 
 
 These two rivers are among the largest in Russia, the 
 Volga having a course of over twenty-three hundred 
 miles. The Oka is a tributary of eight hundred and 
 fifty miles, and flows into the Volga. Nijni occupies a 
 geographical point peculiarly favorable for a commercial 
 port, being at the centre of the water-communication 
 that joins the Black and Caspian seas with the White 
 
 205 
 
206 SCENES IN NIJNI. 
 
 and Baltic seas, a grand water-highway during the sum- 
 mer season. 
 
 The pavements in Nijni are as abominable as they 
 well can be, and our ride through the town, on our 
 way to the fair, gave us a view of quite a miscellaneous 
 character. We passed all manner of cheap shops and 
 bazaars, strings of wretchedly made wagons loaded 
 with all kinds of merchandise, swarms of filthy, ragged 
 laborers, mostly Tartars, besides filthy, sheepskin-clad 
 Russians, great warehouses, cheap restaurants, and 
 swarms of droskies. No well dressed people were seen 
 in the streets, and rarely any women except Tartars, 
 whom y ou detect by their features or their long yellow 
 boots as they raise their dresses to cross the dusty 
 or muddy streets, blind beggars, and others that are not 
 blind. 
 
 A Russian beggar, by the bye, is a most repulsive 
 object, clad in a perfect mass of rags or sheepskins, that 
 cause you to wonder how they hold together, his legs 
 and feet bound with rags and straw covering, his 
 repulsive, corrugated, unwashed face almost hidden in 
 a mass of matted, unkempt hair of head and beard ; 
 he holds out a hand crusted with the dirt of }*ears, and 
 begs a trifle in the name of the saints. But he is an 
 object in every way so repugnant that he generally gets 
 a wide berth from European or American visitors. 
 
 The Russian religious pilgrim is another disgusting 
 object. Clad in sheepskins and rags, that are dust-cov- 
 ered and filthy from his long journey from the interior, 
 on his way to some noted shrine or church, to fulfil 
 some vow made to saints or to perform some penance, 
 he trudges on with his feet protected by swathing of 
 soft bark and rags, and a wallet hanging about his neck 
 containing scraps of food that he has begged. He 
 
THE GREAT FAIR. 207 
 
 exudes an odor of sanctity that could well be dispensed 
 with. When he elbows his way into the crowded 
 cathedral to perform his devotions, other worshippers 
 give way to him with promptitude. 
 
 Our drive carried us along the river-bank for some 
 little distance, when we descended, crossed a bridge, and 
 were at once in the limits of the fair. That portion to 
 which you are first taken gives you the impression of 
 anything but the popular idea of a fair. It appears 
 like a collection of vast quantities of merchandise in 
 bulk, so vast that you wonder how it ever could have 
 got there, and how it ever will be taken away. But 
 go up, as you will, on the high land or terrace above, 
 and look down upon the River Volga, stretching away in 
 the distance till it becomes a mere steel-like ribbon in 
 the sunlight, and the Oka on the other side, and you will 
 get some idea of the enormous commerce of the empire. 
 
 More than a hundred and fifty great freight-steamers 
 were moored at the banks or gliding to and fro ; huge 
 bateaux, piled with bales, casks, boxes, and hogsheads 
 of merchandise, were being propelled by steam-tugs 
 from point to point; the rivers were black with heavily 
 laden craft, of every description, as far as the eye 
 could reach. There were ten miles of wharf on the 
 two rivers, and they and the great plain occupied by 
 the fair were piled with every kind of merchandise. 
 
 The iron-market was the first portion of the fair we 
 drove through — a space of flat, dusty plain, with the 
 heavy merchandise displayed on either side of the road 
 that ran through it. There were great heaps of Rus- 
 sian sheet-iron, and Tartar laborers loading it upon 
 teams, the perspiration running in streams down their 
 faces and half-naked bodies ; then huge heaps of bar- 
 iron, of every kind I had ever seen, and much that I 
 
208 THE IRON MARKET. 
 
 had never seen ; pig-iron, iron in bundles, iron in ingots, 
 a great lot of every kind of iron anchors. 
 
 It was iron on every side of us — the ringing of bars 
 as they were loaded into the vehicles, the crash of sheet- 
 iron piled in great heaps, like huge lots of iron manu- 
 scripts, and the thud of the pig-iron being tossed into 
 clumsy carts, were the features of this place. We saw 
 heaps of the celebrated Russian iron, the secret of the 
 manufacture of which has long been confined to 
 Russia. 
 
 This secret, however, has been recently discovered, 
 and by an American, who obtained it, of course, sur- 
 reptitiously, and at great personal risk. The name of 
 the adventurous individual is Mr. William Rogers, of 
 Pennsylvania, who, about eighteen years ago, was sent 
 out, as state geologist, to Russia, and bearing creden- 
 tials to the minister at St. Petersburg. 
 
 As long as he confined his explorations to the mines, 
 he attracted little or no suspicion ; but as soon as he 
 set his foot inside the iron-mills of Princess Demidoff, 
 he was subjected to the most vigilant espionage. It 
 must be remembered that the men in the mills who 
 know the secret of making Russian iron are never 
 allowed to. quit the mills. With the special study he 
 had made of iron-making before going to Russia, he 
 was not long in discovering the much-coveted secret, 
 though he had much trouble to evade suspicion. Had 
 he been detected, he might have been forced to remain 
 in Siberia the rest of his life ; but he was not. 
 
 And now a mill is in process of construction at 
 Freeport, a little town about thirty miles north of 
 Pittsburg, Pa., for the manufacture of this iron ; and it 
 will be the first Russian-iron mill built outside of Sibe- 
 ria. An imitation of Russian iron has been made in 
 
THE BELL AND TEA QUARTERS. 209 
 
 this country for some time, but it is not proof against 
 rust. Imperviousness to rust is the test of genuine 
 Russian iron. 
 
 Leaving the iron quarter and its throngs of perspir- 
 ing laborers, we drove into another division of the 
 plain. Here the scene changed, and we were in the 
 midst of bells of every description, from the small one 
 that would have sounded musical in a school-house bel- 
 fry, to the huge, deep-toned giant that would have 
 fitted the tower of St. Isaac's or St. Peter's. 
 
 Next we were whirled into a space where were 
 mountains of bales of wool and cotton, on either side. 
 Here and there were rude shanties, bearing signs that 
 told they were the counting-houses or headquarters 
 of merchants of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, or 
 other Russian cities, and in which, during the day, 
 were to be found their representatives, who remain 
 here during the fair to look after their interests. Then 
 from a broad, plain-like space of ground, as we ap- 
 proached it, came that fragrant perfume that told of 
 the great tea-quarter of the fair, and we rode through 
 vast squares, formed of thousands and thousands of 
 tea-chests. Did we see Chinamen here ? Not one. 
 
 In this quarter different cargoes, or, maybe, different 
 varieties, of tea are piled, forming great hollow squares, 
 with one side open towards the roadway. Within, 
 seated upon a rude bench, with a great wooden tub 
 before them, were two men, dressed in the Russian 
 merchant-costumes. One held a large book, in which 
 entries were made of the result of the inspection of the 
 other of the tea which passed before them. 
 
 This was done something in this fashion. Two labor- 
 ers brought the chest to a broad piece of cloth, that 
 was spread before the inspectors, and set it down ; 
 
210 TEA-SAMPLERS AT WORK. 
 
 another pierced the chest with a single blow of his longv 
 sharp tea-sampler or trier, drawing it forth filled with 
 the fragrant herb, and presented it to one of the 
 inspectors, who passed it rapidly beneath his nostrils,, 
 and, with a deep inhalation, gave it a critical glance. 
 Then he spoke a word to the man with the book, who 
 checked it off, and indicated to two other laborers to 
 pile it right, left, or centre, where that of its quality 
 was deposited. A man with a cork or bung immediately 
 stopped the sample-hole, and the chest was seized and 
 carried to its proper position. The samples drawn 
 were thrown into the receptacle in front of the in- 
 spectors. 
 
 In another square were men sampling and evidently 
 bargaining for purchases ; in a third, load after load 
 was being carried away. The whole atmosphere was 
 redolent of tea and that peculiar sort of indescribable 
 sandal-wood scent that one notices on entering a 
 Chinese tea and curiosity shop. 
 
 All the chests have either coverings of matting or 
 hides to protect them. The laborers here are princi- 
 pally Tartars. They live any way, camp out during 
 the season in the rudest of huts made of a few boards 
 and old tea-mattings; curl themselves up at night on 
 a few old tea-mattings and a heap of dried grass and 
 sleep on the ground. The town, where cheap tea, 
 vodki, and beer can be had, is but a short distance 
 from the place, and they frequent it at night or when 
 not at work, and lead a sort of Bohemian life during 
 the season. The agents of the tea-merchants also live 
 in this quarter. They have little cabins, about twenty 
 feet square, built of boards, covered with tea-matting ; 
 inside, the floor is covered with the same matting, and 
 at the side were two bunks for the sleepers. A rude 
 
BOKHARAN MERCHANDISE. 211 
 
 table, a couple of chairs, and other articles such as we 
 are accustomed to see in a hunter's camp, completed 
 the outfit. 
 
 Tea appears to be one of the most important articles 
 of merchandise at Nijni, and of the finer qualities 
 about sixteen millions of pounds are brought to Russia 
 annually. Throughout Russia and Central Asia, tea 
 seems to be as a beverage to the natives what beer is 
 to the Germans. 
 
 It is drunk at the fair by all nationalities, even the 
 Moslems ; the poorer classes of Tartars and laborers 
 contenting themselves with the cheap brick-tea, so 
 called from its being moistened and pressed into that 
 form for convenience of transportation. The Russians 
 say the English do not drink the best tea, because they 
 will not pay for the best grades. 
 
 Bokhara sends merchandise by camel-train, as of old, 
 to this fair ; some of the trains coming a thousand 
 miles, and starting in the spring on a six-weeks jour- 
 ney to reach it. These caravans bring cotton, silk, 
 and that black, curly, and glossy fur, real black astra- 
 khan, the skin of a jet-black curly lamb ; also rice, 
 wheat, and barley, woven fabrics, and dried fruits. 
 
 Merchandise of a very different character was that 
 in the horse department, where were draught and 
 other horses, chiefly for laboring purposes, but in great 
 variety, in their different sheds, or being run up and 
 down before them in view of probable purchasers. 
 Here there were clouds of dust, a clatter of hoofs, a 
 shouting of grooms, and a neighing of steeds. Count 
 Orloff, who presented the famous diamond, the largest 
 in Europe, to the Empress Catherine II., was much 
 interested and did much towards improving the breed 
 of Russian horses ; hence, most horses of good blood 
 
212 THE HORSE-FAIR — RUSSIAN HORSES. 
 
 in Russia are styled Orloff horses. The type of horse 
 most frequently seen in St. Petersburg and Moscow 
 is solidly built, has a large head and neck, large legs, 
 and is far less graceful in action than the steeds one 
 sees in England and America. The prevailing color 
 is black. The best carriage-horses seemed to be 
 stallions ; they look stylish, trot fast, and appear to 
 be quiet and docile. They certainly are splendid 
 animals for use in sight-seeing about St. Petersburg, 
 Moscow, and the suburbs, for they keep going from 
 morning till night upon a fast trot, from point to 
 point, and will conclude, as in our experience, with a 
 journe} 7 out seven miles from the city and return with- 
 out a s} T mptom of fatigue or exertion. 
 
 In Russia, as in America, much more interest is 
 taken in trotting than in running races. I am unable 
 to say how the speed of Russian trotters compares 
 with American fast horses, but the Russian racer looks 
 too heavy in build to accomplish a mile in the time 
 that it has been done by our clean-limbed coursers. 
 The carriage used in trotting races in Russia is a 
 singular-looking affair. It consists of four wheels 
 of about the size of those of an American buggy, and 
 from one axle to the other is a board, thickly padded 
 and covered with leather ; this board forms the seat 
 for the driver, and, as his feet swing without support, 
 the sensation must be similar to that experienced in 
 riding upon a rail. Russian horses have frequently 
 been taken to Paris to compete with trotting horses 
 from Normandy on the race-track laid out in the Bois 
 de Boulogne just outside of the running race-track, but 
 the trial has ended in the triumph of the Normans 
 over their Russian competitors. It is a curious fact 
 that Russians, notorious for fast driving, have no bells 
 
"TURKISH" AND " PERSIAN " FABRICS. 213 
 
 on their horses in winter. Accidents frequently occur 
 from this cause. 
 
 From the horse-marts we passed on again and found 
 ourselves in a section more like a regular fair. It was 
 a collection of nuts, dates, dried fruits, and everything 
 of that sort, in huge heaps, with broad display of 
 samples, that might be purchased at retail of tall semi- 
 Turkish-costumed individuals. 
 
 There were almonds, dates, figs, Rahat Lakoum 
 (fig-paste), Turkish sweetmeats, etc., nor were these 
 all eastern goods, for there were bags of Castanea nuts, 
 heaps of " English walnuts," pecan-nuts, raisins and 
 other dried fruits. From here stretched out a long 
 string of shops, a sort of cheap bazaar, where were 
 various silks, dry-goods, etc., but such as were no 
 novelty, and could be seen in greater variety and to 
 greater advantage in London and Paris, and some of 
 the Eastern fabrics, as well as the furs in the furrier sec- 
 tion, could be bought cheaper, and with a greater cer- 
 tainty of one's not being cheated, in London than here. 
 
 In the section devoted to Persian goods were mag- 
 nificent rugs and carpets, which two obliging dark- 
 skinned attendants brought forth and spread upon a 
 plot of hardened earth in front of their booths, in 
 which were heaped huge piles of goods of gorgeous 
 dyes. I coveted one, rich,, antique, soft as dressed 
 chamois-skin, with the hues blending as beautifully as 
 the tints of an oil-painting, which the Persian, Ar- 
 menian, or Greek — I thought him the latter, from his 
 fez, baggy trousers, and red slippers — assured me in 
 French was " bon marche veritable," direct from a 
 Turkish person of distinction, etc. 
 
 The problem of getting the article through various 
 custom-houses to the United States, and the difficulty 
 
214 SUPPLIES FOR A VAST "ARMY." 
 
 of knowing whether you are being cheated or not t 
 stands in the way of European and American tourists 
 here. 
 
 Our guide informed us that Turkish rugs for this 
 fair were manufactured in France, as well as Turkish 
 pipes, dress-stuffs, and even Circassian chain-armor, 
 helmets, and shields; besides, Persian articles that have 
 never seen that country, made in France and Belgium, 
 are sold here every year, and one must have his wits 
 about him in making purchases, both as to price and 
 genuineness of the articles offered. 
 
 It would be too tiresome and prosy to the reader to 
 describe great collections of grindstones from the Ural 
 Mountains, huge casks of fish and barrels of herring 
 from Astrakhan, enormous quantities of petroleum, piles 
 of hides, huge heaps of cotton from Bokhara, and one 
 section that glittered with all kinds of copper vessels, 
 including a large collection of the celebrated samovars 
 or Russian tea-urns ; great piles of lumber, granaries 
 full of corn, and huge heaps of bags of salt from the 
 eastern steppes. From one quarter to another, and it 
 seems like visiting vast magazines of merchandise 
 that have been gathered for the subsistence of a great 
 army, and so indeed it is, — the vast army of con- 
 sumers to whom it is to be distributed, — and this 
 great space, now so crowded witli masses of merchan- 
 dise, would be left in a few weeks a comparatively 
 barren waste and dusty plain. 
 
 There is what is known as the Chinese quarter, 
 easily recognized from the peculiar architecture of the 
 shops, but there were no Chinese there, most of the 
 booths being closed, although the other portions of 
 the fair at the time of our visit (last of August) were 
 in full operation. 
 
IN THE TURKISH QUARTER. 215 
 
 Pushing our investigations onward, we began to 
 meet Turks, — veritable Turks, turbaned Turks in 
 long robes and colored slippers, — and it really seemed 
 that we were to see the Nijni Novgorod of imagination 
 in reality when we came to a row of cheap wooden 
 shanties, in front of which, with goods displayed, sat 
 two or three Mussulmans in bright-colored robes and 
 white turbans, and we witnessed the introduction of 
 one " true believer " to another in true oriental style, 
 all three looking as if they had just stepped out of a 
 story of the " Thousand and One Nights." The pro- 
 found salaams given and returned, the good-wishes 
 and various compliments passed, interspersed with 
 other salaams, until the invitation to enter was given, 
 and all three gravely retired to the usual pipes and 
 coffee. 
 
 We found we were in a veritable Turkish quarter, 
 for, on turning a corner, there stood, in an enclosed 
 patch of ground, a Turkish mosque. It was sur- 
 rounded by a dilapidated fence, but intruders were 
 kept at a distance by officials with clubs at the en- 
 trances, who allowed none but Mussulmans to enter. 
 
 Of course, we were anxious to gain entrance. If you 
 wish to excite an intense desire on the part of the public 
 to inspect premises that you desire to keep free from 
 intrusion, write up " No Admittance " over the door. 
 
 It appears that it was some sort of a Mohammedan 
 festival or holyday, and all of the faithful were in their 
 national costume on the occasion. 
 
 Our guide, to whom we communicated our desire to 
 see the inside of a mosque, shook his head, and doubted 
 our getting further than the door. The outside guar- 
 dians were easily corrupted, and we Frenghis or 
 Giaours, or whatever the word was the " true be- 
 
216 GIAOURS IN THE MOSQUE. 
 
 lievers " of the Arabian Nights stories used to desig- 
 nate " the infidel," stood within the enclosure, watching 
 an outcoming of Mussulmans from the sacred mosque, 
 at the door of which was stationed another guardian. 
 To him proceeded our guide, and anon he was convers- 
 ing with the mollah, who came forward, a tall, grave- 
 looking Turk, with beautiful silk-embroidered pelisse, 
 green slippers, high turban, and flowing beard, an 
 ideal Haroun al Raschid, who, as our guide bowed 
 profoundly and pressed his palm, returned a grave 
 salutation, and, with a courteous wave of the hand, 
 caused the guard at the portal to fall back, and invited 
 us to enter and ascend to the place of worship. 
 
 A score or more of slippers were at the foot of the 
 little staircase. We were not required to remove our 
 shoes, but, on removing our hats, were politely told it 
 was not required in God's house to uncover the head. 
 The little staircase of ten or twelve steps brought us 
 to a broad landing, from which opened a wide door 
 into an unfurnished circular room, the floor covered 
 witli a green carpet. One large window fronted to- 
 wards the east — the direction of Mecca, the holy city. 
 
 The worshippers simply spread their little rugs or 
 mats, knelt facing this great window, with arms crossed 
 upon their breasts, or prostrated themselves, with their 
 foreheads touching the floor, reciting their prayers as 
 they did so. 
 
 This was the only service or religious ceremony we 
 saw, and this from outside the door, for no infidel foot 
 could penetrate further. A sturdy official, with stout 
 staff and sour expression of countenance, stood guard- 
 ing the portal. 
 
 We owed the privilege of penetrating thus far, and 
 the few moments at the portal, rarely vouchsafed, to 
 
BESIEGED BY BEGGARS. 217 
 
 the persuasive eloquence of our guide and the confi- 
 dential contribution of a few roubles "for the good of 
 the church." Upon our exit we were again reminded 
 of our old friend, the " Thousand and One Nights," by 
 a swarm of Turkish beggars. One man who displayed 
 terrible sores, and another a deformed limb, a third 
 who hobbled upon two stumps close off at the hips, and 
 the frightful dwarf but a few feet high, with big head 
 and harsh voice, alj. beset us with clamors for alms. 
 
 Our guide, who was the only one of the party wear- 
 ing a tall, glossy hat, was taken for the milord, while 
 our more modest travelliug-caps gave us a lower social 
 position in their eyes, for he was at once surrounded 
 by this motley group, who inferred, from his buying 
 admittance into the sacred edifice and the courtesy 
 shown by the mollah, that he must have plenty of 
 money to scatter, and it was with difficulty we forced 
 our way through the noisy crowd to the gate and 
 outside. Here the word had evidently been passed, 
 and a crowd of Russian and Tartar beggars, a howling 
 mob, surrounded us with shrill cries, and we had to 
 run for it and seek shelter in one of the neighboring 
 bazaars, through which we escaped to the point where 
 our carriage was waiting. 
 
 The principal portion of the plain on which the fair 
 is held is overflowed in the spring and under water. 
 During the progress of the fair, every precaution is 
 taken against fire, which has previously done much 
 damage, owing to the combustible nature of the cheap 
 buildings. The whole fair-grounds are now surrounded 
 by a canal filled with water, and large sewers pass 
 beneath them, which are kept free and clear by water 
 from the river. No smoking is permitted within the 
 fair limits. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The fair has its cheap quarter, where goods of coarse 
 and cheap description are sold to the crowds of work- 
 people who are here during the season, and one section 
 in particular, which seemed devoted to the sale of cast- 
 off rags and worn-out articles of all nations. It was a 
 sort of rag or rag-and-dust-bin fair of itself, the arti- 
 cles being mainly displayed in little heaps on the 
 ground over the area occupied. Here it seemed as if 
 the dust-bins, dirt-barrels, and rag-bags of the world 
 had been emptied. It is rivalled only by the rag-fair 
 in the streets around and in the vicinity of St. Pat- 
 rick's Cathedral in Dublin. 
 
 Old men were squatted beside a heap of boots and 
 shoes that were mated and mismated, of all sorts and 
 sizes ; others presided over what appeared to be a 
 miscellaneous rag-heap, but which proved to be por- 
 tions and parts of costumes — there was the waist of 
 what was once a gay dress, an old crashed bonnet, 
 a buttonless coat slit up the middle of the back, a 
 red and black stocking tied together as a pair, and an 
 old cape with half the cheap fur trimming torn off, the 
 collection looking as if it had been the aim of its pro- 
 prietor to obtain as imperfect and damaged an assort- 
 ment as possible. Another dealer had rusty hinges, 
 nails, door-handles, bolts, and a few worn-out metal 
 tools. 
 
 Some had extemporized a counter with two casks 
 and a board, and spread out old cheap dishes and culi- 
 nary articles; others had built the rudest kind of huts, 
 
 218 
 
RES DERELICTS AND RUBBISH. 219 
 
 where they sold rosaries, holy images, candles, etc., of 
 the cheapest description ; another had nothing but old 
 bits of curious stone, marble, jasper, and mineralogical 
 specimens, and in his heap of dusty pebbles our guide 
 had the good-fortune to discover a bit of ribbon jasper, 
 a beautiful specimen, which he bought for ten copecks, 
 and affirmed to be worth five roubles in Petersburg. 
 
 The place was noisy with the vociferations of both 
 buyers and sellers over their transactions, which varied 
 in amount from two to ten cents, and the miscellane- 
 ous character of the crowd rendered the place such a 
 one as we did not care to remain in long. 
 
 There was still another feature of the fair which is 
 like the old-time fair, and where the common people, 
 the porters, laborers, workers, and thousand and one 
 hangers-on, amuse themselves evenings, or when not at 
 work. Here were two or three large buildings or 
 hotels, frequented by the cattle drovers, the boatmen, 
 stevedores, etc., and in which prostitutes openly carried 
 on their vocation, engaging their rooms there for the 
 season and sauntering around the rude piazzas or seated 
 there enjoying mugs of tea with their male companions. 
 Scattered all about were cheap dance-houses, raree- 
 shows, penny theatres, dwarfs and giants, drinking- 
 booths and wild-beast exhibitions ; and at one point a 
 Russian Punch and Judy show was in progress, sur- 
 rounded by an admiring crowd. 
 
 Desirous of seeing something of this phase of life, 
 we entered one of the most pretentious amusement- 
 places, where the price of admission was five copecks. 
 In the centre of a rough hall was one of those round- 
 about machines of hobby-horse-headed cars, such as 
 children ride round and round in a circle in at fairs ; it 
 was turned by a man at a crank. In tins were Russian 
 
220 AMUSEMENTS IX NIJNI NOVGOROD. 
 
 and Tartar male and female peasants riding round and 
 round, while at the tables, each side of the room, were 
 other dirty specimens of each race, eating bowls of 
 cheap cabbage-soup, drinking beer or the inevitable tea. 
 A band of what appeared to be Calabrian minstrels, 
 from their costume, mounted a little platform to play 
 their instruments, composed of two rude bagpipes of 
 rough skin, two straight wooden clarinet-looking pipes, 
 and a brass horn. The combination was terrific, and a 
 test of one's endurance amid the clouds of tobacco- 
 smoke, the close atmosphere of the place, mingled 
 with the creaking of the merry-go-round machine and 
 the laughter of its occupants. But when this band 
 ceased and a native Russian band, clad in sheepskins, 
 and with various indescribable instruments, struck up, 
 it seemed 
 
 " As all the fiends from heaven that fell 
 Had pealed their banner cry of hell." 
 
 and we incontinently fled from the odor of cabbage- 
 soup, tobacco, and mistiness to the outer air. 
 
 Another experience in this quarter was more amus- 
 ing. Terrible pictures of black savages, seated in a 
 circle, devouring white human beings, decorated a sort 
 of side-show-looking booth. These works of art rep- 
 resented one hungry individual gnawing away at a 
 human leg as if it were an ear of corn, and another 
 engaged upon a dissevered arm in the same manner, 
 while a third was striking down a victim, to replenish 
 a huge pot boiling over a big fire. Inscriptions in 
 Russian beneath, according to our guide's translation, 
 told that this was an exhibition of man-eaters, or can- 
 nibals, but our curiosity was at once aroused by an 
 inscription in English, and in good Roman characters, 
 
STARTLING A SAVAGE. 221 
 
 beneath one of the pictures, describing them as kC Man- 
 eating Savages," and we paid our copecks and entered. 
 
 At one end of the tent sat three Australians, or 
 South Sea Islanders, a man, woman, and child, under- 
 sized specimens of humanity, and, although the man 
 was got up with ferociously frizzed head, tattooed and 
 painted face, a skewer through his nose, big ear-rings 
 in his ears, and his body naked except a gay-colored 
 cloth around the loins, he did not appear to be a very 
 formidable antagonist. 
 
 He began to walk up and down a little railed enclos- 
 ure, flourishing a boomerang, and squalling some sort 
 of gibberish, which we supposed to be " cannibal lan- 
 guage," and we began commenting in our own tongue 
 upon him, when, at the first interchange of sentences, 
 the attention of the other two was immediately at- 
 tracted, and the countenance of the little warrior, who 
 was near us, underwent a surprising change ; his as- 
 sumed fierceness gave way to a look of surprise, he 
 dropped his boomerang, ran to a curtain at one end of 
 the tent, raised it, and said something to some one 
 within, and, then returning to where we stood, with a 
 lot of cards in his hand, said : — 
 
 " Would you like to buy my photograph ? " 
 
 He gave a shrill laugh at our start of surprise at this 
 civilized speech from a supposed cannibal, and, coming 
 from behind the curtain at that moment, the proprietor 
 of the show addressed us in our own language, asking 
 us if we were not Americans. 
 
 We replied in the affirmative. 
 
 " So am I," said he. " My name is Cunningham, and 
 this is what they make of it in this country," and he 
 pointed to a name in Russian characters on one of his 
 handbills, that was an undecipherable word nearly a foot 
 
222 FATE OF A CANNIBAL TROUPE. 
 
 long. " I never knew I had such a bad name, till I 
 saw it printed in this detestable place." 
 
 " How do you find business here ? " 
 
 "Business? good for nothing, sir. Just think of 
 running a show like this for five cents admission, and a 
 confounded Punch and Judy outside taking away half 
 your audience. Don't pay, sir ! don't pay ! " 
 
 It seemed that this exhibitor, according to his ac- 
 count, had travelled all over America with Barnum, 
 exhibiting the troupe of "Indian cannibals," originally 
 nine in number, but now reduced by death to these 
 three — the young fellow who spoke English, the little 
 boy, and the woman. He had left Barnum some time 
 since, travelled in Europe on his own account, had a 
 curiosity to see Russia, had seen enough of it, and was 
 now going back to Australia, where he had business, 
 and would " take these poor niggers home," if he 
 " could get them there alive." 
 
 " But what killed the others ? Change of climate, we 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Change of climate ! No, they were killed with 
 kindness." 
 
 " Kindness ! " 
 
 "Yes, women who came to the show would feed 'em 
 with sweet cakes and fruit, and they would devour 
 everything given to them, like monkeys, and men 
 thought it sport to smuggle liquor into the tent and 
 give it to them when they got so used to their situation 
 as to walk about a little from the platform and cage 
 we kept them in. Their constitutions are not strong, 
 and the most rigorous care has to be used to preserve 
 their lives, owing to their ignorance in care of them- 
 selves, and their eating anything and everything that 
 is offered them." 
 
RUSSIAN TEAS — THE SAMOVAR. 223 
 
 Our interview ended with a proffer of free admission 
 for the remainder of the season — a space of three or 
 four days — from the exhibitor, and a gift by us of 
 a few copecks to 'the cannibals, who responded with a 
 "dank you, sar," as we took our leave. 
 
 The tea we found everywhere in Russia to be equal 
 to all that has been said of it. Never have 1 drunk 
 any of such exquisite flavor ; and even at the ordinary 
 restaurants it far exceeds any that we usually have in 
 England or America. Various reasons are given for 
 this. One is that caravan tea, brought overland — 
 a long journey of eight or ten months — in its loose, 
 clumsy bundles, is so shaken up as to get rid of its 
 tannin and all dirt and foreign substances, while that 
 that is sent in closely packed boxes by sea does not. 
 Perhaps there may be a good deal in the way the Rus- 
 sians prepare their tea ; nevertheless, there are some 
 choice varieties which cost from six to eight dollars a 
 pound there. Nearly a tenth of all the tea sold here, 
 I am told, is grown in northern China, and is brought 
 overland from Kiakhta, a city quite near the border-line 
 of China and Asiatic Russia. 
 
 The Russian samovar, of which all travellers speak, 
 is simply a copper urn having a pipe running through 
 it. In this pipe lighted charcoal is placed, which keeps 
 the water hot. At the restaurants this hot water was 
 drawn upon a small quantity of strong solution of tea, 
 in tumblers, that appeared to have been previously 
 prepared, filling the glass to the brim, and then a thin 
 slice of lemon was added. They assert that the yellow 
 tea — as it is called here, on account of its pale color 
 — is seldom exported from Asia or Russia. It is quite 
 •delicate in flavor, and steeps strong. 
 
 They have curious stories of the tea-poisoning of the 
 
224 TEA-POISONING — A VODKI-SHOP. 
 
 Russian tea-merchants, which are only another version 
 of the effects of continued testing on tea-samples that 
 we have previously read. Indeed, I could but wonder 
 at the power of olfactories and lungs of those I saw in 
 Nijni, who must have inhaled no small quantity of the 
 insidious dust and impalpable powder of the herb as 
 they took deep inhalations of handful after handful from 
 the samples brought to them from hundreds of chests. 
 
 The Russian tea-merchants, when present on the 
 Chinese frontier for buying tea, are, it is said, obliged 
 to taste from a hundred and fifty to two hundred speci- 
 mens of strong tea-infusions daily, do not swallow the 
 infusion, but, nevertheless, a slow intoxication appears 
 in them. The symptoms are loss of appetite, consti- 
 pation, which alternates with diarrhoea, a failure of gen- 
 eral nutrition, periodical epigastric pains, and dryness 
 and sallowness of the skin ; hypochondriacal frame of 
 mind, marked failure of memory, and also weakness 
 of visual vacuity, sometimes diplopia, and of taste and 
 smell. With this in prospect, who would desire to be 
 a tea-merchant ! 
 
 The vodki-shops are not very attractive-looking 
 tippling-places. The furniture of one we looked into 
 consisted of a rude table, in one corner, near which sat 
 the proprietor, and on which were two or three earthen 
 and tin drinking-cups. A couple of demijohns or cov- 
 ered jars of the potent fluid stood near him. Two of 
 his customers were snoring profoundly, in a corner, on 
 an old bit of straw-matting, and three others were 
 seated on a rough board-seat near the door, in various 
 stages of intoxication. Beyond two or three clumsy 
 stools, the colored picture of a saint, stuck up on the 
 wall, and an old soup-tub, there was absolutely no other 
 furniture in the place. 
 
THE EXCHANGE. 225 
 
 The object of the Russian peasant, when ne enters 
 one of these places, seems to be to get drunk as 
 speedily as possible. He therefore drinks cup after 
 cup of liquor, till he falls into a drunken stupor, 
 and is either bundled out of the place" or stowed away 
 in a corner, as were the two we saw, to sleep off his 
 potations. 
 
 A view of this great fair at its height, and of the 
 enormous quantity of huge freight-steamers, boats, and 
 river-craft that blacken the Volga and Oka, gives one 
 some idea of the vast resources, the enormous wealth, 
 and the commerce of this great empire and its ninety 
 millions of inhabitants. The fair is officially opened 
 the 27th of July, and lasts till about the 1st of 
 September. At the end of that month the seven or 
 eight miles are pretty generally cleared of all merchan- 
 dise and booths, for later on in the autumn most of 
 the territory is overflowed and under water. 
 
 The porters, laborers, boatmen, teamsters are nearly 
 all Tartars, wretchedly clothed, and apparently living 
 anywhere and anyhow. The great merchants of St. 
 Petersburg and other Russian cities have chief clerks 
 or managers here during the season, to look after their 
 interests, and they generally have rooms in the upper 
 part of their warehouses and do their business with 
 each other in a sort of public square, where an exchange 
 is daily held. 
 
 At this exchange, and in and about the square in 
 which it is situated, a large crowd of brokers, buyers, 
 dealers, and merchants, of different nationalities, assem- 
 ble daily, at noon. And, judging from the hum of 
 voices, clatter of different tongues, and the excited 
 gesticulations, all were as eager, sharp, and active in 
 their business transactions as their brethren in Euro- 
 
226 RUSSIAN CEREALS — RUDE AGRICULTURE. 
 
 pean or American capitals. Here we found lumber- 
 merchants, tea-traders, ship-captains, iron-dealers, and 
 grain-shippers, busy settling large transactions, or mak- 
 ing their contracts. In grain it appears that the com- 
 petition of the United States, Australia, and India, 
 which is constantly increasing, has had an injurious 
 effect upon the Russian product. Recent authorities 
 place the average price of the best Russian wheat in 
 St. Petersburg and Odessa as follows : in 1883 at $1.13 
 per bushel; in 1884 at 95 cents; in 1885 at 90 cents. 
 Rye in the same period fell from 75 cents to 62 cents 
 per bushel, and there was in 1887 but small demand 
 from abroad for Russian wheat, on account of the in- 
 ferior quality of the crop. Russia is one of the large 
 wheat-producing countries — in fact, the only country in 
 Europe which produces more than it consumes, its 
 annual surplus for export sometimes amounting to 
 sixty million bushels, and yet most of the cereal is 
 sown broadcast, harvested with the sickle, and threshed 
 with the flail. Moreover, three-quarters of the harvest- 
 work is still done by women. 
 
 Some idea of the business done at Nijni Novgorod 
 fair, during the two months it is held, may be had from 
 the fact that over eighty million dollars worth of mer- 
 chandise changes hands, and from one hundred and 
 fifty to one hundred and seventy-five thousand sellers 
 and bu}*ers are in daily attendance. 
 
 Many of the Russian merchants were returning home 
 during our visit, and when, at night, we came into the 
 great railroad-station we found quite a crowd awaiting 
 the train to back in for the journey to Moscow. We 
 had half an hour to wait, and, as no seats could be se- 
 cured in advance, but all must take their chances when 
 the doors were thrown open and the now darkened 
 
A CLEVER RUSE. 227 
 
 platforms would be lighted up, our chances for a com- 
 fortable night looked ominous. 
 
 Our guide, however, was equal to the occasion, and 
 we were quietly piloted away to the farther end of the 
 building, through a dark room, out through a door un- 
 locked by an official, and thence conducted down the 
 track to an unlighted train, and spirited into a choice 
 compartment, which we speedily converted to our own 
 use by putting out the sliding seats, spreading wraps, 
 and extending ourselves for the night. 
 
 In fifteen minutes the train was pulled into the 
 station, the lights lighted, and the great doors of the 
 station opened and the crowd of passengers poured in ; 
 but a glance at the three foreigners and the limited 
 amount of space was enough for Russians with their 
 sleeping-wraps and pillows, and they made no effort to 
 trench upon the space left in our compartment, and 
 so we rolled on in sole possession till we reached Mos- 
 cow next day, and considered the five-rouble bribe well 
 expended. 
 
 I noticed many of these returning Russian merchants 
 had large bundles of a regular travelling-outfit with 
 them, such as shawls, towels, blankets, pillows, soap, 
 etc., for in the lesser towns the accommodations are so 
 inferior that these become necessities of comfort for 
 him. And on the road between Nijni and Moscow, 
 although a thin stream of water could be drawn upon 
 the hands in the lavatory of the sleeping-cars, neither 
 towel nor soap was provided. The use of water, it is 
 said, is only understood by the average Russian when 
 he takes his weekly parboiling in the Russian bath. 
 
 Russian railroad-fares are rather high, and one reason 
 why they are so is that at the close of the Turco-Rus- 
 sian war, in casting about for some means to raise 
 
228 ENGLISH YARNS — OUR EXPERIENCES. 
 
 funds to defray the expenses, it was decided to tax 
 railroad-fares — that is, an addition of twenty-five per 
 cent, was made to the price of all railroad-fares in the 
 empire, the addition being appropriated by the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I had read in the English story-books so much about 
 the thievish propensity of the Russians that I thought 
 that inquiry of the station-master at Moscow for an 
 umbrella left carelessly on a bench there three nights 
 previously would be a useless effort; nevertheless, it 
 was made, through my guide and interpreter, and, after 
 a description of the missing article, I was invited to 
 step across the street, to the office of one of the officials, 
 where a polite young Russian, with silver braceleted 
 wrist, and who spoke French fluently, restored it, de- 
 clining anything for the service except my signature 
 of receipt and the name of my hotel. 
 
 My experiences at the three cities I have attempted 
 to describe were utterly free from any of that espionage 
 or trouble from police authorities or respecting pass- 
 ports that I had reason to expect in some degree. This 
 may be in part owing to the fact that I was in the hands 
 of the best of guides, a man well known to all the 
 authorities, that we had taken care to have our pass- 
 ports strictly correct, and, last of all, that we were 
 Americans. 
 
 One word about passports. These must be always 
 properly vised before departure from Russia, as well 
 as before entering, for no one is allowed to cross the 
 frontier without proper authority so to do ; indeed, it 
 may be more difficult to get out of the country than to 
 get into it, if the proper precautions be not taken. 
 
 But how it is possible for an individual who under- 
 stands neither French, German, nor Russian to make 
 
THE DROSKY-DRIVER A MARVEL OF STUPIDITY. 229 
 
 his way at all here seems a wonder. The drosky- 
 drivers, of course, know nothing but Russian, and are 
 wonderfully stupid in the interpretation of the lan- 
 guage of pantoinitie. I could hardly blame one, how- 
 ever, whom an American summoned to take him to the 
 railroad-station, and, being unable to tell him his desti- 
 nation, gave an imitation of the locomotive under a 
 head of steam, which so frightened the fellow that he 
 whipped up his horse and hastily drove off to a group 
 of his fellows, pointing back in alarm to the supposed 
 lunatic. 
 
 There is no fixed price for the common street-dros- 
 kies. and a bargain has to be al\va} T s previously made 
 with the drivers, to prevent imposition. 
 
 In some of the great shops in St. Petersburg and 
 Moscow, French and German were spoken, and in many 
 of the smaller ones the latter language by the German 
 Jew proprietors. One is struck, as he goes farther into 
 Russia, by the absence of ladies in the streets ; it ap- 
 pears to be an Eastern fashion here, that they have not 
 yet outgrown, for ladies to withdraw from public gaze 
 and be seen as seldom as possible abroad or upon the 
 streets. We saw some fine specimens of tall men, but 
 their colorless, blond faces were in striking contrast to 
 ruddy-cheeked Germans whom one meets immediately 
 after crossing the frontier. 
 
 The author's opportunities were necessarily limited 
 in simply making the usual traveller's tour in Russia, 
 from Berlin to Petersburg, to Moscow, to Nijni Nov- 
 gorod, and their immediate vicinities. They were 
 enough, however, to enable him to obtain some indi- 
 cations of the vast resources of the empire, and to see 
 to what great importance, as regards strength and com- 
 mercial position, it is slowly but surely rising. 
 
230 RUSSIA AND RUSSIANS OF TO-DAY. 
 
 Travelling is now more free and less impeded than 
 formerly. Gas, water, railroads, the telegraph, and 
 other modern improvements, are in use in the great 
 cities, and being introduced into the lesser ones; while 
 a strong middle class, of increasing intelligence and 
 means, is appearing, who will do, and have already 
 done, much to advance and develop their country. 
 
 Russia covers an extent of territory half as large as 
 Europe, and over a third of Asia ; even Siberia, which 
 of late years is developing mines of enormous value, 
 covers six times the area of England and Scotland. 
 
 The Russians are evidently a patriotic people ; and 
 the immense military force the empire could bring into 
 the field if the army were put on a war-footing would 
 render Russia one of the most dangerous of foes to 
 encounter. 
 
 With an enormous territory as yet undeveloped, with 
 vast tracts of productive grain-growing land, mineral 
 wealth not yet opened that must be almost fabulous in 
 its amount, a tremendous timber-product, vast pasture- 
 lands, good geographical position as regards controlling 
 the commerce of the East, the power which the rulers 
 of Russia are destined to hold in the future must 
 exceed anything even dreamed of by the present 
 generation . 
 
 
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