mmmmam L LUSTRATED ! tM \ ML mtsJUi:!^. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES Bntered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Edna Dean Peoctor, In the Office of the librarian of Congress at Washington. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. Q 12Kzo CONTENTS. rAHB br. Petersburg I St. Isaac's and the Crown Jewels .... 13 To Moscow 25 The Shrines of Moscow 33 Moscow beyond the Kremliw 47 Moscow Bells 61 Troitsa Monastery *>'* C 9, The Fair op Nijni 85 C '^ Asia at ^^uni ^' ^ Kazan 1" The Volga, to ISamara 12.5 A Gypsy Encampment 141 The Empire of the East 153 The Volga, to Kamysciun 1'"'3 Kalmucks and Moravians 1"9 The Cossack Country 1^-^ rostoff and the lower don . . 209 The Azoff and Euxine Seas 2_l Yalta and the Ckimean Tartars .... 231 The Crimean Coast and Alupka .... 241 IV contents: vkat Baidar Gate and Valley ^ 253 Sevastopol 261 Odessa . . ..,. 269 Over the Steppe to EacHiNKPV 281 Kjchineff to Belzi ....... 291 The Frontier 303 The Czar SIS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Czak Frontispiece. The Marshes of the North 3 Nicholas Bridge and the Neva .... 6 The Alexander Column 10 St. Isaac's Cathedral 18 Peasants oe the Province of St. Petersburg . . 30 Cathedral of the Assumption 38 Tower of John the Great 64 Philaret, late Metkoi'olitan of Moscow and Archi- mandrite OF Tkoitsa 74 A Mendicant bO Ivan and Nadia 94 Our Lady of Kazan 118 Peasant Cabins 128 Gyi'sy Fortune Teller 148 Ice-Boat of the Volga 170 A Kalmuck Enca.mpment 186 A Cossack Soldier 2(ii' A Cossack Hoy 214 A Young ("ikcassian 228 Tartar Hoys 2.56 Sevastoi'ol ......... 264 Windmill of the (iuain Region .... 294 Peasant of the Polish Border .... 306 ST. PETERSBURG. ST. PETERSBURG. See! From the Finland marshes there 'Tis grand St. Isaac's rears in air, Column on column, that shining dome ! And, just beyond its glorious swell, 'Tis the slender spire of the Citadel 'Where great Czar Peter slumbers well All by the Neva's flood and foam, That lifts its cross till the golden bars Gleam and burn witli the midnight stars I rriHE gray waste of the Baltic ; a cold, cloudj sky and a wild wind blowing from the east. In the distance a colorless line, the flat, dreary shore, to which even the poor picturesqueness of Finland is denied, and where a few pale birches and sickly pines are all that unaided summer can coax from the wet and barren soil. Yet out of this bleak morass there began to rise spires and domes and columns, half revealed in the shifting light, and then, as the sun struggled through the clouds, mul- 4 ST. PETERSBURG. tipljing and shining resplendent like an enchanted city evoked from the gloom of the wave. Was it Venice, fair and fascinating on the bosom of the Adriatic ? Was it Amsterdam, solid and secure by the Zuyder Zee ? The wonder grew. Tall ships and laden boats thronged about us ; great rows of stately houses lifted themselves to view ; crowded streets opened on every hand ; and while we were yet bewildered with this mingled poverty of nature and splendor of art, the steamer rounded into her dock upon the Neva, and amid drays and droskies and a noisy rabble of coachmen and porters, some clad in sheep-skins, and all in loose, long wrappings, we gained the wharf and knew that we were in the capital of the Czars ! What would those earliest founders, the impas- sioned, beauty-loving race, that, wandering west- wai'd from the banks of the Euphrates, saw the plain of Damascus glowing in the Syrian sun, and pitched their tents upon its paradise of green, what would they have said to the site of the City of the North ? a swamp, a quaking bog, scarcely ST. PETERSBURG. 6 above the level of the Baltic, almost within the Arctic Circle, frozen and snow-covered for five months of the year, and subject, with the coming on of spring, to fearful inundations. No marvel is it that with bitter murmunno;s and regrets the first inhabitants took up their forced abode in its streets still reeking with marshy damps, and trem- bling beneath the unusual weight imposed upon the oozy soil. What is St. Petersburg to-day ? A city of more than half a million people ; covering thirty square miles ; with broad, regular streets and immense squares lined with lofty buildings ; the most signal triumph of human will over material obstacles that the later centuries have shown. Compared with the cities farther south, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Christiania seem like overgx'own villages. St. Pe- tersburg is peer of the proudest the Paris of the Baltic an imperial Muscovite Berlin. Yet it overwhelms rather than delights you. It is vast ; it is amazing ; but it is the domain of the Titans rather than of the Graces, and you look m vain for the charming and the })icturesque. St. Isaac's Place and the open area in front of the Winter Palace need a grand marshaling of troops 6 ST. PETERSBURG. or a holiday convocation of citizens to fill the void; and the finest street, the Nevski Prospekt, begin- ning at the Isaac Cathedral and terminating three miles away at the Monastery of Alexander Nevski, calls for an unending procession to enliven its cen- tre and unite its northern and southern borders in one. For convenience on ceremonial occasions and for sanitary purposes this is well ; but for beauty give me rather Genoa with its narrow, winding, climbing streets, where you may shake hands with your neighbor at the opposite window and see above a line of gleaming blue which is the sky even the covered, crowded ways of Cairo, where balcony and lattice break the formal lines, and the varying pan- orama below offers perpetual entertainment to the stranger. As to the architecture of the city, its churches and rehgious establishments have all that is Rus- sian. The rest of the buildings are mainly con- structed on classic models, and though often impos- ing from their colossal size and lavish decorations, yet appear incongruous under that leaden sky. The fine, smooth marbles of the Mediterranean pen- insula are fit for fashioning into graceful temples and lovely, rounded forms ; and nude and slightly ST. PETERSBURG. 7 draped figures upholding roof and dome are natural and pleasing where the landscape is steeped in the warmth and splendor of a tropic sun ; but in this cold Russia why did they not rear of their dark Finland granite bold, irregular piles that would rise majestic from the marshy plains, and mould as caryatides and ornamental groups, Muscovites in their long sheep-skin coats, or Tartars clad in As- trakhan caps and belted caftans, or Samoiedes or Laplanders enveloped in furs ? Every land for its own I If the architecture of St. Petersburg were thus individual and appropriate, it would be as at- tractive as that of Athens or Rome. From the gallery of the dome of St. Isaac*s Ca- thedral an excellent view is obtained of the city. About you it lies upon the dead level which, to the north, loses itself in the Baltic and the swamps of Finland ; and, to the south, in the great j)lain stretching with slight interruption to the Crimea. The uniformity of regular streets is relieved by the river and the canals ; by the trees which care has made to flourish in the unwonted soil ; by the pub- lic monuments ; by the tall fire-towors conspicu- ous objects in every Russian city, with watchmen ready, day and night, to give the proper signals in 8 ST. PETERSBURG. case of an alarm ; and, most of all, by the golden and azure domes of the many churches and monas- teries. The Neva, curbed by granite quays, rolls its clear, strong tide through the city from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf; and as you mark how sea and river dominate over the plain, you wonder at the magnificent boldness that planted the capital where it must perpetually defy wind and wave. That slender gilded spire piercing the sky like a needle, and surmounted by an angel upholding the cross at a height of nearly four hundred feet above tlie earth, rises from the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, for the last century and a half the mau- soleum of the royal family. Their white marble tombs, beginning with that of Peter the Great, are built up on the floor of the church, with a gilt cross resting upon the upper slab and an inscription traced upon the end ; alike, save that on the corners of those of the sovereigns is blazoned the Imperial eagle the double-headed Byzantine eagle brought to Moscow by Sophia, the Greek bride of Ivan the Great, and adopted by him as the emblem of Russia. The latest buried iiere was the eldest son and heir of the present Emperor, the Grand Duke Nicholas the idol of his family and of the nation, and the ST. PETERSBURG. 9 betrothed of the Princess Dagmar. Alas for earthly joy and glory I Death spoke to the heir of all the Russias as to the meanest peasant of the realm ; and neither the soft clime of Italy, nor maiden's tender love, nor parent's yearning, nor an empire's deyotion could avail ; but, at the word, he must depart to that sphere vehere the person of kings is unre- garded, and leave to his brother both bride and dominion ! The walls of this cathedral are covered with banners and keys of conquered armies and cities, some of them lying even upon the tombs of the victors ; and flying echoes from martial fields mingle with the prayers the priests intone for the re|K)se of the dead. The conspicuous building a little up the Nevski Prospekt is the cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, named in honor of an image of the Viririn found unharmed among the ashes of a conflagration in the old Tartar city of Kazan, on the Volga, and now set with gems of fabulous value, and placed in the screen of this church, while above it the name of God is traced with similar precious stones. The screen itself the partition between the nave and the altar is of silver plundered from the churches of Moscow by the French, and retaken by Cos- 10 ST. PETERSBURG. sacks to be here consecrated anew. This church is St. Petersburg's offering for the defeat of Na- poleon, and to it the Imperial family repair for special thanksgivings. Here the grand proces- sion halted at the entry of the Princess Dagmar, and while the crowd was hushed, and the impatient horses pawed the ground, the royal party entered, and a service of gratitude was performed for her arrival. Here, five years ago, came the Emperor, first alone and afterwards with his family, to give thanks for his escape from death at the hands of the assassin, Karokozoff. At the end of the long avenue, that striking as- semblage of domes and towers, is the third holiest shrine in Russia the Monastery of St, Alexan- der Nevski, founded by Peter the Great. Alex- ander was a Prince of the race of Rurik, and his title, Nevski, comes from the battle he won on the banks of the Neva over the Swedes. The present Emperor bears his name, and is supposed to be under his special care and protection, as each Russian is under that of the saint for whom he is called. In this monastery lies the canonized prince for Russia's adoration, encased in solid silver, with silver angels hovering about him blowing trumpets ST. PETERSBURG. 11 of fame. Much wealth in the way of jewels and rare manuscripts is gathered here, and so holy is the place considered, that, in recompense for the payment of a large sum to the monastery, many of the highest families have their burial-places within its walls. Fronting the swift Neva, that huge pile half a mile in length with the handsome central spire, is the Admiralty, in which are the naval offices and schools. Beyond is the Winter Palace, the most spacious and splendid of the royal residences of Europe. That column in front is the Column of" Alexander I., the largest monolith in the world ; yet in the vast square its grandeur is lost, and you must stand beneath it in order to appreciate its size. Rows upon rows of piles were driven into the ground for its foundation, and Turkish cannon were melted down to form the capital and tlu> ornaments for its base. But the frost deals haidly with its Finland granite, and each winter cracks and cleavages are made which cement and patches carefully repair. Everywhere groujis and lines of birch and lindcMi trees break the monotony, ;md, sufrcpstinij a firm soil, make vou forffet the bottom- less bog which their deep roots penetrate ; while 12 ST. PETERSBURG. far away are the wide sea and tlie wider plain the sea Ht at Tornea by the midnight sun, and the plain washed on its southern verge by the warm waters of the Caspian. ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. Eye of a god was this blazing stonei Beyond the snows of the Himalaya ; These dazzling stars might have lit the zone Of the Queen of Jove or the Grace, Aglaia ; And the rubies are such as the Burman king Sends his elephants white to bring, With a troop of soldiers and high grandees Greeting the finder, on bended knees. Here's an emerald rare as the rose of pride Cortez gave his Castilian bride, And lustrous-green as the Indian gem Charlemagne wore in his diadem ; And pearls hard-won by the Ceylonese From the silent depths of the tropic seaa, Wliile the conjuror muttered his spells ashore Till the diver's toils for the day were o'er; And crystals, amber and amethyst. That only the Oural caves could harden Bright as blossoms the sun has kissed In the fairy plots of a palace garden. "VTEVER do I think of St. Petersburj,' without recalling St. Isaac's and the Crown Jewels. 16 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. St. Isaac's is the grandest church in Russia, and in all northern Europe; and if its magnificence of bronze and rose-brown granite had been fashioned into a Gothic instead of an Italian pile, it might, perhaps, have been the grandest in the world. The spot where it stands in the great square near the river was, from the founding of the city, designed for the site of the finest ecclesiastical structure. The present edifice was begun by Alexander I and completed and dedicated with all the splendor of the Greek ceremonial a few years after the ac- cession of the present Emperor. A million dollars were expended in sinking piles for its foundation, and untold sums have been lavished upon the cathedral itself. Built of Finland gi'anite, in the usual Russian form of a Greek cross, at each of its four sides you ascend by three flights of massive steps each flight cut from a single stone to the four noble entrances, the pillars of whose porticoes are monoliths larger than those of the Roman Pai\- theon, and akin to the columns hewn by genii for the Syrian Temple of the Sun. The bases and Corinthian capitals of these columns are of bronze. Of bronze, also, are the groups illustrative of Scrip- ture history and commemorative of apostles, saints. ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 17 and martyrs, filling the pediments and ornamenting facade and roof, in ricli harmony with the sombre back-ground ; while the great Byzantine dome, en- circled by smaller domes at the angles of the roof and supported by thirty granite pillars, lifts itself above the mass, overlaid with gold and surmounted by a golden cross, which, in fair weather, to those who miles away sail the sea or journey across the inland plains, shines like an unfading star. Within, all is gorgeous gloom. Perpetual twilight reigns under the lofty vault ; and the lamps burning night and day before the sacred pictures help to interpret the wealth of mosaics and marbles and the splendor of the tall columns of malachite and lapis lazuli up- holding the ikonastas interposed before the inmost shrine their mino;led tints of green and blue hav- ing the weird effect of an ice-cavern in the Alps or a grotto under the wave. The shrine itself is in- closed in a marvelous miniature temple of these precious stones, adorned with gold ; while every- where jasper and porphyry, and whatever rare and beautifid materials Russian quarries can furnish, are wrought into ceiling and floor. Artists may point to its over-decoration ; architects may com- plain of the space and iron wasted In supporting the 18 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. dome ; but in spite of critics and defects it must remain one of the superb buildings of the world. With reverent faces the fair-haired, blue-eyed Russians are continually entering for their devo- tions. Purchasing a small wax candle from a table near the door, and advancing to one of the shrines, with prostrations and signs of the cross, they light the taper at the sacred lamp and place it in the silver stand pierced with holes ; then, kissing the pavement, say a short prayer and retire, still look- ing towards the altar ; while without, those who pass within the shadow of the dome, cross themselves and utter a pious ejaculation. Magnificent Temple of the North is St. Isaac's. Yet with all its richness it is a saddening pile, dim and chill even in a summer noon, and fitted to in- spire fear and awe rather than hope and love. God would speak to me more cheeringly on tiie broad steppe, beneath the open sky, with the Avild east wind for anthem, than within these walls, massive as the Pyramids, and echoing chant and prayer of priest and devotee. Whoever delights in jewels should seek admis- sion to the Winter Palace. There, in a large room ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 19 on the second floor, guarded night and day by offi- cers of tlie household, are preserved the glittering treasures of the emj)ire. Most noticeable among them is the great Orloff diamond, surmounting the sceptre, the largest of the crown diamonds of Eu- rope, and the gift of the politic, elegant, extrava- gant Count Orloff to the Empress Catherine IF. Like the Koh-i-noor, it is one of the royal jewels of the East which, through misfortune and robbery, have passed into Europe. The English stone has been made into a brilliant, losing thereby nearly half its weight; the Orloff is ro^e cut, as it came from India. Its size and light suit it to the sceptre of a realm like this, and until the Rajah of Mattani or some other Oriental monarch loses his state and his possessions with the advance of WesteiMi cixili- zation, it will doubtless retain its proud preeiniiKMice. Yet for mere beauty I would choose rather tin- ex- jjuisite diamond called the Polar Star; or th:it l.-s^er rose-tinted stone bought by the Emperor I*;ml Wn- a (nmdi'ed thousand rubles; nay, since seliciion jnd fancy are so easy here, I would even jHiler ihat mystic jewel, the Shah, gift of Persia, with a Persian inscription upon its side ! The Imperial crown is a dome of diamonds 20 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. bound with pearls, its whiteness relieved by the red of an immense ruby which burns upon its top and supports a cross composed of five diamonds of wondrous brilliancy. The golden globe upbears a large sapphire shining with a light steady and ce- rulean as the heaven of the Mediterranean, while above it a limpid diamond rests upon the azure like a white cloud upon the sky. The coronet of the Empress is made altogether of diamonds of equal size and lustre a diadem so dainty and dazzling that the most republican of women might be for- given for being for a moment fascinated by a crown. Besides these most noticeable things there is a Ion!; line of cases filled with iewels wrouixht into necklaces and bracelets and brooches and combs ; into buttons and. buckles and bows and rosettes; into girdles and plumes a'nd fans and stars and eagles and orders ; until the very profusion makes them seem common, and you become critical of gems as if they were but shells on the sea-shore, renewed with every tide. For centuries Russia has drawn upon the hoarded treasures of Turkey and Persia and India region of jewels and of races that delio-ht to wear them : and now the mines of Si- beria have come to swell her stores. Nothins: can ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 21 be more beautiful than some of the Siberian crys- tals here with their dehcate, tints, green, rose, violet for the setting of which the clearest dia- monds have not been thought too costly. Standing in this regal room you cease to wonder at the world's estimate of precious stones, and know why St. John fashioned of their splendors the walls and gates of the New Jerusalem. The dew-drop vanishes with the sun ; the rose, the pansy, and the lily droop and fall; clouds obscure the serenest blue; and it is only in moments of propitious light and air that we catch a glimpse of the rare green of the sea ; but the diamond, the ruby, the amethyst, the pearl, the topaz, the sapphire, the emerald, keep their charms imperishable, and gleam in changeless beauty beyond the reach of time. The School of Mines displays a collection of minerals and stones only less valuable and beautiful than the crown jewels ; and these, with the great vases and urns of malachite and porpliyry and jasper, classic in shape and faultless in finish, wiiich adorn palace and hall, show Russia's wealth beneath the soil and the excellence of her lapidaries. The Academy of Sciences harbors the skeleton of the 22 Sr. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. huge mammoth found seventy years ago imbedded in an ice bank of the Lena, with its flesh so well preserved that bears and wolves came to feed upon it when the breaking of the cliff exposed it to view. And on every side is some institntion which impe- rial power has dedicated to letters, or science, or art, and where you may while away a morning, oblivious of the world without. The old palace of the Hermitage is converted into an Art Museum and its galleries are adorned with some of the best pictures of every land, and with the marvels of an- cient and modern sculpture. Rivaling these in interest are the antiquities from the Greek colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea ; vases and personal ornaments of exquisite workmanship, buried in tombs, and now, after two thousand years, brought to the light of day. One graceful painted vase bears the inscription, " Enrion has made it." Who was Enrion, the skillful Greek, charmed with his work and calling to us thus, out of the silence of centiaries, to assure him of immortality ? These noble collections are grandly housed, but the fine tracery of Grecian art and the impassioned creations of the great masters of Italy and Spain seem alien in this northern zone, and I fancied the ST. ISAACS AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 28 rapt and glowing Madonnas and the sunny land- scapes would gradually fade and dim till they be- came pallid and misty as the light that fell through the lofty windows. An imposing and yet a mournful summer city is St. Petersburg. Even when the sky is clear, the Bun's rays are pale and subdued like those of late afternoon in our November; and though in its streets we saw peasants in their peculiar attire, and swift-driven droskies, and gray-coated soldiers, and long-robed priests, and heard on every side the rich Slavonic tongue ; yet, remembering tho saying of the Emperor Nicholas, "St. Petersburg is Russian, but it is not Russia," without regret we bid fare- well to its splendors, and looked eagerly forward to Moscow. TO MOSCOW. TO MOSCOW. Across the steppe we journeyed, The brown, fir-darkened plain lliat rolls to east and rolls to west, Broad as the billowy main, When lo ! a sudden splendor Came shimmering through the air, As if the clouds should melt and leave The heights of heaven bare, A maze of rainbow domes and spires Full glorious on the sky, With wafted chimes from many a tower As the south wind went by. And a thousand crosses lightly hung lliat fhone like morning stars Twas the Krcndin wall I 'twas Moscow Tlie jewel of the Czars I T)Y tlie broad punfjo, arrowy railway, one lim afttTiioon, we left St. Potersburrj for Moscow. On that wide level the city sank like a retiring fleet at sea, the hiorh towers and domes of the Monastery 28 TO MOSCOW. of Alexander Nevski linn-eriiig longest in the north- o o o eastern horizon. For some miles, on our left, a straggling suburb extended south along the old post- road between the two cities. Gradually the houses became fewer, and at length we were alone in the great pine-covered plain. Only the last of July, but already the summer approached its dissolution. Chill mists and vapors hung in the air, and every breath wafted showers of yellow leaves from the birch trees and filled the low pines with answering sighs. There is no sad- der sound iu nature than the wail of these Russian winds blowing straight from the wastes of ice and death that encompass the Pole their force un- broken from the Arctic Sea to the Caspian, save by the forests through which they sweep with hollow, mournful tones that have in them some secret of eternity. The wind of the desert uplifts the soul ; that of these northern steppes paralyzes it with fear. Now, for the first time, we began to see the vil- lages and hamlets of the former serf population, not yet changed under the new regime. Nothing drearier can be imagined than these log huts with a roof of boards and often but a single window, TO MOSCOW. 29 poor sheds wliich seem dropped without the least order upon tlie bare plain. Though sometimes miles from any town, they had often no apparent shop of any kind, nor street, nor winding path, nor tree, nor shrub, nor window flower to relieve the hard monotony. Tlie poorest Highland shieling has its gorse and heather and its mountiiin setting ; for the Irish cot there is the little garden and the encircling green ; over tlie mud hut of the Egyp- tian the palm waves its plumes ; but neither nature nor art cheers these mean abodes which subserve only the rudest necessities of existence. Enter them and you see but a few clumsy articles of fur- niture of the peasant's own manufacture, with noth- inix to raise the thouo-hts above grovelinji cares but the little picture of the Madonna or some patron saint hung high in the fartliest corner of the room, before which a lamj) is suspended and kept, if pos- sible, always burning, and to wiiich all the events of the humble household are made known. Yet as the prison captive finds a world of delight in the unfolding of a tiny flower or the weaving of a spider's web, so, doubtless, even here the loving human heart sees much to make life sweet and desirable. 30 TO MOSCOW. The Petersburg and Moscow railway was built without the slightest regard to important towns be- tween the two places. From end to end its appoint- ments are noble and uniform. The station-houses are handsome structures, built of brick, while about them are carefully kept grounds, filled with trees and plants adapted to the country. In the appartment next us was the Grand Duke Constan- tine going to Moscow, a man with the stately, florid beauty of the Romanoff family. Wherever the train stopped the soldiers of the adjoining bar- racks were drawn up on the platform to receive him, still as statues, their right hands raised in the military salute as he appeared and passed them in review. How can men become so automatic, a hundred moving absolutely as one ? It seemed imj)ossible that separate human hearts beat beneath those gray caftans. To the cloudy afternoon succeeded the long twi- light which is the night of the northern summer, and through it we held our way southward, ovei the lonely, forest-dark plain. At five o'clock the next morning we crossed Europe's great river, the Volga, at Tver, where its navigation begins, and from whence you may sail to distant Persia. Hei*e, two hnndrod milos froQi its source in the iftM TO MOSCOW. 81 only elevations of central Russia, the Valdai hills, it is a shallow stream some six hundred feet in breadth, flowing with a calm current, and as if quite unconscious of all the tribes and territories its waters must greet before they find the sea. The boats and barges which crowd it show the impor- tance it even here attains as an avenue of com- merce. Tver rises picturesquely on its right bank, an ancient town famous in the past for its invasions by Poles and Tartars, and for the murder, in its convent, of the Metropolitan Philip ; and in the present, for its manufacture of nails from the iron of the Ourals. Advancing day revealed an atmosphere undim- med by the fogs of St. Petersburg, and through which the sun shone with warmer ray. Fields of rye and barley began to gain upon the fir-woods ; the grass was greener ; the trees taller ; the mo- notony of the vast plain relieved by marked undula- tions; and at length, like Madrid shining in the morning sun as you approach it over the wind- swept table-lands of Castile, but far more glorious, before us rose an assemblage of brilliant white walls and of glittering domes and towers, and we were in that Asiatic city planted on the steppos of Europe, " Holy Mother Moscow I" THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. Above each gate a blessed Saint Asks favor of the skies, And the hosts of the foe do fail and faint At the gleam of their watchful eyes ; And Pole, and Tartar, and haughty Gaul, Flee, dismayed, from the Kremlin wall. JJere lie our ancient Czars, asleen. Ivan and Feodor, 'VVliile loving angels round them keep Sweet peace forevermore 1 Only when Easter bells ring loud. They sign the cross beneath the shroud. O Troitsa's altar is divine, St. Sergius ! hear our prayers 1 And KiefT, Olga's lofty shrine, The name of " The Holy " bears ; lUit Moscow blends all rays in one They are the stars, and she the sun ! ^T^IIE storv of ^loscow is writtt-ii on its streets ami walls. Every roof and dome hears the iiiij>ress of Tartar domination, and tlie dark faees 36 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. amoncr its fair Muscovite crowds show that the Asiatic still lino-ers in the lono; contested land. Its dwellings, white or pink or yellow, green-roofed and encompassed with gardens ; its palaces and conventual piles ; its churches with lofty towers tilled with bells ; its numberless domes and cupolas, gilded, silvered, enameled, each upholding above the crescent a cross of gold attached by shining chains of filagree work, and, high in the midst, the strange gateways and battlements and spires of tlie Kremlin, make up a Christian, Mohammedan, wondrous whole, more impressive for the solitary waste which encircles its grotesque, yet unrivaled splendors. The Kremlin is both fortress and altar ; the re- ligious lieart of Russia; .the place of her holiest shrines and the deposit of her proudest trophies. About it the streets of Moscow rano;e themselves as those of an English cathedral city do about the minster. Triangular in shape and somewhat over a mile in circumference, it rises on the elevated bank of the Moskwa, quaint, and grand, and inde- scribable. Massive stone walls now surmounting an elevation, now dipping into a ravine close it round, irregular, bold, and fanciful in design, pierced THE SIIRINEH OF MOSCOW. 37 by gates and overliung with towers. The most famous of these is the " Redeemer Gate," near the middle of the eastern wall, built by a Milanese the year before the discovery of America. Above it hangs an adored picture of the Redeemer of Smo- lensk, at sight of which (so says tradition) the awe- struck Tartars, in their last invasion, turned away from the fortress, while, a century later, the Poles fled before it when it was borne by Pojarski to the battle-field; and ever since, for these gracious inter- positions, all who enter. Czar as well as peasant, bare their heads and cross themselves in devotion. Next in importance is the Nicholas Gate, with its picture of St. Nicholas of Mojaisk, who abhors lies, and in face of which, in old days, oaths were administeretl to contesting parties. Over it is written the proud inscription of Alexander I., that Napoleon's order to destroy this gate wius only ellectual in cleaving the tower at its base, while neither the glass of tlie picture nor its hanging lamp were broken, "^riie nu)at which once encircled the walls is now trans- formed into gardens planted with trees and shrubs and flowers, and thronged with i)lea^ure seekers (lining the warm evenings of the fleeting summer. Perhaj)s the best point from which to view the i 1T3S2 38 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. Kremlin is at its southwestern angle, on the stone bridge across the Moskwa, in the late afternoon. There it rises before you, stately with domes and towers ; defiant with battlements and turrets and lance-like spires ; gay with golden j)innacles and roofs of green and azure, and bearing aloft its glit- tering crosses like lines of fire against the sky. Last summer, in the high Rocky Mountains, before an assemblage of unusual jagged peaks, and bare, regular walls, suddenly the setting sun broke from the clouds and lit lap the whole range with glory. The snow-masses were dazzling in their Avhiteness ; the ravines lay in blackest shadow ; each crag and splinter was bathed in crimson liglit ; the pines stood in intensest green, and, beyond, many a lofty projecting point shone like a star. Memories of Moscow came vividly back, and, enchanted, I said, " It is the Kremlin of Colorado I " Although St. Petersburg is the residence of the Czars, the most important events of their lives are solemnized in the Kremlin of Moscow ; crowned in the Cathedral of the Assumption ; wedded in that of the Annunciation ; buried, until the time of Peter the Great, in the Church of the Archangel Michael. The Cathedral of the Assumption is the THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 39 Russian Holy of Holies, adorned with the oldest and most sacred pictures and containing the tombs of the famous patriarchs who have officiated there. Solidly built of stone, the plainness of its exterior is only relieved by the five golden domes ; but within there is no space which is not covered with paint- ings or mosaics on a gilded ground, the most precious set with costly gems, and so unchanged IS it by the lapse of time that the most conservative sects of the Orthodox Church can worship here un- disturbed by heretical innovations. Every Easter, when the huge bell of the adjacent tower sends its summons abroad, they crowd its court-yard and its narrow but lofty nave, and prostrate themselves as before an unpolluted shrine. Through the doors of its silver screen, the Czar at his coronation, after reciting, as Head of the Church, the Orthodox Confession of Faith, and praying for the empire, enters the sacred place and takes the consecrated bread and wine from the altar in the holy com- munion. From this priestly act the doors of every church screen throufjhout the land bear the title of " Royal." Yet, like most Russian cathedrals, its interior is oppressive in its gloom. The incense-laden air. 40 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. tempered by no artificial heat, is always chill. The sun falls obliquely through the high windows, and in the lower dimness the lamps burning before the sacred shrines seem like twinkling stars. There is scarcely light enough to display the patriarchal tombs the mummied hand of the Metropolitan Philip exposed for the kisses of the devout the jeweled pictures of the screen behind which no woman is allowed to pass, and which rises, massive and high, as if to bar the soul from more intimate communion. The martyrs stare with hard, fixed features from the square, gilded pillars that uphold the dome, and madonnas and saints, with the same faces here as everywhere from Abo to Odessa (for no departure is allowed from the old Byzantine models^, look out meagre and sombre and grim from their imprisoning frames. Two things lighten the solemn melancholy of the service the equality of classes, and the music of the chants and responses. Here are no pews or privileged seats, but high and low bow side by side before the altar, the costly furs and velvets and rich shawls of the nobles brushing the worn felt and ragged sheep-skin of the serf The old Greek chants are employed, rearranged in the last century THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 41 by Italian masters, but retaining their noble sim- plicity ; wliolly vocal, yet so pure, so sweet, so harmonious, that they float through the gloom like songs of seraphs ministering to souls in prison. I shall never forget a vesper service in the church of the Kremlin Convent of the Ascension the devout, silent crowd, the priest in his blue tunic and long fair curls making the round of the sacred pictures with incense and candles, and the celestial warbling of the nuns in an adjoining chapel, high and clear as if with the sound their souls were ex- haling to heaven ! On the site of the old residence of the Czars in the Kremlin, the Emperor Nicholas erected a mar- ble palace crowned with a gilded dome, its white mass conspicuous from every puint of view. Its interior is singularly splendid, from the great hall used only for the banquet given by the emperor to the nobles, after his coronation, to the j)rivate apartments for the royal family during their visits to Moscow. All that remained entire of the old palace was incorporated with the new, the most important relic being tlie "Red Staircase " leading to the Cathedral of the Assumption, aiul connected with many notable events in Russian history. It 42 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. was up these stairs Napoleon strode to take posses- sion. Ah, could he but have looked forward fifty years, and seen that the only trace of him there would be the pictures on the walls portraying his defeat ! But there was no wizard to give Lochiel a warning. In the treasury adjoining, are gathered the tro- phies and mementoes which invading armies and ravaging fires have left to Russia. Here are the standards of the ancient Czars ; captured colors the pride of Turkey and Persia and the banners borne to the conquest of Siberia ; the coronation robes and thrones and crowns and sceptres of the Russian royal line, and those taken from the kings who have submitted to them of Kazan, of Poland, of Astrakhan, of Georgia with countless other things illustrative of the past, and valuable for rich- ness of material or association. The Church Treas- ury, in the House of the Holy Synod, close to the Cathedral of the Assumption, is filled with superb ecclesiastical relics robes and mitres thick set with pearls and precious stones, gems engraved with sacred subjects, and worn by bishops on a chain about the neck and, most interesting of all, the silver vessels for the preparation of the holy oil of THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 43 baptism, mingled here during Lent by the metro- politan and his associate clergy ; composed of the purest wines and oils and spices and balsams, and sent hence to each bishop in the empire. Every church is consecrated with it ; every communicant (and all Orthodox Russians are communicants), from Czar to peasant, is anointed with it in bap- tism. A small, curious flask is still preserved here, in which it is said the first oil was sent to the Russian Ciiurch from Constantinople. The soft-voiced monk in black robes, who was in at- tendance, took up this flask with the utmost ven- eration, and told us how every year a few drops were poured from it to sanctify the new chrism, and an equal quantity of the fresh mixture re- turned, so that it remains always full. The treasure-rooms of Russia make jewels seem valueless through abundance. You would hardiv be surprised if at length you were shown an ajjurt- ment blazing from floor to ceiling with rubies and diamonds. And these riches are but a part of the wealth and glory of the Kremlin. Every stone has its memories ; every room has its relics ; and all are consecrated to patriotism and to religion. 44 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. Just outside the Redeemer Gate of the Kremhn stands tlie most picturesque edifice in Russia, tliat conglomerate of rainbow domes and towers, that tulip of architecture, the Church of St. Basil. Erected in the sixteenth century to commemorate the taking of Kazan, it is the wildest dream of a mosque, except that for the light, airy spaces of the Arab structures, there are the heavy walls and the gaily-painted, dungeon-like chapels of the Musco- vite north. Rivaling the ancient edifices in splendor and in- terest is the Temple of the Saviour, on an elevated position above the river and a little southwest of the Kremlin. Built in memory of Russia's triumph over the French, it was begun the very year of their invasion, and it will be yet some years before its completion. The site originally selected was upon the hills from whence Napoleon had his first view of the city, but the ground was not firm, and it Avas removed from thence to its present locality. It is constructed of a light stone, in the simplest form of a Greek cross, and what is rare in a Russian Church, where statues are forbidden, and anything in the form of sculpture is unusual it is rilE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 45 adorned on the exterior, for half its height, with well-wrouglit bas-reliefs of scenes from Scripture and from Russian history, appropriate to the event it ceii'bi-ates. Its golden Oriental domes are far more beautiful than the Sinoothlj rounded ones of St. Isaac's, and the crosses which surmount them are not of the Latin type, but such as are found on the early churches of the Empire, with three trans- verse bars, according to the tradition which makes the cross of Christ to have been fashioned of cedar, and palm, and cy[)ress, and olive. Over the en- trance is the watchword, " God with us," and within, the Temi)le is massive with rich marbles, conspicuous among them a dark-veined, lustrous stone from the Crimea. Blent with Christmas cere- monies, how grand will rise beneath this roof, the thanksfriviuLrs of the nation for deliverance from the foe ! One might well cross the si'a and the steppe to listen here to the words with which the service opens, " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" When we saw the cathedral, workmen were busy quietly fitting and polisliing tlu' costly blocks, tokens of Russia's patriotism and devotion, and on the grassy space without, bluebells and butter- 46 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. cups nodded in the wind beneath the shadow of tlie great dome, and the Moskwa rippled calmly below as if neither invader's foot nor clash of arms had ever disturbed their tranquillity. And this is the end of Napoleon in Russia. MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. O the spleiidor of the city, Wlien the sun is in ihc west I Riuhly gohl on spire and holfry, Gold on Moskwa's phioid ])reast ; Till the twilight soft and sombre Falls on wall and street and s(piare, And the domes and towers in shadow Stand like silent monks at prayer. 'Tis the hour for dream and legend : Meet me by the Sacred (iate ! We will watch the crowd go by us ; We will stories old relate ; Till the bugle of the barracks Calls the soldier to repose, \nd from oil" the steppe to northward Chill the wind of midnight blows. i /r<7S\'<.\\'' is full of interest outside ot' Krem- lin and ..Mtrcli and palace. Its situation is lii^^di and lieallli.'ul, and its half million iidiai)- itants are spread ovei ^n area greater than that (d 4 50 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. any other European city except London. It is the largest manufacturing town in Russia, having within its walls and suburbs nearly two hundred factories for the weavino; of silk alone, and when more railways have penetrated the East, it will be the mart of exchange for Europe and Asia. Its nobles follow the court to St. Petersburg. Mer- chant princes are taking their place. On reaching the city we established ourselves, after trying tlie pretentious "HStel Dusaux," at the house of Mr. Billot, which we found very comforta- ble. The landlord, a gentlemanly Swiss, had what seems to be thought a necessity here, a little place out of town, where he spent every night, returning in the morning with spotless linen, a flower in his button-hole, and bouquets for the rooms, from his own garden. We sometimes dined at the public table to see the varied company assembled there, and had occasionally striking proofs of the union of countries and races, to Avhich the world is tending. One day a man extolled to his neighbor, a London merchant, " the delicious pumpkin pies of New England." He was a Tyrolese, who had been in this country as the leader of a band of singers, and in the same capacity was then on his way to Nijni. 3fOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 61 At another time, a Hungarian, wlio liad spent sev- eral years in America as a political exile, narrated a sharp story of a New Hampshire man's evasion of tlie Maine Liquor Law. It excited such laughter in those who understood it, that he was pressed to repeat it in Russ, which he did, and afterwards in Italian, in French, and in German. Its sly Yankee humor appeared to be as much appreciated by all these people, as it would have been at home. A stout Nuremberger laufjlied till he seemed on the point of apo])lexy, and the Italian cried " Bravo ! " till the ceiling rang. From this house, which was near the Kremlin, we exj)l()red, at leisure, the city and its suburbs. Nothing can be more entertaining than that laby- rinth of shops, the Great Ba::aar, in whose long arcades each trade has its quarter ; none among them more inviting than that devoted to jewelers and silversmiths, Avhose shelves and counters shine with the crystals and gems of Siberia and India, and with articles of the exquisite niello work peculiar to the country. At each merchant's right hand was seen a small frame fdled with ivory balls, strung un wires, by which he reckoned his accounts, and perluq)s standing near it was a glass of tea. Scarce- 52 310 scow BEYOND THE KREMLIN. \y less attractive is the Riadi, an open bazaar, the centre of the traffic in wax tapers, sacred pictures, and the lamps which burn before them. When one remembers that no Russian room, whether in hut or palace or place of public resort, is complete without its holy picture hung high in the farthest corner, it explains these piles upon piles of Madon- nas and heaps of saints and apostles, framed in every form and fashion to suit varying tastes and means. Then there is the Fair held on Sundays in the street, the bazaar of the poorest classes, where every variety of trash spread over rude tables or upon mats on the ground, finds a market, and where, if you mingle with the crowd, you must be careful not to press too near to the peasants lest you shoiild take home with you some of the vermin of which their greasy sheep-skin coats are often full ; for the bath that must always precede their church communion, does not extend to their clothes, which are worn Avithout washing, night and day, for months and perhaps years, until they become rags, and are exchanged for new. The tea-houses with their white-robed attend- ants who serve the delicate overland tea to the ladies in cups, to the gentlemen in deep glass tum- MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 58 biers with a slice of lemon dropped into it instead of cream, are a novel feature of the city. To these quiet tables, with their fragrant beverage, come friends for genial talk ; buyers and sellers to con- summate their barirains : civilians and soldiers to discuss politics and promotion, and all classes for recreation and cheer. The finest tea here costs about ten dollars a pound, and a leaf or two will make a full cup. When drawn it is of a faint amber color and has a delicious aroma. Hot tea is sold about the streets in winter as lemonade is in summer. When sugar is usi'd it is not dropped into the cup or glass, but the lump is held in the hand and a bite taken now and then an inconvenient way, for the fine-grained, solid beet-root sugar is as hard as a stone. Most of the Tartars here are in a menial condition and employed as coachmen and servants. Manv families are, however, of mingled 'J'artar and Rus- sian blood. St'veral of the churches in the citv might seem to have Ijeen reared for the worship t>f " the Faithful " if only on the swelling domes the crescent replaced the cross, and IVom the high towers the l)ells were removed to make w;iv for the nuiez- xin calling to prayer. But the rule of the Prophet 54 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. is over. There is but a single mosque, at the ex tremity of the city a poor, plain affair where the few Mohammedans gather meekly to their devotions, in mockery of the day when the Duke of Muscovy went forth to meet the Tartar ambassadors, spread- ing a mat of rich sables for their feet, presenting them w^ith a goblet of mare's milk, the wine of the Mongol steppes, and humbly licking up the drops that fell on the manes of their fiery horses ! The great Foundling Hospital, established by Catherine II., has, as one source of its revenue, the profits derived from the government manufacture of playing cards no inconsiderable sum, for card- playing is almost universal. The girls brought up here are, at a proper age, shown on certain days to visitors. Five kopecks a week are laid up by the state as their dowry. They are often pleasing and well educated, and are frequently choseii for wives by the lesser merciiants, as they have no trouble- some relations. Yet neither cathedral nor bazaar nor hospital has more charms for the stranger than the out-door life of the city. The streets are of varying width ; crooked, paved with sharp, flinty stones, and lined with buildings of every style of architecture. . MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 55 Churches, palaces, and tlie pink or yellow white- M-ashed cottages of peasants are jumbled together, and from whatever point you look some picturesque group of domes and towers delights the eye, or perchance down the vista you catch a glimpse of the Kremlin wall. Through tliese avenues pours the varied population. Princes pass in their swift carriages, and perhaps the Metropolitan, hidden in his stately coach drawn by sleek black horses of noble breed; merchants dash by in their droskies men, it may be, of enormous wealth, and whose transactions are now with Paris and now with Pekin ; drays and country carts lumber along, driven bv peasants with wide trousers tucked into high boots, or tied with a string their feet en- cased in shoes made of plaited reeds or stri[)s of lime-tree bark a blouse-like shirt of j)ink calico (why, with their florid faces, they should choose ])ink, I cannot understand) over the trousers, con- fined at the waist bv a sash or a belt of leather, and above this, iniless in heat of noon, a wra])j)er of sheep-skin reaching below the knees while often there is no covei'ing for the lieail but the yellow, mattt'd hair, bound with a tillet and (ailing low on the shoulders as the full beai'd falls on the 56 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. breast. In the open spaces stand the coachmen witli their vehicles waiting to be hired dressed in low, broad-crowned, black hats; long caftans of dark cloth fitting close about the neck but without a collar, padded at the hi})S, double in front and fastened under the left arm wnth six metal buttons ; wliile their thick white gloves, when not in use, are secured by the thumbs to their girdles. Men carry about buckets filled with salted cucumbers, selling them, one by one, to the peasant crowd as a relish for their black bread, which they eat as they go. At the churches and the street shrines of the Vir- gin, passers-by make the sign of the cross and even prostrate themselves in their reverence. Nurses appear clad in the Russian national costume a white under-garment, rather low in the neck, with full, short sleeves ; a dark skirt gathered into a band just above the bosom and susj)ended by straps over the shoulders, and a belt about the waist from which depends a long white apron. Earrings and a necklace of beads are worn, and on the head a high, turban-like cap of some bright color. This striking but rather formless attire, seems now to be o-iven over to nurses, and court ladies for state occasions, wlien the head-dress blazes with jewels. Mer- ;' ii||ir^'|(;'pi!v ;:!?? m.mmwi^% MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 57 2hants' clerks, when not busy, may be seen sitting ill tlie shop doors playing chess or dominoes and perliaps liolding a pet cat tlie while. Loads of birch wood go by, sold at twenty rubles a cord a large snin for the j)ea.sants ; but a little wood lasts them long, as their brick ovens are not al- lowed to cool and air is excluded. Soldiers con- scions and unbending in their uniforms are always in view, and the dark faces of Gypsies, Tartars, Persians, and Jews are a pleasant relief after the fair monotony of the average Russians. Why is it that the men of the Slavonic family are so much comelier than the women ? Handsome men abound, and doubtless there are lovely, graceful women iiere, but they are rarely visible in church, or street, or bazaar. I saw oidy one or two who could be calk'd beautiful, but tlu'y showed the possi- bihties of the race dainty creatures with the lily complexion, blue eves, and blonde hair, which we asci'ihe to angels; the tvpe, i)erha[)s, of the An- astasias and Natalies whom tlie early C/.ars chose out of all the land to share their throne. The women of the lower classes, with their flat features, and hair and eyes and skin of miu'h the same hue, have ordinarilv nothing but an honest, liond-natured 58 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. expression to redeem their round faces from positive ugliness. They wear loose boots, short skirts, long sacques of wadded cloth or sheep-skin, tie a thick handkerchief over iheir heads, and at a little dis- tance look so much like men that you can hardly tell whether you are gazing at Ivan or Nadia. These shifting scenes through the day ; but if at dawn a trumpet blast should Avake you, and, rising, you should look from your window, you would see a different sight, a mournful procession threading the yet quiet streets, first a mounted police officer, then a trumpeter, then a company of soldiers, and lastly a high cart drawn by four horses abreast, and on its top, in convict garb, a criminal who is to be thus exposed for three successive mornings and then set out on his long journey to Siberia. Tiiey round the corner ; the brazen notes ring out again ; the Cossacks close their line and the poor wretch hangs his head as he disappears. Melancholy as is the scene, let us remember that exile to Siberia is not now the terrible fate it was in former days, and that death on the gallows, so common with us, is unknown in Russia except as the penalty of high treason. In the suburbs of Moscow are various ornamen- MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 59 tal gardens, to which the people resort, especially on Sundays; for Sunday, after morning church, is a holiday, the Russians, both men and women, smok- ing cigarettes, sipping tea, and playing cards, of which they are passionately fond ; the Germans, and there are many here, drinking beer, smoking tlieir pipes, or listening to tlie music of an orcliestra, or to the singing of some band of Tyrolese or Gypsies. We even saw them one day sitting be- neath their umbrellas in a chill, misty rain, and drinking in the sweet sounds as complacently as if they had been by the sunny Rhine. These gar- dens are kept with care, and every shrub and tree is cultivated which the climate favors. There are trim hedges, plots of bright flowers, lindens and elms and locusts ; and if you do not look beyond to see the native forests the sombre firs and tliiii birches that stretch away to the horizon you will hardly credit your high latitude. I know not wiiich is tiie more beautiful city, Constantinople as you approach it from the Sea of Marmora, or Moscow fi-om the Sparrow Hills. The one rises from the water's edge, its white minarets melting into the blue sky of the south ; the other towers and flashes from the northern plain. About 60 MOSCO \V BEYOND THE KREMLIN. the Turkish capital cluster the storied hills of Eu- rope and Asia ; around that of Muscovy the river winds like a line of enchantment, and the lofty domed monasteries on its borders stand like sen- tinels keeping watch over the sacred shrines. I know not ; but had I one drop of Russian blood in my veins, Moscow should be to me Queen of the World ! MOSCOW BELLS. MOSCOW BELLS. That distant chime ! As soft it swells, What memories o'er me steall Again I hear the Moscow bells Across the moorland peal ! The bells that rock the Kremlin tower Like a strong wind, to and fro, Silver sweet in its topmost bower, And the thunder's boom below. 'lliey say that oft at Easter dawn When all the world is lair, God's angels out of heaven are drawn To list tlie music there. And while the rose-clouds with the breeze Drift onward, like a dream, High in tlie ether's pearly seas Their I'adiant faces gleam. () when some Merlin with his spell* A new delight would i)ring, Say : I will hear tlu' Moscow bells Across the nujorland ring ! 64 MOSCOW BELLS. Tlie bells that rock the Kremlin tower Like a strong wind, to and fro, Silver sweet in its topmost bower, And the thunder's boom below I T OFTIEST of all the structures in Moscow is the Tower of John the Great, near to the Ca- thedral of tlie Assumption. Erected just before the incoming of the Romanoff dynasty, it looks solid enough to send its peals down the centuries and welcome the latest sovereign of the line. Its base- ment is a chapel dedicated to St. John, over which rises story after story filled with bells, the largest weighing sixty-four tons nearly five times the weight of the great bell of England, at York Min- ster, yet only half that of the " Czar Kolokol," the broken bell which rests on a granite pedestal at the foot of the tower. The smallest two are of silver, most sweet, most musical ; and above them expands the golden dome, its crowning cross nearly three hundred feet in air. From whatever point one views the city this tower rises proud, majestic, the central figure of the Kremlin. Tlie peasants re- gard it with reverential awe, and when, at impor- tant festivals of the Church, its huge bell, like the discharge of artillery, booms over the plain, they TOWER OF .TOItN TIIK CKKAT MOSCOW BELLS. 65 listen to it as to the voice of God. At Easter all the bells are rung in unison, making the earth tremble and burdening the air with their rich volume of sound. " Christ is risen I " thunders the lowest bell, grand and solemn as a call to judgment. " Christ is risen ! " repeats each story with its peculiar harmony and power. " Christ is risen ! " echoes, like an ancjel's sonrj, from the sil- ver tongues beneath the dome. Ah, what wild music must the bells of Moscow have made at the burning of the city ! Rung at first in dread alarm, and then as the town was abandoned to its fate, answering with a dull sound the stroke of falling timbers, and at the crash of the steeples I)lunging with weird, woeful knell into the fiery death below I Russia, through its whole extent, is the land of bells. Every church and monastery and convent has its tower, where they hang, in number and size proportioned to the wealth of the community. The cimrch or religious house is the most attractive feature of the landscape in northern atid central Russia, and the bells are the life and joy of the parish. Over the dark forests, across the dreary plains, by the still lakes, along the winding rivers, 66 MOSCOW BELLS. they send their harmonious peals, gladdening and elevating the soul. The peasant crosses himself as he listens, and believes that the saints are near and heaven awaits him yonder. There are no chimes, however, nor are the bells rung as elsewhere ; they are stationary, and the tono-ue is struck against the side, the larger bells requiring for this the united efforts of several men. One feast morning, in Moscow, we saw in a low, open church-tower a man ringing half a dozen bells at once by ropes in his hands and attached to his arms. By the peculiar tolling of the larger bells, and the clang when all are struck together, the worshippers know to what service they are called and when it will begin. Full clashes of bells often introduce and conclude special ceremonies and sol- emn moments in the mass. There are no wedding peals nor tolling bells for ordinary funerals, as in many places with us ; but the great bell tolls when a priest dies, and all are rung with tremendous clamor while an archbishop enters or leaves a place in his diocese. All the larger bells are ornamented with bas-reliefs, with arabesque figures, with sacred texts, and with an inscription relating to the date of their casting and the church for which they are MOSCOW BELLS. 67 a intended. As they are raised to the belfry they are sprinkled with holy water, and prayers are read and hymns sung to consecrate them to their office. Woe to the souls hovering in this sky of the north if there be truth in the Moslem fancy that the ring- ing of bells disturbs their repose ! Over the land they call with multitudinous tongues, and the chill, pure air vibrates unceasingly to their utterance of pathos or of power. I liave heard " The bells of Shandcn That sound so jrrand on The pleasant waters of the Kiver Lee ; " the curfew from the towers of Canterbury ; the wondrous bell of the cathedral at Lyons, and those that swing in the sunny campaniles along the Medi- terranean ; the chimes of Burgos, and the mourn- ful notes from the belfries of the old Jesuit missions in California ; but as I write their tones die away, and before me rise the domes of Russia gold against the pale azure of her sky while from their depths resound those sonorous peals that fill the blue vault with harmony and float in fainter musie to the far horizon. Nav, were I to frame an oath of grand and melodioiis sounds, I would ^ay, By the thunder of the Kremlin tower, and the sweet- ness of the bells of Valdai ! TROITSA MONASTERY. TROITSA MONASTERY. O sacred Troitsa I when the skies Of morn are blue I lift my eyes To see again in azure air Thy starry domes and turrets fair, And to hear from thy gray cathedral walU The chanted hymn as it swells and falls. Then with the pilgrim train I wait And enter, gla AIUIIIMANURITK OK THOITSA TROITSA MONASTERY. 75 out the system has remained unchanged because nothing could be published about Church matters which had not been approved by the bishop of the diocese. Under Alexander II., however, there is far more liberty of opinion and expression, and it is evident that his sympathies, are with the six hun- dred thousand parish priests, rather than with the ten thousand monks. Two years ago, when Phila- ret, Metropolitan of Moscow, died, he appointed to the place Innocent, a priest who had become emi- nent by his labors in Siberia, and who, though his wife was dead, refused to become a monk, declaring that it was " a custom rather than a canon of the Church." The monks were horrified, but the more intelligent among the people applauded. Since then another married priest has been made rector of the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg. As in the Latin Church, the rule of the monks begins to wane. But, through the Ijelief in miracles entertained by the masses of the people, and a reverence foi that spirit of renunciation which is supposed to in duce men to make their home in the cloister and the desert, the monasteries are still stately and rich and stron<:. The larmjst have a vearlv income of 76 TROirSA MONASTERY. half a million rubles derived from the state, from their mills and gardens and fisheries, and still more from the public. Great sums are paid them for the privilege of burial within the walls, for masses said in remembrance of the dead, and for intercessory prayers for the living. Over a certain extent of 'the country about them they have the right of soliciting alms and of putting up boxes to receive contributions. In every station of the Moscow and St. Petersburg railway there is a box belonging to the Troitsa monastery, and its income from this source has reached two hundred thousand rubles. To the monasteries belong most of the famous relics and miracle-working pictures; they are, therefore, the resort of numberless pilgrims, who bring gifts or purchase something made by the monks a cross, a carved spoon, tapers, and loaves of bread stamped with a sacred text. They gain much money also for the loan of these venerated pictures to a city where an epidemic prevails, or even to private families in which there is severe sickness. It is said that in Moscow, during the last cholera visita- tion, one such picture obtained nearly thirty thou- sand rubles. There are no Mendicant Friars in Russia. All the monks have a life of comfort if not TROITSA MONASTERY. 11 of ease, and to many of the monasteries villas are attached where the superiors, and perhaps the whole body, pass the summer. A gleam of domes on a high plateau ; a sharp outline of towers against the sky ; and Troitsa rose before us, a second Kremlin, lordly in the illimit- able waste. Leavinjj the train we found ourselves in the midst of a throng of pilgrims setting towards the gates the counterpart of those devout Russians whom, a few months before, we had seen at the shrines of the Holy Land ; old men with flowing beards and leaning on staves, some well attired, some in rags, but all apparently forgetful of every- thing but the sanctuary they approached ; women with the same meek faces their sisters bore to Bethlehem and to the sepulchre, and in whose coarse pelisses and dark handkerchiefs tied beneath the chin, not tlie least vanity or coquetry could be discerned. Crossing themselves, they passed under the arch ; the strangers from the West followed, and all were within the sacred inclosure. The massive walls of Troitsa are nearly a mile in circumference, and surmounted bv a cloistered 78 TROITSA MONASTERY. walk, with towers at their eight angles. Within their circuit, besides the buildings of the mon- astery proper, there are ten churches, the prin cipal of which is the cathedral, where lies St. Sergius shrined in massive silver. Service was progressing there, and we made our way to the door, but could hardly enter for the crowd a crowd as dense and varied in character as that which fills the Cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow. The chants and the responses of the priests came faintly down to us from the altar, and the fragrant incense was lost in the vile odor of sheep-skins and leather and cabbage exhaled by the peasants, among whom we were wedged. Re- treating, we gained the open court again, and sat down upon the steps of one of the churches where we could command a view of the whole scene. O, the wondrous beauty of the domes! I had been enchanted with their Oriental form and color from our first sight of Russia, but here they were transfigured, and, blue, with golden stars, they lifted themselves above the towers and spires, and lay against the clear, soft sky, like azure blossoms unfolding in ethereal air. Their loveliness enrap- tured me, lifted me heavenward like a burst of TROirSA MONASTERY. 79 Boul-stirring music at midnight like the first per- fect day of spring, when all the buds are swelling, and blue-birds sway and sing in the elms and it seemed as though any prayer uttered within their charmed circle would be granted. When I think of the New Jerusalem, its temples rise with domes like those of Troitsa that summer morn- ing! Presently service was over and forth came the worshippers. Some of them were evidently peo- ple of high degree, but by far the larger number were the poorest of the poor peasants and men- dicants who had, perhaps, begged their way from the remotest provinces of the empire to gain the blessing of the Saint. A Russian devotee of the extremest class is twin brother to a dervish. He may be more sincere and earnest in his nobler faith than the Mohammedan ; but, in his filthy rags, in his ignorant and slavish adherence to forms and traditions, and in the glory he esteems it to scorn all worldly decencies and delights, he is the same. As I looked about and saw these abject creatures prostrating themselves, making the sign of the cross and drinking the water of the holy well discovered by St. Sergius, as if each 80 TROITSA MONASTERY. drop were an assurance of salvation, I thought, should a being from a loftier sphere poise himself in the blue above and watch them at their devo- tions, and then wing his flight to Mecca and see the ceremonies around the Caaba and the well Zem-Zem, he would be at a loss which to con- demn most deeply for fanaticism and superstition. Yet, so reverent were they in feature and atti- tude, so apparently forgetful of all but God and the shrine, that the pity with which I regarded them was mingled with sympathetic admiration. Perhaps the Mongol Khan of the thirteenth cen- tury, whom St. Louis of France hoped to convert to Christianity through the agency of his monk, Rubruquis, had seen religion take this questionable shape among his Western neighbors, and it was therefore he replied to the envoy : " Tlie Mongols are not ignorant of the existence of a God, and they love Him with all their hearts. There are as many and more ways of being saved than there are fingers on your hands. If God has given you the Bible, he has given us the Magi. Do you go your way and we will go ours." After visiting the sacristy, which is only inferior in treasures to that of Moscow, and ascending the TROITSA MONASTERY. 81 tower to see the huge bell that could almost sum- mon the province to prayer ; after quaffing the clear water of the moss-grown well, and fillin<; our hands with the little articles which the monks made haste to sell and the pilgrims to buy; with lingering looks at the domes, we passed under the arched gateway and trod again on common ground. At a little distance from the monastery, and on the borders of a still, dark lake, is the Convent of Gethsemane, and near it are catacombs for the her- mits of the Church. We drove thither through the fir woods and found the convent a plain log struc- ture under the strictest rule. Could it be that this forest was the home of an- chorites ? We asked to see their subterranean abodes, and forthwith a monk, giving each of us a lighted taper, and crossing himself and repeating some form of prayer, opened a small door and beck- oned us to follow him down the dark stairs beyond. If it were not that before me lies the half consumed taper which I brought away as a memento, the whole would seem to me now like a feverish dream. On we went till we reached a gallery lower than the lake, and where the walls were wet with its unwholesome damp. Out of it opened doors bound 6 82 TROirSA MONASTERY. witli iron bands, and above tliem small grated win- dows the doors and windows of cells. At its extremity was a small chapel finished with brass. Daily service is held here, but it was then over and the lamp burned dimly before the solitary shrine. Beside the chapel was a miraculous well. The monk stooped down, and dipping up some of the water gave it to us to taste as if it had been a cup of nectar. The only miracle about it is that in that low, saturated soil the water does not rise and drown chapel and hermit together. As we turned back, we asked to see one of the cells. The monk replied that there was one which its occupant had left for an hour, and, crossing him- self, he undid the fastenings and bid us enter. It was a tomb in shape and size. A naiTow slab with a dark blanket on it served for a bed. In one cor- ner was an image of the Virgin with a small lamp burning before it. On a siielf against the wall lay an old leather-covered book that looked as thouffh it mio-ht have come with the first monk from Mount Athos, and beside it hung a coarse black robe. All that indicated comfort was a tiny stove with a little pile of wood, at the foot of the bed. What would the early recluses of Kieff have said to a TROITSA MONASTERY. 83 stove ? This poor furniture left just room enough to turn ill, and the air was so heavy and sickly that the lamp burned blue, and breathing was difficult. Yet here a man, made in the image of God, had immured himself, and was slowly com- mittinij suicide that he miirlit win heaven I Faint, from that atmosphere of the grave, we hastened to the upper day. How glorious seemed the soft blue sky and the sun flooding with his golden beams the still lake and the fir woods, where a light wind made music with the boughs ! Ah, thouglit I, if Christ, in whose name this monstrous service is rendered, could walk the earth again, how would lie knock at that iron door and cry, " Come forth, O thou that art as dead ! Neither in dungeons nor yet at Jerusalem shall ye wor- ship the Father, but in spirit and in truth. Away with this mockery of holiness, and take thy j)lace among his nobler saints in the bright, working world ! " THE FAIR OF NIJNI. THE FAIR OF NUM. Now, by tlie Tower of Hiibi-l, Was ever such a crowd ? Here Turks and Jews and (ivjisies, 'lliere Persians liaiif^lity browed , ^\ ith silken-robed Celestials, And Frenelunen from the Seine, And Khivans and Hokhariotes Heirs of the Oxus plain. Here stalk Siberian hunter> ; lliere tents a Kirj:;hiz elan By nioiirnful-eyed Armenians From wave-f^irt Astrakhan ; And Rnss and I'ole and Tartar, And mounted Cossak proud Now, by the 'J'ower of Halnl, Was ever sueh a i rowil .' "VT'I'^ARS ao;<), Nvlie-n theiv was but a post-road from Moscow to Nijiil No\^:;(iro(l, cncam]!- nieiits of Cossacks were stationed all the way to 88 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. protect merchants, going to and fro, from robbers and wolves. Now the train moves swiftly and quietly to its destination, and the brigands have fled to the provinces beyond the Volga, where as yet the whistle of the engine is unheard. The great Fair had been open for a fortnight, when, by the night express, we left Moscow to visit it. The cars were filled with people journeying thither traders and sight-seers from various lands. The only town of importance through which we passed was Vladimir ; but in the darker night of the waning summer we only saw its lofty cathedral tower, dim against the northern sky. The region is one of the richest agricultural districts in Russia, but there was the same monotonous level until, at ten o'clock the next morning, Nijni rose before us, crowning with its Kremlin a bold bluff at the con- fluence of the Volga and the Oka a bluff" that seemed a mountain after the flatness of the plain. From the station we drove at once to the Hotel Russie, in the old town, where we had fortunately secured rooms a week previous. This large hotel was a fair in itself. The first floor opened on to the street, where a throng of vehicles of all sorts was constantly arriving and departing. The next THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 89 floor was given up to dining-rooms, in which you might see all the costumes and hear all the lan- guages of Europe. Here; too, was an apartment where tanks of running water, bordered by grow- ing ferns and flowers, were filled with the famous sterlet of the Volga, swimming at ease, and ready to be served up at any moment to the epicurean guest. This fish is a small species of sturgeon, more delicate than the salmon in tint and flavor, and sent from its native rivers to all the cities of the Continent. Above were the bed-chambers with floors of wood or of brick ; uncarpeted, but airy and comfortable. Breakfast over, we walked up the steep, narrow ravine behind the house to the top of the bluff. Here is the old town. At our rijiht was the Kremlin witli its massive white-washed walls, thirty feet in height, within which are the arsenal, the barracks, the governor's house, and the cathedral where lies buried Minin, the peasant patriot of Nijni, who early in the seventeenth century roused Russia to free herself from the Poles. Two hundred years later, during the French invasion, his battle-flag was unfurled again and carried at the head of the army to inspire the people. His name is still a 90 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. watchword of loyalty. A noble obelisk stands here to perpetuate his fame, and the finest monument of Moscow, modeled in enduring bronze, represents him clad in his peasant's blouse, standing in a com- manding attitude and calling upon Prince Pojarski to rise and go forth with him for the redemption of their common country. At the foot of the bluff was modern Nijni, crowd- ing up to the Oka, here as large as the Volga, and so covered with all sorts of craft that it seemed but an extension of the town. Across it was a bridire of boats leading to the tongue of land between the two rivers on whicli are the streets of shops and bazaars that make up the city of the Fair. Beyond were the broad meadows, dotted with hay-stacks and stretching away to the horizon a great allu- vial plain enriched by the yearly inundations of the Volga, which rolls its royal tide through their midst, and deigns to receive the Oka, on its way to the Caspian. For natural beauty there is no such view in Northern and Central Russia as this from the Kremlin of Nijni. Below us were the hurrying crowds of two continents ; and taking a last look at the striking landscape, we descended to mingle with them and see the interior of this gigantic ex- chancre. THE FAIR OF NUNI. 91 Since the middle of the fourteenth century a fair has been held at Nijni, or in the neighborhood. For some time it was fixed at Makarief, a place farther down the Volga, and it is still known to the Central Asiatics as the Fair of Miikiiria. The pro- ductions of the West come here by railway ; those of the East by the old channels of sledge and barge and caravan indeed, some Asiatic travellers spend all the rest of the year in going to and fro. Nijni of itself has some forty thousand inhabitants. During the Fair it often counts two hundred thou- sand. The number present at any one time is still calculated by the amount of bread sold by the bakers, and perhaps a million different persons visit it durin.snes of Moscow, some of them woven with gold and silver threads to suit the markets of the East, and heaps of printed cloths, gay-colored, for the same buyers; elegant "articles of silver and of leather ; cutlery from Tula, and stores of samovars (tea-urns), which no family, however poor, can do without; wooden trunks bound with bands of brass or iron, the bureau of the peasant and the recepta- cle for the humble trousseau of the bride on her woddinir-diiv ; while among heavier thinjis were stacks of boxes filled with beet-root sugar from cen- tral Russia, and long lines of kegs of caviare from the sturgeon fisheries of the Volga, the Kama, and the Oural. Many of the Russian merchants here belongt'd fornifily to the serf class, and by law the credit allowed them was limited to five rubles, but, on the securitv of their word alone, lar<:e sums were annuallv intrusted to them, for which they were ex|)ecti'(l to make large returns. Now, thanks to the enlightened wisdom of the present I^mjjeror, they trade in theii' own right, and pay tribute to no master. Some of them were men of noble mien and of rare busini'ss ability, able to hold high [ilace in anv commercial centre of the world. 96 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. To this Fair crowd all the light trades and pro- fessions, theatrical companies, bands of Tyrolese and Gypsies, fortune-tellers, showmen of every kind, peddlers, beggars by the hundred, from the black-robed monk soliciting alms for his monastery in the name of St. George or St. Sergius, to the wretched creature in tattered sheep-skin, who puts out his withered hand for a kopeck. Beyond the bazaars are restaurants, concert and dancing halls, rooms of meeting for merchants, and a multitude of small inns and tea-houses. What we saw of the Fair at our first visit be- longed largely to Europe. The next day we went farther, ahd found Asia. ASIA AT NIJNI. ASIA AT NIJNI. Give uic a melon of Khivu, Luscious and round and yellow It 's mate for the Lord of China Hardly so fair and mellow And place on the tray beside it, Worthy of sheikh or khan, Peaches tliat grew in the gardens Of the golden Zerelshan. And a cup of Flowery Pekoe Tea of the mandarins (jathcred in dewy morning. Just when the spring begins. (Keep for tlie pe;isant and Tartar, The bowls of the dark Hohea Plucked when the heats of summer With rank leaves load the tree.) Ah, what ravishing flavors ! Not the wine of the iUiine, Not of Tokay, nor the nectar Won from the Cyprian vine, 100 ASTA AT NUN I. Nor Sicily's oranges rarest, Nor sweetest figs of Dalnuitia, Rival the Flowery Pekoe And the spicy melons of Asia ! fT^HE most iin])ortant article of merchandise at Nijni is tea. Of the fifteen million pounds of fine quality brought to Russia through Kiachta, some goes direct to Moscow, but the larger part finds its Avay to the Fair, whence it is distributed over the empire. Piled up in the warehouses were thou- sands of packages about two feet square frames covered with skins in which the precious contents had come securely on boats and camels and sledges to Perm, and thence down the Kama and up the Volga to Nijni. Over the whole Russian Emjiire and Central Asia tea is the vuiiversal drink and luxury. Here was the delicate green tea for the dainty Moslems of the cities who would sip it in the booths, between their pra^^ers, and when the effusion was exhausted, eat the leaves, holding them between the thumh and finger ; and brick tea for the mass of the peo- ple, and for the Kii'ghiz and Kalmuck rovers of the steppe the refuse of the tea-crop, pressed into solid cakes, and in the towns mixed with milk and ASIA AT NUm. 101 drank from bowls Into whicli bread is dipped the while, and in the nomad yourts boiled in great caul- drons and seasoned with mutton fat and salt and parched millet, or whatever the inmates may have to make it more nutritious ; while if they be Kal- mucks, before any of the family fills his Chinese wooden bowl a spoonful or two will be thrown to the four winds for the gods. Then there was the great bulk of teas for Russia proper, those pure black teas raised in northern China and brought fresh and unimpaired to the market ; teas some of which are sold at twelve rubles the pound ; almost colorless when drawn, but possessing an exquisite flavor and boutjuet, and stirring the blood like wine. Here, too, was rhubarb, of which China sends an- nually through Kiachta some half million poumls ; and silk in curious bales, and robes embroidereil in brilliant hues. Hut few Chinese merchants were seen, Russians and Tartars saving them the long journey. Next to tea tiie most important article of tiafTic here is thi- iron (f Siberia. Llntler a mile-long gal- lery by the river, ami evt-n ujM)n a sand-baiik which the falling waters hail left bare, it was heaped up in everv form from solid bars and sheets and rails 102 ASIA AT NIJNI. to cauldrons for the wandering tribes, and .small household utensils for the cabins of the peasants. Still skirting the river were warehouses filled with cotton ; pyramids of mill-stones from the Oural ; great piles of rags collected from every quarter for the paper-makers (think what the rags of eastern Europe and Asia must be !) ; with hides from the steppes, and grain from the productive fields of the South. Most attractive was the store of furs, from the coarse, despised wolf-skin which you could buy for a handful of kopeks, to the tiny, fine, glossy sable, trophy of the skill and daring of some native hun- ter on Lake Baikal or the Amoor ; valued now at two hundred rubles and likely to be purchased to deck the robe of some proud Osmanli at Constan- tinople, for sables, like diamonds, are prized the world over, and captivate alike the Chinese manda- rin, the Turkisli pasha, the European prince, and the luxurious American. Near to these were felts both fine and coarse, for hats and blankets and win- ter boots ; and vugs of Siberian wool for carpets and sledge-covers. At a little distance a broad space was covered with timber from beyond the Oural, whicli had floated hither in rafts and barges ; and, ASIA AT NIJNL 103 close to the water, lying in piles on the ground or waiting to be removed from the boats, were tons of dried fish from the Caspian and the lower Volga principal food of the poorer classes during the Cimrch fusts which occupy one third of the year. A large and growing trade witii Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand centres at Nijni. Peter the Great saw the importance of these oases in the Tartar desert, and opened roads from the lower Volga to the Oxus wliich remain in use to this day. From five to six thousand camels are employed in the caravans which leave Bokhara durinorious1y separated from the fibre by the fingers of the women ; sheep-skins and countless bales of 104 ASIA AT NIJNI. wool, both of goats and of sheep ; the jet-black, curly lamb-skins of Karakool wliich are only pro- duced in a small territory between Bokhara and the Oxus, and which, like rare furs, always com- mand their price in gold. The handsomest go to Teheran and Constantinople, and the black, white, and gray skins, which make the hats of ordinary- Persians and Tartars, as well as most of those which under the name of " Astrakhan " o-o to Eu- rope and America, are quite inferior, and from a different locality. Then there are striped and em- broidered kalats from Khiva garments cut like dressing-gowns and highly prized by the Tartars of Russia ; and gay silken shawls and handker- chiefs of the soft, loosely woven fabrics of Bokhara. Their dried fruits are unrivaled peaches, grapes and apricots from the gardens of the Jaxartes and the Zerqfshan ; and, if it be in season, melons from the banks of the Oxus those delicious green and yellow Urgendji melons whose fame has gone even to Pekin, where they are sometimes sent as a gift to the emperor, and which, in Russia, are often ex- changed for their bulk in sugar when sugar is bar- tered at a ruble a pound. A part of this Asiatic merchandise is sold for ASIA AT NIJNI. 105 money, but most of it is exchanged for niaiiufac tured articles at great profit to the Russians ; for iron kettles, cutlery, large copper samovars, jew- elry, coral beads and various trinkets ; leather for water skins, broadcloth, white muslins, chintzes, velvet, gold thread for embroidery, bright colored shawls and ribbons, thread, and sugar, but neither guns nor ammunition, for Russia will not furnish these to her turbulent neijxhbors. The jroods are dispatched from Nijni to Orenburg, and early in November the caravans set out on their return journey. Most of the Kirghizes who conduct them stay on the frontier, but here and there in the throng was one dark ajid stalwart, with bright eyes, flat and almost beardless face, and clumsy motions ; wearing a felt cap, a shabby kalat girt about the loins, and full trousers thrust into rough boots, who surveyed the scene with the wondering curiosity of a child. Possibly he had no errand there but to see the Franks; more likely he had brought for sale some of the sturdy horses of the stepj)e. As I htoked at these men and thought of the long inarch they would soon begin across the desert wastes with their infrerpjent, brackish springs ; exjiosed to the 106 ASIA AT NIJNI. mirage that shines but to betray, to the sand-storms with their suffocating breath, to the terrible snow- liurricanes that blind and overwhelm, and, yet worse, to the fierce attacks of plundering Turko- mans, their heavy Mongol forms and faces were in- vested with a kind of heroic dignity, and I would fain have spoken to them in their rude Turkish tongue, and bid them God speed on their perilous way. There is another manufacture here to which these nomads contribute. Those piles of boxes filled with stearine candles are the product of the tallow of their sheep, which in flocks of many thousands they drive across the steppes to the Siberian frontier, and from thence to Ekaterine- burg, where they are killed and converted into tallow. Along the miles of wharves were many Tartai-s carrying merchandise to and from the boats and the shore now bars and sheets of iron from the Oural ; now rolls of leather from Kazan ; now bales of the cotton of Khiva ; now skins filled with wine from the vineyards of Tiflis ; now sacks of madder from Bokhara. Some were clad in caftans of blue cotton, some in coats of sheep-skin, with ASIA AT NIJNI. 107 turbans on their heads, or hats of light felt, or caps with a rim of fur. The more devout among them said their prayers daily in the mosque which rises beside the Armenian chapel and the handsome Russian church beyond the bazaars, and they formed part of the multitude that slept every night on the barges and boats of the rivers. At evening the city was given up to diversion. Myriad lights gleamed through the streets and along the Oka, whose placid waters reflected dis- tinctly every object upon the shore. Colored lan- terns lent their glow to the grounds ; music and the hum of voices filled the air, but there was no open rioting or confusion ; the police were every- where ; the Cossacks paced slowly up and down the bridge, and in momentary lulls the peeping of frogs was heard, showing that civilization has not yet wholly reclaimed the ancient marsh. The city was given up to diversion, but malniv for Europeans. The Asiatics keep here the ])riin- itive customs of Bokhara and the stcjtpo ; and, wlu'M night ft'!!, tlu'v lay down to rest hv tJK'ir bales, or crept into boats and barges, or strctclicd themselves on mats along the ground, and slept like children, oblivious of care, aixl at one with destiny. 108 ASIA AT NIJNI. From this throng of various nations two indi- viduals come vividly to mind : the one, a Bokha- riot, whom we saw repeatedly near the Oriental stalls, an observer rather than an actor his Tar tar features softened into a noble, serene melan choly the dignity of an emir in the poise of his turbaned head and, as he surveyed the bustling Europeans, his thoughts busy, I fancied, with the waning fortunes of his race. The other was a young Russian girl belonging to a band of singers, whose office it was to solicit money from the by- standers when the songs were don^. It was evi- dently new work for her. Her face was like a spring flower, fair and sweet, and she blushed and trembled as she held out her hand, a woman who should have been shrined in some happy home, instead of being the gaze of restaurant and saloon. How fares the Tartar by the distant Oxus? And what fate has overtaken the inno- cent maiden ? The Fair of Nijni is an institution for Asia, and will endure and grow until better means of com- munication throw open the interior of that vast continent to the commerce of the world. Now, from the Oural to the Pacific, it is through the ASIA AT Nfjyr 109 medium of caravans ami fairs that business is transacted ; and goods are .bartered ratlier tlian sold. The hunter on the Amoor gives his sables and fox-skins ; the Kirghiz his flocks and herds ; and the Tartar of the south his fruit and silk and cotton for the products of Europe. Nay, even the nomads of remote and thinly populated dis- tricts have their fairs of the stepj)i', to which they repair on hoiseback, dressed in their best, and gravely bargain for a few trifles, returning with them to their tents. Hut gradually, as intercourse l>ecomes freer, this state of things will pass away. With every year the West gains upon the East. Deserts and mountains are no longer impassable barriers. Already Russia is ])lanning a railway across Siberia, and another fiom the Caspian to the Aral Sea; and the (lav will come when the givat Fair of Nijni will be as much a thing of \\\o past, as is that wonder of naturalists, the mam- Mjoth of the Ticna. KAZAN. KAZAN. Kazan looks down from the Volga wall, Bright in the darkest weather ; And the Christian chime and the Moslem tall Sound from her towers together. Shrine of the Golden Horde was she ; Boast of the proud Bokhara ; And her fame was, wafted over the sea, And sung in the far Sahara. Woe to her Faith and her turbaned Lord 1 The Cross and the Russ were stronger ; Her splendors now are the Czar's reward, And her Khans are kings no longer I Yet still she looks from the Volga wall. Bright in ihv darkest weather; And the Christian chime and the Moslem call Sound from her towers together. "TTTITII tlie novelty and interest of the Fair unexliatistt'il, we left Nijni for Kazan, three liundred miles cast. A fin-ious wind was hK)win<;, 3 114 KAZAN. as under the higli bluff of the old town we wound along the roughly paved street to the Volga side a wind that filled the air with clouds of sand, obscuring the view, and recaUing the story of the hurricane which raged at Moscow when the pretender, Dimitri, approached the Kremlin ; an awful blast whose whirling dust enveloped the false Czar and his attendants, and made the peo- ple, stricken with suspicious terror at the sight, cross themselves and cry out, " God keep us from harm!" It was one of the boats of the "Volga and Cas- pian Steamship Company " in which we had taken })assage, and we were no sooner on board than shg was under way. Several hundred steamers pl^ the Volga between Tver and Astrakhan, begin- ning with those of very light draught for the uppei stream, and growing larger as the river deepens. They have neither saloon nor state-room on deck, but, below, a cabin and a small apartment for ladies. Our captain was one of that race of born sailors, a Finn, and spoke tolerable English, which he had picked up on a voyage he once made to New York. We were the only " first-class " pas- sengers, and our meals were daintily served in the ladies' cabin. KAZAN. 115 The Volga, at Nijni, is about three fourths of a mile wide, and as its average fall is but a little over three inches to the mile, it flows with a calm, equable current until it loses itself in the Caspian, eighty feet below the level of the ocean. In win- ter it is a sledge-road, a mass of ice from tlie Valdai Hills to Astrakhan ; in summer, covered with countless boats that carry the products of the East and South to St. Petersbiu'ii and the Baltic. A little below Nijni the bold bluff slopes raj)idly to the water, and thenceforth, throughout its whole extent, the banks are comparatively low and mo- notonous. The wild wind hatl brought an autumn rain, fine and chill. The region through which we passed is very productive, yet, bare of harvests and baked in the summer sun, it presented little of interest as seen from the deck through the storm. Now and then lar\ OK h.V/.AN. KAZAiW. 119 forks were thrusting the condemned. If this was tlieir thouglit of tlie future, and only the Church could save, the wonder was, not that the Sisters were so many, but rather that any wcmian of Kazan was left in the outside world. After prayers we went into the convent, an ancient building in whose unadorned rooms the younger nuns were embroid- ering sacred banners and vestments, with crowns and crosses and wreaths of flowers, in bright floss and thread of gold and silver. Their fair, broad faces wore an anxious look, and they bent over their frames as if each stitch made them surer of heaven. The afternoon sun looked in at the high, uncurtained windows ; the swelling domes of the cathedral shone in the upper blue ; but not one raised her eyes from her work, or spoke above her breath in reply to the directions of her teacher; and it was with a sigh of compassion that I stepped over the worn threshold into the free air. From her conunandint; hei;:ht Ka/an looks al- ways towards Asia. The trade of Siberia j)Ours through her streets. Her manufactures of doth and leather and silk and soap, go east rather than west for a market. Her university gives special attentlcm to Oriental languages and literature; nav, 120 KAZAN. nearly one fifth of her seventy thousand inhab- itants are of Tartar race and creed, and turn to Bokhara ratlier than to St. Petersburcj for guidance and inspiration. Below the crest of the hill is a narrow sheet of water, the Kaiban Lake. On its shores is the work- ing town of shops and factories, and beyond is the Tartar quarter, into which we drove in the late afternoon. It was difficult to believe we were in cold and Orthodox Russia. The houses wore the colors of Damascus ; minarets rose before us tipped with upright, glittering crescents attached by a single horn ; dogs with the true bark and bound of Stamboul rushed forth as we passed ; fat, rosy children, in queer caps and trousers, peeped from the courts ; a solitary woman went by, attired in a long robe, and drawing her shawl over her face like a veil, so that only one eye was free to regard the strangers ; the shoemakers' shoi)s- were filled Avith boots and slippers of bright morocco leather, some of them gayly worked with gold ; the merchants waited with Cairene indifference our pleasure to buy ; and, to complete the illusion, from a near minaret came the cry, "To prayer! to prayer! There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his KAZAN. 121 Prophet ! " We had just come from a Russian church, whose worshippei*s crossed themselves de- ^outly before the image of Our Lady of Kazan ; and as the Tartars, without shrine or picture, ad- dressed their prayers to the one God, I saw how, from their point of view, tliey miglit call their Christian neighbors idolater, and scorn to yield the Faith of their fathers. Quiet, but alien, these peojjle dwell among the Russians. Has a youth among them a studious turn ? He goes to the colleges of Bokhara. Would one see the world? He journeys to Con- stantinople ; possibly to the holy cities of Arabia. The West and the Franks have no part in their love or their ambition. As a race they are comely. Robust in form without being stout, their motions are easy and of a certain dignity ; their complex- ions are dark and fresh, their features regular, theii eyes of black or grayish-blue shaded by heavy lashes, and in them there is often a patient sadness that i)eh)ngs not to their blood, but is born of their fortunes and the ri'signation taught by their relig- ion. Their lives are simple and frugal. I'hey are all taught in their own s-hools to real and write and cast accounts, and their honesty ami sobriety 122 KAZAN. make them sought as servants, clerks, and crafts men. In the country they are small farmers, and almost every house has its hives of bees. Wine being forbidden, they make of their honey a kind of mead, and prepare their tea like the Tartars of the steppe. Their unleavened cakes still bake upon the hearth like those Sarah kneaded for the angels, and their greatest delicacy is parched corn perhaps the same which Boaz gave to Ruth boiled in milk or fried in butter. All delight in tobacco, and as there are no Wahabee Zelators near to scent its odor and bring them to trial, their pipes are always in use or worn at their girdles. Few of them cumber their dwellings with beds or chairs. The cushioned divan, or the bench spread with mats of felt, suits them better than all the elaborate upholstery of Europe. Proud of their race and their traditions, they cling fondly to the past ; and although the Government has established churches and schools among them whose services and instructions are in their own tongue, they hear the mass and learn the lessons, but are as far from conversion as ever. Yet they must be affected by the life and progress of the nation, and doubtless with every year they will grow more like their conquerors. KAZAN. 128 On our way back to the hotel we drove a few versts east of the city to see a spot wliose pictu- resque, woody ravines have gained it the name of tlie Russian Switzerland. It was a ridtje like that upon which Kazan is built, but tree-covered and broken into initnature hills and valleys. From its crest we looked over the broad country beyond a rolling region, with few habitations visible ; here and there a thick grove, perhaps of the oaks of this province carefully preserved by the Government for 8hij>-building ; while about us, and crowning lower slopes, were forests of white birches growing strong and tall as in their native air ; best of trees to the Russian their bark tanning his leather, their leaves giving him a yellow dye, their sap furnishing him a kind of wine, their wood making his household utensils, and as dried sj)linters and fuel supplying him with candles and saving him from the rigors of winter. A golden glow suffused the landscape, and turn- ing west again we saw the sun go down in sj)lend()r with an orb above it, a second sun. A chill wind sprang up, tossing the thin foliage of the birch trees, sighing through the pines, and dying away in mournful murmurs on the horizon of Asia. The 124 KAZAN. sunset ^jlory faded, and in its room appeared a cloud tliat spread rosy wings and floated like a bricjlit bird over the dark and sluggish river. Alighting in the wide, modern street, Russian officers erect and haughty, went to and fro; Rus- sian ladies, in the costumes of Pai'is, drove or saun- tered by ; the roll of the evening drum came from the barracks, and there was nothing but the name to remind us that we were in the city of the Khans. THE VOLGA. TO SAMARA. THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. Did you say serf, sir? serf! there's not one Living to-day in tlic light of our sun I Russians, free Russians, we all of us are. From Osip and Michael, my boys, to the Czar 1 Tliis cabin is old, but the garden is mine ; And mine arc these fields, and that forest of pine ; When I will T can build me a house strong and good With logs of my own I shall hew in the wooorte(l on ))oles ; rude carts standing by with poor old horses fettered and feeding beside them, while over a fire on the ground hung iron pots susjx'iided from a bar n|)lifM by forked sticki 148 .1 GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. di'iven into the sod. The men were probably ab- sent on some pilfering expedition or plying their small trades in the town, for we saw only two, who, ill or lazier than the rest, were stretched on a pile of rags at the entrance to one of the tents. As we came opposite them, dogs started up from the earth, growling savagely, and women and children swarmed forth and surrounded our droskies. They were of all ages, from the withered crone whose tanned and wrinkled skin drawn tightly over her bones made her look like a veritable mummy, and set 'you wondering why the winds of the steppe had not long before blown her away, to the velvet- cheeked, six-months-old baby that laughed and crowed, and held up its fat, brown hands beneath the shelter of its mother's shawl. Fine-limbed and erect, with lustrous hair and piercing eyes, many of them would have been exceedingly handsome but for the hardness and roughness of their livas. Their dress was like that of the poorest Russian peasants, a wrap of coarse cloth or sheep-skin, but there was a picturesqueness all their own in the handkerchief tied round the head like a turban, and the shawl draping the well-formed shoulders. All wore earrings and trinkets of some sort, princi- -^. .\ lv-\ lui;ri NK TKI.I.KK A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 149 pally colored glass beads, mixed with coral ; and one had, attached to her showy necklace, a medal with an image in relief of Christ on the cross, doubtless a mere unknown amulet to her on whose neck it hung. An old woman separated herself from the crowd and through our interpreter asked in Russ to tell our fortunes. Looking into her listener's palm and compelling attention by the magnetic fire of her eyes, she poured forth statements and prophecies shrewdly adapted to the apparent age and circum- stances of each individual she addressed, and which could hardly be explained except on the supposition that she possessed something of that strange clair- voyant power which makes the tlioughts of another as our own. Then they proposed to sing, and form- ing a circle they broke ijito ;\ wild, mojirnful, nio- notonous strain, while a poor blind nirl, whom we had not hithorto seen, came from the nearest tout, and making Iut way to the middk' of the rliig, l)egan to dance to the music. It was like the dance we had soon among the Gvpsios of the cafarrier or shade to soften their power ; and where in a long day's ride you would see only wanderers with their herds, and flocks of solemn storks and eager gulls hovering over the lagoons. Cross the range to the south, and j^ou ai'e in the paradise of Russia. The air is bland. The trees and fruits have almost a tropical richness and va- riety. Noble forests, vineyards, and gardens every- where meet the eye, while streams of pure water flow throujrh tlie ravines, irrin;atlnii the soil and supplying the fountains, and beneath all spreads the Euxine, smooth or ruffled, as the wind may blow. The blue sky, the transparent air, the val- leys steeped in light and warmth, the mountains 246 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. clear-cut against the horizon, the dark-eyed Mos- lem villagers, and the tideless sea washing the shores, constantly recalled Syria and the landscapes of Lebanon. But although the value of land here has greatly increased since the introduction of the vine, its fer- tility and beauty are still only half developed. The mountains, too, have unknown riches of marbles some red and white, some of a sienna tint, some dark with lustrous veins with fissures which earthquakes have made, inviting builders to the quarry. Ah, the stately dwellings they yet shall fashion, and the gardens that shall bloom about them ! Now our road plunged into the shadow of oaks which mio-ht have framed a man-of-war, and of walnuts broad-boutjhed and fracrrant as those that line the Barada above Damascus. Then it emerged upon an open slope with the mountains towering above us, and, below, the sea, blue that day as the Mediterranean, and sparkling in the sun. And everywhere, in quiet dells and sheltered nooks, and by the side of a narrow stream that wound its way down the steep, were the rustic houses and vil- lages of the Tartars, One would suppose that on THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 247 this high-road across the Crimea they would lose their shyness ; but the pretty children fled at our approach, and a woman whom we overtook, a woman who from her attire full trousers, yellow slippers, hair in tiny braids, and a head-dress orna- mented with coins might have walked out of Nablus or Ramleh, drew quickly across her face the bright-figured mantle that covered her shoul- ders, and turned away till we passed by. We had been for some miles on the domain of Prince WoronzofF the distinguished Russian no- ble who has done so much to benefit this region and make known its attractions and soon we came to Alupka, his sea-side residence, and halted at its comfortable inn. Palace is a word of indefinite signification. There are royal abodes in Europe, popularly called palaces, which are far less grand and luxurious than many American homes ; but this of Alupka deserves the name in its fullest meaning. Tlie mountains here come almost within a stone's throw of the shore. The palace stands upon a bank that slopes to the water, and behind it A'i Petri climbs a thousand feet, broken into bare, picturesque 248 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. points which resemble, in miniature, the Needles of the Alps. Square in form and Oriental in style, it is built of a greenish porphyry taken from the adjacent cliff, and is in perfect harmony with the landscape, as are all buildings whose materials are from the quarries peculiar to the region about them. The Finland fri'^'iite of St. Isaac's is as fine in the dull atmosphere of the North as the shining marble of the Parthenon beneath the brilliant sky of Greece ; and, under the Crimean heaven, this pile of olive-tinted stone, warm as the sunbeams and rich as the shadows, rises, a natural feature of the scene. Between high, winding walls of the same stone overgrown with vines, and not unlike the entrance to Warwick Castle, you approach the house. Be- fore you it stands, beautiful in symmetry of design, and in the delicate carving of its mouldings and ornaments. The encircling grounds are set with walnut and apricot and orange and fig and pome- granate trees; varied with thickets of odorous ever- greens, and adorned with blossoming vines and shrubs, and with beds of gorgeous flowers ; while through them runs a crystal stream which descends from the hills. Beyond, t;nd a little way up the THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 249 slope, toleration pleasnnt to behold ! out of the mass of foliage gleams a Tartar mosque, with swell- ing dome and minaret, where, every day, turning east and west and north and south, the muezzin calls the Faithful to prayer ; and above soar the cliff's, now sharp against the sky, now wreathed with clouds, and seeming lofty and inaccessible enough to be the haunt of eagles and the inspira- tion of dreams. Within all was as rare and striking as without, a mansion fit for a Russian prince to rear on Mos- lem soil. A Tartar who seemed, in the absence of the family, to have a certain charge, showed us over it with entire politeness and propriety. The ceilings were of oak, and the mantles and the foun- tains in the spacious dining-room, fountains fed by the mountain stream, of the most elegant na- tive marbles ; while the furniture and tapestries were almost wholly Turkish or Persian in pattern and arrangement. In the library, a noble room at one cn(l of the main building, besides the treasures of Continental learning, there were many English books and peri- odicals lying within easy reach, with leaves freshly cut as if they had been read and enjoyed. Among 250 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. the artistic things scattered about, I particularly re- member one of those exquisite paper-weights from Ekaterineburg, a bunch of cherries of reddest cornelian, with leaves of a green Siberian stone, the branch dropped upon a slab of dark-hued, pol- ished jasper. But the splendor of the house is on the side fronting the sea. The great windows open upon it, and to the shore you go down by stately stairs, broken into three flights, with erect, sitting, and re- clining lions, the last copied from Canova's in St. Peter's, at either side of the three broad spaces of the descent. And before you spread its waves, blue and far to the horizon, with white sails here and there, and a fresh breeze blowing landward that may have cooled itself on the precipitous sides of the Balkan or among the snow-covered peaks of the Caucasus. As we stood upon the terrace and looked above and below, I called to mind the delightful resi- dences we had seen in the Old World, Eton Hall, with its forest avenues, and the Dee winding through its meadows ; Chatsworth in its beaute- ous valley; Inverary, with its beeches and its high- land settinor of loch and mountain : the Villa of THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 251 Prince Oscar near Christiania, with its wide out- look over green fields and clear fiords and reaches of sombre pines ; castles by the Rhine and the Rhone, and palaces beneath Italian skies and in Eastern lands, and I thought if one were to say to me, " Choose for yourself the rarest of these," I would answer, " Give me Alupka by the Eux- inel" BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. O Baidar Gate ! lone Baidar Gate I What glories by thy portals wait I Beyond the pines, wide-boughed and old, Cliffs such as climb in Alpine hold ; Above, the blue Crimean sky Where, in still noons, the eagles fly, And poise as if 'twere bliss to be Becalmed upon that azure sea I Below, the Euxine with its sails Fanned by the cool Caucasian gales; And, all between, the glen, the glade, Where Tartar girls their tresses braid, And slopes where silver streamlets run, And grapes hang, purple, in the sun. And when, within the wood-fire's glow, Fond friends tell tales of long ago. And each recalls some lovely scene By mountain j)ass or meadow green, 2o(J BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. If they sliall turn and ask of me, The rarest gUmpse of earth and sea, I'll say, with memory's joy elate, " 'Tis Baidar Gate ! 'tis Baidar Gate I " XT was another cloudless morning when we left Alupka for Sevastopol. The mountains now retreated from the sea, and we traversed for some distance a country half val- ley, half upland, fruitful and pleasant, but less cul- tivated than that nearer Yalta. The little hamlets of the Tartars were scattered here and there, and we passed many of the men with loads of hay, their small cattle moving lazily, and their cart- wheels, clumsily made of wood, and without tires, creaking like the water-wheels of Egypt. They like the noise, however, and say only a thief is afraid to make it. Then we began to ascend, and were soon above valley and upland, with the bare cliffs on our right, and the sea, far below, at our left. The road wound along the mountains, turning with sharp angles and offering at every turn a more command- ing view. The air w^as pure and sweet, and as the sun mounted higher, the dews rose in cloud v va- pors and drifted over the cliffs, while eagles sailed BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 257 above them in the upper sky, likening tliem to the misty precipices and eyries of Glencoe. Steadily climbing, we ascended till at a height of seven hundred feet we reached the summit of the Pass and the Gate of Baidar. This is an orna- mental arch of masonry built as a barrier across the road, so that travellers coming from Sevastopol can have no sight of the sea until it bursts upon them as they emerge from the portals. For some time we had forborne to look back ; but now, with great i)eaks rising about us, we dis- mounted to enjoy the scene. Lo ! at our feet the lovely landscape ; and, beyond, the sea radiant, glorious, losing itself in the distant blue ! So cloud- less was the sky, so transparent the air, that it seemed as if, with steady gaze, we might discern the shining summits of the Caucasian chain, and catch, in the southwest, the gleam of the minarets of Stamboul ! Silent as we stood, looking afar, an L'agle wheeled, in low flight, just above us ; and the ilroning soiigs of Tartars with their teams came up From tlie valley on the wind. Then we passed under the Gate, and the superb picture became a vision of memory. 17 258 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. Our road now descended into the Vale of Baidar, one of the most charming portions of the Crimea, though with but few inhabitants and little culture. Through it runs the Tchernaia, falling into the sea at Sevastopol. On either side were forests of oak, beech, walnut, alder, and poplar, with wild fi'uit trees, and many elegant shrubs, among them the juniper and the laurel ; while graceful vines oftenest the clematis cluno; to their trunks and drooped from their boughs. Hares and other game abound in this valley, and earlier in the year it is vocal with the sono;s of nightingales. It was too late for flowers. Wherever the turf was not shaded it was brown with the sun ; but in the spring the region is a garden filled with tulips and scarlet poppies, with thyme and crocuses and wild hyacinths, and many a gay bloom unknown to colder fields. The forest passed, we came out upon the open vale, and saw before us a dilapidated Tartar vil- lage, with the post-station, a low, wooden house, in its midst. Alighting at the door, whose latch lifted with a string, we were ushered through a bare apartment evidently the common guest-room into one larger and more comfortable, and which BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY 259 seemed to be the parlor of the establishment. The uneven floor was spread with a coarse carpet green paper curtains shaded the windows and in the extreme corner were several pictures of saints in metallic frames, and beneath them a little table covered with books of devotion. From the side windows tlie long, narrow kitchen was visible, opening upon an interior court ; its cooking utensils hanging upon nails and its store of crockery dis- played in a doorless cupboard. A Tartar woman, with a yellow handkerchief over her head, was busy with the pots and pans ; and beyond were the sta- bles, and men caring for the horses. Adjoining the " parlor " was a bed-room the bed round and high with feathers and covered with an elaborate patch-work quilt. Here two comely young girls, daughters of the station-keeper, were bus}' folding and ironing clothes which looked white and clear as those of the most fastidious New Eng- land housekeeper. They wore short skirts and loose sacques of calico ; and while the brown hair of one was closely braided, the other had her lighter locks prisoned in curl-papers ; but, disappearing for a moment, she returned with flowing ringlets and a strino; of bri 1 rj o w iPimniniiP"^ ^iP