///7 p., %L^ (J»-4./CX^Qy ^ ir. oAA^Ar-c-^ 'I ACROSS RUSSIA Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/acrossrussiafromOOstodrich ACROSS RUSSIA FROM THE BALTIC TO THE DANUBE BY CHARLES AUGUSTUS STODDARD PUBLISHED FOR BAY VIEW READING CIRCLE Central Office, Flint, Michigan BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK PRESERVATION DOPY ADDED DRIQIN AL TO BE T) K il 5 RETAINED 09 1994 37^ COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. *■ *( „* ^t • CONTENTS. I. From Paris to Stockholm. PAcra The German Ocean — A Fashion in Travel — Sweden and America — A Pleasant Nation — Railway Travelling 1 II. The Venice of the North. The Changes of Many Years — Sweden's Valhalla — Museums and Collections— A Poet's Fete-Day — The Swedes in America 7 III. Finland. The Land of a Thousand Lakes — Finnish Government — Education and Religion — A Stolid People — Religion and Legend — Lan- guage and Trade 13 IV. The Towns of Finland. The Gulf of Bothnia — Life on the Baltic Sea — Abo — Helsingforj and its Literary Treasures — Trout-Fishing 20 V. Entering Russia. The Gulf of Finland — The Passport System — Cronstadt and its Fortifications — The View of St. Petersburg 27 VI. The City of Peter the Great. The Russians as Linguists — Droschies and their Drivers — A Vast Metropolis — Alexander Column — The Winter Palace 32 VII. The Winter Palace. Its Treasures and Tragedies—. Ivi32g89 V VI CONTENTS. VIII. The Nbvski Monastery. FAOB A Sainted Prince— Tons of Silver in a Church — Persia's Gift to)i St. Petersburg — A Russian Service — A Devout People and an Impressive Ritual 45 IX. St. Isaac's Cathedral. A Magnificent Temple — Immense Riches and Gorgeous Rituals — The Russian Church — The Clergy and their Doctrines 52 X. Memorials of Peter the Great. Petropaulovski Sobor — The Obraz — Solemn Sarcophagi — An Odd Temple 59 XI. RussLAJf Amusements and Excursions. Swnmer Society and its Haunts — A Winter Festival — The Tsiganes — Peterhof, its Fountains, Gardens, and Memorials XII. Catherine the Second of Russia. A Beautiful Barbarian — A Powerful Queen — The Hermitage and its Treasures — Tsarskoe-seld — A Matchless Pleasure-Dome 74 XIII. Russian Schools and Libraries. Progress in Education — The Universities — Imperial Public Library — Valuable Histories — Choice and Rare Manuscripts — Auto- graphs and Portraits — Censorship of the Press — A Sleeping Giant 81 XIV. An Imperial Carriage-House. Gobelin Tapestries on the Walls — Inlaid Floors — Gilded Chariots and Jewelled Harness — Queer Sledges — Artillery Museum — A Symbol of Bigotry 88 XV. Russian Art and Science. Academy of Fine Arts — Celebrated Painters — Repine and his Great Picture — The Hermitage Gallery — Academy of Sciences — Mammoths and Monsters — Russian Grammar 94 (X)NTENTS. VU XVI. Russian Customs and Ceremonies. FAOB The Rich and the Poor — Noble Households — The Summer Garden — Choosing the Brides — Substantial Charms — Benediction of . the Waters — A Curious and Fatal Ceremony 100 XVII. By the River Neva. Its Importance to the Town — The Nicholas Bridge — A Triumph of Engineering — A Pigeon Superstition — Cards and Charities — Lake Ladoga — Russian Food 106 XVIII. Russian Markets and Monuments. The Bazaars — Making Bargains — A Thieves' Market — A Russian Satirist — Statues and Pillars — A Last View of the Neva Ill XIX. St. Petersburg to Moscow. Russian Railways — Peasants and their Homes — The Dangers of Travel — Cabbage-Soup and Tobacco — The Town of Tver 117 XX. First Impressions of Moscow. The Streets and Squares — Three Zones around the Kremlin — Con- fused Architecture — Reminders of New York — The Kitai- Grorod — Tartar Influences 124 XXI. The Kremlin. The Beginning of Moscow — The Russian Acropolis — The Red Square and the Gate of the Redeemer — Ivan the Terrible, the First Czar 129 XXII. Bell Tower and Cathedral. The Tower of Ivan the Great, and the Cathedral of the Assumption 136 XXIII. The Tombs of the Czars. Two Famous Churches — Cupolas and their Meaning — Ivan the Great — The Martyr Dimitri — Boris Grodunof the Usurper and his End 144 VIU CONTENTS. XXIV. Two Russian Sanctuaries. PAOI The Sacristy of the Holy Synod — Ecclesiastical Treasures — The Holy Chrism — Rare Manuscripts — A Murderer's Prayer — The Red Staircase and its Tragedies — The Iberian Mother 152 XXV. Moscow FROM THE SpARROW HiLLS. The Crescent and the Cross — The Sparrow Hills — The Convict Prison — Siberian Exiles — The Novo-Devichi Convent and its Nuns 159 XXVI. Two Wonderful Churches. St. Basil— St. Saviour 167 XXVII. Some Russian Charities. The Foundling Hospital— The Nicholas Institute 174 XXVIII. Russian Antiques, Diversions, and Paintings. The Romanoff House — The Parks and Gardens — The Gallery of a Merchant Prince — Repine's Picture "The Return of the Exile from Siberia " 181 XXIX. The Great Palace of the Kremlin. Halls and Chapels —The Terem — The Seclusion of Women 187 XXX. The Russian Royal Treasury. Thrones and Crowns — Robes and Ornaments — Rivers of Diamonds — Oceans of Pearls 195 XXXI. The Fair at Nijni-Novqorod. The Journey from Moscow — The Town and its Bazaar — Tea Drinking — What is Bought and Sold — On the Bridge — In the Bazaar — Strange Peoples — A Vast Trade — Social Aspects of the Fair — Music and Dancing — Business by Day and Revelry at Night 201 CONTENTS. IX XXXII. Russian Reliqious Sects. PAGK Their Number, Names, and Ceremonies — Cruel Rites — Absurd Doctrines — Dreadful Orgies — A Standing Menace to the Em- pire 218 XXXIII. From Moscow to Warsaw. Difficulty of leaving Russia — A Journey of Seven Hundred Miles — Borodino and its Battle — Smolensk — Russian and Polish Peasants — Crossing the Vistula 225 XXXIV. Warsaw. A Cheerful People — The Royal Square — The Cathedral — The Statue of Copernicus — Deserted Palaces — The Saxony Gar- dens — The Markets and the Jews 232 XXXV. Cracow. Beautiful for Situation — Multitudes of Jews — The Marienkirche — Celebrated Tombs — A Fete-Day — The Castle and its Military Heroes — Kosciusko's Mound 237 XXXVI. Through the Carpathian Mountains. Entering Hungary — A Magyar Watering-Place — Poprad and its People — Climbing the Kolbachthal — Schmecke and the Hunga- rians 242 XXXVII. Hungarian Caverns. The Ice Cave at Dobschau — A Unique Phenomenon — The Caverns of Aggelen — Miles of Stalactites — Sixteen Hours Underground — Swineherds of Hungary 248 XXXVIII. Buda-Pesth. The Blue Danube — Wonderful Growth — The Chicago of Europe — An Emperor's Birthday — A Brilliant Capital and a Thriving Peoplo 254 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Facing page THE WINTER PALACE 38 ST. Isaac's cathedral 52 PETERHOF 66 TSARSKOE-SELO 76 STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT 114 MOSCOW AND THE KREMLIN 130 THE GREAT BELL OF MOSCOW 136 CHURCH OF ST. BASIL 168 ST. saviour's CHURCH 172 NIJNI-NOVGOROD ON THE VOLGA 202 WARSAW ON THE VISTULA 232 THE CASTLE AT CRACOW. . 238 ■i -) 5 5 > ^ ■> ^> ACROSS RUSSIA. FROM PARIS TO STOCKHOLM. THE GERMAN OCEAN A FASHION IN TRAVEL SWE- DEN AND AMERICA A PLEASANT NATION RAILWAY TRAVELLING. FnoM Paris to Stockholm is a long distance on the map of Europe, but in these days of swift and well- arranged transit, long distances are easily and rapidly traversed. One can cross the continent by rail, and by continuous travel make the journey in five days ; but if he finds rest as well as recreation on the sea, and loves a boat, he can cross the English Channel and go from London or Hull to Gothenburgh, and thence by rail, or through the Gotha River and the Swedish lakes, to the capital of Scandinavia. Let no one fancy, however, that the German Ocean will be untrue to its record. Boisterous and rude, like the ancient Teutons, it sports with its guests in no gentle fashion, and brings enemies prostrate before its shrine. Of the cheerful company who left Hull on a pleasant but windy morning in July, to cross the North Sea to Sweden, few appeared more than once I V ACROSS KUSSIA. until tbe Sim, rose, OJI, the third day thereafter, over th6 islaLnds ?D. tJxe' pretty harbor of Gothen burgh. Yet multitudes are crossing this tossing highway this summer, for there is a fashion in travel as in all other things. This year it is the fashion to go to Oberam- mergau and attend the Passion play, and to sail along the coast of Norway and see the midnight sun. It is a sensible fashion for those who are fond of the sea, and do not weary of the monotony of life upon a small vessel ; but squeamish men and delicate women had better take time, and go a thousand miles around, than cross the North Sea; indeed, they had better never see Scandinavia than suffer as I have seen them suffer, only to say, " I have been there." When an American lands in Sweden he feels strangely at home. Though the language is new, yet he often hears his own tongue and reads it everywhere. The rocks and hills, covered with pine and spruce and birch and oak trees, seem familiar, and the landscapes remind him of Central New York, and Michigan, and Wisconsin, with their green fields and woods and waters. Wooden houses and barns, painted red and white, and post and rail fences and stone walls, and the familiar "well-sweep,'' and many other touches of the same sort, make the Yankee feel " kind of kin" to these Northern peoples. In former years, I had travelled by the Gotha Canal, which passes through Lakes Wenner and Wetter, and the Malar Sea to the Baltic. This gives a fine view of the falls of Trolhattan, where, by a series of handsome and admirably constructed locks, the boats are raised above the falls. FBOM PARIS TO STOCKHOLM. 3 In other visits, I had been handsomely entertained at Gothenburgh by Swedish friends, who had invited me to a wedding feast, and at the beautiful estate of a relative at Alinsas. These visits had made me well acquainted with the manners and customs of the Swedes, and with portions of their country. Thirty- five years ago I drove across the country from Stock- holm to Gothenburgh, before a railway whistle had sounded through the Swedish woods ; and now, by much the same route, I travelled comfortably by rail. It was pleasant to meet the same kind of people, unspoiled by the increase of travel or the incoming of foreigners. The men are a handsome race, and there is much beauty among Swedish women. The working people seem as honest and respectable as ever, and the utmost neatness and thrift are every- where evident. A little girl brought me fruit and flowers, and when I offered for them twice her price, she refused to take the money, and ultimately took back both because no change could be had, rather than receive more than they were worth. This may have been an extreme case and a remarkable girl, but it is illustrative of the integrity and simplicity of the Swedes. At the railway stations an abundant and excellent meal is set out for the hungry passengers. Each one selects what he chooses and pays one price, naming for addition any extras which he may have ordered, and there is no dispute or noise, and none of the rude scramble or impoliteness which is so often witnessed in other European and American restau- rants. The trains run slow, with frequent and long stops at the stations. The carriages are a compro- 4 ACEOSS RUSSIA. raise between the English and American style, with only a few of the first class, as most of the people travel second or third class. The officials are polite, and the traveller is treated as one who does a favor by using the road, rather than as an intruder to be snubbed if he asks a question, and hustled if he does not exhibit a meek and quiet spirit under the great- est provocation. So, travelling in Sweden is more of an enjoyment than a discipline, and leaves pleasant impressions upon the memory. A detachment of the Salvation Army, some men in absurd uniforms, and girls with poke bonnets and blue flannel dresses trimmed with red, made themselves conspicuous by getting out at each station and parad- ing the platforms, singing Moody and Sankey hymns in Swedish. They did not excite much attention, and were at last content with singing in their carriage as we reached ever}^ new place. There had not been much time to waste between the dock and railway station at Gothenburgh, and I found myself alone in a compartment of the train with a young English lady with whom I had crossed the North Sea, but whose face had only once been visible till we reached the Swedish town. The cap- tain, in a word, intimated the duty which natural politeness teaches every American without a hint, and so through the day I undertook to make the journey agreeable to my young companion. She had travelled much, and we had pleasant talk of Sicily and Egypt and the Riviera and France, and of her English home. We breakfasted and dined in com- pany, and compared the customs of different countries FROM PATHS TO STOCKHOLM. 6 in their food, and times of eating, and ideas of hospi- tality. But when the conversation turned on Sweden, I talked alone, and no opinion of the people, or obser- vation upon their land, or habits, or personality, met with any response. We discussed the scenery and the beauty of sky and lake and forest, but as if they belonged to England or America. This reticence upon a single topic seemed strange, especially as there was no constraint in our intercourse, which was that of agreeable, educated, and well-bred people. Towards evening the explanation occurred. As we came near the last station but two or three before reaching Stockholm, a new pair of gloves, a fresh handkerchief, and the rearrangement of sundry femi- nine details of dress gave evidence of some coming event. As we drew up at a station the window was lowered, the door was quickly opened, and when I turned around, a tall and handsome man in the full uniform of a Swedish officer stood before me. In the brief conversation that followed I found that Sweden and its people was a topic too near and dear to be discussed with a passing stranger, and I left the handsome couple standing on the railway platform in the glow of a gorgeous sunset, which, at nine o'clock, was dyeing the clouds crimson and orange, and re- flecting in the lake a scene of beauty which my artist friend of Paris would have given a thousand francs to see. When youth and beauty meet and learn to love each other, along the Riviera in winter, no dif- ferences of race or language will prevent them from meeting in the summer (it may be in England or Sweden, in America or Germany) and talking the 6 ACROSS RUSSIA. one language whose signs and words are universal. As the sunlight faded and the twilight deepened into night, and Jupiter and Venus came out in the sky, the train glided into Stockholm, and I found good quarters at the Grand Hotel. n. THE VENICE OF THE NORTH. THE CHANGES OF MANY YEARS SWEDEN's VALHALLA MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS A POET's FETE-DAY — THE SWEDES IN AMERICA. It seems hardly possible that it is now thirty-five years since I first set foot in Stockholm, but when I took a stroll through the palace of the king of Sweden and Norway last July, I began to undep stand this lapse of time. The palace did not seem so imposing nor the rooms so grand as they did in 1855. or even in 1872. There was an old and faded look about them which must have been caused by the in- fluence of time either upon the gazer or the objects of vision. Yet the city is as striking, and more beautiful than it was then. The main features of the water-ways among which the city is built, and the lovely parks and gardens along the Baltic and the Malar Sea, to which the people resort for recrea- tion, are as evident as ever, and the life of the city is as gay and attractive as it has always been. Stockholm may still be called the Venice of the North, and it has a sprightly and brilliant look which does not pertain to the languid and lustreless Queen of the Adriatic. The new Vasa quarter has been erected upon the heights to the northwest of the old town, 7 8 ACROSS RUSSIA. and is full of elegant houses and other fine buildings. The bridges which join the various islands on which the town is built, present a busy and picturesque scene, which has many added attractions in recent years ; for while there has always been in summer a number of vessels at the quays and in the harbor of Stockholm, this number is largely increased, and the steam launches which ceaselessly dart to and fro from island to island seem to have doubled or trebled in number. If the palace had grown dingy and uninteresting by the lapse of years, it was not so at all with the Riddorholm church, which, with its perforated spire of cast iron, rises two hundred and ninety feet into the air, and is the Valhalla of Sweden. " Tower, heroes* statues, palace, muses' fane, Stand nobly mirrored in the stream beneath, While bathed in evening red glows Riddorholm, Where, beneath marble, Sweden's glory sleeps." Here rest the bodies of the kings and knights and celebrated men of the nation. The walls are embel- lished with the armorial bearings of deceased knights of the Seraphim Order, and the pavement is made of tombstones. Here lies the body of Gustavus Adol- phus, who fell at the battle of Lutzen, Nov. 6, 1632, entombed in a green marble sarcophagus ; and be- tween the windows of the chapel are placed German and Russian and other flags, the trophies of his vic- tories. Here are buried the kings and queens of Sweden, and along the aisles multitudes of flags and guidons are grouped, the tattered and blood-stained THE VENICE OF THE NORTH. 9 memorials of many a hard-fought and nobly-won field of battle. He who would study the military history of Sweden may spend many a profitable hour in this old church, which is used now only as a storehouse of these memorials, and for the funeral services of members of the royal family. The Riddorhus Torg is adorned with a statue of Gustavus Vasa, erected in 1773, on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the day when the king entered Stockholm and delivered his country from the Danish yoke ; and the Riddorhus, or knights' house, contains the armorial bearings of all the Swedish nobles, and many portraits of marshals and presidents of Sweden. The Northern Museum has been greatly enriched with peasant costumes and various exhibits illustrat- ing the manners and customs of the people of Sweden, which are increasingly valuable as the world becomes more and more of one style of dress and habit from the centres of London and Paris and New York to every town and village on radiating lines. Here are the marriage clothes and customs of half a century since, articles of jewelry and ornament, musical in- struments, boats and sledges, furniture and carvings, and curious weapons and tools, from homes and graves and private collections. From Dalecarlia there are cowherds' horns and Runic calendars, and strange household utensils ; there is a full Nor- wegian collection ; and in an annex a great gathering of sea-faring objects, log-canoes and galleons, and votive ships and ships' lanterns, cables, etc. The Historical Museum has added to its treasures 10 ACROSS RUSSIA. of the Flint Period, and of the Bronze and Iron Ages, multitudes of articles which have been found in Scandinavia ; and the galleries of painting and sculp- ture have been equally enriched. Everywhere there are signs of progress, in material prosperity, in the collection of antiquities and memorials, in the study and practice of the arts of painting and sculpture, and in the comfort and also the sobriety of the peo- ple. The Swedes are a polite, hospitable, and agree- able people. They have the courtesy of the French, without the insincerity which is ascribed to the polit- est nation of the world, and they have a national pride which has led them in the past to noble deeds of military prowess, and which is now inciting them to develop their nationality in the nobler province of the arts of peace. Like all northern nations who are so much con- fined to the house by the rigors of climate, the Swedes delight, in the short summer, to spend their days and nights in the open air. Stockholm affords the most delightful resorts for this purpose. One of the most attractive places near the city is the charming Deer- garden, which can be reached either by land or water. It is full of magnificent trees, with pleasant villas and agreeable walks in every direction. The " Has- selbacken," one of the most famous restaurants in Europe, is situated here. The grounds command fine views over the Malar Sea and its islands, and contain an oak, under the shade of which Carl Michael Bell- man, the most genial and popular of Swedish poets, composed some of his charming songs. On the last day of our visit Bellman's f^te-day occurred. THE VENICE OF THE NORTH. 11 An enormous assembly of people filled Hassel- backen, and flowed over into the Deer-garden to the number of many thousands. A great platform had been erected for choirs and bands of music, in front of a bust of Bellman, which was wreathed with ivy for the occasion. The bands played, and the chorus of hundreds of voices sung Bellman's songs from seven o'clock till midnight, while multitudes of fami- lies sat around at tables and upon the grass under the majestic trees, and listened to the themes with evident delight. Every year, on the 26th of July, a similar festivity takes place, and crowds of admirers of the poet assemble in the Deer-garden before Bell- man's bust to recite his poetry and extol his genius. Beside the Deer-garden, there are the royal palace and park of Drottingholm, on one of the islands of the Malar Sea, where handsome apartments, works of art, and delightful gardens reward the visitor ; and Ulricksdal, another royal chateau, beautifully situ- ated on Edsviken, near the Lilla Warten, which is open to visitors, and readily reached by a swift little steamboat. Excursions from Stockholm to Upsala and to Wisby, in the island of Gotland, can easily be made. From Stockholm one may take steamers to Finland and St. Petersburg, to Haparanda, on the Gulf of Bothnia, to Wisby, and Dantzic, arid Lubeck, and around the coast of Sweden, to Norway and Holland and Britain, and even to America. Emigration to the United States still continues to deprive Sweden and Norway of its people, and to en- rich, with a valuable population, the great Republic 12 ACROSS RUSSIA. of the West. The Scandinavians feel quite at home in some parts of America, for the natural features of both countries are similar, and they come in suffi- cient numbers to form communities, where they re- vive their simple and homelike habits ; but few emigrants to America return so often to their native land, or retain their love for it so long, as these chil- dren of the North. They do not leave the early home like the Irish, with a sense of injustice and wrong rankling in their breasts, nor like the Ger- mans, to escape a military requisition, which is often oppressive, but simply that they may live more easily, and gain for themselves and their children a more fortunate future ; they still love with tender affection the mountains and lakes, the winter even- ings, and the long and glowing twilights of the home-land, and often the homesickness is so strong that it overcomes all fear of ocean storms and weary weeks of travel, and brings them back that they may sing with aged parents or loving kindred the noble chorals in the Lutheran church where they were baptized. III. FINLAND. THE LAND OF A THOUSAND LAKES FINNISH GOVERN- MENT — EDUCATION AND RELIGION A STOLID PEO- PLE RELIGION AND LEGEND LANGUAGE AND TRADE. From Sweden it is easy to go to Finland by steamer in a short night, and the country, though rude and bar- ren, is interesting to the traveller. The name of the country is by some said to be from Fen-land, the land of lakes and marshes ; and by others from Finn, mean- ing " wizard." It is a curious coincidence with this latter derivation that seamen have a superstitious prejudice against Finnish sailors, whom they believe to be in league with evil powers. The land is a vast territory of lakes and rocks, about as large as New England, and is scantily peopled. The seacoast is one continuous series of fiords and islands of rock like the Norway coast, except that the bold and lofty shores of Norway have given place to a low and slop- ing coast, and none of the fiords extend more than a few miles into the land. On some of the islands, strong fortresses have been erected. In Eastern Fin- land, which is called the " Land of a Thousand Lakes," more than half of the country is occupied by stony basins of clear water to which the rivers are only connecting links ; the country abounds also in 13 14 ACROSS RUSSIA. naked hills between which are swamps and scrubby forests. It is hardly worth while to travel through the inte- rior, though this can be done now to some extent, by a slow railway that makes its way north to Uleaborg from Abo, and east, at a good distance from the sea, to St. Petersburg. Sportsmen, and now and then tourists, go by three-horse wagons to the interior, where fine fishing and unchanged Finnish customs and costumes reward their effort. The Finns are Russians only in name. They have their own language, which is entirely different from the other languages of Europe, a government which is vested in the Imperial Senate at Helsingfors, and other officers of state who are Finlanders. The Rus- sian Foreign Office regulates the foreign affairs of the country ; but many of its officers are Finns. In fact, though nominally subject to Russia and pro- tected by her, Finland is substantially independent, with her own laws, religion, and customs. It is to be regretted that within the present year a censorship of the press has been established by Russia, which seems oppressive to this people. It threatens the existence of some of the journals, and is so offensive to the Finlanders that some prominent men have said that they would leave the country unless the edict was revoked. The people were Roman Catholics before the Swedish conquest in 1808, when the Lutheran relig- ion was enforced and the convents confiscated. Now there are not a thousand Roman Catholics, out of a population of two millions. The Lutheran clergy FINLAND. 16 have zealously carried out their system of education, which compels every person to read and write before taking the Sacrament, and hence there are very few men or women in Finland who cannot read the Bible. In the national schools, instruction in handicraft was introduced earlier than in any other country, and the last report on education shows that one-sixth of the population, or nearly all the children, were under tuition. Even with such advantages, however, the Finlanders can make but little progress. Their soil is barren, the climate cold, the season short. Fam- ines have thinned the population, and in 1868 a quar- ter of the people of some districts died of hunger, be- cause the wheat failed to ripen, and there was no food but moss and leaves and such supplies as scanty chari- ties sent to their distant land. With railroads, better times may come, for the finest granite and marbles which enrich the Russian palaces and churches are found in Finland, and there are rich mines of valu- able metals, which have lain undeveloped for want of capital to work them and roads to bring them to a market. The people drink a strong liquor called " vodki " made of rye, and get drunk, as all the northern na- tions do ; but there is progress and reform in respect to this vice, as there has been in Sweden and Norway during the last quarter of a century. The people are quiet and seem stolid. While the steamer which brought us to Abo lay at the pier, rows of men and women stood silent and almost unmoving for several hours, watching the process of unloading and loading. No change of expression passed over 16 ACROSS RUSSIA. their white faces, and it was rare that any words passed their lips. I watched three fair-haired girls who stood together, and during twenty minutes they hardly spoke. In almost any other land they would have chatted constantly. In the streets and parks the same absence of excitement and enthusiasm is manifest ; the meetings of friends are formal and cold, their manner restrained, and they seem uniformly reticent. The impulsive and eager ways of one of our party seemed to awaken a dull surprise as if a strange animal had come into a herd of domestic cat- tle. They are said to be grateful and patient and to have an honest and simple character. They have a national song called the " Kalevala," which Max Miiller ranks as the fifth national epic in the world, and their ballads are transmitted from parent to child in the unwiitten language of household song. Like all the northern nations, they are very religious. Their life here is a wearisome monotony and often induces melancholy, and they look forward through the vista which religion opens dimly before them, with a longing as intense as their natures are capable of, towards another and a better life. On Sundays they may be seen crossing in huge boats over the lakes and waters, the women often rowing alone while the men sit in the stern, smoking, or men and women rowing together and singing a sort of dirge to the time of the oars. Whole villages will go to a central church in this way, dressed in coarse neat clothes, of which pink and red are the predominant colors. The world is fast learning to dress alike in all countries, and the national costumes of the Finlanders grow less FINLAND. 17 frequent every year. There are a few beggars in the cities ; but though the people are poor, there is no such general beggary as one sees in London or Naples. The Finns are still fond of charms and magic, and have many legends. One of these relates to the crows which the ruder people regard as the spirits of dead brothers and sisters ; and another, to the peewits whose cry, Peet^ peet^ seems to beg for rain. In Tereschenko's Folk Tales the legend is thus given : " When God created the earth and determined to supply it with seas, lakes, and rivers, he ordered the birds to convey the waters to their appointed places. They all obeyed except this bird, which refused to fulfil its duty, saying that it had no need of seas, lakes, or rivers to slake its thirst. Then the Lord waxed wroth and forbade it and its posterity to ever approach a sea or stream, allowing it to quench its thirst only with that water which remains in hollows or among stones after rain. From that time it has never ceased its wailing cry of ' Drink, Drink, Peet^ Peet: " The language of Finland is not like any other, and it is rarely learned by foreigners. Most of the cap- tains of boats along the coast on the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia, speak English, for there is much trade with England. The peculiarity of the language is that the root always begins the word, and all changes, whether of derivation, conjugation, or de- clension, are by means of suffixes. There are few prepositions and no articles, and no grammatical distinction of gender. No word begins with two consonants, but there are frequent double vowels in 18 ACROSS RUSSIA. the same word, as saappaat, a pair of boots ; viinaa, brandy; tyyny-vaam^ pillow-case. Every vowel is sounded, and every syllable is pronounced as it is spelled. There is little native literature ; but since the Finnish language has been placed, by imperial author- ity, on an equality with the Swedish, in all law docu- ments and official correspondence, it is probable that a literature will gradually be created. In the book- stores at Helsingfors it was pleasant to see American works by Irving and Mark Twain, and modern Amer- ican novels in the Finnish language. There is a custom-house at all the ports, and an examination of luggage where passengers land, whether their trunks go ashore or not ; but this, like most European " cus- toms," is quite a formal affair. Timber, tar, stone, fish, and butter are the chief exports from this land, and we saw many vessels at the various ports, loading with timber and tar. It was difficult to understand how more than twenty millions of dollars' worth of such products could be exported in a year ; but many vessels are built along the shores, during the summer months there is a brisk trade with England, and Russia gets much stone and timber from this country. As there is no customs-union between Russia and Finland, the materials which Russia gets from the other country are of course included in the exports. The summer days are long and fine, and the people live out of door and rejoice in the sun ; the winter days are brief and gloomy, and then there is idleness and the drunkenness which accompanies darkness, cold, and misery. There is a Finnish saga which says that Twilight and Dawn are betrothed lovers, long FINLAND. 19 separated and always seeking each other, till in Fin- land in the midsummer they meet, and then their united lamps burn with splendor in the northern sky. It was far towards midnight before the glow of sun- set faded in the days of last July, and we were often walking in the light at ten o'clock and able to read without a lamp. But soon the days shorten and the snows of winter come. IV. THE TOWNS OF FINLAND. THE GULF OF BOTHNIA LIFE ON THE BALTIC SEA ABO HELSINGFORS AND ITS LITERARY TREASURES TROUT-FISHING. With a full moon, and a gentle breeze rippling the waters, we steamed out of Stockholm at mid- night, and threading our way among the green islands of this northern archipelago, made a direct line for the Aland Islands. The night was short, and before seven o'clock we had passed what is termed the "open sea," where there is now and then a heavy swell, and were under the shelter of the rocky islands and the coast of Finland. Upon the islands at the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia live about twenty thousand fishermen who have never given up their Swedish language. On the largest of the islands, called " Fastlandet," stood the fortress of Bomarsund, which was battered down by the French and English warships during the Crimean War. Here also, in a pretty bay, is the little town of Mariehaum, which seems to be a kind of watering-place, with an old stone church, and some ruins of a castle, which give occupation to the visitors. The voyage con- tinues among low and green islands of rock, covered now and then with small pine trees, and one could 20 THE TOWNS OF FINLAND. 21 imagine himself sailing on parts of Lake George or some of the Adirondack lakes without giving much rein to fancy. The habits of life upon these coasting steamers are very simple. The captain is the host, and his table in fine weather is spread upon the deck under a sub- stantial awning. At the stern is the " smorgas " table, which is covered with little dishes of appetizers, small slices of smoked fish or caviar, made from the roe of the sturgeon, rounds of sausage and thin strips of raw ham, radishes and gherkins, brown bread and the flat, hard biscuit filled with caraway seeds, which these people like so well. Several bottles of aqua vitse and brandvun, with glasses, occupy the centre of the table. To this refreshment stand all resort before the meals of breakfast and dinner, and eat and drink sufficiently to allay the pangs of hunger, and prepare the way of the stomach for a full meal. This is soon served by pretty waiter-girls in silk caps with wide visors, and consists of cooked fish of excellent varieties, and such vegetables as are in season, fowl or game and salad, and then melons or strawberries and coffee. Breakfast and dinner are much alike in char- acter. At each the captain presides, and drinks the health of his guests, who are paying him from one to two dollars a day for their board. There is much eating and drinking besides, at odd times, and the usual freedom of life and acquaintance on board pas- senger vessels. In the afternoon we come to Abo, which by some linguistic machination is pronounced Obo. It is a picturesque city, with an old castle guarding the 22 . ACEOSS KUSSIA. mouth of the estuary, and the famous observatory now used as a school of navigation crowning its heights. The house of correction is very promijient on another hill, and the great Cathedral of St. Henry, founded in a.d. 1300, occupies also a striking posi- tion. Abo was founded in Pagan times, and its castle was built in the fourteenth century. There revelry and royal splendor ran their course in the days of Gustavus Vasa and his successors. Too hot a fire in the kitchen caused a conflagration in the castle, during a visit of Gustavus II., and this was followed by many subsequent conflagrations which have been almost fatal to the town. In 1827 fire consumed the whole city, including the university and its library and all the public buildings. For two whole days it burned unchecked, and seven hundred and eighty-six houses out of eleven hundred were destroyed. The university went to Helsingfors after this fire, and when the city was rebuilt, the streets were made wide, the houses low, and considerable vacant space was left between the buildings. The same fire gutted the cathedral, devoured the organ, and melted the bells. A patriotic Finn has given a new organ which has five thousand pipes and a bigger swell than any instrument of the kind in the North. This cathedral has been called the cradle of Chris- tianity in Finland, because here the first Finnish bishop was consecrated. It is also a great tomb, and all the principal families have been buried in it, as their many monuments attest. We paused before one to the memory of Catherine Mansdotter, a girl taken from the people by Eric XIV. He made her his THE TOWNS OF FINLAND. 23 queen, but she wearied of the Swedish diadem, retired to Finland, and died quietly at a small town in Kangasala parish, while her royal husband ended his days in a prison. We climbed the University Hill and had a superb view over the land and water which compose the country, and spent half a day in strolling about the place. The people are very blonde, with flaxen and sandy hair, which grows long and is not often cut. They seem pleased with bright colors, and many of the men wear pink shirts, not tucked into trousers, but belted around the waist. Babies are often carried in a kind of hood upon the back, and even when two or three years old they are rested by their mothers in this way. We came across two statues in Abo, one erected to Professor Porthan of the university, who edited the first news- paper in Finland ; and another, to Count Peter Brahe, a relative of Tycho Brahe, and a benefactor of Fin- land in the seventeenth century. Eight hours from Abo, we come to the deep and protected harbor of Hango. Through the severe winters of this northern climate the harbor of Hango remains open, and there is a great business in lumber and stone and iron carried on here. The Swedes built a fortress here, but their successors prefer a bath- house and a pretty park surrounded with villas. All day long we steam among islands and come at length to Helsingfors, the largest town in Finland. It has more than fifty thousand inhabitants, the noble fortress of Sveaborg to guard the entrance to its har- bor, an immense Lutheran and an elegant Russian church, a charming park, and the university which 24 ACKOSS RUSSIA. used to be at Abo. It is not an old town, for Gus- tavus Vasa founded it in the sixteenth century. War, plague, famine, and fire ravaged it, and after an hundred years it had only a population of five thou- sand ; but since Finland became connected with Russia, and since the city became the capital of Fin- land, it has grown in population, importance, and elegance. Its harbor is extensive, and thoroughly protected by the formidable fortress of Sveaborg. This fortress commands the entrance to the harbor so completely, and is so well manned, that it is entitled to be called the Gibraltar of the North. During the Crimean War the English and French squadrons bom- barded the place without disturbing the equanimity of the garrison of ten thousand men which was quartered here. Not one of the seven islands on which the fortress is built was taken, nor was one of the nine hundred cannon which bristled from the ramparts dismounted. There is a Lutheran church at Helsingfors capable of accommodating three thousand persons. It is built upon a lofty rock, and can be seen far out on the Baltic. Twelve apostles stand in stone upon the roof, and Luther, Melancthon, and Agricola, the bishop of Finland, stand inside. Here also we meet our first Russian church, an elegant and imposing building of stone, in the form of a Greek cross, with finely formed domes which, with the roof, are painted a dazzling white. The interior is rich with massive stone columns and fine paintings, and gaudy with gold and silver picture frames and ecclesiastical fur- niture. THE TOWNS OF FINLAND. 26 One does not think of Finland as a literary place, but many American colleges would add several pages to their annual catalogue if they possessed half the treasures in books and collections which are modestly reposing at Helsingfors in the Alexander University. There is a physical cabinet, and a Russian library of fifty-two thousand volumes in the Russian and Po- lish languages, a fine collection of coins, and a natural history museum, especially rich in specimens of the zoology of Finland. Besides these, there are three magnificent rooms which contain the regular library of the university, which embraces one hundred and fifty thousand volumes, and are adorned with colossal busts of Shakespeare, Beethoven, and the Finnish poets, Franzen and Runeberg; in the centre of one of the rooms is a fine marble group, and other sculp- tures enrich the library. There are two large lab- oratories, and museums, of anatomy, ornithology, minerals, and ethnography. This latter collection contains local antiquities, and has a very rich ex- hibit of stone, bronze, and iron weapons and imple- ments of the prehistoric age of Finland and the Finnish race. In the centre of the town is the students' house, with a reading-room, where foreign journals and magazines are furnished in great variety, and a library of thirty thousand volumes, with a courteous librarian. There are other fine rooms, including a music hall, where public and amateur concerts are given; and besides all these accommo- dations for the students, Helsingfors has another library with capacious rooms and bookshelves estab- lished for the use of the working classes. 26 ACROSS BTJSSIA. With its fortress and churches, its university and library, its observatory and botanical garden, its beautiful park and fine promenades, and clean streets entirely free from beggars, the capital of Finland is a place well worth a visit by the traveller in Scan- dinavia and Russia. One who loves fishing can go on to Imatra Falls, where there is trout-fishing in perfection, the fish ranging all the way from two to twenty-four pounds. If any one does not believe this statement, he can easily verify it by getting a peasant to row him out in the Vuokski River, above the falls of Imatra. If he trolls an hour without getting fine fish as heavy as he can handle from the little boat, he must be indeed unlucky. Viborg is one of the most ancient towns of Fin- land ; its castle, built in 1293, is now in ruins. If one does not go to Imatra, there is nothing worth stopping for at Viborg beyond the time allowed by the steamer on its regular trip. We go to sleep in the Gulf of Finland and awake at the famous for- tress of Cronstadt, the bulwark of St. Petersburg. ENTERING RUSSIA. THE GULF OF FINLAND THE PASSPORT SYSTEM CRON- STADT AJSTD ITS FORTIFICATIONS THE VIEW OF ST. PETERSBURG. It was a bright, cool morning in July, as we steamed up the Gulf of Finland towards Cronstadt. A number of Russian officers had come on board the vessel at the last stopping-place, and it was evident that their presence was in the line of duty. There was an unusually large number of passengers, most of whom were English and American, and before reaching Cronstadt all passports had to be given up, nominally to the purser of the vessel. No one can enter Russia without a passport issued by his own government, and properly visSd by the Russian con- sulate. This document is required upon entering each town, and must be stamped afresh with every change of residence ; even a change of rooms in the hotel requires a fresh visS upon the passport. To enter any public building, palace, or museum, it is usually needful to have the passport stamped by the proper authority ; and a traveller in Russia without this document would be as poorly off as a man who wished to cash a check at a New York bank where he was not identified. When the journey through 28 ACROSS RUSSIA. Russia is ended, written permission must be obtained to leave the country, and at the last station, this per- mission, duly sealed, stamped, and paid for, is detached from the passport and retained by the authorities. These manifold formalities are greatly increased where natives are concerned. The servant who desires to seek employment in a neighboring town must secure a passport, and pay therefor at least six rubles, and this document must be renewed every six months. If a native desires to emigrate, it is almost impossible for him to do so, on account of the hin- drances and expenses to which the government sub- jects him. The traveller who is accustomed to accept the for- malities of different nations as a matter of course, is not annoyed by the passport regulations of Russia ; but he has the feeling while there, that the govern- ment knows " his down-sitting and his up-rising, and is acquainted with all his ways," such as he has in no other country in Europe. Other nations have police arrangements and supervision, but they are not obtruded on the view. Meanwhile, having given up our passports, we are rapidly approaching the famous fortifications of Cron- stadt. The town was founded by Peter the Great, who took the Island of Kotlin from the Swedes in 1703, and began the great naval station, which is one of the largest and strongest in the world. As we draw near, the forts begin to show their formidable proportions and armament. Six monster constructions of granite, with extensive earthworks, armed with heavy guns which bristle in every direction, defend ENTERING RUSSIA. 29 the navigable passages. The shot from Forts Alex- ander, Risbank, Constantine, Menchikoff, Cronslott, and Peter the Great, would cross each other at every conceivable angle, and render the destruction of the fastest and most completely clad warship inevitable. During the Crimean War, these fortifications were considered invulnerable, and I presume that the same opinion still prevails respecting them in military cir- cles. The triangular Island of Kotlin, upon which the chief forts are built, divides the channel, and defends the mouths of the River Neva. The town of Cronstadt is built upon its eastern side, which is low and exposed to inundations. It has regular streets, and a population of from forty to fifty thousand, liv- ing in one-story houses, and largely engaged upon government work. On the south side of the town there are three harbors, the largest of which is used for merchant ships and is capable of accommodating a thousand vessels ; the middle harbor is used for fit- ting out vessels, and the eastern harbor contains the Russian navy. These harbors are connected by wide and deep canals. Some magnificent ironclad steamers were lying in the last-named harbor, and one fine cruiser went out to sea as we sailed in. The elegant yacht of the Emperor was also lying at anchor near Cronstadt, with steam up and everything in trim for sailing orders. Cronstadt is really the port as well as the fort of St. Petersburg ; for although there is a canal to the capital, almost all vessels bound for St. Petersburg touch here, and those whose draught of water is too great to proceed up the Neva, unload and transfer 30 ACROSS RUSSIA. their cargo to lighters. Broad sandbanks at the mouth of the Neva, leaving but a narrow channel from seven to twenty feet deep, have prevented t,he entrance of large ships. The ship canal, which was designed to make the capital a seaport, was completed in 1885, at a cost of five millions of dollars, but it has not accomplished all that was intended. Huge sub- marine dams were constructed to protect it — it was made twenty-two feet deep, seventeen miles long, and from seventy to one hundred and twenty feet wide, with a harbor at the upper end which will accommo- date fifty vessels. The port is ice-bound for nearly six months in every year, but several thousand mer- chant vessels enter and clear during the other half- year, and there is steam communication with all the Baltic ports, and also with England and France. I well remember as a boy, the vessels of Joseph Ropes of Boston, which sailed for Cronstadt, and returned laden with Russia hemp, tallow, and flax, and in which some of my early friends used to make the voyage as supercargo — a way of seeing the world quite popular among the youth of that period. The activity in all the ship-yards was remarkable ; the Russian workmen, clad in red, seemed to swarm everywhere, and the clang of beaten iron and the blows of the ship-carpenter's hammer filled the air. The city lies so low, that together with the whole region, it is liable to inundation when the wind blows long and strong from the Gulf of Finland. From Cronstadt the golden dome of St. Isaac's church can be seen glistening in the sunlight and dominating the heavy blocks of buildings which form ENTERING RUSSIA. 31 the city of St. Petersburg. As the traveller sails up the Neva, other domes and glittering points come into view; the palace of Peterhoff is dimly seen through the trees, and the manufactories and ware- houses of a great city line the banks. Everywhere, on land and water, throngs of men were busily at work, and the hum of industry filled the air. Soon the steamer was fastened to the wharf ; the trunks had been yielded to the investigation of the custom-house officials, passports were examined and returned, and we were rattling over execrable pave- ments in droschies, to the Hotel de France, near the Winter Palace. It was a long and bright summer day, the breeze was cool, on every hand were novel sights, the music of the bells was in the air, and our minds were full of memories and stories of Peter the Great and Catherine the Second, as we stepped upon the pavement of St. Petersburg. VL THE CITY OF PETER THE GREAT. THE RUSSIANS AS LINGUISTS DROSCHIES AND THEIR DRIVERS A VAST METROPOLIS ALEXANDER COL- UliN THE WINTER PALACE. We had been told that the Russians were remark- able linguists; we found that most of the people spoke Russian with great fluency, and could speak very little else. In some shops a few words of Ger- man are heard, and now and then we met a servant in a palace who knew French, or an officer who could talk a little in several languages, but the Russian people as a rule speak only their own tongue. They know the language of signs pretty well ; for many of them cannot read the bewildering characters, Roman, Greek, and Composite, which form their alphabet; and to help their ignorance, the shop walls are cov- ered over with rudely painted pictures of articles for sale within. The butcher's shop has a picture of meats of all sorts and shapes ; the tailor's walls are covered with paintings of coats and trousers ; the pills of the apothecary and the vegetables of the green- grocer are advertised by pictures upon the doors and windows of their stores. The cities would be attrac- tive places to deaf-mutes, for appeals to the eye are 32 THE CITY OF PETER THE GREAT. 33 made on every hand, and the display of color and barbaric pearl and gold is almost Oriental. In St. Petersburg the traveller first makes ac- quaintance with the Russian pavement and the droschy. They belong together as instruments of torture. The pavement is of cobble stones, with the usual ruts, holes, and irregularities incident to that style of pavement. Americans know more about it than people from other countries, for it has usually been the first pavement in our cities, and still holds its own in many parts of Brooklyn, New York, Al- bany, and Utica. But no one knows how tormenting it can be, until he rides over it in a droschy. This and the tarantass are the vehicles of Russia. The nobles have better carriages, and a few landaus that seem to have emigrated after long and debilitating service from some foreign land, can be obained by the tourist whose back is too lame to bear the shak- ing and jolting of the national vehicles. The droschy is a small wagon on four low wheels, with a clumsy, hard seat, destitute of a back ; too large for one per- son and too small for two. There is no protection from the weather, no place to hold on, and no defence against the mud and dirt which the horse and the wheels scatter freely. The driver sits in front of the passenger, clad in an immense wadded cloth dressing-gown, gathered at the throat and waist, but expanding into ample skirts at the feet. This curious garment is worn through winter and summer without change, and is surmounted by a low, bell-crowned hat or cap upon the head. The coat is sometimes ornamented with a M ACROSS RUSSIA. few round silver buttons and a belt with silver orna- ments, but usually it looks like a feather-bed doing duty as a pelisse, and is often greasy and dirty be- yond description. The driver who inhabits this padded tenement is an ignorant and stupid being, whose only knowledge is to ask more than he expects to receive, who sleeps and eats on his wagon, and drives his horse at full speed, swinging and hurling his unfortunate passenger about, rattling his bones over the stones, and talking all the time to the horse, as if he belonged to the family. The horses in Russia are excellent, and the vast plains give abundant facilities for rearing and pas- turing them. Indeed, in no country of Europe have I seen so many superb specimens of the equine race as here. St. Petersburg, like Washington, is a city of mag- nificent distances. The streets are wide and very long, and with a few exceptions, far from clean. The open squares are of immense size, the houses and public buildings are upon the same scale, and yet the impression which is produced upon the mind is not one of grandeur, but of attempted greatness. There is a saying of a Russian poet, " Human hands built Rome ; divine hands created Venice ; but he who sees St. Petersburg may say, 'This town is the work of the devil.' " Peter the Great, however, knew what he was about when he founded this capital on the morasses of the Neva. He wanted, as Algaroti says, " a window by which the Russians might look" out into civilized Europe." He knew that his subjects were barba- THE CITY OF PETER THE GREAT. 35 rians, and that if Russia was to rise in power and hold a place among the nations, civilization must come in, and it could come in at that time only by way of the Baltic Sea. He meant to bring the arts of civilized life into Russia, and also to draw the Rus- sian nobles away from the Asiatic indolence of the interior provinces to an active and bustling seaport connected with the western world, and he accom- plished his purposes. In spite of the floods which the west wind piles up against the city bulwarks, and which even this year have obliged the alarm guns to summon the inhabitants of the low wards of the town to flee for their lives, he laid the foundations of the first fortress in 1703, and began to rear the town with workmen who carried the dirt for ramparts and for- tifications in their shirts. Thieves, criminals, and noblemen alike were obliged to labor in building the city ; for two thousand of the former who had been sentenced to Siberia were set at work here ; and every noble and merchant was obliged to build a house in the new city. Each large vessel on the Neva was forced to bring thirty stones, each small one ten, and every peasant's cart three, towards the foundations of the town. The wild beasts disputed the territory with the inhabitants, even after Peter had built his own house and a church to St. Peter and St. Paul upon the site where the present Em- peror now worships ; for it is recorded that, in 1714, two soldiers on guard in front of the foundry were eaten by wolves, and not long after a woman was torn to pieces at noon in front of the Prince's palace. But all obstacles yield to an iron will, and to-day the 36 ACROSS RUSSIA. only wolves in the city of the Czar are the elegant stuffed ones in the fur stores of the Nevski Prospekt ; the most extensive palaces in the world have been reared upon the marshes of the Neva, nearly a million of people live on the islands and lowlands which have been reclaimed from the river and the gulf, and all the nobility of the country flocks to the court which is held in the city which Peter determined nearly three hundred years ago should be the capital of a great and powerful empire. What Peter began Catherine II. carried on with the same largeness of plan and an equally invincible spirit. Everything here is great. The Winter Palace is a huge build- ing, eighty feet in height and four hundred and fifty feet long, with a breadth of three hundred and fifty feet. It curves around an immense open space, in the centre of which rises the Alexander column, the largest monolith of modern times, brought one hun- dred and forty miles from the red granite quarries of Finland. It stands upon a pedestal of bronze, and has a bronze capital surmounted by an angel with a cross, the whole structure being one hundred and fifty feet high. Upon the pedestal, which is made from Turkish cannon, is this brief inscription, '' To Alex- ander I. Grateful Russia." The splendor of the Win- ter Palace is not unmixed with a certain sense of shabbiness, in that its walls are covered with yellow stucco which is duly lime-washed to prevent the annual ravages of the frost. In 1837 the whole inte- rior was burned, but was at once rebuilt without re- gard to cost. It will accommodate several thousand dwellers, and has at times been infested by whole THE CITY OF PETER THE GREAT. 37 colonies of squatters who had been surreptitiously in- troduced by servants. Indeed, before the fire, the watchers on the roof built themselves huts between the chimneys, took their wives and children there, and even kept poultry and goats, which fed on the grass growing on the roof. There is to-day a garden with large trees upon the top of one part of the build- ing. The palace is not now used as a residence, but is opened for balls and receptions, royal concerts, operas, and other ceremonial purposes which are con- nected with the social arrangements of a great em- pire. It has treasures and memories which shall be the theme of another chapter. VII. THE WINTER PALACE. ITS TREASURES AND TRAGEDIES. Having sent our passports to the proper authori- ties and procured tickets of entrance, we went with an intelligent German guide, who had lived in Rus- sia for twenty years, to the Winter Palace. Not only were umbrellas and canes taken into custody by the magnificent servants in gorgeous uniforms of scarlet and gold lace, but all our hats, coats, and shawls, were also removed. We might have imagined that we were going to the Emperor's reception, but the ser- vants' object was simply to secure an increased fee at the close of the visit. Travellers who object to the custom of feeing servants and waiters had better keep out of Russia. Every person who renders a service, from the courteous librarian, who exhibits and explains with much learning the treasures of the imperial library, to the ragged wretch who pulls aside the greasy curtain that hangs before a church door, expects a fee. Of course in an emperor's palace one must pay royally, but it is worth something to see the treasures which are gathered in one of the three largest palaces in the world. In the Winter Palace there are more than twenty immense halls, with corresponding suites of apartments, connected THE WLNTER PALACE. 39 by splendid corridors and galleries. Among them are seven enormous and elegantly decorated rooms filled with paintings of Russian battles and naval engagements: a Golden hall, so named because its walls and ceiling and furniture are covered with gold, where exquisite mosaics surround the chimney; the hall of Peter the Great, with his portrait, which becomes so familiar to tourists in Russia ; St. George's hall, with its imperial throne, where the Knights of the order are entertained, a room nearly one hundred and fifty feet long and sixty feet wide, adorned with Corinthian columns and ten magnificent candelabra ; the Nicholas hall, where the court balls are held, fronting the Neva, enriched with four colossal side- boards loaded with gold and silver plate; and the White hall, where all the decorations are of creamy white and gold, with fine marble statues and costly collections of gold and silver dishes on which bread and salt have been presented to the Czar by the towns and cities of Russia. Each new monarch re- ceives gifts of this kind, and their palaces become treasure-houses of silver, gold, and gems given by a poor but devoted people to the monarchs whom they worship. In the St. Nicholas hall, the balls and assemblies of State take place. They are said to be entertainments of unrivalled magnificence, and we saw beautiful palm and orange trees, which are brought into the great rooms where sumptuous sup- pers are served in an exotic garden while "winter rules the inverted year," and from the windows of the palace one can see sledges traversing the solid ice of the Neva. There was no need for us to conjure 40 ACROSS RUSSIA. up imaginary splendors, nor to listen to the tales of prima donnas who had sung to royal audiences in the concert room, where gorgeous decorations, costly hangings, mirrored walls, elegantly painted ceilings, and riches without end were bewildering the actual vision. An interesting part of the palace is the Romanoff Portrait Gallery, where are the likenesses of all the sovereigns and their consorts since the reign of Michael Feodorovitch. There are many portraits of Peter the Great and Catherine the Second. These two rulers are everywhere present in effigy or pic- ture or memorial or legend or belongings. You must leave the country to escape them. They made Russia what it is, but their remembrance is not so fragrant as that of Washington or Lincoln. Cath- erine tried to make gentlemen out of her rude cour- tiers, and there is a tablet at the door of this gallery over which a green curtain is drawn. On the tablet are inscribed the rules which Catherine enforced at her receptions at the Hermitage, the adjoining palace. A translation of some of them is as follows : " Leave your rank outside as well as your hat, and especially your sword." " Be gay, but do not spoil anything ; do not break or gnaw anything." " Talk moderately and not very loud, so as not to make the ears and heads of others ache." " Eat whatever is sweet and savory, but drink with moderation, so that each may find his legs on leaving the room." This rule of Catherine should be enforced all over Russia, for drunkenness is the great vice of the people. I saw more drunken mea in Russia than I have seen in THE WINTER PALACE. 41 any part of continental Europe. Not a day passed without painful exhibitions of men in almost every station in life, who were intoxicated or helplessly drunk. These people love strong liquors, and the lower classes drink a villanous fiery liquor called " vodki," which is worse than a torchlight procession going down the throat. The poor people work twelve and even eighteen hours a day, have wretched fare and a hard life, and are almost like the beasts that perish, so far as hope for the future is concerned. What wonder that they seek the exhilaration and oblivion which strong liquors produce, and that mul- titudes become habitual drunkards? We climbed to the third floor of the palace to see the crowns and diadems which have adorned the brows of emperors and empresses. The imperial crown is like a mitre, with a cross on the top made of five large and brilliant diamonds, supported by a ruby, said to be the largest in the world. This ruby is supported in turn by an arch of eleven great dia- monds, and this arch rests upon a hoop of pearls all of great size and each one perfect. The crown is lined with purple velvet, and all the spaces between the jewelled band and arches are filled with leaves of diamonds set in silver. When the Emperor puts on this crown, he has nearly a million dollars' worth of gems upon his head. There are other diadems, and aigrettes, and necklaces, and collars full of costly jewels, and the beauty and glory of this treasure- house of royal baubles is beyond description. The vanity and emptiness of earthly treasures was brought forcibily home to the heart, when we went 42 ACROSS RUSSIA. from these magnificent rooms to the chamber, where Nicholas the First died during the Crimean War. It was a small, plain room, with his hard camp-bedstead, military cloak, helmet, and sword, just as they were left thirty-six years ago. After the battle of the Alma, his constitution yielded to the enormous strain which had been put upon it, but his fortitude did not desert him. When his physician told him that he must die, he simply said, " I forgive my enemies ; telegraph to my subjects, '• Your Emperor is dying.' " Then he blessed his children and grandchildren, thanked his ministers and the army for their bravery at Sebas- topol, and calling his son to his bedside, he said: "My great wish has been to take upon myself all the toils and duties of a sovereign and to leave you a flourishing and well-ordered empire. God has ordered otherwise. Now I am going to pray for Russia and for you. After Russia, I have loved you more than anything on earth." And so he died. Alas, the successor from whom he so tenderly parted was to meet a fate tragical and piteous beyond most of the royal tragedies which history records. Alexander the Second, who deserved to be honored and loved by every Russian for the great blessings which he conferred upon his people, was the victim of that bloodthirsty and insane Nihilism which still terror- izes Russia and makes the life of the present sovereign a hideous nightmare. It was a Saturday, in March, 1881, and the snow was on the ground. The Emperor was returning from a visit to his cousin along the quiet road by the summer canal. He rode in a close carriage and was THE WINTER PALACE. 43 followed by two sleighs. He had gone but a short distance when a loud explosion occurred, which threw up clouds of snow and splinters of wood. A bomb had been thrown under the Emperor's carriage, had burst in the back and broken the windows. I saw this ruined vehicle in the imperial carriage- house, where it is kept in memory of the disaster, and it is wonderful that the Emperor was not killed in the carriage. The coachman tried to drive on, but the Emperor seeing that some persons were wounded, insisted upon getting out and going himself to look after them. Though his coachman, and the colonel of police, who had captured the would-be as- sassin, urged the Emperor to proceed, he still waited, and inquired carefully about the occurrence. He was returning slowly and sadly to the carriage, when a man who had made himself conspicuous by the in- solence of his behavior, threw a bomb at the Em- peror's feet. It burst at once. Clouds of snow and dirt rose into the air, and as soon as anything could be seen, the Emperor was recognized in a sitting pos- ture, his limbs and the lower part of his body a mass of bleeding flesh and broken bones. Twenty other wounded and dying persons were around him. The Grand Duke Michael, who had heard the first explo- sion and hurried to the spot, arrived only in time to see the dreadful condition of his brother. The dying monarch was able to say in broken accents : " Quick, take me home to the palace — there — to die." They bore him thither, his blood marking the brief journey upon the snowy path. In an hour he expired, having received the last sacraments and surrounded 44 ACROSS RUSSIA. by his family. His agonies were intense, but he died a hero, as he had lived a philanthropist. " Such," says Rambaud, in his history of Russia, " was the end of the 'Tsar Liberator,' who in 1861 enfranchised the serfs, who in 1878 freed the Christians of the Bal- kans, who on the same day of the attempt had come from giving to Russia a constitution, but who fell a victim to a policy of irresolution, equally fatal to his country and to himself." As I stood in the simple bedroom, beside the camp- bed, where Alexander II., cruelly wounded by the representative of a class whom he had tried to bene- fit, died in pain, I thought of our own martyred Lin- coln, and wondered afresh at the ingratitude and inhumanity of man. VIII. THE NEVSKI MONASTERY. A SAINTED PRINCE — TONS OF SILVER IN A CHURCH — PERSIANS GIFT TO ST. PETERSBURG A RUSSIAN SERVICE A DEVOUT PEOPLE AND AN IMPRESSIVE RITUAL. It was a pleasant afternoon when we drove to the monastery of St. Alexander Nevski, one of the largest and most celebrated of the monasteries in Russia, a Lavra or metropolitan seat, and only in- ferior to the Lavra of Moscow. It occupies a large space at the end of the main street of St. Petersburg, the Nevski Prospekt, and contains within its enclos- ure, churches and chapels and towers and gardens and cells for the monks. It was founded by Peter the Great in honor of the Grand Duke Alexander. "Hither, Peter the Great," says Stanley, "brought the sainted prince, Alexander of the Neva, to rest on the banks of the river which had been illustrated by his exploits, centuries before its great destinies were unfolded." This Alexander, the son of Yaroslof the Prudent, who was born in 1221, repulsed the army of Swedes and Teutonic Knights, wounding the king of Sweden with his own hand on the banks of the Neva, whence he received the name of Nevski. When he died at the age of forty-two, the famous metropolitan bishop Cyril announced to the people 46 46 ACEOSS RUSSIA. at Vladimir, " The sun of the country is set ! Alex- ander is dead," and the people, who regarded the victor of the Neva and of the Tartars as absolutely necessary to the prosperity of Russia, cried out with one voice, " Then we are lost ! " Little of the orig- inal buildings is left; for change, enrichment, and decoration have been going on from the time of Peter. The cathedral, one of the largest buildings in the enclosure, was built in 1790 by Catherine the Second, and for the adornment of the interior marble was brought from Italy, precious stones from Siberia, and pearls from Persia. It contains copies of the finest Italian paintings, and on two pillars, opposite the altar, are portraits of its two imperial founders. But the great show in the church is the silver shrine of Alexander Nevski. It is a pyramid of silver, fif- teen feet high, weighing, with the ornaments around it, a ton and one-half of pure metal. The pyramid is surmounted by a catafalque and by angels, large as life, with trumpets and silver flowers. The sides of the structure have representations of the deeds of the saint, in silver bas-relief. I recall no richer shrine among the multitudes which I saw in the sacred places of the Greek Church. Close beside the shrine hang the keys of Adrianople. In 1829 a Russian envoy was murdered at the court of Persia. In atonement for this crime the Shah sent Prince Khozra Mirza to St. Petersburg with priceless presents. The cortege reached the capital in winter. The Prince drove in a state car- riage drawn by six horses, and was followed by elephants which wore leather boots to protect them THE NEVSKI MONASTERY. 47 from the cold, while the cages of the tigers and lions were lined with bear-skins. The long train carried, besides these gifts of rare animals, superb Persian webs, gold stuffs, and pearls, which were borne upon gold and silver dishes by magnificently dressed Persians. The Nevski monastery received a large portion of these precious offerings, and we saw three mitres set in jewels, and pontifical robes of gold brocade, and episcopal staves and crowns which came from that Persian envoy. We saw also the bed on which Peter died; but as there are several of these beds at differ- ent places in and around St. Petersburg, we did not get a photograph of it. The most exalted person- ages are buried in the cemetery of the Nevski mon- astery. Here are the tombs of the illustrious Naryshkins, from whose race Peter the Great came, the tomb of Suvoroff with this strange legend : " Here lies Suvoroff, celebrated for his Victories, epi- grams, and jokes." Here also are numerous members of the imperial family. Tlie noble Russians pay high prices to sleep their last sleep in this holy ground, and lie together as close as " rounders " in a Bowery lodging-house. The chief attraction to the Nevski monastery is not, however, its historic graveyard, nor its silver shrine, nor the gold and gems and pearls from the Ural Mountains and the Persian court, but it is the Russo- Greek service which is celebrated here every after- noon from four to six o'clock. Even before the service began, the church was half full of people, the larger part of whom were men. Throughout Russia the 48 ACROSS RUSSIA. devotion of the men is noticeable. Everywhere else in Europe, in Papal and Protestant churches alike, the women are in a large majority, but in Rilssia this is not so. I do not know the real reason for this peculiarity of Russian religious life. It cannot be due alone to that ignorance which is the mother of devotion, for the high as well as the low are constant in attendance on religious services. The extreme devotion of the Czar may doubtless have some in- fluence upon those who live but to obey him, and training from early childhood is also a potent force in securing such observance. Whatever the explana- tion may be, the fact is everywhere evident. On coming to the door of a Russian church one is con- fronted with a line of greasy and dirty old men or women in dingy black, with brass money-boxes in their hands, which they jingle at the visitor, at the same time courtesying and bowing like jumping- jacks. Having passed this barrier, there is next a candle-stand, where every devout Russian buys a candle, large or small, according to his piety or purse. Bearing this in one hand, the worshipper goes up to one of the shrines, drops on his knees, bows till his head touches the floor, and crosses his breast with the thumb and two forefingers of his right hand (the three fingers thus joined represent- ing his faith in the Trinity). He continues to bow and cross till he reaches the shrine at which his prayers and offerings are to be presented. There he lights his candle from the holy fire and puts it in a silver stand which has manifold sockets full of simi- lar candles. This done, he retires a little way, and THE NEVSKI MONASTERY. 49 there stands and kneels and prostrates himself to the floor for a longer or shorter time. Irreverent for- eigners who attend the services of the Greek Church in Russia are likely to be taught good manners. If they do not remove their hats promptly on entering the churches, it will be done for them without cere- mony ; if they talk and disturb the worshippers, no such leniency will be shown them as in Roman Catholic countries. There is no distinction of rank or place in the churches, no entrance fees, no pews, not a seat, and no reserved places. All the congre- gation stand or kneel or lie prostrate. The church service is in the Slavonic tongue, but the people can usually follow it, and sometimes join fervently in the choral parts, the responses, and short prayers. The regular service begins with a call to worship, then hymns and psalms are sung, then prayers are in- toned for the church and its priests, for peace and union of Christian churches, and for every member of the imperial family separately. The Gospel is read and explained by a priest, there are more prayers, the communion is celebrated, after which come thanksgiving and a benediction. At the even- ing service the Old Testament is read, and this ser- vice is generally regarded as a preparation for the more important and principal service of the day. While it is true that individuals of a congregation sometimes join in the choral parts, they are not ex- pected to make any responses, and the usual custom is for the priest, a deacon, a reader, and a double choir to perform the whole service. We stoo(i in the centre of the gorgeous church. 60 ACROSS RUSSIA. Directly in front was the iconastos, or golden screen which shuts off the holy of holies, into which no woman is allowed to enter. The sacred pictures cov- ered with gilt and studded with jewels hang on this screen. In the place of honor on the south side of the door is the picture of the Saviour, and on the north side is the Virgin Mary. Next to the Saviour is the saint to whom the church is dedicated, and others are arranged in regular order. The priest, with a bishop's hat and black robes, came and stood before the doors of the holy place ; a hundred men divided into two choirs ranged themselves on either side. They were of almost gigantic stature with long beards and hair that rolled in coarse masses down over their shoulders. The priest, with his back to the people and his face to the east, intoned prayers in a rich and musical voice, the two choirs alter- nately responding in a sweet and plaintive chant, " Gospodi pamilui " ("Lord, have mercy upon us "), or " Gospodi pomolimsa " (" Lord, we pray thee "), or "Padai Gospodi" ("Grant this, O Lord"). With these words the choirs seemed to be constantly interrupting the priest, but there was no jangling, only a rich and resonant melody which filled the air and echoed through the lofty dome in harmonious, never-ending murmurs. And so the service went on for an hour, the priest repeating prayers, the incense- bearers swinging their censers, and the choirs con- stantly singing the responses in amazingly strong and melodious bass voices. Suddenly the chanting ceased, the incense-bearers vanished, and while a solemn hush pervaded the assembly, the doors of the THE NEVSKI MONASTERY. 61 sanctuary were thrown open, the veil was drawn, and the chief priest accompanied by deacons came for- ward bearing the Eucharist and intoning prayers for the imperial family. Most of the congregation fell prostrate, and the choir took up the refrain, " Grant this, O Lord," in such powerful bass, that it seemed like the roar of billows on the shore, as the waves of sound swelled and broke against the walls of the cathedral. The grand climax of the service had been reached ; the doors were closed again, and for an hour more the prayers and singing continued. So impressive and interesting were the sights and sounds that we did not know that we had been standing nearly two hours, till we came out of the church. The monks who inhabit this monastery and take part in these services are of the Order of St. Basil. Unlike the ordinary priests, they are celibates and take vows of chastity, never eat meat, and on fast days, which in the Greek Church are many, they eat only fruit or vegetables. They had no appearance of anchorites, however, being of large frames and abun- dant flesh, though pale where the masses of hair and beard permitted the skin to be seen. IX. ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL. A MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE IMMENSE RICHES AND GOR- GEOUS RITUALS — THE RUSSIAN CHURCH — THE CLERGY AND THEIR DOCTRINES. Last winter, after thirty years of absence from the Eternal City, I stood once more under the dome of St. Peter's in Rome. The magnificent structure lost nothing of its greatness or grandeur by comparison with the many things accounted great, which my eyes had seen during a generation. It was summer when I first beheld St. Isaac's, in the Russian capital, and it is a worthy rival to the southern temple. Standing in the great square near the river, with the Admiralty Garden upon one side, and gardens and open spaces all around, its grand proportions and noble architec- ture excited my admiration. The structure is almost severe in its simplicity ; but its stupendous propor- tions and costly material are impressive. From the founding of the city, this spot had been chosen for a place of worship, and several churches have been built upon it. Peter built one of wood, and Cath- erine the Second another, which was begun in marble and finished in brick by Paul the First in 1801. This was pulled down to make room for the magnificent building whose foundation was laid in 1819 and which 62 i>T. l:3AAi^ 3 (^MiriEDRAL. .-^n* Scf^c'^'^* ST. Isaac's cathedral. 53 was consecrated in 1858. An epigram exists, which is said to have sent its author to Siberia. " This church is the symbol of three reigns — granite, pride, and destruction." It is dedicated to St. Isaac of Dalmatia, on whose festival Peter the Great was born. A for- est of piles was sunk forty-two feet into the swampy soil at a cost of a million of dollars, to make a foun- dation, yet the vast edifice is continually sinking, and one whole side is now being rebuilt to prevent its downfall. Twenty millions of dollars would not cover the cost of the cathedral, and it is the treasury of untold values. It is a simple Greek cross built of Finland granite, upon a platform about three hundred and fifty feet square, which is reached on each of its four sides by three flights of massive steps, every one of which is made of a single block of red granite. These steps lead to the grand bronze entrances, through one hun- dred and twelve pillars sixty feet high and seven feet in diameter. They remind one of the columns at Karnak and of the Roman Pantheon ; but while Karnak is made of many stones, these are magnifi- cent, round, highly polished monoliths. Each weighs one hundred and twenty-eight tons, has a bronze base, and is crowned with a Corinthian capital of bronze. These pillars support an enormous frieze upon which are these texts in large bronze letters : on the north, " The King shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord " ; on the east, " In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust, let me never be ashamed " ; on the south, " Mine house shall be called an house of prayer " ; and on the west, " To the King of Kings." 54 ACROSS RUSSIA. The central Byzantine dome rises three hundred feet above the main building, and is supported by twenty-four Corinthian pillars of polished granite, which, although they seem small at such an elevation, are yet thirty feet in height, and weigh sixty-four tons each. There are four other domes at the angles of the building, which contain the bells, and all the domes are plated with gold. From the central dome rises an elegant lantern, a miniature repetition of the whole structure, and from this springs the golden cross, which fitly crowns the imposing temple. As we drew near to Cronstadt from the Finland Gulf, the first object that greeted our eyes was this glittering symbol ; and when we steamed over the levels towards Moscow, the sunlight on the golden dome and shin- ing cross was our last memento of the northern metropolis. If the cathedral is gorgeous without, it is no less glorious within. Words cannot present to the mind the wealth of splendor which dazzles the eyes of the beholder as he enters this gorgeous sanctuary. No Roman Catholic cathedral or church compares with this Greek place of worship. The light is dim, but there are multitudes of gold and silver lamps burning night and day before sacred pictures and shrines. The long-haired, beaded priest, in flowing robes, escorts the visitor through the extensive building, bidding him notice its walls of exquisite mosaic work, the pillars of lapis lazuli and malachite, each of which is worth a fortune ; the sacred pictures framed in silver and gold inlaid with regal gems ; the floor of polished marble in rich and rare varieties ; and finally, ST. Isaac's cathedral. 66 the holy of holies, an inner temple wrought of por- phyry and jasper and other stones of the New Jeru- salem of the Apocalypse. Within the holy place is a model of the cathedral made of pure gold, complete in every part, and sacred vessels and ornaments whose value is beyond computation. In this gorgeous tem- ple services are held for eight hours out of every twenty-four, consisting chiefly of prayers ; and the place is never without some evidence of the pious uses for which it was reared and to which it is dedi- cated. Although it is only a great show for the irreverent tourist, it is nevertheless a hallowed shrine, a holy place, a house of prayer, for Russians, poor and rich; and no people are more devout or more sincere in their devotion. Protestants would do well, while condemning the idolatry and ignorance of these people, to imitate them at least in reverent demeanor and absorbed devotion when they meet for worship in the house of God. The Russian church has its altar in the eastern end, and is entered through a porch in the west. The porch opens into the outer temple, at the eastern part of which is a short flight of steps leading to the altar, where the priest performs certain parts of the service. Immediately behind this is the iconastos, or screen, in which are three doors, the central one being called the " royal," " holy," or " beautiful door." Within the screen is the holy table beneath a canopy, from the centre of which a dove is suspended, symbol- izing the Holy Ghost, and on which the cross is always laid with the Gospel and a box containing the sacred elements for visitations of the sick. Behind the holy 56 ACROSS RUSSIA. table is the bishop's throne. On the left is the com- munion table for the preparation of the Eucharist, and on the right the sacristy for the holy utensils* and vestments. In some Russian churches the places of the communion table and the vestry are occupied by altars, but this is an innovation ; the orthodox Greek church has but one altar. The iconastos, or screen, of St. Isaac's is of daz- zling gold, and the services which we attended were of the most imposing and solemn character. In the midst of sonorous chanting, the royal doors were thrown open and the splendors of the inner sanctuary were revealed, with the majestic figure of , the Redeemer on the immense window of stained glass which forms the chief light of the church. The mul- titude of worshippers fell prostrate upon the marble pavement, and even Protestant tourists were awed into silence. The garment in which the bishops offi- ciate is called by the humble name of "sack," but it is made of the most costly and showy materials. Over this is worn another robe called the " omopho- rion," now of silk, but once made of sheep's wool, as typical of the lost sheep which Christ the Good Shep- herd bore on his shoulders. The bishop gives the benediction, holding two candlesticks, one with three branches to represent the Trinity, and another with two, to set forth the two natures of Christ. The Greek Church of Russia differs from the Roman Catholic Church, in not recognizing the pri- macy of the Pope ; in denying that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son ; in rejecting purgatory, indul- gencies, and meritorious good works. It requires 67 immersion in baptism, if it is possible, and insists upon the marriage of the secular clergy, but does not permit second marriages. This Church also forbids images of the Saviour or of the saints, as idolatrous and a violation of the second commandment, but allows pictures, mosaics, and all flat representations as aids to devotion. There are four great fasts : Lent, Petrof, in June ; Assumption, the first fifteen days in August ; and St. Philip's, six weeks before Christ- mas. Wednesday and Friday of every week are fast days, and there are Church festivals and saints' days in such numbers as seriously to interfere with labor and business. The people are profoundly relig- ious ; the churches are full ; pilgrimages are made to holy places by all classes ; immense sums are given by the rich, in alms and for the adornment and main- tenance of the churches ; and on Sundays and festivals the shops are closed during the hours of service. Every Russian must take the sacrament annually, having, as a matter of course, been baptized in infancy. Russia tolerates other religions, and allows Catholic and Protestant and Armenian to build churches and worship in them, but does not permit any Russian subject to apostatize from the national faith. Before leaving St. Petersburg most of the party paid a ruble each to the priest who guided them up two hundred steps to the roof of the church, and then by a narrower staircase to the lantern of the cupola. From that lofty pinnacle of the temple, there is a lovely view of the pink and yellow city with its gilded domes and spires, the many islands in the broad river Neva, the wide streets and intersecting 68 ACROSS RUSSIA. canals, and the vast public and private buildings which make up the capital. Huge towers with a high railing around the top rise in different parts of, the town, and in each is a watchman ready to announce, by flags and signal-guns, the rising of the floods which threaten to overflow, or the outbreak of fire which threatens to burn, the city. Both of these calamities are imminent, and are only prevented by constant vigilance. MEMORIALS OF PETER THE GREAT. PETROPAULOVSKI SOBOR THE OBRAZ SOLEMN SAR- COPHAGI AN ODD TEMPLE. It was on the last day of July that we drove across the Neva to the Fortress and Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. The slender and pointed spire of the cathedral, rising three hundi'ed and forty feet into the air and covered with gold, is like a tongue of fire as it pierces the deep blue sky. A ray of sunlight strikes it, and gleaming as a luminous sign it indi- cates the burial-place of the Romanoffs, the place where they all go to rest beside the Czar who founded their race. So small and thin is this lofty needle, that once when the golden angel on the top required repairs, an adventurous workman climbed to the summit from the last gallery of the tower, by driving in a hook as high as he could reach, throwing a rope over and pulling himself up, and repeating the process till the point was gained. This golden needle, hovering in the air, and often shining like a star above the fog, has already cost thousands of ducats for gilding and repairs, but the Russians lavish untold sums upon their churches. Peter the Great laid here the foundations of a for- tress in 1703, and the corner-stone of the cathedral 59 60 ACROSS RUSSIA. was placed in 1714. The latter is an oblong build- ing, about two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide. Upon the western end is the belfry, ^out of which rises the spire. The church is always open, and there are always people visiting the tombs, bring- ing their children to kiss the shrines of the venerated rulers of the empire and to lay chaplets of flowers upon their monuments. We saw many mothers lift- ing little children, that they might kiss the tomb of Alexander the Second in this Valhalla of monarchs, and lay a wreath upon it. All of the sovereigns of Russia, since the foundation of St. Petersburg, are buried in this cathedral, excepting only Peter the Second, who died at Moscow, and was buried there. The tomb of Peter the Great is near the south door, and directly opposite is the picture of St. Peter, in a rich gold and jewelled frame. The story of this me- morial explains a Russian custom. When a child is born so feeble that it is likely to die in infancy, it is straightway measured by the priest, and a portrait is painted exactly the size of the child, together with its guardian angels. This picture is called the " Obraz," and is supposed to act favorably upon the life of the child, for whom it is also carefully ])reserved. Three days after Peter was born, the best artist in the empire, Simeon Ushakof, was employed to deco- rate a measure made of cypress wood nineteen and a quarter inches long and five and a quarter inches wide, the exact size of Peter at birth. Ushakof be- gan the picture, and an artist named Koslof finished this representation of Peter as the Apostle, watched MEMORIALS OF PETER THE GREAT. 61 over by the Holy Trinity. This singular memorial of the great tyrant, who was yet the father of his country, still hangs near his tomb. In spite of the supposed feebleness of his infancy, Peter grew to be six feet high, strong and well-knit, with a dark and scowling face and a thick growth of jet-black hair. He raised Russia from a fourth-rate power to equality with the other nations of Europe. He added new provinces to the empire, gave it a naval academy and a jfleet, schools and a library, the industrial and fine arts, a system of finance, and its first lessons in mod- ern civilization. He was a semi-savage, but he used the knowledge and opportunities that he had for the advancement of his country and his people, and is justly entitled to be called "Great" among the rulers of men. Close beside his tomb is that of his much- loved second wife, Katinka, the Empress Catherine the First. Her power over the melancholy and morose Emperor was remarkable, for she was not beautiful and had no wit or learning, and was not even able to read or write. One of her biographers explains her influence thus, and I am inclined to believe that he has the right key : " The great reason why the Czar was so fond of her, was her exceeding good temper : she never was seen peevish or out of humor, obliging and civil to all, and never forgetful of her former condition; withal mighty grateful." A very pious elder once said to his son in view of marriage, " My boy, piety is essential for the life to come, but good temper is the great requisite for happiness in this world." Catherine was not pious, and died in her thirty-ninth year, only two years 62 ACROSS RUSSIA. after her husband, from the effect of intemper- ance. The tombs of the monarchs are all alike, stately sarcophagi of white marble. Here lies the great Em- press, Catherine the Second, a worthy successor of Peter the Great. Her armies conquered the Tartars and the Turks ; she had a passion for personal dis- tinction, for literature, and for men. The first led her to do much for Russia, the second to write books, mostly for children, and the last to lead such a lawless life that it is said that her children by different lovers originated a fresh class of Russian nobility. Here, too, lies Alexis, the son of Peter, who was condemned to death as a traitor by his father, who wished to ex- clude him from the throne ; and Alexander the First, in whose reign Russia made the greatest progress in civilization. Finland was added to the empire, and toleration and Bible distribution distinguished his era. And finally, we look sadly upon the sarcophagi of Nicholas, who died by reason of the Crimean War ; and of the best of the line, Alexander the Second, a man who aimed to benefit more of the human race than any one who ever lived, by freeing the serfs, and who met with a more frightful end than any of his predecessors. His tomb is constantly covered with fresh flowers, and multitudes weep and pray there still, though nearly a decade of years has passed since his death. The walls of the cathedral are covered with mili- tary trophies, standards, flags, keys of fortresses, shields and battle-axes, taken from the warriors of Europe and of the Orient. Splendid pictures, cov- MEMORIALS OF PETER THE GREAT. 63 ered with gold and precious stones, gleam among these spoils of war, while living palms and ivy vines on trellises, add to the strange appearance of the place. One day, while we were in the city, word was brought to us that the Emperor and his family were going to this church for prayer. Some of us were so fortunate as to see him land from the yacht which brought him up the Neva, from Peterhof. He came a different route from that which had been notified, and since the attempts upon the Emperor's life, this is usually the case. He was a tall, hand-' some man, with a pale and anxious face and restless eye, dressed in military costume. A guard was drawn up near the place of landing, but he had no body-ser- vants. The Czarina and several children, dressed like any family in good condition, accompanied him. They remained more than an hour at the church, en- gaged in prayer, and then returned to Peterhof. The fortress is used as a state prison and is of no value as a protection to the city, of which Cronstadt is the real defence. Schuyler says that it now pro- tects nothing but the mint and the cathedral. Dur- ing the reign of Peter's successors its walls were used as a suitable background for fireworks and illumina- tions, and its casemates have always been found con- venient for the reception of political prisoners. In this gloomy fort, Alexis was scourged to death by his tyrannical father; and Peter's grand-daughter, the princess of Tarakanoff, was drowned while confined in one of the dreary subterranean dungeons, by an overflow of the Neva. This tragedy has been made the subject of one of the finest of modern paintings. 64 ACROSS RUSSIA. At the foot of the Troitski bridge of boats, between the fortress and the cottage of Peter the Great, is a church, the original of which he built in commemora- tion of the foundation of the city. We glance at the building in passing to the more celebrated cottage. This stands in a little garden, is built of logs and lined with leather. It contains two rooms and a kitchen. Peter's bedroom is now used as chapel, and a miraculous icon of the Saviour, which always accom- panied him in his battles, is suspended there. It is a sad-looking head of Christ, extremely dark and Ori- ental in character. A priest and some soldiers were in attendance. At the time of our visit, the little room was thronged with devotees, and many children and infants had been brought for a baptism or a bless- ing. People were constantly lighting little tapers and crossing and prostrating themselves with a rever- ent simplicity seen nowhere in Christendom outside of Russia. Here is a boat that Peter built, the bench on which he sat, a tremendous staff that he sometimes carried, and other relics. As we watched these devotions, looked upon the memorials of the monarch, and thought what manner of man he was, the incongruity of the place and its uses was evident. Peter was certainly no saint, that his log cabin should be made a temple. He liked nothing better, while he lived, than to get drunk ; he made his first wife take the veil that he might marry Katinka ; he had his eldest son flogged to death ; he sentenced his enemies and opponents to the most hor- rible tortures. He was " designed by nature," said Bishop Burnet, " to be a ship-carpenter rather than a MEMORIALS OF PETER THE GREAT. 65 great prince" ; he knew fourteen trades, and his chief companions were mechanics and merchants ; he of- fended the religious prejudices of the people so that the clergy and the peasantry hated him, and only the nobles espoused his cause. Yet he was in the habit of assisting in the choir, and of reading the Gospels on the great church holidays in his wooden Trinity church near the summer garden ; the motto borne with him in his wars was, " F"or the Faith and the Faith- ful," and his last words were, " My Lord, I am dying; help thou my unbelief." He was a curiosity of human nature — an anomaly among men. XI. RUSSIAN AMUSEMENTS AND EXCURSIONS. SUMMER SOCIETY AND ITS HAUNTS A WINTER FESTIVAL THE TSIGANES PETERHOF, ITS FOUNTAINS, GAR- j Axr-pk ■UTTT'-RjrrVOT A T o DENS, AND MEMORIALS. The Russian summer is a brief one, but the people make the most of it. The days are long and beauti- ful. It is the time of the " white nights." In June and July the sun hardly leaves the sky, and his light never. The redness of sunrise speedily follows the glow of sunset. Just as in Norway and Sweden, there is a curious radiated light which fills the atmos- phere, and in these hours, when twilight and dawn are confounded, people who require night and dark- ness cannot sleep. Few people sleep much, neither do they work much. A perpetual day is as injurious to labor as perpetual night. Both are demoralizing. This is the time for gardens, for excursions on the Neva, for parties to the islands, for visits to Peterhof and Tsarskoe-Selo. The famous meeting-place, like the Bois in Paris, or the Cascine in Florence, is, at St. Petersburg, the "Point." Here society may be seen in its elegant equipages drawn up at the water's edge. Superb horses elegantly caparisoned, bring nobles and their blond wives and daughters in gay Apparel to the Point, and ofi&cers in glittering uni- RUSSIAN AMUSEMENTS AND EXCURSIONS. 67 form, on horseback, or in private droschies drawn by fleet and handsome animals, gather here. The car- riages stand in rows along the water's edge, while the promenades are full of people, chatting and laughing as they look over the islands towards Oranienbaum, or out into the Gulf of Finland, dotted with sails. Avenues traverse the islands of the Neva in every direction, and fine villas are all along the roads. Here those families who do not leave the capital, and they are the majority, spend the fleeting summer. Their houses are built near the water, often with steps descending into it, where boats are moored, which they use in place of carriages. There are beautiful lawns, and gardens full of choice flowers, and pleasure houses without end. The Russians are fond of flowers, and neither Covent Garden in Lon- don, nor the flower market in Paris, has finer displays of these delights of the senses, than the capital of the frozen North. It is their pride when the mercury of the thermometer freezes in the bulb, to fill their ball-rooms with palms and orange trees, and to deco- rate their persons with choice roses and lilies. The ball at the Winter Palace is the most wonder- ful of these spectacles. Those who have been present at these festivities unite in saying that there is noth- ing in the other courts of Europe that can be com- pared to it. Onl}^ a Frenchman can do justice to such a subject. The Vicomte de Vogu^ lends me a few sentences. " The fairy spectacle begins. The heavy cloaks fall from bare shoulders, and beautiful butterflies issue from these chrysalides in the midst of the rare flowers that cover the marble steps, and 68 ACEOSS RUSSIA. in the mild air of a June atmosphere. A cortege, reminding one of the Arabian Nights, mounts the staircases; trains of lace sweep over the porphyry steps; diamonds and gems shine in the glow of 'the lustres ; there is a brilliant array of many-colored uni- forms ; sabres and spurs clank over the floors. In the front rank are the old ' portrait ladies,' so-called, be- cause they wear in their corsage in a frame of bril- liants, a miniature of the Empress. " The celebrated beauties of Petersburg are all here. Among the men who press around them are high dignitaries of the court since the reign of Nicholas, aides-de-camp of his Majesty, ministers, ambassadors and chamberlains, with the golden key on their backs, and all these worthy bosoms are bedecked with grand cordons, and constellated with decorations which do not leave a square inch of surface free on their breasts. Then come young officers of the Chevalier Guards and the Horse Guards. They carry in their hands a heavy helmet with a silver eagle with open wings. Here are Lancers in red jackets. Hussars in green, Cossacks draped in their long tunics. Hussars of the guard, in short, white dolmans, embroidered with gold and bordered with sable fur, which hang loosely over their shoulders. One single swallow- tail may be seen — that of the honorable Minister of the United States. Nine o'clock. The doors of the private apartments open. A voice announces ' the Emperor.' The Czar advances, followed by all the members of his family, each one in the rank assigned to him by his degree of relationship. "The first bars of the polonaise re-echo through RUSSIAN AMUSEMENTS AND EXCURSIONS. 69 the rooms. It is not a dance, but a cadence march which opens the ball. ... At one o'clock the Grand Marshal opens the doors of a long gallery trans- formed into a tropical conservatory. On the boxes, out of which spring palm trees, myrtle and camelias in full bloom, small tables of twelve covers are placed, sufficient for a supper for five hundred people. In this realm of verdure, all is joy for the eyes — the flowers on the trees and on the women ; the bright colore, the play of light on the cloaks and the cuirasses, ' on the court dresses all stifE with gold embroidery, on the flashing steel of the swords and helmets, on the plaques of the orders of chivalry, and on the rivers of diamonds, orders and diamonds such as you see nowhere except in Russia." This is a winter fete, but in summer the gardens are the great attraction. There are different kinds. All have orchestra bands, and multitudes of Japanese lanterns, and colored electric lights, and fireworks, and open air theatres where little plays and operettas and exhibitions of jumping and wrestling^and jugglery take place. The people sit at tables, and eat ices and drink sherbets and tea and beer and cordials, and smoke and talk, while the entertainments go forward. Sometimes they applaud, but usually ar& indifferent, and more interested in one another than in the per- formances. There are other gardens where the gyp- sies play and sing. They are a dozen or more, men and women, olive colored, with red cheeks, whether painted or not, it is hard to tell. The leader plays a viol or guitar, and the others follow with a quivering and passionate music, full of wildness and melancholy. 70 ACROSS RUSSIA. If there is a play, it is rude and boisterous and over- done, but strangely effective upon the audience, be- tween whom and the Tsiganes there is a racial l|ond of union. These native airs from the gypsies are the delight of the middle classes, the officers of the guards, the merchants, and all but the nobles ; flowers and bank-notes are heaped upon the singers as well as re- sounding applause. At midnight these concerts and assemblies are in full blast, and it is three or four o'clock in the morning before the native Russian cares to leave. They are, as a nation, fond of music, and the best European field for the impressario to reap is that of Russia. Money and gems are heaped upon the prima donnas by the lavish millionnaires of this half-civilized empire. We went one day by boat to Peterhof, built by Peter the Great for his summer residence in 1720, and to which each sovereign has made some additions. One can go either by rail or boat. We chose the lat- ter, and had the experience of a violent storm of wind and rain. Returning by train we noticed that the whole line was guarded by soldiers. The imperial family were spending the summer at Peterhof, and these precau- tions are for their safety. Passengers were scruti- nized on landing from the boat, and throughout the grounds there were Cossack guards with their dark and handsome faces and elegant uniforms. Hundreds of workmen were completing the preparations for the celebration of the birthday of the Empress, at which fete a hundred thousand rubles' worth of fireworks were to be displayed at Peterhof. All St. Petersburg RUSSIAN AMUSEMENTS AND EXCURSIONS. 71 comes down to the summer palace on these occasions, and in view of this celebration the guards may have been specially increased. The palace is a long, two- story, yellow building, situated on high ground over- looking groves and gardens, whose water-works and fountains are amazing. All of these parks and hot' houses and flower-beds and lawns and woodlands are in perfect order, and we drove over smooth gravelled roads which were freshly raked as soon as we had passed. Directly in front of the palace is one of the finest fountains in Russia, called Samson, from the great bronze giant who is forcing open the jaws of a colossal lion from which flows forth a small river. A Greek temple, of red and gray marble with a white marble plinth and pedestal, rises in the midst of the woods, from a marble basin like a miniature lake, into which tall fountains springing between each of the pillars, and many mouths along the base, are splashing and foaming. This is but the begin^ ning of a succession of fairy water-scenes ; jets in the dense woods and water-nymphs veiled by the spray of a hundred intersecting cascades, while at the top, be- tween wooded avenues and pillared fountains, rises the palace. Looking down from its windows, we could see only a turmoil of exquisite jets of water leaping high into the tops of trees, dashing over prec- ipices, sporting around tritons and naiads, enwreath- ing, embracing, intersecting, and illuminated into a splendor of prismatic coloring by the rays of a brill- iant sun. These fountains are so arranged, that on the occasion of holidays and grand f^tes, artificial lights can be placed behind the waters, thus produc- 72 ACROSS RUSSIA. ing the most novel and beautiful effects. The work- men were thus arranging these aquatic gardens for the birthday celebration, at the time of our visit. , The exterior of the palace is unattractive, but hav- ing been admitted by the tall and handsome porters, resplendent with gold lace on scarlet liveries, we marched over inlaid polished floors, through magnifi- cent saloons filled with exquisite tapestries, and count- less articles of porcelain and malachite and pictures without end. One room contains a collection of eight hundred and sixty-three portraits of pretty women, painted by the artist whom Catherine the Second sent over Russia with orders to paint every good-looking peasant girl whom he saw. They are all beautiful young girls in picturesque costumes, and the artist has exhausted invention in giving them variety of positions and occupations. There is a beautiful white dining-room, with polished marble walls and white satin furniture, and all its ornaments sculptured of white marble and alabaster ; and a Chinese room, and one room of which the whole elaborate ornamentation is of Russian porcelain. Here, too, the visitor is shown the study of Peter the Great, with a mosaic portrait, and in the smaller buildings of Marly and Monplasir, situated in the gardens, we saw Peter's bed and Chinese dressing-gown, and even his night cap and slippers. The mementoes and memorials of Russian sovereigns in these pleasure houses are end- less, but perhaps the one which interested us most was a fine oak tree on the Empress's island, raised from an acorn which was brought from Mt. Vernon, the home of Washington. A brass plate upon it RUSSIAN AMUSEMENTS AND EXCUPwSIONS. 73 states that this acorn was presented to Nicholas I. in 1838, by Mr. George Sumner, supercargo of an American vessel laden with sugar for St. Petersburg. Mr. Sumner was a brother of the Massachusetts sen- ator, Charles Sumner, the famous abolitionist, with whose opinions he s^^mpathized. It was curious to see a tree from warm Virginia soil, the gift of a hater of all tyranny, thriving in the frigid climate of the most absolute despotism of the world. XII. CATHERINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA. A BEAUTIFUL BARBARIAN A POWERFUL QUEEN THE HERMITAGE AND ITS TREASURES TSARSKOE-SELO A MATCHLESS PLEASURE-DOME. The sovereign of Russia who divides the honors with Peter the Great is Catherine the Second. She was a woman of strong mind and passions, and of indomitable will. Her picture greets the visitor everywhere, in every variety of costume and posi- tion. She is even represented astride of a magnifi- cent charger, reviewing her army, and no doubt the picture records a fact. A woman of magnificent presence, noble form, ruddy complexion, and large eyes of a bluish gray color ; a woman born to love, but also to rule. The barbarian part of her nature made her reckless, lewd, and arbitrary ; but a powerful intellect and personal charms made her reign remarkable in the annals of the empire. She gathered at her court learned and famous men from all lands, she managed the affairs of the nation with keen insight, directed its wars with the courage and skill of a vet- eran, and its finances with the business capacity of a banker. By inducing emigrants from other lands to come to Russia, she introduced mechanics and farmers into the country, who taught her roving and barbar- 74 CATHERINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA. 75 ous subjects the arts of civilization and the proc- esses of useful labor. In her intervals of leisure she indulged a taste for magnificence by building some of the finest palaces which the world has ever seen, and filling them with all things rich and rare, and gathering in their gorgeous halls the wise and witty, musicians of eminence, and celebrities of the age. Here, in intellectual delights strangely mingled with sensual dissipations, the long dark winters of this Arctic region were made to fly away. Among the palaces that she built were the Marble Palace on the Court Quay, which is not open to the public, being the nominal dwelling of the Grand Duke Constan- tine. Why it is called the Marble Palace, it is diffi- cult to understand, for it is built of blocks of granite, with iron beams and a copper roof, the cornices and copper window-frames being covered with gold. The Taurida Palace is another erection of Catherine II. It cost its recipient a feather, and the imperial giver millions of rubles. In the revolution which gave the Empress her throne, Catherine appeared at the head of the guards. Potemkin, a young cavalry officer, seeing that she had no feather in her hat, rode up to her and presented his. She made him her favorite, is said to have secretly married him in 1784, and built this costly palace for him, with an enormous ball-room that was lighted by twenty thousand wax candles at the magnificent fetes which this imperial lover gave to the court and nobility. A sarcastic writer says, that it was a suitable present for a cavalier servente ; for the marble is all false, the silver is plated copper, the pillars and statues are of brick, and the pictures 76 ACROSS RUSSIA. are copies. Nevertheless, Potemkin revelled there like a prince, and after a brilliant, luxurious, and insolent career, came to a miserable end under a tree on the road from Jassy to Ochakon. But the Hermitage and Tsarskod-Sel6 were Cath- erine's greatest creations. The former was a mis- nomer, except as it was a retreat from the cares of the State. Kohl says : " The Hermitage was no solitude, but a magnificent palace, the original hermit being the Empress Catherine H. ; the nymphs, the princesses and countesses of her court. Perfect freedom and equality reigned here in accordance with the ukases suspended in all the apartments of the palace. One of these in contrast to those of existing sovereigns, reads thus, * Sit where you wish and when you please without being told a thousand times.' Here musi- cians displayed their talent, artists their works, and men of wit their opinions, and the pictures which we see elsewhere only as allegorical representations of art and science-loving princes, were here every day realized." This vast palace is now a gallery of art, contain- ing the most precious pictures in the world ; a mu- seum of antiquities from Scythia, Italy, and Greece, from the Kirgiz Steppes, from Persia, and Assyria ; a cabinet of gems and coins; a library of archae- ology and art; and an endless collection of memo- rials of Peter the Great, to whom one long gallery is devoted. This gallery is full of his tools and instruments and handiwork. Turning-lathes and telescopes, walking-sticks and chariots, swords and stuffed horses, medals and time-pieces, a cast of the CATHERINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA. . 77 Emperor's face, and the snuff-boxes which he used, toilet-cases and watches, vases and goblets of ivory and silver and gold, miniatures and jewelry, crystals and china, pocket-books and umbrellas, treasures and trinkets, articles of virtu and ornaments of endless variety and priceless value, are gathered here, and exhibited to the hungry eyes of crowds of tourists. We spent mornings in viewing these wonders and trifles, and came back to the hotel wearied and sati- ated with the useless magnificence, and when we were rested, returned again to the wonderful dis- play. One afternoon was devoted to Tsarsko^-Sel6, which is easily reached by rail in an hour or two from the capital. The town is made up of pretty wooden houses occupied in summer by the nobles of St. Petersburg. In the Park, which is divided into the large garden containing the Old Palace, and the Alexander Garden, which has also a palace in its pre- cincts, are the great attractions of the place. The drive from the railway station is through wooded parks of fir and oak and beech trees, and as we drew near to the palace, elm and larch trees were also seen, from the midst of which the domes and cupolas and faQades of the palace and church appear. They are gilded, or painted green and blue and white, in com- binations original but fearful to behold. The palace is seven hundred and eighty feet long, a mass of pillars and caryatides and statues and vases. Both sides are thus loaded with meaningless decorations, but the effect is a display of barbarous magnificence which startles the beholder. The whole front was 78 ACROSS RUSSIA. once covered with gold leaf, but now only the domes and cupolas of the church are gilt. The interior of the palace is oppressive on account of the vastness of ,its rooms and the extravagance of its decorations. The grand ball-room is nearly one hundred and fifty feet long, lined with mirrors, and gilded where there is no glass. There is a Lapis-lazuli room, so called because its walls are covered with this precious stone. The floor is of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl wrought into flowers and fruits. The most wonderful place, however, is the Amber room, the walls of which are panelled with amber in architectural designs. Fred- erick the Great presented the amber to Catherine II., and his arms are carved upon the panels together with the cypher of the Empress. We have been accustomed to see the mouth-pieces of pipes, beads, and ornaments made of small pieces of this precious substance, but here we saw large slabs and blocks carved into figures and frames. There is a Chinese room of black and gold, arranged after the fantastic fashion of the Celestial Empire ; a Banqueting room whose walls to the height of nine feet are gold-plated ; a Silver room resplendent with that metal; and a sumptuous bed-chamber with porcelain walls and pilasters of pure glass. The grounds around the palace are eighteen miles in circumference, and we were told that more than five hundred men were constantly employed in the gardens and parks. They contain a large lake and a beautiful Palladian sum- mer-house on its banks, and a very pretty pavilion where the daughter of Nicholas I. used to feed her swans. All sorts of oddities are also exhibited in the CATHEEINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA. 79 way of decoration. There is an ornamental tower where Alexander II. lived with his tutor; dolls' houses of the young grand-duchesses, a Chinese vil- lage, Swiss chS,lets, and Turkish kiosks ; a marble bridge, and bronze statues to Catherine's favorites ; a granite pyramid over three pet dogs ; boats and canoes of all different nations and a little fleet upon the lake opposite the palace. This palace, more than any other, is connected witli the private life of the great Empress. Here she gathered her courtiers and showed to them the social and kindly side of her nature. The story is told of Gregory Orloff, one of her favor- ites, that when summoned from the gambling-table to the council he refused to go, and being humbly asked by the messenger what excuse he should make to his royal mistress, was told to quote to her Psalm I. 1 : " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." Here Catherine shut her- self up for three months after the death of Lanskoi, who expired in her arms, leaving his immense fortune to her. She did not keep it, but gave it to his sisters, and built a beautiful tomb to his memory, at which she used to weep with genuine sorrow more than two years after his death. The amounts which these Russian monarchs have spent and still spend upon such splendid trifles is sat- irized in a story which has been often told. The story runs, that when Catherine had finished decorating Tsarsko^-Sel6, and had applied the final layers of gold to the ornaments both inside and outside, she invited the French ambassador to visit it under her guidance. After admiring each splendid room and 80 ACROSS EUSSIA. statue and ornament again and again, he went out and stood in front of the palace, looking in every direction, as if seeking for something. " What ^re you looking for ? " asked Catherine. " Imperial Majesty," replied the ambassador, " I am looking for the glass case in which this precious jewel is to be placed." These palaces and parks are the playthings of princes, and the people often pay dearly for them. XIII. RUSSIAN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES. PROGRESS IN EDUCATION THE UNIVERSITIES IMPE- RIAL PUBLIC LIBRARY VALUABLE HISTORIES CHOICE AND RARE MANUSCRIPTS AUTOGRAPHS AND PORTRAITS CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS A SLEEPING GIANT. The majority of the Russian people are ignorant peasants. They can neither read nor write ; and yet during the past thirty years great advances have been made in education. At the time of the Crimean War, only one-fiftieth of the peasants drafted as soldiers had these rudiments of education ; in ten years the number had increased to more than one-tenth, and now it has risen to one-fifth ; and this is the present condition of the younger and brighter portion of the people. Among the old peasants ignorance rests as a pall. This advance in education is largely due to Alexander II. He found the schools almost entirely in the hands of the priests of the Greek Church. Many of these priests were densely ignorant, and most of them were incompetent teachers. He recon- structed the schools and placed them in the charge of the best masters that were to be had. He increased their number so that from a few. thousand schools throughout the empire in 1854, there are now twenty- 81 82 ACROSS RUSSIA. five thousand primary schools where reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography are taught. The province of Finland is not to be classed with Russia in edi^ca- tional matters. I have already written of its thorough system of primary schools in every village, high schools in the large towns, and the University at Helsingfors. But in Russia knowledge is at a lower point than in any other country which is called civilized, and this accounts largely for the unrest and brutality of which we hear so much. The ignorant are usually either oppressors or the victims of oppressors, and these classes exist in large numbers throughout the empire. Yet there is a cultivated class, though it is very small in proportion to the population. There are bookstores in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the Universities at these cities, and also at Kief, Kazan, Odessa, and Warsaw, are said to have a full complement of stu- dents, and to be abreast of other institutions of learn- ing in their educational methods. The Imperial Public Library occupies one of the best sites in St. Petersburg, standing upon the Alex- ander Square, between the Bazaar and the Alexander Theatre. It is one of the richest libraries in Europe, containing more than one million printed volumes, forty thousand manuscripts in various languages, and a collection of maps and engravings amounting to nearly one hundred thousand. Its foundation was the library of the Polish counts, Zaluski, which was transferred from Warsaw to St. Petersburg when Warsaw was captured by Suvoroff in 1794, and placed in the present building, begun for its accommodation. The building has been enlarged as the library has RUSSIAN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES. 83 grown, and now it is more than three times its origi- nal size. The last addition was a beautiful public reading-room, unequalled by any other such place unless it be the reading-room of the British Museum. It is open from ten in the morning till nine at night, and the librarian, who courteously showed me through the different rooms, informed me that it was much frequented. On the warm Saturday afternoon, when I visited the library, there were about a hundred persons in the reading-room, most of whom had the appearance of students. The manuscripts in the Imperial Library offer a feast to the scholar. The Dubrowski collection has an invaluable series of letters from the kings of France, secret State documents, and correspondence of the sovereigns of Europe, which were obtained during the French Revolution. Two collections of Oriental man- uscripts, beautifully illuminated, contain valuable treasures for the scholar. Here is the oldest known Russian manuscript, the Evangelistarium as read in the Greek Church in 1056, during the first century of Christianity in Russia, and a Codex containing the four Evangelists, on purple vellum in letters of gold, which came from a monastery of St. John, in Asia Minor. The choicest gem of the collection is, of course, the Codex Sinaiticus^ obtained by Tischendorf at the convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. Fac- similes and translations have made all students famil- iar with this venerable record. These literary treas- ures are guarded with the greatest care, being entrusted to a special librarian, and kept in a portion of the library which is double-locked and protected against possible 84 ACROSS RUSSIA. theft or danger from fire. The Hebrew manuscripts gathered here are of great antiquity, and form the most unique collection known in tlie world. Twer^ty- five of them are earlier than the ninth century, and twenty were written before the tenth century, a num- ber being written on skins, and so rare that there is only one such copy in the British Museum. The rich- est collection of Samaritan manuscripts is also here ; and there is a superb copy of the Koran, of immense size, written upon gazelle skins in the Cufic character. Tradition says that it was written for Caliph Osman, and that he was reading it when he was murdered. In proof of this statement blood stains are shown upon the pages. The story may have been invented to fit the manuscript. There are in this famous library curiosities of liter- ature in great numbers : a missal of Mary Queen of Scots and a collection of her letters to the king of France ; autographs of English kings and queens, and of persons celebrated in English history ; many auto- graph letters of French monarchs, and the library of Voltaire together with his statue in marble. My guide called attention to a history of early European printing, from the time of Guttenberg to the year 1521, which occupies eleven thousand volumes, and to a series of printed versions of the Bible in all the written lan- guages of the world. Autographs of Beethoven, Mozart, Hadyn, and other musical composers, accom- pany libraries of their musical works. Series of prints, from earliest woodcuts to modern photographs, among which are four hundred likenesses of Peter the Great, and busts of all the Emperors arranged in families, RUSSIAN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES. 85 adorn and enrich the library. We grew weary with looking at these literary delights, and longed for a winter in which to survey at leisure this wealth of literature. It is strange indeed that such a mass of learning and such stores of valuable and varied books and manuscripts should be gathered in the midst of an illiterate nation, far from the reach of scholars, and serving only to minister to the pride of monarchs. Nothing impresses the traveller in Russia more than the absence of books and periodicals. In every other country on the continent of Europe, literature is om- nipresent, and in England and America the press floods the community with its issues ; but in Russia news- papers are few and difficult to obtain, bookstores are infrequent and poorly stocked, the people cannot read, and I have already alluded to the pictorial signs which invite purchasers to buy the things painted upon them, as evidences of their illiteracy. The surveillance of the press is very strict. News- papers from foreign countries are not delivered till they have been inspected by the censor. I saw copies of the London News and of the Paris Figaro with paragraphs relating to Russia blacked out, yet the New Yorlc Herald was regularly received after having been opened at the post-office. This censorship of the press might perhaps be useful in our own country if it excluded the vile and shocking scandals and crimes which degrade and demoralize the reading community. I must confess to a certain sympathy with Kriloff's fable in which there is a picture representing a part of the infernal regions. There are two caldrons hang- ing in the foreground; in one sits a robber, in the 86 ACROSS RUSSIA. other a wicked author. Under the caldron of the latter the devil is busily employed in feeding a large fire, while under the robber's kettle there is only a little dry wood, which seems to emit a very agreeable warmth. The author, who has lifted the lid of his kettle to look over at the thief, complains to the devil that he is worse treated than so notorious a rogue ; but the devil gives him a knock on the head, and says, " Thou wast worse than he ; his sins have died with him, but thine will remain indestructible for ages." There are few modern authors who can say conscien- tiously with Sir Walter Scott, that they have never written a line that, dying, they desire to blot out. There is a Russian literature with which we have be- come familiar within a few years. It is original and characteristic, and has little in common with the thought of other countries. There is a large collection of Russian folk-lore, tradition, and fable, of which many specimens have already been translated into English. Slowly but surely this great Russian nation is awak- ing from its sleep. It is a giant ignorant of its enor- mous strength, like a blind Samson, or an elephant led about by a man with a javelin. But when once it begins to learn and to know its power, its progress must be amazing. The Russian nation has a great future before it, and a tremendous power of material- ism behind it. As I contemplate its present position and its possibilities, it seems as if it would yet be the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, which by its push and momentum shall fill the whole earth. Give the Russians time, education, and a full sense of their power, and they will overcome everything. God RUSSIAN SCHOOLS AND LIBEAKIES. 87 grant that neither the superstitions of the Greek Church nor the wild imaginings of Nihilism may be their religion when the time of their awaking and self -recognition shall come ! XIV. AN IMPERIAL CARRIAGE-HOUSE. GOBELIN TAPESTRIES ON THE WALLS — INLAID FLOORS — GILDED CHARIOTS AND JEWELLED HARNESS QUEER SLEDGES ARTILLERY MUSEUM A SYMBOL OF BIG- OTRY. Not far from the place where Alexander II. was assassinated, and where now a costly memorial is being erected to him, stands the Museum of Imperial Carriages. It is always one of the "sights" of a royal capital to see the State equipages, but no capital can compare in this respect with the Russian. In both St. Petersburg and Moscow the royal stables and carriage-houses are in keeping with the magnificence of the empire. A few months after my Russian tour, I took a child to Windsor Castle, and as usual, after the regular trip through the palace, the visitor was invited to inspect the royal " mews." We went with the crowd and saw about fifty vehicles, such as any carriage repository would hold, and twice as many horses, which could be matched at any well-appointed stable. This was the manege of England's Queen. How different was the display of the Russian autocrat ! The Museum of Imperial Carriages is truly one of the remarkable places in St. Petersburg; and the 88 AN IMPERIAL CAKRIAGE-HOUSB. 89 vehicles which it contains are indeed imperial. Car- riages are of such recent date in Russia, that it is said, in the time of Peter the Great, the only subject who owned one was Michael Ivanovitch Loukoff, of Archangel on the White Sea. Tissot declares that all the great Russian world coveted it, and that because Lukoff would not sell it to Mentchikoff, the latter avenged himself by preventing Loukoff from obtaining an inheritance. Elegant carriages are still uncommon, except in St. Petersburg. At Moscow, and in the smaller towns, the vehicles are old and rough, and a carriage ride is usually a species of slow torture. The Museum of Imperial Carriages was begun after the Crimean War, and finished in 1860. It is a palace of two lofty stories. The walls are covered with most beautiful Gobelin tapestry ; the floors are inlaid with costly woods ; the superb main staircase, at the top of which stands the stuffed horse of the Emperor Nicholas, is hung with tapestry represents ing the appearance of the cross to the Emperor Constantine and with Scripture scenes. The far- reaching halls, each adorned in a similar manner, give an impression of greatness and grandeur. Besides the tapestries on the walls, there are fine por- traits of the Masters of the Horse for many years, and the finest display of trappings that I ever saw. Around the large courtyard are workshops for car- riages and harness, stables for hundreds of beautiful and powerful horses, offices for grooms and coach- men and servants attached to the department of the Master of the Horse. The establishment is complete 90 ACROSS RUSSIA. in every particular ; and though some Americans in our party grudged the time which was to be spent in visiting a stable ( ! ), before the visit was ended they were as much amazed at the sights, as the Queen of Sheba was at the wisdom of Solomon. Four immense rooms are devoted to carriages. They are filled with great, unwieldy vehicles, with huge carved wheels, the bodies as big as a small boudoir, hung between distant axle-trees by leather springs, seats in front for coachmen, and standing- places for footmen behind. Yet most of these car- riages are indescribably splendid. They are gilded from the hubs of the wheels to the tips of the coro- nets on the roof corner. Some of the panels are covered with elegant paintings by Boucher and Gravelot, and other distinguished artists, represent- ing allegorical subjects; others are inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and ornamented with large mono- grams set in diamonds and precious stones. In many, the handles, the hammer cloths, the window frames, and even the steps, are encrusted with gems and jewels, while inside, the richest silk and satin cush- ions, plate-glass and ivory and gold, make a miniature palace on wheels. They must be uneasy vehicles to ride in, despite their great magnificence; but they are only used by imperial personages at royal mar- riages, coronations, and State occasions. The usual carriages for the use of royalty are plain landaus and coupes, differing in no respect from those which carry other mortals. It was pitiful in the midst of all this splendor to see, at the end of a long gallery, an ordinary landau AN IMPERIAL CAERIAGE-HOUSE. 91 shattered and broken, surrounded by a crowd of peo- ple and attracting more attention than all the gilded chariots. It is the carriage of Alexander the Second, in which he was driving when the assassin threw the first bomb at him. He dismounted from it only to meet his death in the snow by the explosion of another bomb. There it stands, split and shivered at the back, with its glass broken and lining rent. So near does the height of human grandeur come to the depth of human depravity, and the misery of poverty and crime clasps hands with the misery of a royal family which has been visited by sudden death. Many a visitor feels his eyes grow moist and his heart sad, as, looking upon this cruel wreck, he thinks that then lib- erty and progress were stayed for many years. There are sledges as well as carriages here, both large and small. The real handiwork of Peter the Great, who seems to have made everything from a snuff-box to a city, is exhibited under a glass case, in the form of a monstrously clumsy sledge, as big as a woodshed on runners, with windows of pieces of mica. Among the most remarkable things in the collection is a masquerade sledge, built in 1764 by an Italian. It is like the show-box of a conjurer, with harlequins and stuffed figures on the box. There are also green dragons and musical sledges, and others arranged for a dozen persons to ride in. The harness rooms are full of most gorgeous sets of harness, in red and gold, and in other rooms are the saddles and bridles of the Emperor. There is a separate set for each regiment, according to the uniform worn by the Emperor at reviews and on State occasions. Some 92 ACROSS RUSSIA. of these saddles are superbly wrought with pearls and precious stones, and all the trappings are of silver and gold. Besides these clothes for horses, we saw nearly a thousand liveries for the men who are con- nected with this great establishment. In the stables were about two hundred horses, many of which were fine animals, but the best were away at Peterhof at the time of our visit. In winter, the imperial stables have from three hundred to four hundred carriage horses, and in the stables on the opposite side of the court there are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred saddle horses. The Museum of Artillery is worth visiting by those who have military tastes. It requires a permit to enter, and the visitor must pass over a bridge to the New Arsenal within the Fortress. A curious iron efiigy of a cavalier guards the entrance. A number of these were formerly placed on the parapet, and a man sitting behind aimed his musket through a hole in the iron body. In this museum one can see the horse, now stuffed and braced with iron, which Catherine the Second rode astride, when she entered St. Petersburg as its sovereign in 1762. And here also is the stool, seated on which the rebel and robber chief, Stenka Razin, gave judgment. There were eight pistols around the stool, which immediately carried his decrees into effect. Behind the stool is his club studded with iron nails. It is a satisfactory reflection that this great and terrible rascal was at last captured and beheaded. The walls are covered with ingenious combinations of helmets, pistols, swords, and bayonets, like those in AN IMPERIAL CAKRIAGE-HOUSB. 93 the Tower of London. Interesting collections of uniforms and colors, military costumes of sovereigns, national and foreign orders, ancient artillery, and suits of armor fill the two stories of the museum. Perhaps the most curious things exhibited here are the white leather coat which the Emperor Peter wore at Saardam, and the standard of the Streltsi troops. This is made of pieces of silk sewed together and covered with most remarkable pictures. In the mid- dle of the standard is a picture of the Eternal Father conducting the final judgment. Above the head is the blue sky of paradise, beneath the blazing fires of hell. On the right side stand the justified, — viz. a body of Russian priests, a company of the Streltsi, and a certain number of noble Russians with long beards. On the left are the condemned, — Jews, Turks, Tar- tars, negroes, and a miscellaneous crowd representing outside nations, principally Germans. Each group has an inscription under it, which informs the gazer that "this is a Turk," "a miser," "a German," "a Jew," and so on. Angels armed with toasting-forks are engaged in passing over the infidels, Jews, Moham- medans, and others of the unbelievers, to the devils, who hustle these unfortunates into the flames. This banner might have been carried in many religious wars during the last eighteen centuries, and would have appropriately symbolized the feelings of the combatants. It is a curious emblem of bigotry and fanaticism, and a good object lesson for those " who profess and call themselves Christians." XV. RUSSIAN ART AND SCIENCE. ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS — CELEBRATED PAINTERS — REPINE AND HIS GREAT PICTURE — THE HERMITAGE GALLERY ACADEMY OF SCIENCES — MAMMOTHS AND MONSTERS — RUSSIAN GRAMMAR. The imiseums of St. Petersburg are remarkable collections for so modern a city. They are the re- sult of princely gifts and unlimited expenditures during the past two centuries. I have written of the Imperial Library and its treasures. Similar treas- ures in the way of pictures, marbles, and bronzes are to be found in the galleries and academies of the capital. The Academy of Fine Arts was founded by the Empress Elizabeth in 1757. Catherine II. gave to this Academy, in 1764, new laws, a large endow- ment, and erected the great palace on the Vassili- Ostroff Quay where Russian art has had its school and home. This Academy fronts the Neva, and is four hundred feet in length. Two large granite sphinxes brought from Egypt stand upon the stone embankment of the river. The lower floor of the immense building is devoted to sculpture, and the galleries to paintings. A hundred years of imitation and study have borne fruit, and to-day there are a large number of celebrated Russian artists, among 94 RUSSIAN ART AND SCIENCE. 96 wtom are Rapine, Siemiradzki, Swertchkoff, Ver- estchagin, and others. Rapine is far in advance of all his contemporaries. He was born in 1844, and educated at the Academy of St. Petersburg. The largest collection of his works is to be found in the galleries of M. Tretiakoff of Moscow, a Russian mer- chant who rivals the Czar in the patronage of artists and the collection of their works. The most striking picture of this celebrated artist is that of Ivan the Terrible and his son. The Em- peror is on his knees, with one hand upon the head, and one arm around his son, whom he has mortally wounded in a fit of passion. Blood flows from the head of the young man, over his rich robe and upon the Oriental rugs which cover the floor. The mur- derer's face is an awful revelation of horror. His eyes seem starting from his head, his hair is di- shevelled, and the veins in his face and hands are distended. The embroidered silk garments of the prince and the costly surroundings of the palace chamber contrast horribly with the barbarity of the deed which has been committed, and give at a glance the historical idea of the painter. The story is as follows : Ivan the Terrible was a monarch of unre- strained temper, and in a quarrel with his eldest son his rage became so utterly ungovernable that he struck the young man on the head with his iron- pointed staff. It was a death-blow, and the Czar recognizing this, gave way to a grief as fearful and unrestrained as his previous anger had been. There was cause enough for his lamentations, since by kill- ing this son and heir he imperilled the succession in 96 ACROSS RUSSIA. his family. Of his two surviving sons, one was an idiot, and the other an infant, and the wretched father was not likely to live to protect either* of these from the hostility of the nobles and the in- trigues of the court. Emotions of terror, grief, rude affection, and hopelessness contend in the form and face of the unhappy man ; and one can almost see the increasing pallor on the countenance and the re- laxing frame of his victim. Imperial wealth and power are seen linked to a savagery which civilization had not yet touched. Such a painting of a Russian monarch in the six- teenth century, contrasted with a portrait of the present Emperor surrounded by his family, gives a better idea of the progress of civilization in the em- pire than a volume of essays and statistics. There are many Russian artists like Constantine Makowski, whose "Russian Wedding" has been on exhibition in New York at a well-known jeweller's for several years ; but Rapine, though thoroughly Russian in sub- jects and composition, belongs to a different rank. Genius has no nationality; and while others are painters, he is a genius. There is a sculpture school in the Academy of St. Petersburg, but in a country where winter rules the year, and frost destroys every- thing but bronze, sculpture in stone can make little progress. There are a few artists in bronze, whose works at the great international exhibitions have given promise of future excellence in this depart- ment of Russian art. The picture galleries of the Academy contain some fine paintings, but the great Russian treasuries of art RUSSIAN ART AND SCIENCE. 97 are in the Hermitage. That gallery contains seven- teen hundred pictures, chosen out of four thousand. Among these are twenty Murillos, thirty-four Van Dycks, forty-one Rembrandts, sixty-one Rubens, forty Teniers, pictures by Raphael, Correggio, Ti- tian, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many other famous masters. The Academy of Sciences was organized by Leib- nitz at the request of Peter the Great, and was opened in 1726 by Catherine I. It has departments of mathematics, Russian language and literature, and history and philology. Many eminent men have been connected with it: its library contains three hundred thousand volumes, and it is supported by a grant of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year from the State. The museum of this Academy of Sciences contains a fine collection of Asiatic articles, with a cabinet of coins and Mongolian idols, illustrating Buddhism. There is also a curious collection of Russian coins, including leather tokens of antiquity, platinum coins of the reign of Catherine II., and gold pieces of the present day. The zoological collection, which we traversed on a hot August day, is of remarkable interest, for it contains the actual skeletons of the great mammoth and rhinoceros. They were preserved through ages in the ice of Siberian rivers, and it is said that so perfect was the preservation of the bodies that wolves and bears came down to feed on them as soon as they were brought to light. The mammoth was found on the banks of the Lena River in 1799. It is a sort of 98 ACROSS RUSSIA. elephant, but a third larger than Jumbo. The bones of his right side are quite complete, nine immense ribs being preserved. There is also a large quantity of the skin as thick as boiler iron, and a smaller piece under glass, covered with coarse red hair. A stuffed elephant stands near by, which could be put inside the skeleton of the mammoth. There are tusks of this species of animal nine feet long, and more than a dozen huge skulls of an extinct species of rhinoce- ros, upon one of which there is a quantity of fine red hair. Bears and wolves and lions and tigers, and every sort of deer, seals and beautiful sea-otters, wild horses from Mongolia, and birds from Kam- tchatka, and flying fowls and creeping things, and preparations in alcohol almost without end, filled the halls and chambers of this extensive building. Perhaps we were as much interested in the depart- ment of language and literature, as in any part of the institution, for the Russian language was still a mystery, even in its alphabet, after weeks of object lessons. We have read with pleasure and sympathy the remarks of a writer in the London Athenceum, on this subject, who says : — " Possibly no modern language, not even the Ger- man, has so interesting and truly scientific a syntax as that of the Russian. It is the etymology that remains a puzzle to the unsophisticated mind. To Lomonosoff (whose name literally translated means son of the nose-breaker) is due the credit of first attempting to confine the luxuriant flowers of Rus- sian speech within the narrow boundaries of gram- marian rule. The task had been set him by the BUSSIAN ART AND SCIENCE. 99 Empress Catherine II., and as Lomonosoff was a poet and a Latin and German scholar, his rules fitted ill the Slavonic waywardness of his language ; for, like all grammarians of the eighteenth century, he took the Latin grammar as the model for all others and the bed of Procrustes into which all modern languages had to be fitted. It occasionally happens that languages are subject to freaks to which their more decorous cousin Latin was a stranger, and these absolutely refuse to be regulated by time- honored grammatical methods. Since LomonosofE's time Russian grammar has come to adapt itself more to the habits of the language, but some of the freaks of the latter the former is still unable to explain, and these are those unfortunate parts of a verb known as its vidi^ or 'aspects.' It is certainly very unreasonable of a verb to have ' aspects,' but it is still more un- reasonable to be supposed to understand them. To a Russian knowing his language they present no difficulty, and seem to come by nature, for all Rus- sians, down to the lowest peasant, speak correctly; but the foreigner who sets to work to learn the gram- mar before he has a colloquial acquaintance with the language must often be tempted to anathematize these extraordinary things which seem to have neither rule nor sense." As we did not propose to reside in Russia, we soon gave up the idea of learning the grammar or much of the language, and always had an interpreter at our service. XVI. RUSSIAN CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES. THE RICH AND THE POOR NOBLE HOUSEHOLDS THE SUMMER GARDEN CHOOSING THE BRIDES SUB- STANTIAL CHARMS BENEDICTION OF THE WATERS A CURIOUS AND FATAL CEREMONY. The Russians are very rich and very poor. There is no country of Europe where the contrast is so marked. In the streets magnificent equipages of the noblest jostle the wretched carts of the peasant, and in the churches splendidly attired officials stand and worship beside unkempt and tattered beggars. The universal fondness for jewels, and gorgeous raiment, and display is an inheritance from the Oriental bar- barism which was merged in the empire, and the household of a rich Russian of high rank is of vast proportions. Kohl says that a fully-appointed house of the first class in Russia — without mentioning the numerous resident relations, old aunts, cousins, adopted children, and so forth ; without adding the educational staff, the German, French, and Russian masters, tutors, and governesses, the family physician, companions, and others — has so astounding a num- ber of serving-folk of one kind and another, that the like is to be found in no other country in the world. The following may be named as never wanting in 100 RUSSIAN CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES. 101 the list : the superintendent of ac^oliji-ts,; the secre- ; tary dvorezki or maitre d'hOtej., th,e vajet^^.of ,the^ ^ lord, the valets of the lady, the dycitka. ioV 6y;'ei^,ei3^i \ /.' of the children, the footman, the buffetsJceJc or butler and his adjuncts, the table-decker, the head groom, the coachman and postilions, of the master, the coachman and postilion of the mistress, the ser- vants who attend upon the sons of the house and their tutors, the porters, the head cook and his assist- ants, the baker, the confectioner, the whole body of ordinary servants, the lower orders of stove-heater and kvass-brewer, the waiting-maids and wardrobe- keepers of the mistress, an equal number for the daughters of the house and their governesses, the nui-ses in service and past service, the under-nurses and lower female dependants and work-women, and when a band is maintained, the Russian Kapellmeis- ter and the musicians. Many of the palaces of the nobles have more than one hundred servants, and no servant will do more than one sort of work. Osten- tation takes the place of comfort, and the rooms are used for show. A French writer says that the article of furniture which is used the least in Russia is a bed ; for the women sleep on a sofa, and the men on the cushions of the salon, which they throw on the floor for the night. We used to see the common people fast asleep on the pavement or upon a wooden pli^tform, wrapped in the almost universal sheepskin, and with no other pillow than their thick and bushy hair. On the banks of the Neva, near the Trinity bridge, is the summer garden, a beautiful pleasure-ground, 102 ACROSS RUSSIA. laid out in t]ie /Didst of the city. It was planted with bea'^tiful flower-beds, which were masses of color, in our summer visit, and the long avenues of fine trees and graceful fountains gave a grateful refuge from the noon-day sun. There are many fine statues here, which have been split and broken by the winter cold, which is so severe that trees and shrubs, and marbles also, must be packed in boxes to prevent their destruction. The garden is full of nurses and children, and is a favorite lounging place. In former times there was an interesting ceremony here on Whit-Monday, called " choosing the bride." Young women arrayed in their best clothes and ornamented with all the jewels that they could beg or borrow, were ranged in lines by their mothers under the trees. The young men were paraded up and down in front of the blushing beauties, by their fathers. If there were any signs of mutual interest or attraction between the young people, the parents would converse and manage to introduce their children to each other. An acquaint- ance followed, and the way was clear for negotia- tions, betrothal, and marriage. So eager were the mothers to make a good match for their daughters, that in order to increase their attractiveness, they sometimes loaded them with gold and jewelry till their natural charms were quite hidden. There is a story of one Russian mother who being at a loss to think of any fresh charm for her daughter, made a necklace of six dozen silver-gilt teaspoons, a girdle of an equal number of tablespoons, and fastened a couple of silver ladles behind in the form of a cross. RUSSIAN CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES. 103 The formal custom is dying out, but the maidens still seek the summer garden on the second day of Whitsuntide, dressed in gay clothes, and of course the young men come there to meet them. Another ancient and interesting custom is the Benediction of the Waters, which takes place at the festival of Epiphany, the first week in January, in front of the Winter Palace. Upon the ice of the Neva, which forms to an immense thickness, a wooden temple is erected, which is covered with gilding and hung with pictures of John the Baptist and other saints. This temple, which is called the Jordan, is sur- rounded with pine trees, and a hole is cut through the ice to the water. Then a board walk covered with red cloth is laid from the temple to the shore. Over this passes a procession from the imperial chapel in the pal- ace where a preliminary service has been held. Lines of troops and standards are drawn up along the walk, and between them pass the clerks, deacons, priests, bishops, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries arrayed in their richest robes, carrying lighted tapers, swinging censers, bearing the Gospel, sacred icons, and banners. The Emperor, the Grand Dukes, and the court follow them as they march, and the priests sing in their deep bass voices the following sentences: — " The voice of the Lord cried aloud upon the waters, saying, come hither and receive the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, and of the fear of the Lord Christ, who is manifested unto us." "This day is the nature of water sanctified: Jor- dan floweth out, the streams of his waters burst forth, when he beholds the Lord baptized." 104 ACROSS RUSSIA. " Thou, O Christ, the King, as a man didst come to the river, and as a servant didst desire to be bap- tized by the hand of the forerunner for our sins; O Thou who art good and the lover of mankind." These sentences are repeated twice and thrice, and then the Benediction of the Waters takes place, to commemorate the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, by John the Baptist. The Russian Church holds that by virtue of this ceremony, the nature of all waters is sanctified, and that such qualities are im- parted to the water especially blessed, that it will re- main pure and healthful for years. As soon as the service is finished, the soldiers fire a salute, the priests sprinkle all present with the consecrated waters, using a brush made of bunches of the herb basil, and the procession returns to the church or chapel, bearing some of the consecrated water for the priests and congregation to drink, while the following words are pronounced : " Let us faithfully celebrate the greatness of the Divine mercy toward us ; for being made man for sins. He perfected our purification in Jordan ; He who alone is pure and unblemished sanctifieth me and the waters, and bruiseth the heads of the serpents in the waters. Let us, therefore, my brethren, drink of this water with joy, for the grace of the Holy Spirit is invisibly imparted to all who drink thereof with faith by Christ our God the Saviour of our souls." However salutary this ceremony may be to the waters, it has been fatal to many of those who have attended it. Carried away by religious fervor, many people plunge into the hole which is cut in the ice. RUSSIAN CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES. 105 and numbers of children are baptized through it in the cold Neva, from which all the evil spirits are supposed to have been summarily expelled by these pious incantations. As a consequence they fall sick and die of pneumonia and consumption, but it is con- sidered a certain passport to heaven to die from such a cause. Even high personages are not exempt from the penalty of their imprudence in attending, in the depths of winter, such a service. Both Peter the Great and Peter the Second, his grandson, caught the colds from which they died, at the Benediction of the Waters, and Alexander the First is said to have been badly frost-bitten on a similar occasion when several of his courtiers died of the cold. The Emperor was taken to his palace and rubbed with snow before his circulation was restored. The evil spirits which are cast out of the Neva do not leave the empire. On the contrary, they trouble the citizens of St. Peterburg so much, that devout Russians make crosses on their window and doors to keep the devils out ; but I have yet to learn that these devices are any more successful than the horse- shoes which, in our own favored land, are nailed up over the doors as a safeguard against witches. XVII. BY THE RIVER NEVA. ITS IMPORTANCE TO THE TOWN — THE NICHOLAS BRIDGE A TRIUMPH OF ENGINEERING A PIGEON SUPER- STITION CARDS AND CHARITIES LAKE LADOGA RUSSIAN FOOD. St. Petersburg owes much of its greatness to the Neva. This river is forty-two miles long from Lake Ladoga, where it rises, to the Gulf of Finland, where it empties its waters. It flows with a deep, strong current of pure water from the lakes to the gulf, and not only supplies excellent drinking water to the capital, but also furnishes three large water- ways which divide the city into three semi-circular portions. These canals, called the Moika, St. Cath- erine, and Fontanka, are business avenues, full of barges and lighters in summer, and of draft-sledges in winter. They also drain the city and add to its picturesque appearance. The sides of these canals, and the entire river front which extends more than ten miles, are faced with solid stone embankments, and are provided at intervals with broad flights of steps where boats can land. At one of these we saw the Emperor and his family land from the im- perial yacht which had conveyed them from Peterhof tx> town. Many of the nobles and officers of the 106 BY THE RIVER NEVA. 107 court have their private barges, rowed sometimes by eight uniformed oarsmen, and on a f §te-day or Sun- day the river is alive with these and the little steam launches and many other gaily decorated craft. Four bridges maintain the communication in sum- mer between the various islands formed by the branches of the Neva and the central city. The Nicholas bridge crosses the river, where it is from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred feet wide, upon eight iron arches which spring from handsome granite piers, whose foundations have been laid at immense cost far below the bed of the river. This bridge is a triumph of engineering skill, for the river runs with a strong and swift current, is fifty feet deep at the point of crossing and has a shifting bottom. Fifteen years were occupied in building the structure, which was completed in 1858, under the direction of the architect Stanislas Herbedze. This is the only per- manent bridge. The Palace bridge which crosses the river between the Exchange and the Winter Palace is made of boats; the Troitski is a wide, floating bridge, and there are several others. As soon as the ice begins to form, the floating bridges are removed, but they are replaced when the ice has become solid. Beyond the suburbs of St. Alexander Nevski are the great grain warehouses. They stand beside the river, in far-extending streets, and the roofs and parapets and even the roadway are literally covered with pigeons. No one is allowed to kill them, for the ignorant believe that the Holy Ghost still descends to earth in the form of a dove, and that any one shoot- 108 ACROSS RUSSIA. ing a pigeon might by mistake kill the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. A number of manufacturing establishments line the bank of the Neva above the city. There is a large one devoted to making play- ing-cards. The Russians are inveterate gamblers, and in the select gambling clubs it is never permitted to use a pack of cards a second time. As at Monte Carlo on the Riviera, so in the highest circles of the Russian Empire, after each game the cards are thrown away and a new pack is provided. This seeming waste has one alleviation, for the duties upon the playing-cards, as well as a percentage on the receipts of the theatres, go to the support of the Foundling Hospital and other charities. Hence the more cards there are used, the greater is the revenue of these in- stitutions. Perhaps, however, if the gambling houses and theatres were closed, there would be less need for the hospitals and insane asylums. Further up the banks of the Neva, towards Schlus- selberg, are villages of peasants' homes, long lines of wooden cottages unpainted and weather-stained, and beyond these are extensive forests reaching up to Lake Ladoga, the source of the Neva, which is one hundred and thirty miles long and two thousand square miles in dimensions. The sea-fish and shells found in its waters show that it was once a part of the Baltic. There is a convent on an island at the upper end of the lake which is a place of penance for disobedient monks. No female is allowed upon this island, and it is said that even a hen is not permitted to live there. We could not learn whether a similar discrimination was made in dealing with fish. BY THE RIVER NEVA. 109 In the cities of Russia there are hotels where one can get the foods of civilization, but in the small towns and outskirts this is difficult. Sour black bread, cabbage-soup, half-cooked vegetables, potatoes and turnips like stones, and different kinds of "shtshee" and "botvinya," form the staple food. For drink, one can choose between "vodki" and " kvass," which tastes like the " switchell " that farmers drink in New England in haying-time. It is not unwholesome and one can get accustomed to it. It is made by mixing barley-meal, salt, and honey, in certain proportions, in a pailful of water. This mix- ture is heated over a slow fire for twelve hours, and after it has cooled and settled, the clear liquid is poured off. It must be made frequently, and is better if made in small quantities. Hence, on large estates, there is a special servant called the kvass- brewer, who devotes all his mind and some of his time to this manufacture. The methods of preparing " shtshee " are various, but however made, it is a wonderful preparation, and I commend it to the author of " Society as I Have Found It." It is made of chopped cabbages, barley- meal, butter, salt, minced mutton, and kvass, in the proportion of seven cabbages to half a pound of meal, quarter of a pound of butter, a handful of salt, two pounds of mutton, and two quarts of kvass. If a peasant is too poor to use meat and butter, he can leave them out and substitute fish and oil, and then the substance is called "fasting shtshee," and this is made and eaten by many in the lower classes. On the other hand, the wealthy add many ingredients ; 110 ACROSS RUSSIA. " bouillon" is used instead of kvass, thick cream is added, there are special rules for pressing the meat, and for adding the various substances, in order ,to make a " shtshee" which will delight the palate of a Russian epicure. No Russian meal is complete with- out this dish. " Botvinya " is a summer dish, and we were often treated to it. It is a kind of fish salad. Many of the ingredients of " shtshee " are used cold in " bot- vinya " ; as kvass, chopped cabbages, cucumbers, red berries, raw herbs, and squares of salmon or sturgeon, with slices of lemon and cold toasted bread. The whole mixture is often pervaded with granulated ice, and in a hot day it is very refreshing and palatable. The peasantry are cabbage-fed, and cabbage may almost be considered as national in Russia as the potato is in Ireland. There are two national dishes connected with the celebration of Easter, " pashka " and "kultish," the former made of curds, and the latter a sort of flour-cake with plums and palm-twigs sticking all over the top; but as I was not in the country at the proper season for these delicacies, I can neither recommend nor condemn them. They have to do with a religious celebration, and may be as good or as bad as the eggs which our children eat at Easter. XVIII. RUSSIAN MARKETS AND MONUMENTS. THE BAZAARS MAKING BARGAINS — A THIEVES* MAR- KET A RUSSIAN SATIRIST STATUES AND PIL- LARS A LAST VIEW OF THE NEVA. Every great city in Russia has a Gostinnoi-Dvor, or Stranger's Court, like the bazaars in Cairo and Damascus. In Moscow the bazaar is a little city by itself, opening from the main street of the Khitai- gorod, full of arcades and stalls and shops. That of St. Petersburg fronts upon the chief street, the Nev- ski Prospekt, but extends for a great distance along the Great Garden street. It embraces an immense structure of two stories in height, the ground floor of which is full of all sorts of things to eat, to wear, and to use. The upper story is devoted to wholesale busi- ness. In this neighborhood is a labyrinth of narrow alleys where ten thousand sellers and three times that number of buyers bargain from morning till night. Here are to be found the choicest furs and the most elaborate silverware, and here the student of ecclesi- astical furniture and ornament may spend hours in satisfying his taste and depleting his purse. Icons and censers, shrines and flagons, candlesticks and snuffers, and all the paraphernalia of ritualistic wor- ship abound in this bazaar. No fire is allowed here 111 112 ACROSS RUSSIA. except the flame of the silver lamps which burns before the icons, and we were told that the sight was much more picturesque in winter when the merchai^ts were all clothed in coats of wolf-skin and bear-skin. Yet during this cold the squirrels frisk about in their cages, and birds sing as if it were springtime. Everything may be bought in this market — from pictures of saints to packs of cards, and from gilt or- naments to costly jewels. Embroidered slippers and sashes, superb furs and Siberian precious stones and gems with Circassian articles, are the proper things for the intelligent tourist to buy in such a place. Of course, a mass of foreign bric-a-brac, imported to sell to the unwary, is on hand, but he who has " cut his eye teeth " in other countries will not be deceived by the English and French cheap goods on sale in the Gostinnoi-Dvor. The meat and game market is in- teresting in the season, for besides the variety of birds for sale there are bear and reindeer meat and other products of this northern climate. The lanes and alleys that intersect these markets are crowded all day long, but at night only dogs and watchmen remain. The method of purchasing is truly Oriental, derived from the old customs of barter and exchange of commodities. The buyer asks the price and offers the half of what is demanded. The seller professes to be indignant and turns away, but soon returns and names a price less than his first. The buyer, perhaps, advances a little upon his first offer. The seller declines, and so the chaffering goes on, the price coming down slowly till it reaches the figure which the buyer is willing to pay. If the RUSSIAN MARKETS AND MONUMENTS. 113 buyer is a foreigner, he may be sure that he has paid more than the worth of the article, no matter how good a bargain he thinks that he has made. The expe- rience is, however, worth the profit which he pays, and such interviews are a part of the pleasure of travel. Peter the Great said that it needed three Jews to deceive one Russian, and he answered the Jews who asked permission to live in Russia : " Your position in the empire would be too miserable ; you have the reputation of cheating all the world, but my children would be too much for you." The "thieves' market" is a strange sight. We drove there under a careful escort. Several thousand acknowledged thieves were crowded into stalls and shops, and in booths and tents, and in the open square with their goods on the dirty pavement. The din was frightful, and a more repulsive and dreadful mass of human beings I have never seen. Many of them were Jews, and the cunning and eager faces, with thin lips, and quick, glancing eyes of restless fear, haunted my dreams for many nights. Beautiful silver and clothing worn to rags, false jewels, and bad bank notes are for sale. It is a capital place for a foreigner to be cheated and robbed. We were warned to remember the service, where it is said, " we brought nothing into this world, and it is cer- tain that we can carry nothing out "; for the stranger who goes in full may not get away without having his purse cut out of his pocket, his handkerchief removed, and the very rings stripped off his fingers. We have quoted the fables of Kriloff before, and he gives a conversation between two Kupzi which illus- 114 ACROSS RUSSIA. trates how the rogues in the bazaar cheat and cir- cumvent each other. " ' See, cousin, says one, how God has helped me to-day. I have sold for three hundred rubles some Polish cloth that was not worth half the money ; it was to an idiot of an officer, whom I persuaded that it was fine Dutch. See, here is the money — thirty fine red bank notes, absolutely new.' ' Show me the notes, friend. They are every one oi them bad ! Out upon you, fox ! Do you let your- self be cheated by a wolf ? ' " Among the monuments in the summer garden of the capital there is one to this writer of fables who lived from 1768 to 1844 ; his writings are scathing bur- lesques of the different classes of Russian society, whose weakness and credulity he satirizes most un- mercifully. He ridicules the blind worship of rank, and exposes the folly and stupidity of the masses. Another monument of bronze, the size of life, is erected to Pushkin, the most celebrated of the Rus- sian poets. Among other monuments are those to Suvoroff, near the Marble Palace ; to field-marshal Barclay-de-Tolly and Kutuzoff, to General Skobeleff, and to the navigator, Krusenstern, who first carried a Russian ship around the globe. The equestrian statue of Nicholas I. stands near St. Isaac's church, and that of Catherine II., opposite the public library. The latter is a fine bronze upon huge blocks of Fin- land granite with nine figures in high relief around the pedestal. Of the great Alexander column in front of the Winter Palace, I have already written. The last to be mentioned is the greatest work of monu- mental art in Russia, the famous statue of Peter the cCf r- « ». '*% <>••' e e coco '■ 0«9« *•• ' •e RUSSIAN MARKETS AND MONUMENTS. 115 Great, which fronts the Neva, opposite St. Isaac's. It is an equestrian statue representing the Emperor reining in his horse upon the brink of a precipice. The pedestal forms the precipice, and is a mass of granite weighing fifteen hundred tons and about fif- teen feet high. The horse is rearing, and is balanced on his hind legs and an immense tail, which is said to weigh nearly five tons. The weight of the whole statue, about sixteen tons, is so nicely adjusted by varying the thickness of the horse that the centre of gravity is just above the hind feet of the animal. The Emperor's face, which is a striking likeness, was modelled by a woman, who subsequently became the wife of the artist, Etienne Maurice Falconet, who cast the statue. His face fronts the Neva, his hand is outstretched, and a serpent, which represents the difficulties which Peter surmounted, is trodden by the feet of the spirited animal. The pedestal bears the inscription, " Petramu Permovu, Catherina Vtovaya (to Peter the First, Catherine the Second)." The great Empress made the date of its erection memo- rable by releasing all debtors who had been five years in prison, and remitting all debts to the crown of less than five hundred rubles. The splendid cathedral, the vast buildings of the Admiralty, from the midst of which rises the tall mast-like spire covered with glittering gold, and the swift-flowing Neva, spanned by grand bridges and covered with ships and boats, are all seen from this central point. Here in the grandest part of the great city, which Peter designed and built in spite of natural and physical obstacles, which might have 116 ACROSS RUSSIA. discouraged any human being, stands this fitting monument to the greatest of the Russians. We saw only a part of the wonders and treasures which adorn and enrich the city which Peter built, and have not told all that we have seen, but we could not linger longer on the banks of the Neva if we would also see Moscow and the Nidjni fair. XIX. ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. EUSSIAN RAILWAYS PEASANTS AND THEIR HOMES THE DANGERS OF TRAVEL — CABBAGE-SOUP AND TO- BACCO THE TOWN OF TVER. The time had come to leave St. Petersburg and go on to Moscow, for summer days were flying away, and winter comes quickly from the frozen North with its deserts of ice. The railroad flies like an arrow straight from city to city. It was built by a New England engineer, and the story goes that when he asked the Emperor how he wished the line run, the sovereign took a ruler and drew a straight mark on the map from St. Petersburg to Moscow. So it comes to pass, that, through the whole distance of four hundred miles, there is but one town nearer to the line than eight or ten miles. This has its advan- tages for the traveller who desires to see how the peasants live and to judge of the agricultural resources of the country. The railway stations in these great cities are upon the outskirts, far away from the central hotels, and it is always a long drive to them. The railways are of broad gauge, with first, second, and third-class car- riages, with sleeping cars of the "Mann boudoir" style, and great wood-burning locomotives. The wood 117 118 ACKOSS RUSSIA. burned in these locomotives is light pine and birch, and the cinders are very dangerous to the trains. We stopped once to put out a fire caused by a }iuge bit of live coal from the smoke-stack of the engine, and the luggage of some of our travelling companions was badly burned by a fire which consumed the whole luggage-van and delayed the train between Moscow and Warsaw. The officials are attentive and obliging, but the spirit of enterprise and progress is absent from the direction. A single officer of the government or a railway manager often travels in a specially reserved carriage, while the other passengers are uncomfort- ably crowded, and the suggestion of adding another car to the train is treated as an absurdity. The Rus- sian carries his bed and blanket with him upon the long railway journey, and as we entered the station at St. Petersburg it looked like the wharf of an emi- grant steamer on the day of sailing. Pillows and blankets and feather-beds and fur coats and rugs lay in great heaps on the tables and chairs, and when the doors were opened to the train, it seemed like moving- day on the first of May in old times in New York. The train moved slowly through the suburbs, and gradually the city sunk out of sight, even as it does when sailing away from the land. At last the domes of the Nevski monastery and the golden points of the Admiralty and the fortress were all that remained. These too disappeared, and we were out upon the steppe. The railway passes through many forests of firs and birch trees. It is said that there are five hundred ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 119 million acres of forest land in European Russia, and less than a century ago the first hundred miles of road from St. Petersburg to Moscow consisted of two million one hundred thousand trunks of trees laid across the causeway. This species of road is known in the United States as "corduroy." I remember riding forty miles into the Adirondack woods over such a road in 1857, and my bones ache at the mem- ory. A rough Atlantic voyage would be a cradle in comparison, and the Russians could never have sur- vived such jolting but for their plentiful supply of feather-beds. The train moved steadily on at the rate of about twenty-five miles an hour, through the solemn foliage of the fir trees and the shimmering leaves and white bodies of the birch trees. Now and then a cleared space showed the huts and hamlets of the peasants, rude dwellings of logs with a roof of boards or thatch and with a single window. They are the poorest kind of sheds, and have no evidence of care or culti- vation about them. Within, there is only a picture of St. Nicholas, with a little lamp burning before it, and a few coarse and clumsy articles of furniture. These miserable huts contrast sadly with the decent wooden railway stations, each with its brilliant little garden of flowers. At every mile or two along the railway there stands a man or woman with a green or yellow staff, which is presented as the train passes, and at the station the porters present arms or assume a military position as the train enters or leaves. There are numerous stations with excellent buffets, often elaborately constructed, with dishes of caviare, 120 ACROSS RUSSIA. raw herrings, sardines, salted cucumbers, and cold viands as a foundation, and bottles of wines labelled to suit the taste of the traveller, but all tasting much the same ; while in the middle, like a monument or dome, rises the samovar of shining brass, beneath which a lamp burns and keeps the water hot for the tea which Russians crave even more than vodki. In one corner of every railway restaurant is the gilded iconastos, with the picture of a saint or of the virgin staring out into the blue tobacco smoke which fills the room. Before it hangs a burning lamp, and sometimes there is a candle-stand and lighted tapers in front. Every Russian takes off his hat to the icon when he comes in, and often when he goes out. The same is true in shops and houses everywhere, and you can offer no greater disrespect to the owner of either, than to omit this obeisance to the icon. Although there are accident insurance agencies at each large railway station in Russia, the common people seem to prefer to put themselves under the protection of one of these saints. We saw many buy a candle for the saint, but not one purchase an accident insurance ticket. On the platforms in front of the large rail- way buildings at the principal stopping-places, there are usually a large number of officials. The con- ductors wear long, enormous boots, round caps of fur, closed coats of black cloth, and baggy trousers. Many medals and silver cords and trimmings adorn their coats. The gendarmes, who are always on hand with their red caps bound with black astrakhan fur and surmounted by white brush cockades, are a featr ure in all public places. At some stations which are ST. PETERSBUKG TO MOSCOW. 121 the rendezvous for several towns, crowds of natives are seen, all, even the small boys, wearing long boots; the women dressed in red cotton skirts with pink sacques, their sandy hair smooth and braided, and twisted in coils, often wearing gay-colored handker- chiefs on the heads, and with them multitudes of healthy, fat, and moon-faced children. The low class of porters and peasants often have coarse brown linen or red cotton shirts outside of the trousers, but always the high boots fully up to the knee. These men are very stupid, knowing a certain routine and nothing more. The}^ all look dusty and faded, with flat faces, colorless eyes, and a resigned expression which their white faces and yellow curling beards make almost pathetic. They have great bony forms, can lift immense weights, and with their shoulders against a car do the work of oxen, whom they much resemble in their stolid patience. There is a bell at the door of each station, and it is rung several times in a peculiar musical way before the train starts. The Russians are very fond of bells, and always ring them by pulling the tongue or striking the bell with hammers, but never by swing- ing the bell itself. Indeed, the swinging of some of their immense church bells would bring down the strongest towers. In our varied journeyings, nothing was more strik- ing about the laborers than their long hours of work. Peasants were seen in long lines coming from the fields in the twilight at half -past eight and nine o'clock, and they had begun work at four in the morning. Even in the cities the laborers on the 122 ACROSS RUSSIA. streets and buildings were at work by light, and dusk found them still paving, or plastering, or driving heavily loaded wagons over the rough roads. When too weary or too drunken to work, they are often seen sound asleep upon the ground, and we saw many travellers of the lower classes thus sleeping flat upon their stomachs on the hard floor of the railway plat- forms. A Russian proverb says that tshin, tshai, and shtshee — rank, tea, and cabbage-soup — are the three mightiest gods of the nation. Tourgeneff hits the last neatly in his " Senilia." " ' My son Wassaja is dead,' said the woman in a low tone, and the pent- up tears flowed afresh down her hollow cheeks, ' and now my end is also near. The head of my living body has been taken away from me ! . . . But is that any reason for spoiling the soup? It is nicely salted.' " The odor of cabbage-soup contends with tobacco, for the mastery, and both are among the nuisances of Russian travel. The railway carriages are foul with stale tobacco. All the natives smoke incessantly in travelling; even ladies will smoke a dozen cigarettes during a night, and the dining-rooms at hotels and restaurants are often thick with smoke, which mingled with the fumes of cabbage-soup is enough to destroy a delicate appetite. One gets ac- customed to everything in travelling, though I con- fess that "insufficient lavatory accommodations," about which " Jones " wrote to the London Times, were my chief cause of discomfort. To stand in the garden of a railway station, bending over a little brass basin, and have a woman pour second-hand water over one's hands, and to wash the face with what can be ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 123 saved during this operation, is a poor substitute for the generous bath-tub of England or America. The Russian people delight in steam baths, we were told, but as the masses never change their clothes the bath is only a sensation and not an aid to cleanliness. Insect powder is a necessity to the thin-skinned tourist in most European countries, but happily entomology in any of its forms has no terrors for me. My com- panions often scratched around, and lighted candles, and searched diligently, while with a good conscience and a tired body, I slept peacefully upon the battle- field. We saw only one town, Tver, on the route to Mos- cow. It is large, prosperous, and full of manufactories of iron, and is situated at the head of navigation on the Volga. You may embark at Tver, and by chang- ing boats, sail three thousand miles to Astrakhan. The Valdai Hills, where the Volga rises, are only two hundred miles away ; the stream at Tver is about five hundred feet wide, flowing slowly but firmly, and covered even here with boats and barges. The town is famous in history for the invasions of Poles and Tartars, and for the brutal murder by Ivan the Ter- rible of St. Philip the Archbishop, who was slain in his convent by the ferocious monarch. As we rode on eastward, the country began to look softer, the forests yielded to wheat-fields and pasture-grounds, better houses and more of them appeared, then dis- tant green and gold domes, and finally the long walls and the far-reaching roofs of an immense city showed us that we had come to the " white-walled " " Holy Moscow." XX. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW. THE STREETS AND SQUARES — THREE ZONES AROUND THE KREMLIN CONFUSED ARCHITECTURE REMINDERS OF NEW YORK — THE KITAI-GOROD — TARTAR INFLUENCES. Arrived at Moscow, we were met at the huge stone station, in the middle of a vast, dusty plain, crowded with hundreds of rickety vehicles and carts, by an interpreter. Without his services we should have been helpless, but with his aid we were soon trans- ferred to some very dirty and ramshackle droschies and other carriages, and began the journey to our hotel, which was near the Kremlin. It was about ten o'clock in the morning when we arrived. By noon we had driven up hill and down hill, over pavements only equalled in roughness hj those of Brooklyn, and through a cloud of dust, whose character and amount reminded us of New York streets, and were eating sterlet and cabbage-soup at a good hotel. Our first view of Moscow was disappointing. The city is twenty-four miles around and nine miles across, and to a stranger it seems only a mass of houses and churches without order or plan. Here is a church with spires and domes of green and gold, and close at hand is a jumble of rough wooden houses, plaster pal- aces, and wretched hovels. Great squares are mixed 124 ' FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW. 125 up with miserable alleys, but by and by one begins to comprehend the plan of the city. Its different quar- ters radiate from two concentric circles of boulevards built upon former fortifications. In the centre of these circles is the Kremlin, or fortress, which forms a triangle embracing an area of about two miles. The outer circle is called, from its earthen rampart, Zem- lianoi-Gorod, " earthen city." This is succeeded by Beloi-Gorod, or " white city," being the quarter an- ciently inhabited by people who paid no taxes. Next comes the Kitai-Gorod, which still preserves its an- cient walls and towers. Then comes the Kremlin, which contains the great treasures of Moscow. Its walls are nearly a mile and one-half in circumference and have eighteen towers, and are entered by five gates. The river Moskva, which gives name to the city, forms one boundary of the fortress, and winds through the southern portion of the city. The boule- vards which encircle the Kremlin are laid out in gardens with trees and flowers. There are other boule- vards within the city limits which are of immense width, with long rows of trees and benches free to the people, and the extensive suburbs are occupied with parks and gardens to which the inhabitants resort in the evenings, and where in summer they pass a large portion of the night. The Kremlin is the kernel of Moscow, but it forms only a small part of the city. It contains the fortress, the holy places, and the Imperial Palace. The city extends out from it in every direction. It straggles off in rows of little yellow houses, which suddenly give place to some immense public structures ; then 126 ACROSS RUSSIA. it bursts out into a great square with a splendid white* domed church, to be succeeded by villas and gardens ; then a closely built and narrow street, a village of wooden cottages, a grand mansion with superb gate- ways, and so on for miles. One never knows what is coming next, — it may be the palace of a noble or the hovel of a laborer ; a magnificent church or a yellow- washed house. Outside of the Kremlin there is architectural con- fusion worse confounded. The streets are full of people, long lines of telegues — a rude kind of wagon — are supplying the building material which marks a constantly growing city ; teams of four horses abreast are drawing casks of wine and chests of tea wrapped up in cow-hide with the hair on ; vehicles of every im- aginable size and shape, all looking old and worn and dusty, are jammed together, and in the midst of these Oriental and semi-barbarous structures and primitive carriages and crowds of people, the familiar horse-car of New York is tearing along as fast as the four or six horses that are fastened to it can gallop. We could almost imagine that we heard the conductor saying : " Step lively there," " move up a little closer " ; but that was imagination, for it is not allowed to carry more persons in these cars than can be comfortably seated, and in that respect Moscow is in advance of New York. The Kitai-Gorod, or Chinese City, called by some the Middle-town, because situated between the Kremlin and the Beloi-Gorod, is surrounded by a wall of Tar- tar architecture, with towers large at the base, rising pagoda-like, and crowned with octagonal or four-sided FIEST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW. 127 spires. It has five gates and is always full of people, for shops and merchants and vendors of all sorts of things, and especially of fruit, are gathered here. Piles of watermelons and pears, and of green and purple grapes meet the eye, and the shouts of the sellers of these commodities split the ear and confuse the mind. In one part of this quarter is an old clothes market, where was assembled as ill-conditioned a crowd as I ever saw. We were told that they were thieves, pick-pockets, and criminals of all sorts, and it was easy to believe it. A more hardened and de- graded set of people I never looked upon. They were haggling over old clothes and half-worn boots and blankets, and domestic utensils, with the most intense gestures, screams, and cries. We had heard that the Russians were great thieves, and that from the driver of your droschy to the guide who showed the city and interpreted for you in pal- aces and shops, everyone would rob the stranger, but we had no such experience. It would be strange if the tourist did not now and then "fall among thieves," and occasionally pay a high price where a small one would have done as well ; but nothing like extortion or imposition, except of the most petty kind, did we meet with on our journeys in the Russian Empire. Moscow is stamped with the marks of the Tartar rule. They are seen in the customs of the people, in the style of its buildings, in the universal fondness for splendor and show, for gilding, and the glitter of gems. There is something very Oriental, too, in the Great Bazaar with its long and narrow lanes, and little raised platforms covered with stuffs and wares. 128 ACEOSS RUSSIA. They remind me of old Cairo and Damascus, and the methods of doing business are similar. Moscow is said to have been founded in 882, but was rebuilt in 1155, and its name first appears in Chronicles bearing date 1147. The early princes of Moscow were servants of the powerful Tartars;, and by their service rose to the position of conquering rulers. The Tartars were finally expelled by Ivan the Great, called also Ivan III., to whom Moscow chiefly owes its splendor. It has retained the char- acter which he stamped upon it, in spite of wars and changes, and the conflagration which defeated the French and ruined Napoleon. Though it has a jumbled and bizarre appearance to the stranger, in Russian eyes Moscow is the embodi- ment of all that is grand and sacred and national. It is the citadel of the nation, and the shrine of its religion. The Russian author Mouravieff admits that Rome is interesting because it reminds him of Mos- cow ; " but then," says he, " Rome is Moscow without the Kremlin." To this holy place the Russian turns, as the ancient Jew to the temple at Jerusalem, and we must hasten to enter its gates and describe its many wonders. XXI. THE KREMLIN. THE BEGINNING OF MOSCOW THE RUSSIAN ACROPOLIS THE RED SQUARE AND THE GATE OF THE RE- DEEMER IVAN THE TERRIBLE, THE FIRST CZAR. The name of Moscow appears for the first time in the Russian chronicles in the year eleven hundred and forty-seven. It is there said that the Russian prince, luri Dolgoruki, having arrived on the domain of a boyar named Stephen Kutchko, caused him to be put to death on some pretext, and that, struck by the position of one of the villages situated on a height washed by the Moskva, the very spot where the Kremlin now stands, he built the city of Moscow. The name of a still existing church, " Saint Saviour of the Pines," preserves the memory of the thick forests that then clothed both banks of the Moskva on the space now covered by the Kremlin and the immense citadel. For a century onward the only mention of the place is the record that it was burned by the Tartars in 1237. Daniel, a son of Alexander Nevski, was the real founder of the principality, and at his death in 1303, he was the first to be buried in the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, which till the time of Peter the Great, remained the burying- place of the Russian princes. 130 ACROSS RUSSIA. The Kremlin occupies a Mil around which Moscow is built, and is enclosed by lofty walls, which have eighteen huge battlemented towers and five grand gateways. The Kremlin covers a space whose broad streets and squares are filled with churches and castles and palaces and towers and convents. Its recorded history dates from the fourteenth century, when it was to Moscow what the Acropolis was to Athens. The Prince lived in the palaces of the Kremlin, surrounded by his family and courtiers, the superior clergy of the nation, and the principal nobles. Ivan I. built the first walls of wood in 1330, and gave the Kremlin its Tartar name, which means fortress. Fifty years later the Tartars sacked and burned the city. Seven times has the devouring element consumed Moscow, the last conflagration hav- ing been lighted by the citizens themselves, in 1812, to prevent their city from falling into the hands of Napoleon. The Red Square is a broad, dusty, and noisy space, on the east of the Kremlin, ornamented only by a group of sculpture, representing Minin the cattle-dealer urging the patriot prince, Pojarskoi, to free his country, then invaded by the Poles, and giving his wealth for the purpose. From this square two imposing gates lead into the sacred fortress, called respectively the Spaski, or Redeemer's gate, and the Nicholas gate. Through the Redeemer's gate, which is painted red, with tall green spires, and has a lofty clock tower, we entered the Kremlin. Before passing under the arch we halted to view this imposing structure, built the year before Columbus discovered America, by Peter Solarius of Milan. It THE KREMLIN. 131 is the sacred and triumphal gate of Moscow. Above it is the venerated picture of the Redeemer, brought from Smolensk by the Czar Alexis in 1647, before which every person uncovers. The custom dates from 1613, when Russia was delivered from Polish rule, and the picture was carried in front of the vic- torious army of Pojarskoi, when he went forth to battle against the Poles by the direction of Dionysius, the head of the Troitsa Monastery. Thousands stop daily, as we did, to gaze, and other thousands to worship with bowings and prostrations, as we did not, at this Porta Sacra. According to Russian history the picture at the gate has been de- fended in a miraculous manner. When the Tartars would take it down for the sake of its golden frame, the ladders which they raised were repeatedly broken, until they gave up the attempt. An angel dampened the powder of the French, so that the cannon which they brought to batter down the gate would not ignite, and when determined to succeed, they put coals of fire on the touch-hole, the cannon burst, killed the gunners, and frightened the invaders from their impious attempt. No miracle is needed, how- ever, to induce the foreign unbeliever to take off his hat as he goes through the gate. If he neglects it, the chances are that some pious Russian will knock it off, and if this is not done, he will be taught his duty by the calls of the crowd, " shliipa, shlapa " (" the hat, the hat"). One bold English traveller thus records his experience at the gate : " I wished to see if the absurd rule was vigorously enforced, and feigning ignorance, entered beneath the arch with 132 ACROSS RUSSIA. my hat on. A sentinel challenged me ; but without taking notice of him I walked forward. Next a bare-headed peasant met me, and seeing my head covered, summoned the sentinels and people with very loud expressions of anger, who seizing me by the arms very soon taught me in what manner to pass the Holy Gate in future." Through this vener- able and venerated entrance, we passed, and on by the side of the Ascension Convent and the Chudof Monastery, to the Czar's Square and the Ivan Bell Tower. Ivan the Fourth was the first prince to take the title of Czar. Prince was not grand enough for a monarch who counted princes and even grand princes among his servants. The Slavonic language gave the title " Czar," meaning " the throne," or "suprem'e authority," to the kings of Judsea, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, and to the emperors of Rome and Constantinople. Ivan considered himself in some sort the successor of the Czar Nebuchadnezzar, the Czar Pharaoh, the Czar Ahasuerus, the Czar David. By his grandmother he was descended from the family of the Czars of Byzantium, and he was also in the line of descent from Constantino the Great. He had read much of the Bible, the lives of the Saints and the Byzantine Chroniclers, and had a high idea of what it was to be a king. Though he was young in years, he was old in thought. He had the heart of a ruler, and because his heart was not in God's hand he became a fearful tyrant. He is remembered as " Ivan the Terrible." At the age of thirteen he humbled the nobles by an astonishing coup d'Stat in which he had their leader torn in pieces, and THE KREMLIN. 133 all who would not submit were banished to distant towns; he conquered Kazan and Astrakhan, and freed the Volga so that from its source to its mouth it flowed through the land of the Czars. But he displayed the worst vices of personal immorality and unbridled ambition, and a cruelty and bloodthirstiness which increased as he grew older. One of his most faithful and noble princes was so alienated and inflamed against Ivan by his crimes that from his refuge in Poland he sent him this letter, by his servant Shipanof, whose foot Ivan nailed with the iron staff, which he always carried, on to a step of the Red staircase while the message was being read to him : " Czar formerly glorified by God ! Czar who formerly shone like the torch of orthodoxy, but who for our sins art now revealed to us in quite a different aspect, with a soiled and leprous conscience such as we could not find even among barbarian infidels ! Why hast thou put to death the strong ones of Israel ? Why hast thou slain the valiant voi vodui given thee by God ? Why hast thou shed their vic- torious blood, their holy blood, on the profaned pave- ment of the churches of God during the sacred ceremonies ? Why hast thou reddened the porch of the temple with the blood of the martyrs? In what were they guilty towards thee, O Czar ? Was it not their valor which overthrew those proud kingdoms of the Volga before which thine ancestors were slaves? Is it not their zeal, their intelligence to which, after God, thou owest the strong towns of the Germans? And behold thy gratitude to these un- 134 ACROSS RUSSIA. happy ones ! Thou hast exterminated whole families amongst us. Dost thou think thyself immortal then, O Czar, or seduced by some heresy, dost thou think that thou canst escape the incorruptible Judge, Jesus, our God ? No, he will judge the whole world, and chiefly such, proud persecutors as thou art. My blood, which has already flowed for thee like water, will cry against thee to our Lord. God sees all consciences." From the great square of the Kremlin we were looking upon the wonderful church which Ivan the Terrible had built to commemorate his conquest of Kazan, and on the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, where, in a cofiin of pine, covered with red cloth, the dreaded monarch sleeps his last sleep in company with his murdered sons. XXII. BELL TOWER AND CATHEDRAL. THE TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT, AND THE CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. The tower of Ivan the Great rises three hundred and twenty-five feet from the Kremlin, and is seen above all the domes and spires of the city. It is built in five stories, the lowest being a chapel, and was erected by Boris Godunof, to commemorate the deliverance of Russia from famine. The four lower stories are in octagon shape, and the highest is a cylinder surmounted by a gilded cupola with a cross upon its top. We climbed by four hundred and fifty steps to the gallery under the cupola, where the view of the city and its environs was alone enough to reward our labors. Half-way up is the gallery where the sovereigns used to address the people. On the way we saw the bells, thirty-four in number, of various sizes. The two smallest are said to be of silver and of exquisite tone. The largest hangs on the tier above the chapel and weighs sixty-four tons. It is the heaviest mounted bell in the world. Easter eve is the time to hear the Moscow bells. At midnight the great bell peals forth its solemn call, followed by a response from all the other bells in the four hundred churches of Moscow. The tower is 135 136 ACROSS KUSSIA. illuminated from basement to the summit of its golden cross, and the whole city blazes with light. The square of the Czar is filled with people and the churches are thronged. Into the midst of the throng, the archbishop comes forth from the church of the Virgin's Rest, where he has been holding a pompous ritual, and declares " Christ is risen." Then he goes around the church on his knees, saluting the icons, the altars, and the saints, whose tombs are opened. Every one salutes his friend with " Christos voscres," " Christ is risen," and the answer is returned, " Vo istine voscres," " He is risen." At the foot of the tower of Ivan, upon a granite pedestal, stands the monster bell with whose picture every child is familiar. Its history is interesting. It is said to have been cast in the reign of Boris Godu- nof, who built the tower, and to have been broken by falling to the ground during a fire in the reign of Alexis. In 1654 it was recast, and then weighed about one hundred and thirty tons, wa« fifty-four feet in circumference, and two feet thick. Twenty years later it was suspended from a framework at the foot of the tower, from which it fell and was broken in pieces in the fire of June 19, 1706. It was recast by the Empress Anna in 1733, when a great amount of metal was added; the nobles threw into the liquid metal their silver and gold and jewels, which con- tributions are said to have caused imperfections in the casting. It was never hung, and when another fire attacked the shed under which it was kept, the heat cracked the metal, and a wedge-shaped piece of eleven tons in weight broke out of its side. The THE GKLAi tstUL Uh MUbi^UW. BELL TOWER AND CATHEDRAL. 137 broken bell lay half-buried in the earth for a hundred years, till, in 1836, the Emperor Nicholas I. had it unearthed, and placed upon its pedestal, with the broken piece beside it. The bell weighs two hun- dred tons, is twenty-six feet high, and sixty-eight feet around the rim. It is about two feet thick, and is ornamented with figures in relief of the Czar Alexis and the Empress Anna. On the scroll below is a representation of the Saviour, the' Virgin, and the Evangelists, encircled by cherubim. There it stands, voiceless and broken, a monument of the pride of sovereigns and the vanity of human ambitions. The little silver bells in the cupola are a pleasure and a joy to multitudes, while this dumb monster is only a wonder to gaping sight-seers. At the left, in the rear of the tower, is the entrance through an iron gate to the Cathedral Square. It is a paved courtyard with the building of the holy Synod on one side, the Uspenski Sobor, or Cathedral of the Assumption in front, the great Palace with the Red Staircase, and the Cathedral of the Ascension on the left, and the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael between that and the tower. The oldest and most holy of these buildings is the Uspenski Sobor, formerly called the Patriarchal Cathedral, because the patriarchs officiated in it. It stands in the centre of the Kremlin, where the original build- ing, made of wood, was reared in 1326. When Ivan the Third became the ruler of Moscow, the wooden buildings were replaced with stone structures, and this was built after the model of the Cathedral of St. Dimitri at Vladimir, by a Bolognese architect. It is 138 ACROSS RUSSIA. a rectangular building, almost square, with five domes and a central cupola of copper gilded. The outside walls are plain, whitewashed, and with no pretentions to beauty. The interior blazes with gold and color, and is full of the most interesting monuments of Russian history. Here all the Czars, from Ivan the Terrible to the present Emperor, have been crowned. The inside of the cathedral is distinguished by four immense pillars that support the central cupola. The holy place and the two side altars are separated from the rest of the church by the screen or icon- astos, which is formed of five rows of pictures of saints and virgins framed in silver and gold and precious stones. The magnificence of this screen which is filled with frames of embossed metal set thick with diamonds and rubies and pearls and emeralds and turquoises, and the whole catalogue of precious gems, is beyond all imagination. The pil- lars and the walls are completely covered with paint- ings on gold, and all around the walls are rows of shrines and sacred images in gold and gems, and the tombs of patriarchs and bishops. But the splendor does not end here. From the lofty and richly or- namented domes, and from huge brackets around the walls, hang silver lamps suspended by golden chains, and massive candles in swinging candelabra of prec- ious metal. These points of light dispel the sombre atmosphere of the place, and falling upon the gems and burnished gold, illuminate the whole with sud- den bursts of glory. In this cathedral the worship is nearly the same as that which the deputies of Vladimir saw at Constan- BELL TOWER AND CATHEDRAL. 139 tinople, which made them feel that "in very truth God had his dwelling with men." This barbarian monarch had outgrown his heathenish belief; so, like the Japanese of to-day, he sent forth envoys to find the best religion. They visited Mohammedans, Jews, and Catholics. Vladimir declined the religion of Mohammed, which required circumcision and for- bade the wine, which was dear to Russians; and Judaism, whose disciples wandered through the earth; and Romanism, which seemed wanting in mag- nificence. But the splendors of St. Sophia at Stam- boul, the brilliancy of the priestly vestments, the grandeur of the ceremonies, heightened by the pres- ence of the Emperor and his court, the patriarch and his numerous clergy, the incense and the chanting, appealed powerfully to the imagination of the bar- barians, and Vladimir yielded, when the Boyars added : " If the Greek religion had not been the best, your grandmother, the wisest of mortals, would not have adopted it." So, for four centuries the ancient Byzantine rites have been followed in this church of the " Rest of the Virgin," except for a short space in 1605, when the hated Poles, with their Latin service and " kist o' whustles " — as much abhorred by Rus- sian as by Scot — profaned the sanctuary. One can hardly believe that this Church of the Assumption is of the same date as the luminous churches of the Renaissance. The architect, imitat- ing the Cathedral of the Coronations at Vladimir, has here reproduced the mysterious obscurity of the an- cient temples. The windows are small and the light comes through in pale and doubtful rays, like that 140 ACROSS RUSSIA. which filters through the hole of a dungeon; but where it touches it meets a responsive ray. It glows upon the massive pillars covered with burnished gold ; gleams upon the magnificent but gloomy background, from which stand out, severe and grave, the faces of saints and doctors ; it dwells here and there on the projections of the golden altar partition, covered by miraculous images and sprinkled with diamonds and jewels ; it hardly lights the representations of the last judgment and the end of the world painted on the wall of the church. All the upper part of the temple is buried in shadows like the crypts of the Pharaohs ; the pictures which cover the vault can hardly be dis- tinguished. Rambaud says, " The artist has evidently made them for the eye of God, not for that of man." " In the West," says Dean Stanley, " this church would be called a chapel rather than a cathedral. But it is so fraught with recollections, so teeming with worshippers, so bursting with tombs and pic- tures from the pavement to the cupola, that its small- ness of space is forgotten in the fullness of its con- tents. On the platform of its nave, from Ivan the Terrible downwards to this day, the Czars have been crowned. Along the altar screen are deposited the most sacred pictures of Russia ; that painted by the Metropolitan Peter; this sent by the Greek Emperor Manuel ; that bought by Vladimir from Kherson and adorned with jewels costing four hundred thousand rubles. High in the cupola is the chapel, where, as at the summit of the Russian church, the Russian primates were elected. Round the walls are buried the primates of the church; at the four corners — BELL TOWER AND CATHEDRAL. 141 here, as in all Oriental buildings, the place of honor — lie those most highly venerated." Here is the tomb of St. Peter, the first bishop and founder of the church ; close by is that of his successor, Theognostos, who died of the " black death " in 1353. In the op- posite corner is the tomb of St. Jonah. Napoleon opened it when he was in Moscow to see if the saint was "uncorrupt;" but Jonah shook his finger at the heretic intruder, and the " man of destiny " started back in terror. So says tradition. Here sleep also Cyprian beside the shrine of the seamless coat of our Lord, and Philip, the one martyr of the Rus- sian church, whom Ivan the Terrible put to death be- cause he reproved him for his cruelties and crimes. In front of the choir are three thrones — for the Czar, the Czarina, and the Patriarch. There were eleven Patriarchs, and the last died in 1700. Peter the Great refused to appoint his successor, and estab- lished in his place the Most Holy Synod, which is more submissive and subordinate to the Czar. It has eight members, six of whom are bishops. Behind the screen stands a representation of Mount Sinai, a miniature mountain of pure gold, the gift of Prince Potemkin. It encloses the Host, and contains nine- teen pounds of gold and the same amount of silver. Here, too, is a Bible, the cover studded with emeralds and diamonds, and so large as to require two men to carry it. It would be well if the Russian Church could sing the familiar hymn about the inside as well as the outside of this book : — " Holy Bible, book divine, Precious treasure, thou art mine." 142 ACROSS RUSSIA. But alas, neither priest nor people go beyond the cover. With great ceremony and solemnity we were taken into one of the side chapels to see a part of the Saviour's robe, brought from Persia, a nail of the true cross, the hand of St. Andrew, and the heads of St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Chrysostom. Poor vacant skulls, there was nothing in them, not even the truth ! Some Russian gentlemen and ladies who entered the chapel with us were most devout, kissing the relics with great fervor and much bowing and crossing. We were much more interested in the treasures of the sacristy, where was a golden cross worn by Peter the Great at the battle of Poltava, a jasper vase used at the coronation of Russian sover- eigns, and some crowns used also at their marriage. No more solemn ceremony occurs in the empire than the coronation of the Czar, which takes place in this church. It is preceded by fasting and seclusion. Upon the appointed day the Emperor, mounting a throne in the nave, places the crown upon his own head and assumes the imperial mantle and sceptre, after which, standing in the centre of the cathedral, he offers a prayer of intercession for the empire and recites the Creed. The holy Sacrament is then administered to him by the metropolitan. This bishop, the representative of all that is holy and noble in the Greek Church, is greatly beloved and revered by all the people. Dean Stanley notices this feature of Russian religion which has been noted by many others. The ordinary priests have no attrac- tion for the people and receive no reverence, which BELL TOWER AI^D CATHEDRAL. 143 is often due to their ignorance or their habits, but the higher clergy are venerated and almost wor- shipped, even as the Czar is. " Never," says Stanley, " have I seen such respect paid to any ecclesiastic. Had he been made of pure gold, and had every touch carried away a fragment of him, the enthusiasm of the people could hardly have been greater to kiss his hand, or lay a finger on the hem of his garment. The crowd frantically tossed to and fro as they struggled towards him — men, officers, and soldiers. Faintly and slowly his white cowl was seen moving on and out of the church, till he plunged into another vaster crowd outside, and when at last he drove off in his coach drawn by six black horses, every one stood bareheaded as he passed." Everything here is ancient and venerable. There is no tomb later than the time of the reformer Nikon ; the pictorial history goes back to the conversion of Vladimir, the first Christian Russian prince ; here are representations of the seven councils of the church, here are the pictures of the saints and their sacred relics. This is the innermost shrine of the Russian religion. XXIII. THE TOMBS OF THE CZARS. TWO FAMOUS CHURCHES CUPOLAS AND THEIR MEAN- ING IVAN THE GREAT THE MARTYR DIMITRI BORIS GODUNOF THE USURPER AND HIS END. The Czars are crowned in the Cathedral of the Assumption, they are baptized and married in another one, the Cathedral of the Annunciation. It is a little building, but it has nine golden domes or cupolas. The first Russian churches had only a single cupola, but as time went on the cupola ob tained a dogmatic significance : two were supposed to represent the human and divine natures of Christ : three, the Trinity; five, the Saviour and the four Evangelists; seven, the sacraments; nine, the celes- tial orders ; thirteen, Christ and the twelve apostles. There seems to be no end to this bulbous symbolism, and some churches had as many as thirty of these gilded ornaments. When the Patriarchate was estab- lished in 1589, a law was passed making ^yo the limit, and fixing that as the orthodox number. Of course those already existing were allowed to remain. The entrance to the church is by a covered stair- case leading to the main tower, over which are two pictures, one of the Redeemer and the other of the devil. The passage into the cathedral is lined with 144 THE TOMBS OF THE CZAES. 145 frescoes of famous heathen writers, such as Homer, Thucydides, Plato, and Pythagoras. Thus the Grecian heathen prepare the way into a Christian heathenism, for the worship in this temple seems but a modified idolatry. The floor is of agate and jasper, there are numerous jewelled lamps hung from the ceiling by golden chains. Two famous icons are exhibited here, one of the Saviour, the other of the " Virgin of the Don," which was carried as a standard by Dimitri at the famous battle of Kulikovo in 1380, when the Russians broke the Mongol yoke ; and it was again victorious in 1591, when Boris Godunof fought the Khan of the Crimea under the walls of Moscow. The French thought that this icon was only copper gilded, and so did not carry it away. They tore open the golden frame, but the Virgin is said to have smitten them with blindness, hence their mistake. The broken frame is shown to-day in proof of the miracle, which also preserved the golden cross of the central cupola. In the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael which stands close to that of the Assumption, the Czars are buried. It is a square building freshly whitewashed with five gilded domes. The first church was a memorial for the deliverance of Russia from famine in 1333, but the present building was reared in 1507, by an Italian architect. It has been pillaged and damaged many times, but as often restored. It now contains many gold and jewelled icons and its walls are covered with Byzantine paintings. Its chief interest lies in the fact that it is the burial place of forty-seven princes and one emperor of Russia. Ivan the Great brought here the earlier princes who 146 ACROSS RUSSIA. had been interred elsewhere, and the Romanoffs were all laid here till the time of Peter the Great. His grandson, Emperor Peter II., is the only one buried since. The tombs are arranged in genealogical order, each covered with a crimson velvet pall, and having also a silver plate on which is inscribed the dates of the bu'tli and death of the sovereign. Above the grave of each sovereign is his figure painted in the white robes worn at his coronation. All is solemn and severe. Gautier says simply : " Death here is not made beautiful by the delicate blossoms of Gothic art, which in other lands cluster so luxuriantly about the tomb. No kneeling angels, no theological virtues, no weeping emblematic figures, no saints in niches of open-work, no fanciful scrolls entwined around heraldic devices, no knights clad in armor, the head upon a marble cushion, the feet upon a sleeping lion : only the corpse in its funeral coffer covered by a mortuary pall. Doubtless art loses by this, but the religious impression is enhanced." Every Czar, after being crowned in the Cathedral of the Assumption, came over to this Cathedral of the Archangel Michael to meditate and pray among the tombs of his ancestors. Karamsin says that Dimitri, the conqueror of Kulikovo, came here before his victorious expedition against the Tartars in 1380, and now he sleeps beside Ivan Kalita, the founder of the church, and Simeon the Proud, who died of the plague, leaving the first will written on paper in Russia. Next came Vassili, the son of Dimitri, and Vassili the Blind, who introduced the cruel Tartar punishment of the knout into Russia. I THE TOMBS OF THE CZAES. 147 The regular succession of tombs begins with that of Ivan the Great, the third of the Ivans. He was one of the most illustrious monarchs of his age, honored and respected from Rome to Constantinople, from Vienna to Copenhagen. He believed in him- self as " a man of destiny," like Napoleon ; by force and craft, he firmly established the Russian monarchy ; a victor who fought no battles, but " triumphed over his enemies while remaining quietly at home." He was the first to receive the surname of," The Terri- ble," but he was terrible only to his enemies and to rebels. In his reign the knowledge of gunpowder and the art of casting cannon were brought to Russia ; Italian architects built the Kremlins of Moscow and Novgorod, and he had for his wife Sophia Paleologus, the last of her line, who brought to Russia the cere- monials of the Greek Church. Next to Ivan III. rests his son Vassili, under whose reign Russia became united and autocratic, and then we come to the tomb of the first Czar, the real " Ivan the Terrible." I have already told how he seized the supreme power when only thirteen years old, and made the nobles tremble ; of his cruelty and fury when he nailed the foot of the envoy to his throne with his iron-pointed staff ; and in a fit of rage slew his own son with the same weapon, and then died of grief because in his anger he had destroyed his heir and undone all that years of war and royal effort had secured for Russia and its monarchs. Endless are the tales of this Czar. He is said to have nailed an Englishman's hat to his head because he did not take it off in his presence, to have let bears loose in Moscow that he might hear 148 ACROSS RUSSIA. the people scream, and that when he was walking out, he would order the head of any one whose ap- pearance displeased him to be cut off. Yet in spite of all these cruel and tyrannous acts, he was beloved and honored with a superstitious affection rendered nowhere else than in Russia to the sovereign. To this day the peasants have the same devotion and personal attachment to the monarch. An old Russian song describes the burial of Ivan : — " Ah, thou bright moon ; father moon, Why dost thou not shine as of old time ? Why art thou hidden by a dark cloud ? At the Ouspenski Cathedral Of Michael the Archangel They beat upon the great bell, They gave forth a sound over the whole damp mother earth. All the princes — the boyars came together ; All the warrior people assembled To pray to God in the Ouspenski Cathedral. There was a new coffin made of cypress wood ; In the coffin lies the orthodox Czar — The orthodox Czar Ivan Vassilivitch the Terrible. At his head lies the life-giving cross ; By the cross lies the imperial crown ; At his feet lies the terrible sword ; Around the coffin burn the holy lights ; In front of the coffin stand all the priests and patriarchs ; They read, they pray, they repeat the farewell to the dead. To our orthodox Czar, To Czar Ivan Vassilivitch the Terrible." But there is one shrine here which is more sacred to the Russian than all the rest. It is that of a child of six years old, who was cruelly murdered in order THE TOMBS OF THE CZAES. 149 to further the ambitious plans of Boris Godunof, the brother-in-law of Feodor, who was the reigning Czar. Dimitri, youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, by his seventh wife, would have been the natural successor of Feodor, his much older brother, but Boris sacrificed to his ambition the son of his benefactor, the heir of his master, the last descendant of the founders of Russia. He knew that Feodor's death would give the throne to Dimitri, and power to his relatives, and that he would then have to pay the penalty for his cruelties and crimes, and so he determined to put him to death. The Russian story is pathetic, and it is not won- derful that the tomb of this royal child is still wreathed with flowers and watered with the tears of this most affectionate and sentimental people. It runs thus : A tender mother watched over Dimitri ; warned by secret friends, or by her own heart, she redoubled her care for the child of her heart. She never left him by day or b}^ night; she never quitted his chamber except to go to church ; she, and she alone, prepared his food, and would not entrust him either to his treacherous governess or to his devoted nurse, Irene. A considerable time elapsed, after which the assassins, despairing of being able to com- mit their crime in secret, resolved to carry it out openly, in the hope that the powerful and crafty Godunof, to save his honor, would find a means of concealing the act from the eyes of his dumb slaves ; for they only thought of men and not of God ! On the fifteenth of May, a Saturday, at the sixth hour of the day, the Czaritsa came back from church with 150 ACROSS RUSSIA. her son, and was preparing for dinner. Her brothers were away from the palace, and the servants were occupied with their domestic duties. At that moment the governess called for Dimitri to take him out for a walk in the court ; the Czaritsa wished to follow, but unfortunately, her attention was called off, and she lingered. The nurse tried to prevent the Czarevitch from going out, but the governess drew him forcibly into the vestibule and thence upon the staircase, where- they were met by three assassins. The first, Volokoff, taking the child by the hand, said, " Sire, you have a new collar on." The child, raising his head, said, "No, it is an old one." At that moment the knife of the assassin struck him, but he was only slightly wounded and he slipped out of the hands of Volokoff. The nurse then raised piercing outcries, clasping her infant sovereign in her arms, while the assassin fled. But the two others, Bitiagof- sky and Katchatoff, snatched Dimitri from his nurse, stabbed him and threw him down the Red Staircase, just as his mother appeared from the vestibule. The young martyr lay bleeding in the arms of the nurse who had tried to defend him at the risk of her life. "He palpitated like a dove," and breathed his last without hearing his mother's cries. The nurse pointed out with her finger the wicked governess, trembling at the crime, and the assassins who were crossing the court. No one was then at hand to arrest them, but the Divine Avenger was present. In due time, Boris obtained his desires, and was elected Czar by the States-General. He feigned reluctance to accept the place, but when the nobles THE TOMBS OF THE CZAKS. 151 urged, and his sister, the widow of the former Czar, " blessed him for the throne," and thus appeared to consecrate the wish of the people, he yielded and reigned in the stead of his victim. His reign was not without glory, but his prosperity was illusory. His wisdom, his success, even his charities turned against him. " He presented to the poor," says a contemporary, "in a vase of gold, the blood of the innocents. He fed them with unholy arms." A dreadful famine desolated Russia, and half a million of people lay dead in the streets of the capital, whither they had flocked upon hearing that Boris Godunof was feeding the hungry. The famine was attributed to his crimes. He was surrounded by plots ; it was predicted that in seven years his reign would end. The ghost of the unavenged Dimitri haunted Russia. While Boris lived he was never at rest ; for rumors that the murdered Dimitri was living caused a strange uneasiness throughout the Empire ; false Dimitris appeared, aroused the people in rebel- lion and threatened the usurper. He died after years made miserable by anxiety and remorse, and a brilliant reign which accomplished nothing. His place was usurped by pretenders worse than he, and Russia was in a state of anarchy till the Romanof dynasty of the kin of Ivan the Fourth gave a legitimate sovereign to the empire, and rest to the people. The body of Boris was cast out of this church by his successor, the false Dimitri ; and his in turn was burned, and the ashes thrown to the four winds. So perish the ambi- tions, the pomps, and the persons, of proud malefac- tors. XXIV. TWO RUSSIAN SANCTUARIES. THE SACRISTY OF THE HOLT SYNOD — ECCLESIASTICAL TREASURES THE HOLY CHRISM RARE MANUSCRIPTS A murderer's prayer THE RED STAIRCASE AND ITS TRAGEDIES THE IBERIAN MOTHER. We entered the sacristy of the Holy Synod. It was formerly the Patriarch's house, and now is a patriarchal museum. Here are the rich robes which these venerable and powerful men wore from 1308 onwards, the church vessels, and many objects of great antiquity. One of the robes is embroidered all over with the Nicene Creed worked in pearls, others are adorned with jewels and elegantly wrought gold plates. One garment, which Ivan the Terrible presented to the Metropolitan Denys in memory of the Czarevitch Ivan, and in expiation of his murder, is so loaded down with rubies, emeralds, alexandrites, and diamonds, that it is said to weigh fifty-four pounds. Rather an uncomfortable gown that, to preach and pray in, even for the gigantic priests of the Greek Church! There are seven magnificent mitres, one of which was worn by Patriarch Job in 1695, and four belonged to Nikon. The largest of these weighs five pounds and a half, and is full of pearls and sapphires, emeralds, rubies and dia- 162 TWO ETJSSIAN SANCTUARIES. 153 monds. There are portable pyxes of gold and sar- donyx and onyx with enamelled mountings of the twelfth century, and there are three ancient pastoral staffs with impressive histories. But the most interesting room is that in which the Holy Chrism or anointing oil is prepared. We were ushered into this sacred laboratory with great for- mality. In a copper vase overlaid with pearl and called the " Alabaster," is kept the sacred oil sent from Constantinople, when Christianity was intro- duced into Russia. A few drops are taken from it every year to be used in sanctifying the mixture pre- pared by the Metropolitan Bishop of Moscow, and this subtraction is replaced by a subsequent addition, so that nothing is lost through the centuries, and all the anointing oil retains its sanctifying character. This ointment is used at the baptism of every or- thodox Russian, as well as in the consecration of churches and at the coronation of emperors. The holy oil is made once in three years, in Passion week, by the bishop and higher clergy, with great solemnity and care, at Moscow and at Kieff, and thence dis- tributed over the empire. Some thirty ingredients compose the mixture, whose basis is oil and white wine. Roses, lavender, marjoram, balsams and gums, essential oils and spices, are stirred together in an immense silver caldron and in two smaller silver kettles, presented by Catherine the Second; silver ladles and sieves and other utensils of precious metal are also used in the preparation, and these sacred vessels weigh thirteen hundred pounds. When all is done, and the drops from the " Alabaster " have 154 ACROSS RUSSIA. been added, the chrism is poured into sixteen silver jars, the gift of Paul I., and kept for distribution to the bishops of the different dioceses. The " Chrism " is a rite peculiar to the Greek Church. It is called the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost, and imme- diately follows the baptism, when the priest anoints the person baptized on the chief parts of the body, with the ointment which I have described. At the baptism of children, the priest crosses with a small camel's hair brush or a feather, the mouth, eyes, ears, hands, and feet, besides the back and breast ; the eyes are anointed in order that the child may only see good, the ears that he may admit only what is pure, the mouth that he may speak as be- comes a Christian, the hands that they may do no wrong, and the feet that they may tread in the path of virtue. In the Library of the Patriarchs there are now no printed books, but many valuable manuscripts, in- cluding three copies of the Evangelists attributed to the eighth century, and a Slavonian Gospel dated 1143. A curious memorial of the vengeance of Ivan the Terrible is to be found in one of these old manu- scripts. It is the Synodical letter of the Monastery of St. Cyril, in which Ivan asks the prayers of the church for each of his victims by name. The manu- script shows a list of three thousand four hundred and seventy victims, of whom nine hundred and eighty-six are mentioned by name. Many of the lists are followed by the statement, " with his wife," " with his wife and children," " with his sons." This TWO RUSSIAN SANCTUAKIES. 155 was literally the extermination of families, for the constitution of the Russian family was so strong at that epoch, that the official death of the head neces- sitated that of the members. The following passage occurs about Novgorod : '' Remember, Lord, the souls of thy servants to the number of fifteen hundred and five persons, Novgorodians." Thus did their royal murderer pray for his victims ! Strangers enter the palace at the entrance opposite the terrace toward the town, but the imperial family come and go by the Red Staircase leading to the hall of St. Vladimir, a place which has been con- nected with some of the most fearful tragedies in Russian history. Here Ivan the Terrible watched the comet, whose tail resembled a cross, and declared "it is the warning of my death," which actually oc- curred soon after. On this same staircase the dead bodies of the son of Boris Godunof and his mother, who had been smothered by the false Dimitri, were exhibited to the people to convince them that the young Czar was dead ; and down these steps in due time the usurper was thrown, according to the old Russian proverb: — Koti khud knyaz Tak y gryaz. " li the prince is bad, throw him into the mud." A dreadful conflict took place here between the representatives of the two wives of the Emperor Alexis, one of whom was Maria Miloslavski, mother of Feodor and Ivan, and the other, Natalia Naryskin, the mother of Peter the Great. This quarrel re- sulted in a fearful butchery in the palace itself, 166 ACROSS RUSSIA. which only ceased when both Ivan and Peter were procLaimed Czars, while Sophia really reigned in their name. The two-seated throne in which the young Czars sat, while Sophia sat behind hidden by a veil of silk and directed the government, is still preserved at Moscow. It is a curious reminder of a triple rule, composed of two visible Czars and one invisible sovereign. Seven years later, in 1689, Peter the Great, clad in his robes of State, pro- claimed himself the lawful ruler of Russia, having deposed and imprisoned his imperious sister. Thus the Red Staircase becomes a most interesting place to the visitor who has read Russian history. We were not allowed to ascend it, but the courteous official who showed us through the palace, permitted us to pass through the glass doors and stand upon the platform which had witnessed these scenes. As we were going to the Kremlin one fine morn- ing we saw all the people pulling off their hats, and looking for the cause, discovered not far off the chariot of the Iberian mother. This is the mirac- ulous image of the Virgin which was brought from Mt. Athos in the time of the Czar Alexis, and which has been ever since the palladium of Moscow. Her home is in a gorgeous little chapel situated at the Iverski gate of the Kitai Gorod. The whole chapel is imitation ; the outside is of imitation marble, the pillars of imitation malachite, the roof is painted blue to imitate the sky and is covered with gilt stars, and the icon itself is after all only a copy. I venture to say, that I truly believe that the miracles wrought by the image are as much of a sham as the rest. But faith TWO RUSSIAN SANCTUAEIES. 167 does wonders in Russia as well as in New York. All day long people may be seen kneeling in the chapel and in front of it. Every one who goes by takes off his hat and crosses himself, from the cab-driver to the prince, and multitudes of gifts are made at the shrine. Not less than ten thousand rubles a year are collected here. The chapel is lighted by thirteen silver lamps, and there the dark brown icon hangs in the midst of real gold and pearls, a net of pearls around her head, a huge diamond clasp on the shoulder and another above her brow, and on the head a golden crown. Around the picture are hangings of gold brocade ornamented with angel's heads painted on porcelain and silver wings. Her hand and foot are encrusted with pious dirt from the constant kisses of the faith- ful. Here come the peasants early in the morning before going to market, and here the merchant pauses on his way to business ; the healthy and the sick, those who are going to travel and those who have just ar- rived. When the Czar comes to Moscow, the first thing he does is to go and worship this image. Beg- gars are here in crowds and jostle elegantly-dressed ladies who descend from splendid equipages and kneel on the dirty steps or prostrate themselves on the floor of the chapel. Kohl says, that there is a little scratch in the right cheek of the picture which distils blood. I confess that I did not see it any more than I could see the winking Madonna at Rome. Nobody knows how the wound was inflicted ; some say by Circassians or Turks, but the miraculous quality of the picture is due to the tradition, that 168 ACROSS RUSSIA. at the moment when the steel pierced the canvas, the drops of blood fell from the painted cheek, and the miracle continues. To the question whether miracles were daily wrought by the icon, the monk replied : " Certainly, if it be the will of God and there is faith, for it is written in the Holy Word that faith alone blesses." It may be asked how we chanced to see the Virgin in the street. There are two of them, one said to be real, and the other a copy. The real one goes out visiting, and does a lively business. No new house is built without sending for the Iberian mother to come and bestow a blessing upon it, which often costs a hun- dred rubles. She goes to the houses of the sick and to weddings in her golden chariot driven by a bare- headed coachman with two bare-headed footmen and several priests in attendance inside to support the table on which she rests. If the calls are too fre- quent for the priest, word is sent, " The Mother is fatigued to-day and cannot come." But wherever she goes she gathers money and gifts in great abun- dance. The salary of the Metropolitan is paid by the Virgin, and convents and monasteries are enriched by her. She takes up a constant collection, and is the most profitable Virgin in the empire. A princess who tried to share her wealth by biting off a big dia- mond from her robe when pretending to kiss her, was detected and sent to Siberia, which shows how dan- gerous it is to trifle with the miraculous. The bald- est idol-worship of the heathen is not more saddening than the worship of this image of the "Mother of God " by the Christians of Russia. XXV. MOSCOW FROM THE SPARROW HILLS. THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS THE SPARROW HILLS — THE CONVICT PRISON SIBERIAN EXILES THE NOVO- DEVICHI CONVENT AND ITS NUNS. Palaces and churches did not occupy all of the hours in Moscow. Each day we managed to find time for some sort of a drive, though the pavements and roads are not such as to invite one to ride over them for pleasure. One of the most interesting of these excursions was to the Sparrow Hills, distant from four to six miles, according to the starting- point and the course followed. If the weather is wet, the greater part of the road is horribly rutted by the wheels of thousands of loaded wagons; if the weather is dry, the dust is one dense cloud of fine, penetrating powder. There is no intermediate state, or, rather, both conditions are a sort of purgatory from which one can escape at both ends. The diive is always to be taken in the afternoon, in order to get the best view of the city. The road lies through the southern part of the town, beyond the river Moskva, which was the district burned at the French invasion. We passed many of the churches with their onion-shaped domes, gilded and painted green and blue, surmounted by the crescent 169 160 ACROSS RUSSIA. and the cross, and often with chains of metal hang- ing from the pinnacle down to the dome. We noticed everjrwhere in Russia the combination of the crescent and the cross. It is explained that the Tartars during their occupation of Russia changed the churches into mosques and placed the crescent upon them. When the Tartars were ex- pelled by Ivan Vassilivitch, the Greek worship was restored, but the crescent was left, and the cross placed above it, in token of victory. There are usually two bars upon the crosses, and the lower one, intended for the feet, is always placed at an angle. The explanation of this is, that the Russians believe that our Lord was lame ; that he took upon himself not only the sins and sorrows of men, but also their physical infirmities ; that according to the prophet, "he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. . . . We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. ... It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." The frequent villas and gardens are a peculiarity of Moscow, occurring as they do often at intervals between densely occupied parts of the city. After a long and dusty ascent through deep ruts in the clay soil, the summit of the Sparrow Hills is reached. It is covered with wooden hotels and restaurants of the commonest sort, and as we arrived on a feast day, the place was crowded with people. There were officers in grand uniform, and ladies in the latest Paris fashions ; nurses and children, the former clad in the Russian costume, — a white woollen chemise MOSCOW FROM THE SPARROW HILLS. 161 cut low in the neck, with short flowing sleeves, and a skirt of some dark material gathered into a belt or band above the waist, and hung from the shoulders by straps ; over this skirt was a white apron fastened to the belt. On their heads they wore huge turbans of red or pink or blue, and necklaces and earrings completed their costume. Many of the men wore pink and red shirts and long Wellington boots. Some were promenading, and drinking tea with slices of lemon in it from glass tumblers, while others were making substantial meals, with wines and liquors in abundance. The view from the place is superb, the river winding through cultivated fiel'ds, and in the dis- tance the many glittering domes and white walls of the great city, with a deep blue sky and dazzling sunshine over all. It was from this height that Napoleon first saw Moscow after his long and weary march, and exclaimed, "At last the famous city; it was high time." Upon these hills the Russian gen- eral, Kutuzoff, called a council of war after the battle of Borodino ; and the sight of the beloved and holy city at their feet, condemned to perish, caused inex- pressible emotion to the Russian generals. The only question before them was this : Must the army be destroyed in order to save Moscow ? One general said that " when it became a matter of the salvation of Russia and of Europe, Moscow was only a city like any other." Others said, "It would be glorious to die under Moscow, but it is not a question of glory." Prince Eugene said, "As the tomb is the end of man's journey on earth, so Moscow ought to 162 ACROSS BUSSIA. be the goal, the tomb, of the Russian warrior; beyond it another world begins." Kutuzoff listened to all, and then said, "Here my head, be it good or bad, must decide for itself," and he ordered a re- treat beyond the town. Yet he felt that Moscow was not "only a city like any other," and he would not pass through it, but went around by the suburbs, weeping as he went. And then the city was given up to the flames. The governor of the town had provided for its destruction so thoroughly that his words to his son were prophetic: "Salute Moscow for the last time; in half an hour you will see it in flames." The army of Napoleon marched into Moscow, and the Emperor of the French entered the palace of the Kremlin ; but in a month he was forced by fire and hunger and frost and desolation to retreat, and the world knows the di'eadful tale. It was Rus- sia that crushed Napoleon, and Waterloo was only the last act in a drama of which the moving spirit was the Czar Alexander. There is one sad place upon the Sparrow Hills. It is the convict prison. Here the exiles condemned to Siberia are assembled, and hence they are sent forth in bands. I saw but one of these bands, and not at Moscow. It was composed of different classes of convicts. Some were from the lowest order of the people, in chains and clad in rags ; others were from the middle classes; while others still rode in car- riages guarded by soldiers, and were not fettered at all. The ordinary traveller cannot learn much of the government of a country unless the rulers favor his MOSCOW FROM THE SPAEROW HILLS. 163 investigations. Russia is opposed to outside scru- tiny and criticism, and hence less is actually known, and more is left to the imagination and to the reports of enemies, than in other countries. Exiles to Siberia doubtless suffer much from the weary journey, the poor accommodations on the road, the severity and inhumanity which the victims of law have to bear in most lands, and from compulsory association with those who may be justly punished for great and dreadful crimes. But it must be remembered that Russian peasants, and all but the nobles, are accus- tomed to hardships and severities of climate and con- dition which are little known elsewhere. Things are viewed differently from different stand- points: That which would be brutality to a refined and delicate woman might seem only urgency to a dull and coarse laborer; and while I would shrink from justifying cruelty or apologizing for tyranny and oppression, it is right to let it be known that many tales of Russian exiles and convict life are as imaginary as those of the Arabian Nights, and that much of the so-called " Russian news " is manufac- tured in countries hostile to Russia, and by Nihilists and Socialists who hate all restraint, and violate all human and divine laws which hinder the execution of their schemes. Yet will we pity the Siberian exile: he is banished from home; he is legally dead; his wife may decline to go with him, and be free from the marriage bond; he has thousands of miles to travel before he reaches his new place of abode; and if he survives the hardships and dangers of the way, he has to begin life over again, conscious that 1(54 ACROSS RUSSIA. he is watched and suspected, and that he can never be a free and happy man. For the continuance of the system, the exiles cannot justly blame the gov- ernment, which, knowing the atrocious and reckless attempts to destroy the present Czar and the brutal murder of his benevolent and kindly predecessor, surrounds its sovereign with all the protection pos- sible and punishes with severity crimes against the majesty of the law and the safety of the empire. From the Sparrow Hills we went to the Novo- Devichi (New Maidens) Monastery. High battle- mented walls enclose the six churches and other buildings which compose this conventual establish- ment. The cathedral church has five beautiful domes hung with elaborate chains and decorated with gold and colors. In the campanile is a chime of silvery bells. The entrance is through a lofty gate which leads into flower gardens, where you walk among graves of the past and nuns of the pres- ent who are buried from the world. The nuns are chiefly occupied in religious services and in educat- ing noble ladies. We entered the church, which was floored with marble and adorned with gorgeous icons, and half full of people, who were standing, bowing, and pros- trating themselves. A service was going on, the litany being sung by the nuns, led by the officiating priest, a venerable man with long gray hair and beard. It was ineffably sweet and full of pathos. The nuns wore long black robes and pointed hoods, and bowed and crossed themselves constantly. For MOSCOW FROM THE SPAREOW HILLS. 165 nearly an hour we attended tlie service, standing all the time, but enjoying much the rich voices of the singers. Then the abbess came and took us into the refectory, where soup and black bread formed the meal, and through the dormitories, which were neat and clean. Bouquets of flowers were given to the ladies, and I was honored with a loaf of sour black bread, which I afterwards gave to a beggar, who blessed me loudly for the gift. It was to this con- vent that Irene, the widow of Feodor and daughter of Ivan the Terrible, retired after the death of her husband, "in whose person," says the Russian histo- rian Mouravieff, "the race of Rurik, after six cen- turies, bade its final farewell to Russia, and by whose departure the royal house of Moscow was left tenantless." Here Sophia the Czarina, who gov- erned as regent during the minority of her brothers, Peter the Great and Ivan, was shut up after the revolution of the Streltsi, by order of Peter, who had two thousand of the Streltsi executed, ninety-five of whom were hung in front of the Czarina's cell. Her tomb is in the church, with an inscription which states that she was forty-six years old, and had been a nun five years eight months and twelve days. A contemporary French writer gives the following pen- portrait of this royal woman, who was only inferior among Russian princesses to Catherine the Second: "Her mind and her abilit}^ bear no relation to the deformity of her person, as she is immensely fat, with a head as large as a bushel, hairs on her face, and tumors on her legs, and at least forty years old. But in the same degree that her stature is broad, 166 ACROSS RUSSIA. short, and coarse, her mind is slirewd, unprejudiced, and full of policy." We bade the polite abbess of the Novo-Deyichi Convent adieu, and jolted back to Moscow, charmed and wearied with the day's excursion. XXVI. TWO WONDERFUL CHURCHES. ST. BASIL — ST. SAVIOUR. Two churches in Moscow, out of the hundreds which adorn the city, attract the visitor at once, and dwell longest in his memory. They are "St. Basil the Beatified " and " St. Saviour." The former was built by the order of Ivan the Terrible in 1555, to commemorate his conquest of Kazan; the latter was designed in 1816 by Alexander I., to commem- orate the deliverance of Moscow from the French, and completed upon a different plan by Nicholas and his sucessors in 1883. Both are remarkable struc- tures, and well worth careful inspection and detailed description. There is nothing in the world like the St. Basil for strange construction and fantastic appearance, and St. Saviour is unique in its exqui- site and dazzling beauty among modern edifices. The story of St. Basil, or Vassili Blagennoi, as it is called in Russia, is as peculiar as the structure is fantastic. The legend is — for it can hardly be a true story — that Ivan the Terrible ordered the church to be built as a thank-offering to God for the taking of Kazan, and at the cost of that principality. When the architect had completed his task, the Czar was so delighted with the building that he decreed that 168 ACROSS RUSSIA. this churcli should remain a unique monument of human genius; and lest its author should build others like it, the cruel despot ordered his ey^s to be burned out. Another version of the tale is that Ivan asked the architect if he could construct a more beautiful building. The unfortunate Italian replied in the affirmative, and the tyrant ordered his head taken off, so that St. Basil might stand unrivalled. Humanity distrusts the story, and gives it credit only as a di-amatic explanation of the existence of such a monstrosity. Only a Frenchman can do jus- tice to a building like this, and I shall give the description by one who, both as an artist and an author, has noted the fantastic features of this strangest of edifices which the mind of man ever conceived. Th^ophile Gautier writes: "Imagine upon a kind of platform, isolated by sunken ground, the oddest, the most incoherent, the most amazing accumulation of cabins, cells, staircases projected upon the outside, arched galleries, unexpected re- cesses and equally unexpected salient portions, uns}Tnmetrical porches, chapels in juxtaposition, windows cut through as if by accident, indescribable forms resulting from interior arrangement, as if the artist had begun at the heart of the building and had done all his work from the inside. From the roof of this building, which you would take for a Hindoo, Chinese, or Thibetan pagoda, springs a forest of bell-towers in the strangest taste, and fanciful to an unapproachable extreme. The central one, the highest and most massive, presents three or four stories between the roof and the point where its CHURCH OF ST. BASIL, ^jc/j>i%,;iL.' TWO WONDERFUL CHTJECHES. 169 spire begins. First there are colonettes and dentic- ulated fillets; then pilasters enclosing long mul- lioned windows ; finally small arches one above the other like the scales of a fish ; on the sides of the spire crosiers indenting each angle, the whole terminated by a lantern surmounted by a golden bulb, bearing the Russian cross upon its point. The others, less every way in size, assume shapes like minarets, and their fantastical carved turrets terminate in onion- shaped cupolas. Some are hammered into facets, others ribbed; these are cut diamond-wise, those have spiral stripes ; others are imbricated with scale work, lozenged, figured in a honeycomb pattern, and all carry at their summits golden balls." Add to these curious shapes, and the intermin- gling of representations of pineapples, artichokes, onions, melons, flowers, and leaves, with columns and arches and pinnacles and small pyramids, the varieties of color, and the effect is startling. Every cupola is of a different color, — red, green, blue, yellow, purple. The details of the architecture are painted in different shades with all the art of a fresco-painter. Panels are ornamented with pots of flowers and heraldic designs and rosettes and fanci- ful figures. There are designs like India shawls; now you might imagine yourself gazing at an exhi- bition of Doulton pottery, and anon in a group of Byzantine kiosks* or Chinese pagodas. Child says: " It is a fantastic architectural dream, suggestive of uncanny sea-monsters, half fish and half flower; of gigantic fruits, or of vegetables and Oriental turbans of such capricious and impossible proportions as one 170 ACROSS RUSSIA. might conceive in a nightmare"; and Gautier is even more vivid : " It is without any doubt the most original building in the world, reminding one of nothing he has ever seen before, and belonging to no style ; a gigantic madrepore, you may say, a colossal crystallization, an inverted grotto of stalactites. There it stands with all the appearances of reality, and you ask yourself if it is not a mirage of the fancy, an edifice of clouds tinted by the sunset, liable at a breath of wind to change its shape or to vanish away." After wearying our eyes with gazing, and our necks with twisting and turning to see the outside, we entered the church by a long and broad flight of steps and through an iron gateway. If the outside was fantastic, the interior was incongruous and ab- surd. Here are a dozen chapels and churches tied and twisted together, every one different. This is a cavern or grotto resplendent with gold and mosaics, that is the inside of the spire or the bulb of a cupola. The outside form decides the shape of the inside sanctuar}^ There is a barbaric display of gold and color upon the walls, and an unecclesiastical arrange- ment of sacred things that suggests a semi-paganism. Figures like idols stare at you from the silver frames, or rise. up stiff and stern from the wall as you turn a corner; their great eyes seem like living orbs, and their huge fingers, bent to make the ortho- dox sign of the Trinity, have a weird and solemn look. The daylight comes slipping in through crevices, and mingles with the flickering rays from ever-bum- TWO WONDERFUL CHURCHES. 171 ing lamps of gold and silver. From one chapel you wind by narrow corridors and low-arched galleries of stone into another, and by labyrinthine ways you explore the building. Without a guide you could do nothing; for there are multitudes of blind ways and staircases leading up and down, and galleries that bring one suddenly on the outside of a tower or a cornice. I was continually thinking, as I walked through these dim and tortuous paths, varied now and then by glimpses of gorgeous grandeur, of the hopeless wanderings of a lost soul, and was glad to come forth from the architectural maze and visit a building devoted to similar uses but of a very differ- ent style. St. Saviour is the finest modern church in Russia. It was built to commemorate the deliverance of Moscow from the French in 1812. It bears the motto " God with Us " over the entrance, and its imposing structure, crowned with an enormous golden dome, is seen from every part of the city. Alexander the First conceived the idea of erecting such a memorial upon the Sparrow Hills from which Napoleon the First looked down upon Moscow. The dishonesty of the architect and the unsuitable character of the soil for the erection of so heavy a building led to the abandonment of the project in 1825, and it was not revived till 1839, at which date the present temple was begun. Forty-four years were occupied and ten millions of dollars were spent to build it. Russian labor and materials alone were employed in its construction. It covers an area of ten thousand square feet, is three hundred and forty 172 ACROSS RUSSIA. feet high, and will hold seven thousand persons. Its exterior walls are of white stone ; at each corner is a golden belfry, and in the centre rises a golden dome ninety-eight feet in diameter. The main por- tico has thirty-eight magnificent columns, and steps of polished granite lead to rich bronze doors on each of the four fronts. This temple differs from most Russian churches in being one lighted by sixty windows, and these enable the visitors to note the marvellous richness of the interior. The walls are richly decorated with highly polished Labradorite and with superb mosaic work. In the central dome, which is ninety-one feet in diameter, is a representation of the Eternal Father surrounded by angels, with the Son of God sitting as a child on his right hand, and on his finger the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove ; thus symbolizing the Trinity according to the dogmas of the Greek Church. On the border around are representations of the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the Patriarchs, King David, the Apostles, the Prophets, the Martyr Stephen, the Emperor Constantine, St. Vladimir, and St. Alex- ander Nevski — an assemblage of divinities and saints well designed to impress the Russian devotee. A striking feature of the church consists in one hun- dred and seventy-seven marble tablets, on the walls of the upper galleries, inscribed with the names of battles in the war with France, and with the names of those Russian officers who fell in them. The holy of holies contains relics of untold value, and CCCf TWO WONDERFUL CHURCHES. 173 there are upper chapels to St. Nicholas and to Alex- ander Nevski which are full of splendors. From thence a staircase leads to an external platform with a golden railing, from which the view of the city with its river and suburbs, and hundreds of domed and pinnacled churches, and of the Kremlin, is superb. Frescoes and mosaics of Scripture scenes alternating with subjects from Russian history in the interior are worthy of study. The services of Christmas Day in Moscow, and especially in this church, celebrate equally the birth of Christ and the retreat of the invaders from Russian soil. Dean Stanley says, that the lesson for the day is " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning " ; and this is in the Gospel, " Look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh"; and the epistle for the day is, " Who through faith subdued kingdoms, waxed valiant in flight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Thus religion and patri- otism unite in the Christmas celebrations at St. Saviour of Moscow. XXVII. SOME RUSSIAN CHARITIES. THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL — THE NICHOLAS INSTITUTE. Moscow in many of its aspects is an Oriental city. The streets are full of men, but few women are to be seen. At the parks and gardens there is no gathering of families as in a German capital ; indeed, it seemed inconsistent with the habits of the place for women to appear in public. We had limited opportunities for mingling in the domestic life of the people, but the few which were afforded revealed a reticence re- specting family relations, and an indisposition to give a stranger access to the Russian home, which reminded me strongly of previous experiences in the Turkish Empire. Western manners almost dominate St. Petersburg, but Moscow has by no means been equally affected by the customs of modern Europe. It still retains the air and habits of a curious mixture of races from the Tartar Steppes and the Ukraine, from the shores of the Caspian and Black seas, from Persia and from Greece, but every year makes greater inroads upon its distinctive and isolated character, and ere long it will be as cosmopolitan as Cairo has become. We made a visit one afternoon to the Vospitatelny Dom, or Foundling Hospital, which Madame de Stael 174 SOME RUSSIAN CHARITIES. 175 calls " one of the most touching institutions of Eu- rope." It is near the bridge, below the Kremlin, and consists of a series of fine buildings standing in spa- cious gardens of several acres. A special permit gave us entrance by the garden gate, after a brief delay, which we found had been used to arrange the nurses, for our reception, in double rows beneath an avenue of trees, through which we walked. The afternoon was bright and warm, and more than a thousand of the " little strangers " were sleeping in cradles under mosquito netting, or lying in the arms of their nurses. They were from one day to several months old, and presented as unique a gathering of infant humanity as I ever saw. The nurses were stupid-looking peasants, healthy and hearty, with abundant facilities for providing food and care for their helpless charges. Each woman had two infants to care for, and some of the infants had bottles of milk in their cradles. Both nurses and children were clean and neatly dressed. The nurses were clad in white flannel and cotton gowns, and wore huge, white, flat caps on their heads and sashes around the waist ; the babies were as well dressed as the infants of respectable parentage anywhere, and evidently had good care. The institution was opened in 1763 by Catherine the Second, and its organization was directed by the philanthropist Betski, who lived in the reign of the great Empress. His picture hangs in one of the gal- leries, in company with a number of similar benefac- tors. The hospital derives its income from the State monopoly of playing-cards, and thus one vice supports 176 ACROSS RUSSIA. the results of another. It derives from this source alone a million of rubles annually, besides gifts and bequests from private sources. Each year this hospital receives more than fourteen thousand children, or about twelve hundred a month. The infants are brought into the waiting-room by their mothers or by some female friend. There were perhaps twenty waiting when we entered. No ques- tions are asked, except, "Has the child been bap- tized?" and if so, "By what name?" If the child has been baptized and named, these facts are recorded. If it has not been baptized, this is done the next morning by a priest, who gives the child the name of the saint whose day it is in the Russian calendar, and adds his own Christian name with the termination " off " ; thus, if an infant was baptized on St. James's day by priest Michael, he would be called James Michaeloff, and have a name and a record in the world which denied him all knowledge of his par- entage. When the infant has been registered, two experts take it gently, measure it around the head, around the chest, and the length from the crown of its head to the sole of its feet. These measurements are care- fully recorded, and an india-rubber circle with an ivory or metal number is slipped around its neck, and a corresponding tab is given the person who brought the child. An attendant then takes the babe into another room, where it is undressed, washed in a cop- per basin lined with flannel and filled with tepid water, rubbed with delicate sponges, and laid upon a soft cushion, where it is carefully dried, and then dex- SOME RUSSIAN CHARITIES. 177 terously clothed. In ten minutes I saw four infants thus received, enrolled, washed, dressed, and handed over to the nurses, who stood in rows waiting to re- ceive the babies. These nurses are generally peas- ants from the country, and it is said that they are often the mothers of children who have been depos- ited a short time before, and that they manage thus to get their own children to nurse and have the State pay for it. This may be true in some instances, but it is more likely that the majority of the nurses are peasants who leave their own children to be brought up by hand, while they come' to the hospital to get the good fare and regular wages offered there. After remaining in the institution for a month, having been baptized and vaccinated, and thus according to Rus- sian ideas having been prepared for both worlds, the life here and the life to come, the infants are sent with their nurses to the villages to which the nurses belong. Here they are brought up under the super- vision of the doctor of the district. I asked as to the proportion that lived, and was surprised to learn that only about one-half lived over a year. This great mortality is largely due to the extreme severity of the climate. The number of those who arrive at maturity is smaller still, though the endeavor is to preserve and not to destroy infant and child life in Russia. No infant is ever refused shelter and care, either at Moscow or St. Petersburg. I was informed that at least one-third of the children born in the cities of Russia were illegitimate, but it does not follow that all the children in the Foundling Hospital are of this 178 ACROSS RUSSIA. class. Many poor parents send their children here because they cannot afford to maintain them, or in order to profit by the provisions which are made by the State. The whole establishment is most system- atically conducted. The medical staff is experienced and intelligent, the matrons are skilful and kind, and the mother of a child can reclaim it up to the age of ten years, by proving her relationship and producing the receipt, and also guaranteeing the support of the child. When the children are grown to the age of five or seven years, they are received back, taught some useful trade, and given the rudiments of educa- tion. The boys are liable to military service, but the mass of them become agricultural laborers; a small number become assistants in the School of Surgery, and some of the girls are trained for nurses at a special school attached to the institution. If a boy remains till he is eighteen, he is then dismissed with thirty rubles and two suits of clothes; and a girl marrying before the same age is provided with her wedding trousseau. That such an institution encourages immorality to a certain extent can hardly be denied, but there is no doubt that it also prevents the crime of infanticide. Statistics show that in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where these hospitals exist, the proportion of illegiti- macy is ten times larger than anywhere else in Rus- sia, and ten per cent greater than in Paris. The author of " The Russians of To-day " says that " this famous refuge has corrupted all the villages around Moscow. Peasant girls who have forgotten, to get married send their babies to this institution and then SOME RUSSIAN CHARITIES. 179 offer themselves in person as wet-nurses. Having tattooed their offspring, each mother contrives to find her own, and takes charge of it by a private ar- rangement with the nurse to whom it has been assigned. As babies are much alike, the authorities cannot detect these interchanges, and do not attempt to do so. In due time the mother returns to her vil- lage with her own baby, whose board will be paid by the State at the rate of eight shillings a month, and possibly next year and the year after she will begin the same game over again." The Nicholas Institute, in this connection, is a dif- ferent sort of an institution, for female orphans of in- digent servants of the royal family. There is a sim- ilar one for boys. Nearly a thousand girls are here given a free education which is intended to prepare them for teachers. On leaving, they receive an outfit and have small salaries proportioned to the standing which they acquire in the school. For six years they are bound to give their services to the government as governesses and teachers in the interior of the em- pire. No foundlings are admitted here, though fifty pupils who pay tuition fees are allowed to obtain an education with the orphans of the establishment. Connected with the Foundling Hospital is a mater- nity hospital with secret wards, and a wing occupied exclusively by mothers who are respectable but poor: the annual number cared for here is about twenty- two hundred, of whom only one-tenth are of the latter class. This statement would seem conclusive as to the moral influence of the enormous institution which We have described upon the Russian capital. During 180 ACEOSS RUSSIA. the brief occupation of the city by Napoleon, the French established a military hospital with a strong guard here, and in the courtyard more than five thousand of his soldiers lie buried. XXVIII. RUSSIAN ANTIQUES, DIVERSIONS, AND PAINTINGS. THE ROMANOFF HOUSE — THE PARKS AND GARDENS — THE GALLERY OF A MERCHANT PRINCE — REPINE'S PICTURE, "the return OF THE EXILE FROM SIBE- RIA." One of the most curious places to visit in Moscow is the Romanoff house. Here the traveller can study the style of building and the domestic life of noble Russians in the Middle Ages. It was in this palace that Michael, the first of the Romanoffs, was born. He made a gift of it to the Znamenski Monastery, which stands opposite in the Varvarka Street, and other edifices were built about it. In the reign of Alexander the Second it was purchased by the crown and restored to its former appearance. Only the walls of the original building still remain, the interior having been burned and plundered during the French occupation. The articles within form a museum, illustrating the mode of life in the early times of Russia. The entrance is through a court, and in the base- ment there are cellars for wine and beer, and store- houses for ice. Upon the next floor are the kitchen and the various offices for men-servants. Above this, 181 182 ACROSS RUSSIA. again, are the apartments for the Boyar, or noble. From the vestibule one room opens, which was occu- pied by female servants ; next to this is a very little room, evidently occupied as a children's room, or nur- sery, in which are to be seen the playthings and les- son books of the period ; and on the other side of the vestibule are other rooms, of which the largest is a chapel or " Chamber of the Cross." Here, on Christ- mas, Easter, and great holidays the head of the family held a reception for the priests, who came with con- gratulations, and joined with his family and servants in the celebration of religious services. The chapel has an arched roof richly ornamented with charters granted by the Czar Michael. In this sacred place the family silver, jewels, and other valuables were preserved, and there are many curious mementos and objects of antiquity here, such as a silver statuette of Charles the First of England, sent by him as a pres- ent to the Czar ; silver ewers and beakers, and other vessels for domestic uses. Numerous hiding-places are shown in the walls, and some ancient icons. Adjoining this chapel are a prayer-room and a study, in which stands a huge porcelain stone, with allegori- cal inscriptions and figures. A tortoise with the motto, "There is no better house than one's own," and two birds flying from each other with the inscrip- tion, "Fidelity unites us," are specimens of these humorous antiquities. A very narrow and steep staircase leads to the top story, or " Terem," where the women of the family dwelt. Here was a bed- chamber, whose walls and ceiling were very richly carved in ancient patterns of wood, and the walls RUSSIAN ANTIQUES AND PAINTINGS. 183 covered with stamped leather. The furniture was an old four-post bedstead, benches covered with brocade, and a glass case containing the slippers of the Czar and a night-dress of the Czarina. There was a fine view from the roof, which is ornamented with open-work in copper, and the Romanoff arms. The chief parks and gardens are the Petropski, which contains a palace ; and Mauritania, where the Tsiganes, or gypsies, sing wild and exciting ballads, dressed in splendid costumes, and adorned with spar- kling jewels. Like all such exhibitions, the first show is all that attracts. Familiarity with these rude and barbaric performances speedily breeds contempt; though now and then real beauty is seen among these dark Romany bands, and a wonderful voice bursts out amidst their barbaric discords. In the Sokolniki, or People's Park, there is much fine driving, and the Russian horses and equipages are seen to good advan- tage. The Zoological Gardens embrace about thirty acres, and contain fine specimens of bison, and elk, and antelope, with other animals usual in such collec- tions. In winter these gardens are a great resort for the elite of Moscow, who slide on the ice-hills and skate upon the lakes, and trot horses over the glassy roads of the park. The gardens in the Kremlin, where the people gather in early spring, and the boule- vards surrounding the Beloi-Gorod, are well laid out with trees and shrubs and pleasant lounging-places. No traveller who cares for modern art will leave Moscow without making the excursion which occu- pied one of our summer afternoons, to the painting gallery of M. Tr^tiakoff. He is a merchant of 184 ACKOSS RUSSIA. immense fortune and cultivated taste, and his collec- tion of modern Russian paintings is unrivalled. A long drive across the river brings you to ,the courtyard of what seems to be a warehouse. On one side a door admits the visitor to a vestibule where a servant waits to receive your coat and cane and the registry of your name. Then you are shown into the galleries, where there are water-colors and drawings, and pictures by Verestchagin, Jacoby, Siemerdzki, and, above all, by Rapine. At least thirty pictures and portraits by this celebrated artist are gathered in one room. Such pictures as "The Russian Wedding," the " Procession of the Virgin of Kasan," the fearful canvas which represents Ivan the Terrible after hav- ing mortally wounded his son, and the touching pic- ture of the " Return of the Exile from Siberia," live in the memory of those who have seen them. The last-named picture was painted in 1884, and is a vol- ume in itself upon its subject. An engraving of it has been published in this country in Mr. Child's book " The Tsar and His People," and his description is vivid and truthful. " The scene takes place in a simply furnished room ; the walls hung with cheap paper of a bluish-green tint, and decorated with cheap religious prints, a map, and a few portraits. To the left is a half-glass door, opening into a garden, and flooding the room with a stream of reflected sunlight. The boards of the floor are bare ; the table is covered with a white cloth over a scarlet one ; the chairs are of the most modern and prosaic bent wood, with per- forated seats ; the one easy-chair is upholstered with the usual stamped green velvet ; in the corner of the RUSSIAN ANTIQUES AND PAINTINGS. 185 room is a piano. We are here in a characteristic Russian home. The children are busy with their les- sons and their music, while the mother is meditating in the warm stillness of the afternoon, when suddenly the servant introduces a strange visitor, whose cos- tume and appearance excite her astonishment. She holds the door open, with her hand on the latch, and in the second room we see another servant peering curiously at the strange visitor, who advances with hesitating step and an inquiring look, wondering whether they will recognize the exile, whether this is really his home, whether he is free indeed, and not walking in a dream. How wretched and emaciated he looks in his loose brown coat, his crumpled plaid neck-cloth, his dusty, well-worn boots ! How anxious his expression ! " The mother rises from the easy-chair slowly, her body bent forward in an attitude of mingled surprise, inquiry, and hardly restrained desire to spring for- ward and fall upon the exile's neck. The girl at the piano looks at him with staring eyes and an exclama- tion of astonishment. The boy, in his college uniform, looks round with a smile, and the girl who is work- ing beside him at the table, with her hands clasped under the cloth, and her feet dangling together, raises her eyes from her slate and turns her head to see who is this intruder who has broken the ennui of an insol- uble sum. The story is told discreetly, the gestures and expression are natural, the realism of the whole scene is intense, and the general aspect of the picture is uncommon. Each object has its color ; everything is clear and distinct, adequately drawn and wonder- 186 ACEOSS RUSSIA. fully painted, having its exact value in the envelope of atmosphere ; the lighting of the picture is wonder- ful for its verity, and every shadow is luminous and full of air. As a piece of realistic painting, treated at the same time with distinction of vision, the * Return of the Exile ' will bear comparison with the very finest modern pictures of the kind which can be mentioned." Such is as vivid a reproduction as words can give of a picture which appeals to Russian sensibilities as few oth^r paintings can do. Histori- cal and romantic pictures grace these and other gal- leries in Moscow, but even the great subject of Ivan and his son, so wonderfully treated, fades away before the real experience at which so many Russians tremble, and of which we only read even at this distance in free America with a shudder. XXIX. THE GREAT PALACE OF THE KREMLIN. HALLS AND CHAPELS — THE TEREM THE SECLUSION OF WOMEN. We have been occupied with excursions in and around Moscow, but before we leave the city we must go again to the Kremlin. Many visits may be made to this centre of all that is memorable and holy in Moscow, without exhausting its interest, and I have yet to describe the Great Palace and the Treasury, both of which are worthy of days of care- ful inspection. The present palace, which occupies the site of others that have preceded it, of wood and stone, and which includes a number of buildings, was built in the reign of Nicholas I., from 1838 to 1849. It is an immense and lofty structure, but has neither harmony nor beauty. The incongruous and curiously mixed architecture of the interior, however, is for- gotten in the beauty and grandeur and historical in- terest of this interior. It is a huge square building, or collection of buildings, with a long fa9ade on the south side, the Belvedere Palace on the north, and the only ancient portion, the Granovitaya or Facet Palace, so called because built of diamond-shaped blocks, on the east. On the west is the Winter Gar- den, which connects the palace with the Treasury, 187 188 ACROSS BUSSIA. the apartments of the Grand Duke and the Diversion Palace. In the Grand Palace there are seven hun- dred chambers, adorned with all that can embellish and enrich the dwelling-place of royalty and the show rooms of the nation. As we entered the vestibule, a handsome hall with gray marble columns, with our conductor, twenty valets, arrayed in all the glory of Solomon, advanced to take coat and hat and cane. After signing our names in the register, a young Rus- sian, a type of manly beauty, and speaking French like a Parisian, conducted us, first through the dwelling-rooms of the Emperor and Empress, a suite of twelve superb apartments, with modern furniture, paintings, and ornaments. These rooms were chiefly interesting as the present abode of royalty when visiting Moscow, and the only article that seemed strangely out of place here was a bronze equestrian statue of Napoleon, which was in the Emperor's study. Ascending from the Vestibule by a handsome granite staircase, we entered the halls of state. St. George's Hall, a magnificent room, fifty-eight feet high, two hundred feet long, and sixty-eight feet wide, contains more than five hundred names of regi- ments and individuals belonging to the Order of St. George, inscribed around the walls in letters of gold. The capitals of the magnificent columns in this hall are surmounted by shields of victory, on which the dates and names of Russian conquests are in- scribed, beginning with that of Perm in 1472. The furniture is black and gold, and the lustres and can- delabra, all of sparkling crystal, hold three thousand THE GEEAT PALACE OF THE KREMLIN. 189 two hundred candles. Stepping daintily over the parquet floors composed of twenty varieties of choice wood, we entered St. Andrew's Hall, dedicated to the Order of Alexander Nevski, loftier by ten feet than St. George's, but only half as long. It is gor- geous in pink and gold, and adorned with six enor- mous canvasses portraying deeds of the patron saint. Four thousand candles illuminate this hall, and there is a vast provision for gold and silver plate to supply the imperial requirements when the Czar visits Mos- cow. The throne room, a larger hall, in blue and gold, contains the throne resting upon two griffins. From thence we entered, through a guard room, the Hall of the Order of St. Catherine, a female distinc- tion conferred by the Empress, whose throne stands in the hall, and who is the head of the order. It was founded in 1711 by Catherine I., to commemorate the deliverance of Peter I., by Catherine I., from the Turks. The room is garnished with white and red and lofty pilasters of malachite. Through state drawing-rooms and bedrooms richly furnished with silk brocades, with pillars and pilasters of costly stone, mosaic work, and inlaid wood, and on through chapels and a winter garden, we were led to the "Silver room," a superb hall finished in white and silver, and hung with Gobelin tapestries, representing scenes from Don Quixote. All the furniture of this room is of silver, and it gleams in the sunlight with indescribable brilliancy. On we went through picture galleries and superb halls, to the chapels of the palace, where precious relics, and costly icons, and memorials of Russian history are preserved. Each 190 ACROSS RUSSIA. turn revealed some curiosity, some architectural splendor, or historical painting, and at length the eye grew weary of gazing, and the mind of receiving the multitude of new ideas. After resting a while we entered the Granovitaya Palata. Here the Czars used to hold audience on solemn occasions. A large square column in the centre of the room supports the arches of a vaulted roof. On shelves around this column the imperial plate is displayed at the coronation of the Emperor. He sits here on a silver throne, adorned for the first time with all the insignia of his office, and dines among his nobles, only crowned heads being seated at his table. Opposite the throne is a window in the wall, near the ceiling, where the imperial family were per- mitted to look upon the banquet, from which, then, as now, they were excluded. The chambers of this palace, where the Czars from the time of Michael I. resided, are curious and strange. They seem more like caves hollowed out of rock than the buildings of men. They belong to the same style of architecture as the church of St. Basil, nondescript, confusing, and entangled, as if they were designed in a dream, or built according to the changing fancies of an idler, without plan or method. You walk through low and narrow passages, and emerge into the " Gilded chamber," whose golden vaults are supported upgn arches, clamped together by thick bars of gilded iron, which tie them from side to side. Around the arches are Slavonic arabesques, and sombre saints look out from the golden glories of the walls. Only a parquet floor of modern pattern obtrudes the nineteenth cen- THE GREAT PALACE OF THE KREMLIN. 191 tury into this ancient palace of the Czarinas. Here, in these vaulted halls, often too low for us to stand up- right, and with narrow windows, the Czarinas dwelt in Oriental fashion, receiving, as they reclined on cush- ions of down and costly furs, visits of ceremony from priests of the Church, from noblemen and princes, or passed the long hours in embroidery and needle- work, surrounded by female dependents and ladies of the court. This most curious part of the whole palace is the Terem, a word of many meanings, but answering in its use here almost to the idea of the Oriental harem. It was the residence of the Czaritsa and Czarevnas, and was built in four stories, each story diminishing in size, and surrounded by a balcony, supported by the story below it. A stone staircase of unusual character leads up to it, and it comprises dining- room, council chamber, prayer room, and bedroom, all painted in gay colors, and all having low, vaulted ceilings. Furniture like that of ancient times is placed in these apartments. Eugene Schuyler says that in the family of the Czar the seclusion of the Terem was almost complete. This was in part due to a superstitious belief in witch- craft, the evil eye, and charms that might affect the life, health, or fertility of the royal race. Neither the Czaritsa nor the princesses ever appeared openly in public; they never went out except in a closed litter or carriage ; in church they stood behind a veil, made, it is true, sometimes of gauze ; but they usually timed their visits to the churches or monas- teries for the evening or early morning, and on these 192 ACROSS RUSSIA. occasions no one was admitted except the immediate attendants of the court. Von Meyerberg, imperial ambassador at Moscow in 1663, writes, that, out of a thousand courtiers, there will hardly be found one that can boast that he has seen the Czaritsa or any of the daughters of the Czar. Even the physicians are not allowed to see them. When it is necessary to call a doctor for the Czaritsa, the windows are all darkened, and he is obliged to feel her pulse through a piece of gauze, so as not to touch her bare hand. In 1674 two chamberlains were deprived of their rank for accidently meeting the Czaritsa Natalia going to prayers. Rambaud says, in Russia, as in Rome of the Twelve Tables, the woman was always a minor. The father of the family had the right to correct the wife, like one of his children or slaves. The priest, Silvester, advises not to employ too thick sticks, nor humiliate her by whipping before men, but without anger or violence to correct her moderately in private. The Russian proverb runs : " I love thee like my soul, and I dust thee like my jacket." Heberstein mentions a Muscovite woman who, having married a foreigner, did not believe herself loved because he never beat her. At home the woman was hid behind the cur- tains of the Terem ; in the street, by those of the lit- ter. She was hardly allowed to go to church. In her own house she had to occupy herself with prayei*s and prostrations, and almsgiving to a crowd of beg- ging monks and nuns. She had many household duties, but found other ways of occupying her time. The toilet of the Russian women was very elaborate. THE GREAT PALACE OF THE KREMLIN. 193 " They paint," says Petre'i, " not only their faces, but their eyes, neck, and hands. They lay on white, red, blue, and black. Black eyelashes they tint with white, and white ones black or some dark color, but they put on the paint so badly that it is visible to every one." The description of the visit of the Patriarch of Con- stantinople to the beautiful Czaritsa Irene, sister of Boris Godunof, gives a brilliant picture of the way in which a noble Russian lady of the sixteenth cen- tury lived. The central apartment of the Czaritsa, which was a rotunda, shone with the purest gold ; and by the ingenious disposition of the architect, there was an audible echo in it even of what was spoken in a whisper. The walls were adorned with the costliest mosaics, which portrayed the acts of the saints, choirs of angels, martyrs, and bishops ; while above the magnificent throne, shone through a blaze of jewels, a large icon of the most holy Immaculate Virgin, with the eternal Child in her arms, sur- rounded by choirs of saints, crowned with gold and adorned with pearls, rubies, and sapphires. The floor was covered with cunningly wrought carpets, on which the sport of hawking was represented to the life ; and other figures of birds and animals, carved in precious metals, glittered on all sides of the apart- ment. In the centre of the arched roof an ex- quisitely sculptured lion held in his mouth a serpent twisted into a ring, from which golden lamps were suspended. But the dress of the Czaritsa excelled in splendor all that surrounded her. Her necklace, bracelets, 194 ACROSS RUSSIA. and collar were made of heavy, uniform pearls, and her robe, trimmed with sables, was fastened by dark emeralds and brilliants; while her crown, which was priceless, shone with every variety of precious stones ; twelve battlements, like the wall of a town, surrounded it, in memory of the twelve Apostles, and diamonds hung down from it, large drops upon the pure forehead of the Czaritsa. And for all this, the angelic beauty of that forehead itself eclipsed,the splendor of her royal ornaments. When she saw the patriarchs, the Czaritsa arose graciously from her throne, and met them in the middle of the hall, and humbly asked their blessing. At a sign from the Czar, all the wives of the princes, one after the other, reverently advanced to receive the blessing of the patriarchs, while the Czaritsa, having received from the hands of her first lady a precious golden chalice studded with six thousand seed-pearls and other precious stones, presented it with her own hand to the Patriarch, and then sat down herself and desired him also to be seated. Such was royal etiquette two hundred years ago in Russia. Natalia, the mother of Peter the Great, was the first woman to break away from this seclusion ; she went about in an open litter, and allowed her face to be seen; and in the time of Peter the Great the Terem was abolished, and men and women began to meet together in public assemblies. Yet the in- fluence of Orientalism is still felt in Russia, and women are more secluded there than in any other country of Europe. XXX. THE RUSSIAN ROYAL TREASURY. THRONES AND CROWNS ROBES AND ORNAMENTS RIVERS OF DIAMONDS OCEANS OF PEARLS. The Omjeinaya Palata contains the Treasury of Moscow. It is the right wing of the Grand Palace, and one who has seen the treasury in the Tower of London, the collections of the Louvre, and even the Green Vaults at Dresden, exclaims, " How insignifi- cant all other treasuries seem compared with this ! " There is nothing in Russia better worth examining with care and historical study, but most visitors are hurried through the rooms with unseemly haste, and retain but a mixed memory of gems, and crowns, and robes of office, and models of buildings, and trophies, and thrones, and portraits. Our stay in the city per- mitted more than one visit to be made, and the wise distribution of rubles to the elegant servants of the palace enabled us to linger and inquire to our heart's content. Politeness and money go a great way in Russia, but one is as needful as the other. This ancient treasury is still the safe deposit of venerated historical objects and the hereditary treas- ures of the reigning house. Russia was well situated for acquiring Oriental riches, and her commercial and diplomatic intercourse, as well as her military expe- 196 196 ACROSS RUSSIA. ditions to India, Persia, Armenia, and Greece afforded great opportunities for the gathering of wealth. Munificent patrons of the arts, and imperial collectors of all things rich and rare, have never been wanting since Moscow became a centre of Russian power and glory. Embassies brought presents, and sovereigns interchanged royal gifts, when peace was concluded after war, or when alliances, offensive or defensive, were formed. Thus, stores of wealth, in what has proved sometimes, however, to be "portable prop- erty," have accumulated in the Treasury of Moscow, in the form of gold and silver plate, precious stones, costly manufactures of silk and wood, of ivory and metals. There have been times in Russian history when the treasury has been depleted, its rich vessels melted and coined into money for the support of troops and the overthrow of enemies, and when spendthrift mon- archs have squandered the acquisitions of their pre- decessors, and vessels of gold and silver, as well as priceless gems, have been given to favorites and lovers, to successful generals and political managers, from this storehouse of royal riches. Some of these gifts, in the mutations of fortune, have come back again to the givers or their successors, and the Scrip- ture statement that " to him that hath shall be given " is abundantly illustrated here. Fire and pillage, gifts and public necessities, have still left the treasury enormously rich in all that men desire and strive for. Ancient bells and trophies adorn the entrance hall; then come Russian armor and weapons, a complete THE RUSSIAN EOYAL TREASURY. 197 illustration of the history of firearms, the standards of the Czars and their military households, and original portraits of the Romanoff family, among which is a fine portrait of Catherine II. represented as a young man in a blue coat, tight breeches, and a cocked hat, on horseback. It was thus that this great Empress once appeared to review her troops and astonish her subjects. These things are but intro- ductory to costumes, and crowns, and thrones, and sceptres, and orbs, and enamels, and jewelry, and gold and silver ware, and gems, and objects of art, great and small. Some idea of the vastness of the collection can be formed when it is stated that the pieces of plate alone amount to the number of sixteen hundred. A large part of these precious treasures have come down from the seventeenth century, but there are a few articles dating as far back as the fourteenth, and even the twelfth centuries. Some of the most valuable objects are gathered in a large circular room, with cases around the walls, and one large central glass closet. Here we saw the throne of Poland, brought from Warsaw in 1833, and used when Nicholas I. was crowned king of the dismembered State ; here, too, is the ivory throne which Sophia Palseologus brought from Constanti- nople, in 1473, when she married Ivan III. ; this was used in 1856 for the coronation of Alexander II. Next comes the throne of the Czar Alexis, which was brought from Persia. It is enriched with eight hundred and seventy-six diamonds, and twelve hun- dred and twenty-three rubies, besides uncounted pearls and turquoises. The Empress sits in it at her 198 ACROSS RUSSIA. coronation, and yet at Peterhoff she is content to sit in a "bent-wood rocker," and is doubtless far more comfortable than in this million-dollar chair. There is another throne, given by the Shah of Persia, that is studded with nine thousand turquoises. Opposite these thrones is an object upon which the ladies of the party gazed long and wistfully. It is the famous " orb " said to have been sent to St. Vladimir, Grand Duke of Kieff, by the Greek Emperors Basil and Constantine in A.D. 988, together with a crown, a collar of enamel and precious stones, and a chair, with a piece of the true cross. I never saw a more splendid and impressive example of the jeweller's art, though there are richer objects in this round room. Fifty-eight diamonds, eighty-nine rubies, twenty-three sapphires, fifty emeralds, and thirty-seven pearls, all large and perfect and exquisitely grouped, compose this symbol of power. Near at hand is the crown of Kasan, surmounted by an enormous topaz and adorned with rubies, turquoises, and pearls ; the crown of Astra- khan, of enamel work, a great emerald on the top, and two hundred precious stones around the circle; the crown of Peter the First, which is in the shape of a tiara or pyramidal cap, surmounted by a diamond cross, rising from an immense natural ruby, said to be the largest known. Nine hundred diamonds and endless rubies and emeralds are lavished on this royal head-piece. The costliest crown is the one which Peter the Great had made for his Catherine, whom he truly loved. The diamonds alone number 2536, and there is a ruby, purchased at Pekin in 1676, which is the most valuable gem in the whole costly collection. THE RUSSIAN KOYAL TREASURY. 199 Turning from ornaments, we were confronted with clothes, and in spite of the statement of Dr. Watts, that — " The poor sheep and silkworm wore This very clothing long before," we were amazed and amused at the coronation robe, so rich and heavy that twelve chamberlains were needed to help the Empress wear it. We could well believe the story, that it used to be the custom, on days of high ceremonial, to dress up tradesmen and othei-s in these weighty and magnificent robes in order to show them off. Thus Lane writes in 1555 : " We entered sundry roomes, furnished in shew with ancient grave personages, all in long garments of sundry colours, golde, tissue, baldekin and violet, as our vestments and copes have bene in England, sutable with caps, jewels and chaines. These were found to be no courtiers, but Muscovites, inhabitants, and other their merchants of credite, as the manner is, furnished thus from the ward, robe and treasurie, waiting and wearing this apparell for the time, and so to restore it." Among the elegant pieces of gold plate are many of the originals from which the copies in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art have been made. As objects for artistic study, those which we have are as good as the originals, and there is no such exposure to theft or loss of interest money as in Moscow. We were satiated with the precious sights, and some of the party were as ready to faint as the Queen of Sheba at the sight of Solomon's glory. We had seen the most wonderful collection of gems and 200 ACROSS RUSSIA. jewels on earth, "crowns upon crowns, sceptres upon sceptres, rivers of diamonds, oceans of pearls." If there are sermons in stones, surely in such a sort and gathering of all the stones which are accounted rich and rare among men, the instruction must be varied and potent. We could not collect it all, nor have succeeding days helped us to much that is novel. We have felt new reverence for the Creator who has given man such wonderful and beautiful materials ; a deeper sense of the f raility and brevity of man's life on earth, where even the clothes and jewels with which he adorns his body outlive him by hundreds of years ; a conviction that a nation's great- ness depends very little upon the grandeur or value of its material possessions ; and remembering the history of the French war, a feeling akin to wonder and admiration for a nation that was ready to burn such priceless treasures rather than surrender to the invader. We have seen the heart and centre of Moscow, its sacred shrines and royal palaces, and are ready to turn to other scenes. The fair has begun at Nijni-Novgorod, and we are going there to-night. XXXI. THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. THE JOURNEY FROM MOSCOW THE TOWN AND ITS BAZAAR — TEA DRINKING WHAT IS BOUGHT AND SOLD ON THE BRIDGE IN THE BAZAAR STRANGE PEOPLES A VAST TRADE SOCIAL ASPECTS OP THE FAIR — MUSIC AND DANCING — BUSINESS BY DAY AND REVELRY AT NIGHT. Shall we go to Nijni-Novgorod and its world- famous fair, was the question which we began to ask each other after we were somewhat familiar with Moscow, and ready for a new excitement. The train takes thirteen hours, leaving Moscow at night and reaching Nijni in the morning. Conflicting accounts of former visitors confused and distracted the party. The governor declared that " Sunset "Cox had pro- nounced it a " humbug," and for his part he did not propose to be taken in ; the doctor said he had heard that Nijni was a very wicked place, and as he never believed hearsay evidence he was going to diagnose the case for himself. The bachelor remarked very decidedly that he should go to the great Russian market; and the little widow thought that it must be a very interesting spectacle, and she would not miss it for anything ; the lovers were so wrapped up in each other that they went along just as driftwood 201 202 ACBOSS RUSSIA. does with the cuiTent. So the majority went to Nijni. It was a tiresome journey, with dust and crowded railway carriages, destitute of privacy or con\ enience, the sleeping chairs being a poor substitute for a bed, and the road-bed being rough and out of repair. At every mile, however, the railway watchman or watch- woman stood patiently holding up a green stick to show that all was right on the road, and as the period of darkness was brief, and the chances to get tea were frequent, we managed to worry through the journey. Arriving about ten o'clock, we di-ove in vile and dirty droschies to the hotel Germania, in the centre of the town. The first view was disappointing. Rough and dusty streets, low and dingy houses with dis- agreeable looking shops, a variety of costumes indeed, but all so dirty that they were repulsive, nobody to meet us who could speak anything intelligible, and a shabby and disreputable atmosphere all about. We regretted that the ladies had come at all, and were ashamed of the company in which we found ourselves wherever it was needful to eat a meal or enter any public place. But the fair is a curious sight, espe- cially for American eyes, and though I shall make some plain remarks about its adjuncts and some of its objects before I leave it, let me first look from the topographical and business point of view at this great rendezvous. The union of the Oka with the Volga, both long and navigable rivers, makes Nijni-Novgorod a place of importance and a mart of trade. The former river runs eight hundred miles before it pours into the Volga, and the united streams flow two thousand THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. 203 miles together before they enter the Caspian Sea. By these waterways the extreme north, the shores of the White Sea and the Baltic, are linked to the great southern countries of Russia which lie upon the Black Sea, Azof, and the Caspian. It is not wonder- ful that mercantile interest, ever keen to recognize the value of position, should have seized upon the junction of these two great rivers for the establish- ment of an international commercial exchange. As early as the middle of the fourteenth century Nijni had its fair, but the present bazaar, which is very ex- tensive and elaborate, was built in 1824 to replace the buildings destroyed by fire eight years before. The bazaar is built on the plain of the northern bank of the Volga, a huge sandy expanse, and consists of an oblong mass of houses, twelve long rows arranged in regular lines, and divided into four equal parts by transverse streets. This is the centre or kernel of the fair, which was erected and is still owned by the government. It contains between five hundred and six hundred shops. Beyond and around this bazaar are thousands of buildings of brick, wood, and mats, red, and yellow, and green in color and stretching out in every direction. The bazaar is surrounded on three sides by a canal crossed by a number of bridges, and on the fourth side there is an open square, in which are the resi- dences of the governor and the other officials. The whole enclosure is thoroughly drained, and these stone drains are flushed twice a day during the con- tinuance of the fair. Admirable arrangements are ilso made for preventing and putting out fires, and 204 ACROSS RUSSIA. no one is allowed to smoke within the limits of the fair. Here are shops with the choicest furs from Siberia, silks from Persia, and precious stones from the Ural Mountains, together with fancy goods from England, Germany, and France, gems from India, and orna- ments and perfumes from Constantinople. The Chinese quarter has a queer look, its houses being all built with projecting roofs, with bells at the corners, and covered with yellow paint and gilded characters. Here are to be found the offices of the great tea mer- chants with their samples, the warehouses filled with vast stores being on the Siberian quay. Tea is the great staple of the fair. Iron and silks and cotton and Caucasian goods have a large place in the market, but in spite of the supply by water of Canton tea, the Kiakhta, which comes six thousand versts overland, and takes eighteen months in transit, still rules at Nijni. We visited a tea merchant and sampled his tea. It is packed in a case of lead, which is pro- tected by a papered wooden chest, which is again packed in a strong cowhide covering with the hair on. Our shopkeeper had the cowhide covering unfastened, and then with a long steel auger with an oblong groove and a very sharp point, he bored into the centre of the chest. When pulled out, the groove of the auger was full of tea. A professional buyer tests the tea by rolling the leaves in his fingers and then smelling of them: sometimes also he chews a few leaves. We preferred to take our little package to the hotel, and we found it a deliciously flavored black tea. The cost was less than half a dollar a pound. THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. 205 Tea drinking is the universal habit in Russia. My guide in the Adirondacks could never build his fire in the morning till he had taken a "chaw of ter- backer"; and Sulieman upon the desert was good for nothing before his coffee and pipe ; so my Rus- sian servant, like all of his countrymen, swallowed hot tea as soon as he awoke, and repeated the act a dozen times a day. Tea houses are as common in St. Petersburg and Moscow as "saloons" are in New York or Chicago. The " samovar " is the household god, and no peasant is so poor as to be without one, though he may be destitute of shoes, and have no clothes besides those which are upon his body. There are forty makers of samovars in Toula alone, and six thousand dozens are sold in Nijni every year. The samovar is a large urn made of brass or copper, with a tube running through the centre, in which charcoal is placed and lighted. This burning charcoal, like the sacred fire in the Jewish temple, is never allowed to go out, and hence the water around the tube is always hot. The teapot stands upon the top of the samovar. A scoop of tea is put in the teapot, the boiling water from the samovar is turned upon it; the infusion is instantly poured into a glass tumbler, and a slice of lemon or a lump of sugar is used as a flavoring by those who like it. The majority of Rus- sians use neither. At all the railway stations, in all the streets of the towns, at every hour of the day and night, " tchai " was to be had, even though bread or beer might be wanting. The man in our party who thought tea was only fit for old women, and would not drink it, learned, after paying three rubles for a 206 ACROSS RUSSIA. bottle of ginger ale, and making himself ill with pooi coffee and bad water and worse wine, to swallow the national beverage without a grimace, and almost to like " the cup which cheers but not inebriates," before he left the dominions of the Czar. On the Siberian wharf, where the sturdy Tartars were unloading the myriads of barges which brought goods to the fair, there were, besides thousands on thousands of chests of tea, bales of cotton by the mile, heaps of hides and skins, carboys of acid, casks of dried fruit, and moun- tains of iron from the Ural. Wool is a great article of commerce at Nijni — we saw enormous heaps of the fleeces of sheep, and in the bazaar some of the famous Ukraine wool. They have timber, too, and stone, and bronze, and carts, and all their separate parts, and, in fine, all things which men can use, or wear, or eat, or drink. Among these last articles were literal hills of watermelons. Every man, woman, and child in some parts of the town seemed to be eat- ing watermelons. Could a Southern negro have dropped into Nijni during the fair, he would have thought himself in paradise, for the luscious fruit was everywhere, in heaps on the wharfs, at the markets, in wagons, and apparently in the hands and the mouths of most of the two hundred thousand strangers who are said to flock hither in August. Before making a regular tour of the fair, we crossed the bridge over the Volga and climbed the hill where the view of the town, the bazaar, and the rivers Oka and Volga, with their fleets of boats and steamers, is most impressive. The Kremlin and the upper city cover three steep hills, which rise several hundred THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOEOD. 207 feet above the river level ; the lower town stretches its wharves for miles along the river bank ; the bazaar and its suburbs on the lowlands are connected with the old town by a bridge of boats half a mile long, and as broad as an avenue in New York. This bridge, which is a great feature of the place, is crowded with people and vehicles all day long, and till two o'clock in the morning. It was interesting to stand on the bridge, in the midst of the long lines of drays and carts, laden with products of every kind, from chests of tea and Persian carpets to dried fish and salted cucumbers, and watch the panorama. Far as the eye could reach down the Volga, it was alive with steamboats and barges with roofs over them ; with tug boats and row boats ; and in the sandy bed of the river, where the water had receded, were immense temporary lumber yards, with hundreds of drays and workmen, carting and piling boards and planks. Along the wharves were immense piles of iron, and cotton bales, and tea chests, and thousands of laborers were loading and unloading the wares of dif- ferent nations, the corn and salt, and wine and leather, and wool and silk, and dye-stuffs and metals, and crates of crockery and cases of manufactured goods. The large proportion of these goods are made or raised in Russia. They come from Archangel on the North to the Caspian on the South, from the Caucasus and Central Asia, and from China and India. There are two hundred thousand merchants from Russia and Asia in Nijni-Novgorod during the six weeks that the fair lasts. Then the population suddenly Sinks to sixty thousand, and the bazaar is shut. 208 ACROSS RUSSIA. If the roadways of the bridge are thronged, the sidewalks are still more crowded with a motley mass of human beings. There are peasants and priests and pilgrims ; Persians and Armenians pass by, with long blue and black robes girded by brilliant sashes, huge turbans or lofty Astrakhan caps upon their heads. There are Tartar workmen in rusty cotton jackets, with skull caps of the same material ; monks and nuns begging from everybody; Europeans in gay modern costumes — Germans, Austrians, and here and there an Englishman or American. In spite of rules and policemen, the droschy-drivers urge their horses to breakneck speed over the loose planks of the bridge, and the confusion and animation of the scene are like nothing else in Russia. At the end of the bridge, which is towards the bazaar, there are some huge structures like immense ploughs, designed to break the force of the ice which piles against the •shore piers in the spring ; and a little chapel, with its icons and candles, and troops of beggars and peo- ple bowing and prostrating themselves. Looking down from the terrace near the Kremlin, the scene is that of a human bee-hive, with its crowds of workers and merchants moving in and out of the streets and houses which form the fair. Twelve avenues divide the bazaar, the central one being very wide, with a park and a double row of trees, and a roadway and shops upon each side of it. Here the people prome- nade, and the usual shows of jugglers, and bands of music, and vendors of small wares and sweet drinks, attract the passing crowds. Six streets, crossing the avenues, divide the bazaar into sections, in each of THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. 209 which are hundreds of little shops, and warehouses, and storerooms, filled with all sorts of merchandise. We saw most elegant silverware and jeweliy. Oriental stuffs and perfumes, and costly furs, which would have enriched the magnificent establishments of St. Petersburg or Paris ; and close at hand brass work, and images, and books, and dye-stuffs, and salt fish. In one street there is a crowd of mujiks and Tartar laborers clad in dirty raiment, their feet tied up in rags or covered with bark shoes. In another the bar- bers are shaving the heads and combing the beards of customers, and we have no desire to be called " next." Close at hand men, women, and children are gathered around tubs of salted cucumbers and piles of water- melons, or eating cakes and sunflower seeds, and various fruits and nuts. No one is smoking ; for a heavy fine is imposed for the violation of the rule, so necessary in such a place, which forbids all smoking within the precints of the fair. Long lines of restau* rants, lodgiYig-houses, caf^s, and booths of all sorts are filled with laborers and peasants, getting cheap meals and cheaper lodgings. In one street we found the trunk shops, full of clumsy boxes strapped with brass or iron, painted scarlet, green, and blue, and ornamented with impossible flowers and fruits, or covered with strange figures in Persian or Arabic patterns. Turning into another street we came upon ecclesiastical furniture, lamps, and censers, and crosses, and holy images; and not far away were stores full of books and pictures and portraits of the Czar. The fur stores attracted us, even though it was summer, and great was the temptation to buy 210 ACROSS RUSSIA. beautiful sables, and the fine curly astrakhan skins and hides of wolves and bears and tigers, elegantly prepared and so cheap ! » Here, as in St. Petersburg and Moscow, one sees pictui'es hung on the outside of many of the shops, representing the articles which are to be found within, and before each door sit the merchants on little wooden benches, waiting for customers. In every shop is an icon, with a lamp burning before it, and at intervals through the arcades these sacred pictures are suspended from the roof, and the pious boAv their heads and lift their hats. The droschy-driver will make his salutation to the icon, even though it implies tipping his passengers over, and no greater insult can be offered to the orthodox shopkeeper than to enter his shop and begin a bargain, without first reverencing the sacred saint whose image, with a lighted lamp before it, hangs in the place of honor. It has been remarked that, in spite of the number of people at the fair, commercial activity is invisible, and it is true that the greatest transactions are car- ried forward without any appearance of excitement or bustle. Russian merchants would think it folly to buy and sell as we do in New York, and a Chicago exchange would drive them crazy ; yet they manage to dispose of two hundred million dollars' worth of goods in the six weeks of the fair, and establish the price of goods all over the vast empire. The pur- chases of iron made here determine the next year's business of the Russian iron-workers, and the success or failure of the whole trade of Siberia and Turkistan depends upon the conditions of credit which the mer- THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOKOD. 211 chants are able to obtain at Nijni-Novgorod. It is said that the fair is declining in influence and impor- tance, and that some of the merchants desire to trans- fer it to Moscow, but to our eyes there was nothing like a decline of business in the river covered with boats and barges, the miles of quays piled with mer- chandise, in the great Jahrmarka, with its six thousand shops packed full of all sorts of goods, and the thou- sands of men from all parts of Russia, who thronged the streets and arcades, and struggled at the eating- houses for a place, or at the " nomera " for a bed. Moscow is a thriving city, with great manufacturing establishments and a growing trade, but it has none of the advantages of water transportation which make Nijni-Novgorod a commercial centre, and hence it seems likely that the fair will be a feature in Rus- sian life for many years to come. We were told that the fair had become an almost exclusively Russian mart, but this did not accord with our observations. We certainly saw some al- mond-eyed Chinamen, and Persians with their conical fez caps, and Greeks with red tarbooshes, and Turks in turbans and baggy trousers, to say nothing of mul- titudes of Tartars clothed in sheepskins, and Geor- gians and Circassians, whose appearance and costumes were novelties to American eyes. Germans were numerous ; Hungarian bands with their wild music and French concert girls were not wanting. The steaming samovar with its stimulating bev- erage, the swelling wine-skins, and the sherbet-urns slung over the backs of the vendors, the flocks of tame pigeons which no one is allowed to kill, the 212 ACROSS KUSSIA. barbers shaving heads in the open air, the rows of people seated on benches, eating dried fish and salted cucumbers, and drinking " kvass " in front of ch^ap restaurants, and the frequent ambulatory merchants with gems and ornaments, dried mushrooms and silk handkerchiefs, flowers and fruits, pipes and tobacco, mingle in a picture which is certainly not Russian, but is strangely international. Along the river bank there are rows of wooden bath-houses built of logs and planks, painted in all the colors of the rainbow, and much frequented by men and women. There is a great bakery where all the bread is made, away from the other houses and near the water, to diminish the danger from fire which is feared more than any other element. High wooden towers have been built at different places, where watchmen are stationed day and night to look out for fires, and fire-engines, with horses harnessed, are ready to hurry to any point where the watchman gives the alarm. To pro- mote sanitation, and prevent the dreaded cholera, there are wire-work baskets on the tops of the round towers which lead into the immense drains, and in these baskets aromatic herbs and gums are kept burn- ing to perfume the air. From these towers one can descend into the drains, which are flushed with river water every night by steam pumps, to carry off the sewage of the vast concourse, which would otherwise breed a pestilence. Near the Tartar mosque, in which we saw some Mohammedans practising their devotions, among whom were one idiot and a number of very dirty Arabs, is the place where the inevitable circus and THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. 213 the low drama and ballets hold their performances. Flags and streamers, the noise of drums, and the most atrocious of brass bands gave evidence of the nature of the encampment. The scenes enacted here were not peculiar to any nation, and were familiar enough to any American acquainted with the " Greatest Show on Earth." The men who were lounging about wore red shirts and dirty yellow coats, and the women had gorgeous kerchiefs on their heads, and cotton skirts to the knees, and often long boots on their feet. Many of both sexes had sheepskin touloupes, and some wore the pleated skirts and zouave vests of the Alba- nians. There was no beauty nor cleanliness about them. Some of the men who came up with us from Moscow went in the evening to the Kunnavino dis- trict to see the lowest class of the people and their amusements. They came back after midnight with excited reports of a fight in which one man had stabbed another, and other tales of low life, which proved that a den of thieves, drunkards, and vile women is much the same in Russia as in London or Chicago. The less experience one has of this sort in travelling, at home or abroad, the better for his com- fort, his health, and his morals. There was enough that was evil, distasteful, and disgusting to be seen and endured, perforce, at Nijni-Novgorod, without searching for it. The amusements of the " traktir " are mostly musical, and mixed with eating, drinking, and carousing. Mr. Child describes one of the least objectionable : " It was a square two-story building, with about sixteen windows in each fagade, all ablaze with lights. Along one faQade ran a balcony, over 214 ACROSS RUSSIA. which women and girls and their swains were leaning and looking out into the night, while from the open windows issued sounds of shrill music. Many female forms flitted in the shadow in and out of the house, and there was a crowd standing outside. Tartars, with their embroidered skull-caps, mujiks in red shirts, a few gypsies, and a nondescript mass of men, women, and children, not clearly distinguishable in the darkness. We paid thirty kopecks, and were admitted upstairs into a large room, with rather a low ceiling. Half the room was occupied by a carousel, revolving on a disk, sunk flush with the floor. On the horses and in the cars of this carousel rode maidens, solitary or by couples, or maidens accom- panied by their admirers, while other maidens walked, arm in arm, around the carousel, which turned very slowly. We sat at a table for a while and watched the scene ; not a word was spoken, not a laugh could be heard ; the disk revolved ; the lovers gazed into each other's eyes; the solitary maidens gazed into space with an expression of melancholy beatitude; the electric light shed a sinister glare over the faces, and we were on the point of imagining this to be some strange nightmare, when, in another corner of the room, a sound of savage music broke the spell. The players stood on a dais in the corner of the room, and while some beat drums, others blew into long trumpets or hautboys of large calibre. The music thus produced, though very rugged and primitive, reminded one of the music of the Moors. It came of that same wild Oriental inspiration which has pro- duced the songs of the Circassians, the Turks, and THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. 216 the Arabs, and which still lingers in the mountain homes of Spain. After this instrumental concert, a chorus of mujiks, men and boys, took their position on a platform in another corner of the room, standing in a semicircle, with the leader alone in the middle. Both men and boys were dressed in national costume — long boots, red-belted blouses or shirts, worn in the orthodox style, outside of the trousers; long coats, their hair parted in the middle, and hanging in shaggy, faded blonde locks on each side. The leader stood with his hands hanging at his sides in a rigid military attitude, and sang a melancholy slow air. Then raising his right hand, he marked time, while the chorus struck up the refrain, the voices being sustained by an accordion and a tambourine, and supplemented in the high notes by a hautboy, which imitated the human voice in the upper regis- ters. After two or three songs, the concert ended with the national song and dance, executed by two little boys, who performed the jig steps, the leaps, and standing jumps, with crumpled legs and other acro- batic minutiae of this strange chorographic exhibition with much agility and with inflexible seriousness of feature. Meanwhile, at the tables around the room, there was much drinking of beer, lemonade, and vodki, and frequent calls at the bar, where the ' za- kouska ' of anchovies, caviare, watermelon, cold fish, cheese, and the inevitable salt cucumber, was laid out in what was meant to be tempting array." At the Germania hotel, where we were quartered, the proprietor had twenty or thirty singing girls to amuse his guests. They were Russians, Germans, 216 ACROSS RUSSIA. Hungarians, and Poles, with one or two French waifs. We were finishing dinner in the large salon, where a luxurious and costly meal with sterlet, the fish of the Volga, and caviare and fine fruits had been served, when the women began to come in and walk about, two and two, among the guests to attract their atten- tion. They were showily dressed in Paris gowns, or with Hungarian costumes of short skirts and velvet bodices and patent leather boots. After a little a musician entered and took his seat at the piano on a raised platform. At a signal from this leader, the women mounted the platform, ar- ranged themselves in a double row and sang choruses. This was varied with solos and a chorus. The music continued for a time, and then the girls came down, gathered the rubles and kopecks of the guests, and returning sang again, after which there was another collection. The eating and drinking continued and so did the singing and the collections. At last the performance became rather monotonous, and as our dinner was finished we went out into the town, where noise and revelry were going on at every " trak- tir," and crowds were moving aimlessly about. The fair is not a place which reputable Russian women visit. Its whole atmosphere after dark is immoral and degrading, and though English and American ladies go everywhere and retain their modesty and refinement, there is nothing in Nijni-Novgorod that can possibly repay them for the physical discomfort and the disreputable surroundings which they must of necessity endure in such a place. THE FAIR AT NIJNI-NOVGOROD. 217 We were not sorry to get into the railway carriages, and after a dusty night ride, see once more the glo- rious towers and domes of the Kremlin of Moscow in the morning light. XXXII. RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS SECTS. THEIR NUMBER, NAMES, AND CEREMONIES CRUEL RITES ABSURD DOCTRINES DREADFUL ORGIES A STAND- ING MENACE TO THE EMPIRE. Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire, although the capital is at St. Petersburg. It is also the seat of the national religion, but strange to say, the dissenters from the Greek Church are also most numerous and active here. The curious sects which have broken from the Russian Church number be- tween one and two hundred. An American mission- aiy, who is familiar with Russia, assured me that there were even now as many as one hundred and seventy-five of these dissenting bodies, and they con- tain three million members. They arose at the time of Peter the Great, and were one manifestation of the objection of the people to the arbitrary and sweep- ing reforms which he inaugurated and enforced. Ignorance and superstition, especially with reference to the interpretation of the Scriptures, the coming of Antichrist, and the New Jerusalem, led to religious rebellion. The attempt to suppress this, resulted, as such efforts usually do, where Church and State are united, in persecution ; the dissenters fled into the dense forests and distant provinces, where they 218 RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS SECTS. 219 founded colonies ; and into other countries, where they formed Russian dissenting establishments, as in Poland and Austria, Moldavia and Wallachia, from which they menaced the government and the Church of Russia. Their general name was Raskolniki (Dis- senters), but they were soon split into many divisions and subdivisions. Among these are the Bezpopovsky, or Priestless People, and the Papovsky, those with priests ; the Starovers, the Skoptzi, or Mutilated, the Khlistovstchina, or Jumpers, and many others. The Raskolniki maintain the forms and observances of the ancient Russian Church, in opposition to the reforms of Nikon, the bishop, and those of Peter the Great. Haxthausen says that they assert that the do- minion of Antichrist began with Peter I., since which time there have been no real bishops and priests, this being the period of darkness preceding the coming of Christ, in which sacraments are not needful, except baptism, which every believing parent can administer. " Is it not written in the Bible," they say, " that Anti- christ would change the times and seasons ? and did not Peter I. transpose the New Year from the first of September to the first of January ? Did he not abol- ish the designation of time from the beginning of the world, and adopt that of the Latin heretics, who count the years from the birth of Christ ? " and much more of the same sort. They consider it a sin to cut the beard, and the Council of Moscow, in the seventeenth century, declared that the blood of martyrs could not expiate such a sin. They also think it a mortal sin to bless with three fingers instead of two. Kohl tells of an old fisherman who illustrated the importance of 220 ACROSS RUSSIA. the three-finger sign to an orthodox Russian in an amusing way. " * The only true Christians,' said he, ' are those of the Greek Church. That is evident. For what is Christianity? It is the Holy Trinity. We make the cross in the only right way with three fingers. The Lutherans don't make the sign of the cross at all. I won't say they are heathens exactly, but there is very little Christianity in them. And as for the Catholics ! ' — here he burst into an immod- erate fit of laughter — 'they make the cross with thumbs and punches in the ribs I ' He could hardly recover himself from the excess of his mirth at the folly of the wrong-believing Catholics." The Raskolniki also consider it a mortal sin to pro- nounce the name of Jesus in three syllables instead of two. The monks of Solovetsk protested that the change from Isus to lisus was a sin too fearful to be thought of, and successfully defied the patriarch, the Council, and the Czar. They hold that to eat pota- toes is heresy, for the potato was the original forbid- den fruit ; they abhor the smoking of tobacco, deeming it far worse than drinking spirits. One of the sect gave as a reason, " It is written, that not that which goeth into a man, but that which cometh out, defileth him." The dissenters are no longer persecuted, and pro- vided they pay their taxes for the support of the Orthodox Church, they are allowed to believe and worship pretty much as they choose. Some of their customs are exceedingly curious. There is a sect which corresponds to the silent monks in the Latin Church. Those who join them become dumb by their EUSSIAN RELIGIOUS SECTS. 221 choice, and cannot be forced to speak. The sect of the Beatified Redeemer is another silent order, who spend their time in rapt contemplation of a sacred portrait of Christ. The Sabbatarians, who believe that the laws of Moses are the only divine laws, are regarded as wizards by the common people, and have an ancient Jewish origin. The Skoptzi believe that Christ never died, that he was without sex, and ap- pears in different forms over the earth. They look for the speedy coming of Christ to gather his disci- ples and begin his everlasting empire over the world. They deny the resurrection and do not keep the Sab- bath. They celebrate a kind of communion, and are eunuchs, but often adopt children. They call them- selves Korablik, or Tempest-tossed, and the following is a specimen of the songs which they sing at their assemblies: — " Hold fast, ye mariners ; Let not the ship perish in the storm ! The Holy Spirit is with us ! . Fear not the breakers, fear not the storm I Our Father and Christ is with us ! His mother Akulina Ivanovna is with us ! He will come 1 He will appear I He will sound the great bell of Uspenski ! He will collect all true believers together ! He will plant masts that shall not fall I He will set sails that shall not be rent 1 He will give us a rudder that will steer us safely ! He is near us, He is with us ! He casts His anchor in a safe harbor 1 We are landed ! We are landed ! The Holy Spirit is with us 1 The Holy Spirit is among us I The Holy Spirit is in us ! " 222 ACROSS RUSSIA. The Stranniki, or Wanderers, believe that they must flee from the wrath to come, by living as pilgrims and strangers, without house or home, and dying in the open air. The strangest sect is that of the Jumpers, or Flag- ellators, whose performances are akin to some which have been seen in Kentucky and among the Southern negroes. They dance and scourge themselves, and shout and sing, and often fall into convulsions in which they are said to speak with tongues and to prophesy. In his "Russian Empire," Haxthausen gives a description of some of their wild orgies, from the report of his secretary, who had special opportu- nities for knowing them. "On Easter night the Skoptzi and Klisti all assemble for a great solemnity, the worship of the Mother of God. A virgin, fifteen years of age, whom they have induced to act the part by tempting promises, is bound and placed in a tub of warm water. Some old women come and cut off her left breast. During the operation a mystical pic- ture of the Holy Spirit is put into the victim's hand, in order that she may be absorbed in regarding it. The breast is cut up and eaten by all the members of the sect present ; the girl in the tub is then placed upon an altar which stands near, and the whole con- gregation dance wildl}^ around it, singing at the same time, — " * Up and dance 1 Up and jump ! Toward Sion's hill ! ' " The jumping grows wilder and wilder ; at last all the lights are extinguished, and horrible orgies com- RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS SECTS. 223 mence." The secretary who made this report had become acquainted with several of these girls, who were regarded as sacred, and said that, at the age of nineteen or twenty, they looked quite like women of fifty or sixty, and generally died before their thirtieth year. These dreadful and heathenish practices are the direct result of ignorance and superstition. Without religious guidance, these deluded people are led by Satan and their own cruel fancies into all sorts of absurdities. They do nothing worse than the Mor- mons and other sects in free America have done; they turn the grace of God into licentiousness, or they hold fast to " the letter which killeth." They exhibit, as Dean Stanley aptly says in his " Eastern Church," the legitimate conclusion of those who turn either forms, or the rejection of forms, into principles, and of carrying out principles, so regarded, to their full length. An American missionary, whom I have already quoted, regards the dissenters of Russia as the greatest danger to the empire ; they are socialists in theory ; they have a common hatred to the Czar as the embodiment of all that is hostile in Russia to human brotherhood, as the representative of Antichrist, and the enemy of the true Church of Christian believers. If they were united they would at once become dan- gerously powerful, and they are now finding some common grounds of union. The diffusion of educa- tion and a pure form of Christianity, the employment of the same means which have elevated and ennobled Bulgaria, would avert such dangers, and change the religious aspect of Russia. But of this there is little 224^ ACROSS EUSSIA. present hope, for the sternest religious discipline per- vades the empire. Division and dissent may prevail within the empire, but proselytism is not allowed, and the Russian who deserts the national religion for a purer form is a traitor to the State, and will be pun- ished promptly as such. XXXIII. FROM MOSCOW TO WARSAW. DIFFICULTY OF LEAVING RUSSIA A JOURNEY OF SEVEN HUNDRED MILES — BORODINO AND ITS BATTLE SMO- LENSK RUSSIAN AND POLISH PEASANTS CROSSING THE VISTULA. It was no easy matter to leave Moscow. Passports had to be examined and verified, and as we were going out of Russia, it was necessary to get permis- sion to leave. One seems to be at liberty in Russia, but when he wishes to do anything out of the ordi- nary course, he finds that his liberty is controlled by law, and he must ask permission of the "paternal government," much as the child asks leave of its parents to do as it likes. After much money-changing and leave-taking, bar- gaining with droschy-drivers, and contention about luggage, we set out for the railway station, a drive of nearly an hour, through the streets of the city. At the station there was much tedious weighing of luggage, with palaver about tickets ; but finally we reached the platform, and were proceeding to enter the train, when an official prevented us, insisting upon certain formalities, and also upon counting the passengers and the seats in the cars, to avoid carrying any car that might not be needed. As a result, every place 225 226 ACROSS RUSSIA. in the public carriages was occupied, though two large sleeping carriages were put on the end of the train, one of which was occupied by a Russian general and the other by a railway official. I tried in vain to secure a compartment in either of these. I might as well have asked to sleep in the Palace of the Kremlin. We finally settled ourselves in the compartment of a Mann boudoir car, which was to be our habitation for thirty or forty hours, but when once under way our trials were ended. The train moved steadily and at a moderate rate of speed, over a smooth track, and through an uninteresting country, sometimes heavily wooded with fir and beech trees, and sometimes a rolling prairie. The first place of any historical interest that we passed was Borodino, a town situated on one of the tributaries of the Moskva River. Here the celebrated battle of Borodino was fought on September 12, 1812, by the Russians, under Kutuzof, against the legions of Napoleon. It was a gallant stand in the hope of saving Moscow, and though the French were victo- rious, it was one of those victories which are worse than a defeat. The place where Napoleon pitched his tent is shown, and tradition records that as he looked over the ground, he said, "It is cold, but clear, to-day ; it is the sun of Austerlitz." A monu- ment, with a growth of birch trees about it, marks the site of the battle. It consists of an eight-sided col- umn with a gilt capital and cross upon its top. Rambaud gives a graphic account of the conflict; " Profound silence reigned in the Russian camp on the eve of the battle ; religious fervor and patriotic FROM MOSCOW TO WARSAW. 227 fire inflamed all hearts ; they passed the night con- fessing and communicating ; they put on white shirts as if for a wedding. In the morning, one hundred thousand men, on their knees, were blessed and sprinkled with holy water by the priests ; the wonder- working Virgin of Vladimir was carried in procession round the front of the troops, in the midst of sobs and enthusiasm ; an eagle hovered over the head of Kutuzof, and a loud * hurrah' saluted this happy omen. The battle began by a terrible cannonade of twelve hundred guns, which was heard one hundred kilometres around. Then the French, with an irre- sistible charge, took Borodino on one side and the redoubts on the other : Ney and Murat crossed the ravine of Semenovskoe, and cut the Russian army in two. At ten o'clock the battle seemed won, but Napoleon refused to carry out his first success by employing the reserve, and the Russian generals had time to bring up new troops in line. They recaptured the great redoubt, and Platof the Cossack made a sudden attack on the rear of the Italian army; a stubborn fight took place at the outworks. At last Napoleon made his reserve troops advance; again Murat's cavalry swept the ravine; Caulaincourt's cuirassiers assaulted the great redoubt from behind, and flung themselves on it like a tempest, while Eu- gene of Italy scaled the ramparts. Again the Rus- sians lost their outworks. Then Kutuzof gave the signal to retreat. Napoleon refused to hazard his last reserves against these desperate men, and to have his guard demolished. He contented himself with crushing them with artillery until night. The French 228 ACROSS RUSSIA. lost thirty thousand men, the Russians forty thousand ; the former had forty-nine generals and thirty-seven colonels killed and wounded, the Russians almos.t as many. Napoleon still concentrated one hundred thousand men in his immediate vicinity, Kutuzof only fifty thousand ; but Napoleon's losses were irreparable at this distance ; the grand army was condemned to gain nothing by its victories. Tolstoi uses this ex- pression: 'The beast is mortally wounded.' 'Napo- leon,* says Brandt, the Pole, ' had gained the victory, but at what a price I ' The great redoubt and its surroundings offered a spectacle which surpassed the worst horrors that could be dreamed of. The ditches, the fosses, the very interior of the outwork, were buried beneath an artificial hill of dead or dying, six or eight men deep, heaped one upon another." Alex- ander, in spite of this defeat, named Kutuzof field- marshal, and in the churches solemn services were performed as though a success had been obtained. Kutuzof retired in good order, announcing to Alex- ander that they had made steady resistance but " were retreating to protect Moscow." With our minds full of these historic scenes, we travelled on through a monotonous country till we reached Smolensk, which is one of the principal places through which the railway runs, a town both ancient and celebrated. It had an existence before Russia was conquered by the Northmen, and in the thirteenth century it was important enough to make a commercial treaty with the Germans, securing thereby a free passage and right of trade between Smolensk and the island of Gottland in the Baltic, FEOM MOSCOW TO WARSAW. 229 which was a great entrepot of commerce, as Nijni- Novgorod now is. It has suffered from plagues, and wars with the Tartars and Lithuanians and Russians, but it stoutly withstood all its foes, till reduced by famine in 1404. In the time of Ivan the Terrible, who, though unsuccessful at first, vowed to fight the Lithuanians " as long as his horse would carry him or his sword cut," it became a Russian possession, and was magnificently fortified by Boris Godunov. Fifteen years later it was recaptured by the Poles after a siege of twenty months. Its history is one long catalogue of war, famine, and pestilence. When the great army of nearly half a million of men under Napoleon began to march from the Niemen in 1812, the Russian troops fell back on Smolensk. On the morning of August 12, the fighting began between the two great armies, and was continued the next day with great carnage, one hundred thousand men being engaged in the battle. Many assaults were made and repulsed ; the old walls withstood a fearful cannonade, and a dreadful fire broke out in the town. During the night the Russians evacuated the place, and Napoleon occupied the archbishop's palace, and stabled his horses in the churches. The inhabitants were treated with great severity, and revenged them- selves when, on the retreat from Moscow, the French re-entered the town. There was nothing then to be found in it for the use of the retreating soldiers, and the inhabitants threw the straggling Frenchmen into the flames of burning buildings, and into holes in the ice. The removal and destruction of the bodies of men and horses that perished at and around Smolensk, 230 ACROSS RUSSIA. in the retreat, continued for three months, and fear- ful epidemics followed the wholesale carnage. Since 1812 the town has been rebuilt, and is now very prettily situated on green hills above the banks of the river Dneiper. The old walls are restored, with some of the ancient towers and battlements. These walls are nearly fifty feet high, and fifteen feet thick, with three gates and two wider entrances. There are several monasteries and thirty-five churches here, with some especially venerated icons and relics. The city has a large trade in grain, and extensive manufactories of linen, soap, and leather ; it has also fine public buildings and a handsome garden. From Smolensk the railway runs over a rolling and well-cultivated country for many miles ; then it passes the marshes of the Pinsk district, and continues on through an uninteresting region till it approaches Warsaw. Then the signs of careful cultivation became numerous, and large crops were being gath- ered, while great fields of wheat and oats and flax diversified the landscape. The Russian peasantry gave place to men and women with dark hair and bright faces, and at the stations we began to see many Jews. Frame houses, neatly painted, with gardens, fenced and full of flowers and shrubs, supplanted the log-cabins of Russia, and it was evident that we were among a more intelligent and thrifty people. The sun was just setting as we disembarked from the railway carriages at the suburbs of Warsaw, after thirty-four hours of continuous travel, in the confined and stuffy but yet fairly comfortable cars; and we FROM MOSCOW TO WARSAW. 231 were glad to drive across the Vistula and enter the former capital of Poland. The bridge across the river Vistula is an immense iron structure, nineteen hundred feet long, built on the American plan, with six huge trusses, and by the same engineer who built the Nicholas bridge at St. Petersburg over the Neva. We found pleasant quarters at the hotel Victoria in the centre of the town, and were ready to rest awhile before starting out to see the sights of this celebrated capital. XXXIV. WARSAW. A CHEERFUL PEOPLE THE ROYAL SQUARE THE CATHE- DRAL THE STATUE OF COPERNICUS DESERTED PAL- ACES THE SAXONY GARDENS THE MARKETS AND THE JEWS. Warsaw is a cheerful and lively town. We had been in the habit of pitying the Poles, lamenting their loss of freedom, the partition of Poland, and the blotting of the nation from the map of Europe. But the evident happiness of the people, the bright and handsome streets, the gay gardens, the grand congre- gations of Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and Jews in their respective places of worship, on Saturday and Sunday, dissipated our gloomy and sentimental ideas, and set us thinking whether, after all, the masses of the people were not happier and better off under the new regime than when they had to pay heavy taxes, bear heavy burdens, and furnish a large military establish- ment for the defence of a country, which had no nat- ural boundaries, and from which avaricious neighbors were always trying to carve a slice. However it may be with the people at large, in Warsaw there are comfort and pleasure and business, a gay population on the streets, and fine buildings along the Vistula, that great river of Poland which 232 WARSAW. 233 pours its tide of waters through the town. Near the great iron bridge, which we crossed from the Prague suburb, where the railway station is, stands the royal castle, the handsome palace of the former kings. In the square in front of the castle is the bronze statue of Sigismund III., erected on a single marble shaft, ornamented with Polish eagles, and surrounded with fountains. The palace has ceased to be a royal resi- dence, and its treasures were carried away to St. Petersburg and Moscow after the insurrection in 1830. The Poles were unsuccessful in their attempt to throw off the Russian yoke, and, as is usual in such cases, they lost the little liberty which they had en- joyed. They were deprived of their constitution, their language was proscribed, and their nationality absolutely destroyed. Russian rule makes itself felt every where . in Poland, and Russian soldiers are nu- merous. From the castle square we entered the Old Town, and by much circumnavigation found our way into the cathedral, which was built in the thirteenth cen- tury. Workmen were engaged in putting down a new marble floor in a part of the building, but we were able to see a fine mosaic picture of Prince Poniatovski ; a monument by Thorwaldsen to Count Malakhovski, inscribed in Polish, " To the friend of the people " ; some other monuments, and a portrait of Cardinal Hosius, who presided at the Council of Trent. Pass- ing through the town, witli its numerous churches and abandoned palaces, and seeing on the way a statue of Copernicus, we stopped at the church of the Capu- chins, whose convent was founded by John Sobieski, 234 ACROSS RUSSIA. in memory of his victory over the Turks at Vienna. The convent has been suppressed, but in a chapel within the church there is a sarcophagus containing the warrior's heart, and near at hand a sepulchral urn to Poniatovski, with the inscription, '-'• 3Iorte quis fortior? Gloria et Amor.^^ In another part of the town we saw the old palace of the legates of the Pope, now used for the offices of the Department of Public Instruction; the Jablonovski palace, used as police headquarters ; and as a kind of oasis in the midst of confiscated and deserted palaces, the elegant palace of the Counts Zamoyski, inhabited by one of the richest and most illustrious families of Poland, containing a fine collection of pictures and objects of art. Near the Russian cemetery stands a new Roman Catholic church, in the centre of the plain where for three centuries — the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eigh- teenth — the kings of Poland were elected. Everything that is built in Warsaw reminds the traveller of past glories and a national history now ended, and it was an agreeable change into the life of to-day for us to enter the Saxony Gardens, a fine public park, with magnificent avenues of chestnut trees, flower-beds, ponds, and fountains, and full of people in gay attire. Multitudes of flower-girls at once attack the stranger here, and with the persist- ency of the Jewish race, compel him to purchase their bouquets to get rid of them. These gardens were once attached to a pleasure-house, built by Augustus II. of the Saxon dynasty, which has been pulled down and replaced by a colonnade and large rows of unsightly buildings. Beyond the gardens is WARSAW. 235 the market-place, where women may be seen selling all sorts of articles, in a covered bazaar, as well as in the open square. All kinds of vegetables, and fowls, and fish, and clothing; boots and shoes, pots and pans, women's dresses, children's toys, pictures and crockery ware, are exposed for sale ; and the clatter of the women's tongues, in an utterly unintelligible language, makes the foreigner, who comes from the gardens into the market, feel as if he had suddenly passed from paradise into bedlam. The sight, how- ever, was novel and picturesque, for every variety of costume, and color, and physiognomy, mingled in the panorama. From this scene we drove, over execrable pave- ments, to the Jews' quarter, where dirt and filth, and foul odors and disgusting people, were mixed together and offended every sense. Each window of the tum- ble-down tenements had frowsy heads sticking out of it ; along the narrow, undrained streets, greasy, long- haired, hook-nosed, ferret-eyed men, and yellow crones with jet-black beads in place of eyes, and wigs of dead hair on their shaven heads, were huddled in unhealthy and noisy crowds. Poland is one of the countries in Europe where Jews most do congregate, and seem specially to thrive ; but they have their " quarters " in almost every great city of Europe, and they are always identical in their characteristics. If those philanthropists, who in America and England know little or nothing of the Avays and habits of Jews in such countries as Russia and Poland, could spend a few weeks among them, see how they live, and what sort of people they are, their views regarding them ACROSS ETJSSIA. might be changed, and their methods modified. They would learn that the gospel of cleanliness and sani- tary reformation for the individual Jew would be of more service than petitions to the Czar and public meetings in favor of toleration. As a people, they are always shrewd, money-getting, patient, frugal, and long-suffering. As individuals, in these countries, they are servile, avaricious, lying, unclean, and hos- tile to the moral and physical welfare of the places where they dwell. A peculiar people, never assim- ilatmg with other nations though dwelling among them, they di'ain, by individual extortion and cheat- ing, the resources of those among whom they live, contribute little to the general wealth, and nothing to the public happiness. They evade the laws which are designed to hinder their evil practices, and make themselves so odious to the communities which they invade, that their toleration is only a question of time. Warsaw is an interesting city to visit, but it is not a place where a clean, self-respecting, and man-loving American would like to live. XXXV. CRACOW. BEAUTIFUL FOR SITUATION MULTITUDES OF JEWS THE MARIENKIRCHE CELEBRATED TOMBS A FETE- DAY THE CASTLE AND ITS MILITARY HEROES KOS- CIUSKO'S MOUND. It is a night ride from Warsaw to Cracow. One can go by day, but there is no scenery to repay the traveller, and it is better to spend the time in a sleep- ing-car. In the morning light we first beheld the town, which has a fine effect from a distance, with the Carpathian Mountains, its grand churches, and vast castle built upon a lofty rock, with turreted walls and battlements, which seem destined to defy both the weapons of enemies and the hand of time. The place is full of objects of interest, though the people are dreadful to behold. Most of them are Jews, dressed in long gaberdines, with high, bell-crowned hats on their heads, and long corkscrew curls, which fall, greasy and disgusting, upon their shoulders. All the women wear wigs, and the streets are full of both sexes, making a constant noise by their loud talk. The Marienkirche, a grand Gothic church, stands in the principal square. It is a lofty and curious structure, and after our long acquaintance with the 237 238 ACROSS RUSSIA. domes and pinnacles of Russian architecture, we were glad to salute a Gothic church once more. It contains much fine carving, and some tombs of .nota- bles, among which we were shown that of Casimir III., who lived in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and married the daughter of Emperor Albert II. The church of St. Barbara, a very picturesque edifice, is close at hand, and was full, chiefly of women, for the ceremony of high mass was in progress. It was a fete-day when we arrived at Cracow, and the city was crowded with peasants in costume. Whole families, who had come into the town for the day, were encamped in the shadow of the church, and the buildings were full of people coming and going. The women wore short petticoats, and gay handker- chiefs on their heads. Their faces were brown, and they had dark, flashing eyes. Some of them would have been handsome if they had been cleaner. They came into the church, which is Roman Catholic, and turning to the altar, threw themselves prostrate on their faces. How they managed to fall so suddenly, flat on their faces, and without severe injury, I could not understand; but hundreds did it, and nobody seemed to be hurt. The floor was very filthy, and the air in the church was a mixture of vile smells. A number of workmen were repairing one part of the building, and the service was going on in the choir. There are large and handsome arcades in the pub- lic square, where the shops contain all sorts of goods, and great markets are held on the pavement outside of the arcades every morning. The capitals of the CRACOW. 239 pillars of the arcades are carved with ancient faces. The sellers in the shops and market booths were all Jews, the carriage-drivers were Jews, the majority of the people outside of the churches were Jews, and even the beggars were of the race of Lazarus who lay at the gate of the rich man in the Gospel. We strolled down to the bridge over the Vistula, and enjoyed the view of the castle and the distant mountains. Under the castle is the cave where dwelt the dragon which Krak, the traditional founder of Krakau, was obliged to kill before he could build the city. Every city has its obstructive dragon; sometimes it is a quicksand or a river which will not be controlled; sometimes masses of rock, which must be blasted out before dwellings can be built; some- times warlike tribes object to the progress of civili- zation. No city which has become great in history has failed to have an obstructive or opposing dragon which had to be slain before the city could be built and become prosperous. Krak killed the Krakau dragon, and the town is his monument. The castle is used as barracks for troops and for hospital purposes. We drove there, and spent an afternoon among its monuments and tombs. Just within the gate of the Schoss is the cathedral, in the form of a cross, in the centre of which is a kind of tabernacle covering a silver shrine, within which repose the relics of Stanislaus, the Bishop of Cracow. He was beheaded at the altar by the bloody hand of Bolesas II., a sovereign whom he had rebuked for his cruelties and crimes. All the Polish kings from 1333, with two exceptions, are buried here. Accord- 240 ACROSS KTJSSIA. ing to Polish laws, when the king died, his hody was carried to Warsaw, and remained there till the elec- tion of his successor. Then the body was removed in state to Cracow, and two days before the corona- tion, preceded by all the great officers of state, with their rods of office reversed, was carried to the church of St. Stanislaus, where the burial service took place, after which it was entombed in the cathedral. Thus the funeral of a king always immediately pre- ceded a coronation, and taught impressively the un- certainty of human grandeur. The tombs are very magnificent, being made of red marble and highly ornamental. One of the finest is that of Casimir III., who reigned from 1309 to 1333, and to whom the sentiment written of the Roman Augustus was applied by a Polish historian, "He found Poland of wood and left her of marble." Next to Casimir lies Ladislaus II., the first of the house of Jagellon, who was a converted pagan. Among the tombs of his descendants we found those of the three Sigismunds and other early kings of Poland, and in a side chapel a fine figure of Christ and a statue by Thorwaldsen of Count Vladimir Potocki, who was killed before Moscow in 1812. The most interesting sight in the building was yet to come. After a period of waiting, the tonsured priest announced that the vaults were lighted, a ceremony which our guide had secured by a liberal largess. Through a trap-door at the right of the entrance, we followed the candle-bearing priest into the cold and damp and solemn abodes of the mighty dead. Here lies John Sobieski, the " hammer of the CRACOW. 241 Ottomans," who smote the Turks again and again, and whose statesmanship was equal to his warlike courage. Flags and garlands cover his tomb, looking upon which, Charles the Twelfth exclaimed, " What a pity that so great a man should ever die ! " Here is the sarcophagus of Joseph Poniatowski, bearing his crown and sceptre, and the sword with which he fell, bravely fighting at Leipsic ; and more interesting than all to our eyes, was the tomb of Thaddeus Kosciusko, who was brought from Soleure in 1817 to rest among the heroes of his country. These tombs were splendid with marble, porphyry, and granite, carved and em- blazoned with all the pomp of heraldry and royalty. We shivered with the cold, though it was an August day, and were glad to see the sunlight and breathe the air of heaven. I mentally resolved not to enter a tomb again of my own accord, but we do a great many things in travelling that reflection condemns ; if we did not, how little there would be to tell ! It will repay any one who stops in Cracow to drive to the hill of Bronislawa, a lofty mound of earth three miles out of the town, on the top of which the heart of Kosciusko is buried. It is said that soil from all the Polish battlefields is mingled here, and the place is guarded by troops, which were being drilled at the foot of the mound when we arrived. From the summit the view of Cracow, the river Vis- tula, and of the Carpathian Mountains is superb. In the evening crowds of Jews thronged the streets and caf^s, and though the Hotel de Saxe had been clean and comfortable, we were glad to leave for Hungary the next morning. XXXVI. THROUGH THE CARPATHIAN MOUN- TAINS. ENTERING HUNGARY A MAGYAR WATERING-PLACE — POPRAD AND ITS PEOPLE CLIMBING THE KOLBACH- THAL — SCHMECKE AND THE HUNGARIANS. After so many da.js spent in cities, it was refresh- ing to contemplate an excursion where the beauties and wondei"s of nature were to be the chief attrac- tions. We left Cracow in an early train for Ruttka, and travelled from thence to Poprad in Hungary. The railway is built among hills and mountains which remind an American of the Berkshire Hills and the White Mountains. Ranges of lofty and jagged peaks came into view as we travelled along, among them the lofty ridges of the Carpathians and spurs from this important chain of mountains. The women with little green sticks who serve as sentinels upon the Russian railways gave place to men and women stationed at every mile, with round straw targets which they placed in the centre of the railway track and removed for the passage of the train. The train is obliged to stop unless this target is removed, and as soon as the train passes the target is replaced. The system is simple but secure, and we questioned whether all of our automatic and 242 THEOUGH THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS. 243 labor-saving contrivances were as effective in pre- venting accident as these Hungarian peasants with their simple circles of braided straw. Trustworthy service in simple ways from human beings is worth more than the brainless labor of the most costly and intricate machinery. The great difficulty in the United States is to get service that can be depended upon. Our workmen and employes are so eager to get on, to change their occupation, to do something beside their regular work, to have "a good time" while they are working, that whole-souled or whole- minded and devoted service is almost unknown. These Hungarian railway employes were satisfied to do nothing else than lift these signals on and off the track all day long, from year's end to year's end, a humble employment that the average American would disdain, and could not be depended on to do it faith- fully for a single week. Perhaps competition and hard times will teach subordinates in all branches of labor the importance of minding their business, and the truth of the axiom that " what's worth doing at all is worth doing well." Through valleys where the grain was piled in stacks and among mountains which were cultivated to their very tops, and on whose long sloping shoulders the harvesters were at work we travelled on. At Oderburg an observation car had been placed at our disposal, and as the roadbed was well ballasted, and rain had fallen in the night, it was de- lightful to watch the changing scenery from the rear of the train as we climbed up the grades into the heart of the mountains where Poprad is situated. 244 ACROSS RUSSIA. We had lost sight of the Polish Jews, whose cork- screw curls, high caps, and filthy gaberdines had haunted us at Warsaw and Cracow. The laet link was broken when we crossed the frontier, and an old fellow with a beard like Abraham, and the shrewd- ness of Jacob at a bargain, perambulated the railway platform with a handful of paper money of the coun- try which he was offering to exchange for English sovereigns with the premium all upon the side of his dirty Austrian bills, while it ought to have been just the other way. Travellers are made to be plundered by money-changers, however, and we furnished our share to the greedy Jew. As we climbed higher the scenery became wilder, the air, which had been so dead and oppressive at Cracow, acquired tone and vigor, and a decided cool- ness made us thankful for shawls and wraps. For miles the railroad follows a large river on which large timber-rafts were frequent; on each side of the track honey-locust trees are growing, and gardens full of flowers and roses at the stations and at the houses of the sentinels. Little villages appeared now and then as we wound up from valley to valley, — a cluster of weather-stained timber or stone houses with a church in the centre. We had come into a Roman Catholic country, as indicated by the crosses along the roads, and the absence of icons. Here we have images and crucifixes instead of pictures in silver frames ; but with the exception that the people seem a little less religious there is no difference worth mentioning. About sunset we reached Poprad, a straggling THROUGH THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS. 245 town whose attraction consists in its extensive bath- houses and water-cures, and its proximity to Schmecke, a summer resort among hills like those of Saxon Switzerland. After a struggle with the drivers of several hundred nondescript vehicles, all of whom claimed us as their prey, we were driven to the Hiish Platz, where somewhat primitive accom- modations awaited us. The place reminded me of the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, though it was not so picturesque. In a valley, sur- rounded by mountains beautifully wooded for two- thirds of their height, and rough and jagged towards their summits, the springs are found which make the place a resort. Here a large park is laid out with two-story brick cottages in considerable numbers, dining and dancing-halls, and all the accompani- ments of the modern watering-place. A Hungarian band was playing wild music, and at tables beside fountains, and in summer-houses covered with vines, groups of military officers and elegantly dressed ladies were chatting; other groups of men were smoking long Turkish pipes and drinking beer, and a few children playing about added life and variety to the scene. The whole air of the place was differ- ent from anything in Russia, and we felt that we were in another land. There was a mingling of the lively gayety of the Viennese and the formality of the better class of Hungarians which was interesting and sometimes amusing. The watering-place is not a good place to stay in, for the buildings and grounds are damp and very cold at night, and the accommo- dations were ordinary and not very neat. 246 ACBOSS BUSSIA. The next day we took carriages up the hills to Schmecke, which is a much nicer place, with good hotels and villas, and far better in a sanitary point of view. From this starting-point we climbed up the Kolbachthal, amidst the wildest sort of mountain scenery, and were rewarded by fine views of lofty aiguilles and waterfalls, and far-extending plains, through which a river ran like a thread of silver. At the summer hotel upon the mountain we had a dinner of cabbage in four courses, viz. cabbage soup, Hamburg steak and cabbage, chicken and cabbage salad, and pancake and sweet cabbage. Hunger is a good sauce, and the long climb had fitted us to enjoy even this rather peculiar meal. Language being rather mixed at this resort, some of the party essayed a somewhat original style of Volapiik, which, how- ever, proved a failure in Hungary, though it was said to have been very effective under similar cir- cumstances in the land of the Midnight Sun. In Hungary everything seems very strange; the people are a handsome, black-eyed, black-haired race, handsomely formed, straight and tall, with none of the ponderosity and dulness of the Russians. The women are attractive, and many beautiful faces greet the traveller. The houses in the villages are curious structures, looking, in the distance, like military chapeaus. They are built in one or two stories of stone, overlaid with stucco, and covered with a curi- ous, wide-spreading roof, curled up at the edges like the roll of a hat. The doors and windows of the lower story are very small, and every window has a grating for purposes of protection and defence. The THEOUGH THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS. 247 fields were full of the peasantry, gathering the har- vest, which seemed very abundant, and the cultiva- tion was careful and thorough. There was an air of independence and thrift in the farming country and in the towns, though the latter were evidently desti- tute of Boards of Health and Street-cleaning Com- missioners. Horses, mules, and asses were much used in field work, in which men, women, and children dressed in picturesque costumes also joined. A day or two in the pure mountain air greatly re- freshed us after the exhausting sight-seeing of cities., and we were glad to exchange the long railway jour- neys for drives through mountain scenery, with good- natured drivers, and the opportunity to walk or stop, as we chose, and to spend our nights away from the noisy pavements in the quiet country. XXXVII. HUNGARIAN CAVERNS. THE ICE CAVE AT DOBSCHAU A UNIQUE PHENOMENON THE CAVERNS OF AGGELEN MILES OF STALACTITES — SIXTEEN HOURS UNDERGROUND — SWINE-HERDS OF HUNGARY. We left Poprad early one morning by carriages to visit the celebrated Ice Cavern at Dobschau. The road was smooth and the scenery beautiful. We drove along the banks of a river in the shadow of pine and larch and beech trees, passing now and then huge wagons loaded with produce or merchandise, drawn by six and eight horses, and meeting peasants on their way to work. The road led through one gypsy village, and as our direction made it an as- cending road for a part of the way, we were beset with importunate beggars. Horrible old crones thrust their skinny hands into our faces ; the blind, the lame, and the deformed crowded around the car- riages ; children of all ages and both sexes, in a state of dirt and rags which is beyond description, hung on to the carriage, or ran beside it, begging for money as long as their breath held out. Few of these girls and boys had more than a single dirty rag to hide their nakedness, and some were absolutely destitute of clothing. We speedily exhausted our 248 HUNGARIAN CAVERNS. 249 copper coin, but like the daughters of the horse leech, these gypsy beggars followed us for miles, cry- ing, "Give, give!" They were dark and swarthy people, with piercing black eyes, and thin, delicate features and closely curling hair, and even the worst of them had some remnant of good looks. The chil- dren would probably have been pretty if they had been clean, but as we saw them, they looked more like imps than human beings. Three hours brought us to the restaurant near the mouth of the cavern, and we breakfasted preparatory to entering. There is good provision made here for the traveller, and a great variety of curious things to tempt his purse, such as Hungarian hunting-dresses and ladies' hats made of leather, iron work of quaint patterns, gems and jewels, and carvings and souvenirs without end, At present the visitors to the cave are chiefly Austrians and natives who come from the towns on the Danube to recreate in the mountains; but English and American travellers have found out the wonderful phenomenon of the Hungarian Ice Cavern, and its beauties and glories will not be long neglected by the tourist agencies. I hear of two parties that intend to include the cave in their tour this year, and doubtless others will follow. This ice cave was accidentally discovered in 1875 by some gentlemen of the neighborhood when upon a shooting expedition. They came upon an opening in the ground near the summit of a hill, in the midst of a pine grove, whence a current of ice-cold air pro- ceeded. Cautiously descending, they found them- selves in glacial halls and passages, which were 250 ACROSS RUSSIA. afterwards thoroughly explored. The cold radiation from that part of the forest had been generally known for many years, but it was supers titiously "attributed to various causes, and the neighborhood was carefully avoided. Climbing the hill by a good path for about half an hour, we came to the mouth of the cave. A fur coat, which had been a heavy burden in the walk, now be- came a valuable precaution against the chilly air which issued from the opening. The guide led the way down an inclined plank walk, carrying a torch, and the company followed. At the depth of about one hundred feet we came into a large hall of solid ice, brilliantly illuminated with electric lights. We passed on through three such " icy halls of cold sub- limity," and along numerous passages floored and lined with pure white ice. The floor and walls were of solid ice of immense thickness, whilst from the roof and along the sides immense stalactites of crys- tal ice were hanging. Great pinnacles of ice reared themselves at intervals from the icy floor. Trees, columns, frozen cataracts, and fantastic forms of dazzling brilliancy were seen in every direction. As the light flashed upon these white and crystal masses, they gleamed and shone with the lustre of ten thou- sand diamonds. By means of paths cut through the ice, and well-arranged flights of steps, it was possible to explore a great part of this wonderful formation. In some parts of the cave the constant dropping of water was forming huge icicles, and the guide said that it often became necessary to blast away portions of the ice in order to keep the pathways open, so rap- HTJNGAHIAN CAVERNS. 251 idly did it increase at certain seasons. The rock to which the ice clings, and over which it forms, is lime- stone, and through this the water percolates ; but the mystery of the formation of ice in these subterranean chambers has not yet been solved. There is no lofty mountain above the hill from whence a glacier could descend, and the ice grows, apparently, in the same manner as the limestone caves of Virginia and Ken- tucky and Adelsburg are created. Whatever may be the process, the effect is brilliant and enchanting, and we were loath to return to the upper air, which seemed, by contrast, like that of a heated furnace. An afternoon drive through the mountains from Dobschau brought us in a few hours to Dobsina, where we passed the night in a wretched inn. It would have been far better to have returned to Poprad and started afresh for Tornally or Pelusez in order to reach the limestone formations and the grand caverns of Aggelen. "We were hustled out of bed at sunrise, and travelled by rail to Tornally, where we breakfasted. A long drive, in a hot sun, over dusty roads, brought us to a wretched village, where we procured guides, and then went on for several miles to the famous caves. They are regular limestone caverns of great extent, and abound in the wonderful formations which such caves present. There is noth- ing, however, to induce a tourist who has seen the Luray caverns, or the Mammoth Cave, to take the wearisome drive and the long previous journey in order to see Aggelen. One can walk for sixteen hours in these caves, and there are some halls and chambers which contain immense stalactites, and 252 ACROSS RUSSIA. groups of stalactites and stalagmites which look like miniature representations of the Milan Cathedral. There are three distinct rivulets in the cave, aild it would be most dangerous to attempt the excursion without a guide. It was necessary to return to Tor- nally to sleep, and to spend the whole of the next day in slow trains and waiting at stations before we reached Buda-Pesth. We travelled to Banreve, and then to Micholz, where we spent four hours in the waiting-rooms, be- guiling the time with watermelons and other fruits, and in watching the curious scenes which a transfer station in a foreign land is certain to afford. In the afternoon our train came along. It was Saturday, and the immense train was full of people, though in these countries there is always room for first-class passengers. At every station hundreds of workmen from the towns and laborers from the fields got on and off. Many of them were hog-herds, with long woollen cloaks and sheepskins over their shoulders, staves and crooks in their hands, and wearing great leather boots that reached nearly to their thighs. The plains over which the railway is laid seemed to be largely given up to pasturage, and though in many there were standing crops, without any fences between them and the pastures, the swine-herds were able, with the aid of their dogs, to keep the hogs out of the grain and lead or drive them where they wished to have them go. At every station there were piles of melons and fruits of every kind, and the people appeared to be independent and cheerful; and though evidently HXJNGAEIAN CAVERNS. 253 accustomed to hard work and small wages, there was no such evidence of poverty and depression as we had seen in Russia. The men were well clad in coarse cotton, and the women often made some pre- tensions to the simple display which bright colors and a pretty headkerchief afforded. It was nine o'clock before we steamed into Buda-Pesth, and half an hour's drive through the brilliantly lighted, ele- gantly built, and well-paved streets of this magnifi- cent capital of Hungary, brought us to one of the best hotels in Europe, facing the blue Danube, where music and food and letters from home and pleasant company made us forget the fatigues of the day, and prepared us for a night's rest such as we had not enjoyed for weeks. XXXVIII. BUDA-PESTH. THE BLUE DANUBE WONDERFUL GROWTH THE CHI- CAGO OF EUROPE AN EMPEROR's BIRTHDAY A BRILLIANT CAPITAL AND A THRIVING PEOPLE. From my rooms I looked down upon the Danube, which sparkled with multitudinous lights reflected in its waters, while on the opposite hills the dark outlines of the fortress of Buda could be dimly seen. In the morning light the extreme beauty of the situ- ation of the city was revealed. The hills, which are the last outposts of the Alps, come down to the right bank of the river, and have been settled since the time of the Romans. Numerous remains of Roman baths, houses, and an amphitheatre recently un- earthed testify to this Roman occupation. In later times the fortress of Buda, the scene of so many mili- tary memories, arose upon these hills. The very name of the town is derived from a brother of Attila, the "Scourge of God," the ruler of the Huns. After the Huns came the Magyars, who widened the bounds of Hungary; then the Turks broke into the kingdom from the east in 1526, destroyed the Hun- garian army, and killed the king. In the fortress of Buda a Turkish Pasha ruled for a century and a half, the Ottoman flag waved over its walls, and the cres- ^54 BXJDA-PESTH. 256 cent glittered on its temples. In 1686 the Turks were expelled, and by the early part of the eighteenth century Buda had a population of ten thousand souls. On the other side of the river, where now the mag- nificent palaces of Pesth are reflected in the blue Danube, and the long lines of splendid boulevards stretch out in every direction, and where a popula- tion of several hundred thousands enjoy the pleasures and pursue the industries of civilized life, there was only a wretched village called Pesth, consisting of a few thousand people, living in miserable huts, and reduced to poverty and degradation by the exactions of the Turks. Now the two cities, united in one municipal gov- ernment since 1873, have a population of more than half a million, and Pesth is one of the handsomest and most prosperous cities in Europe. The Danube divides the capital with a semicircu- lar line, and the town is laid out in boulevards parallel with the river. These great arteries of communication are planted with trees and traversed by electric railways. The inner town, at some dis- tance from the river, is closely built and full of stately edifices. Shops as elegant as those of Paris or Vienna, numerous banking establishments, and superb public buildings abound. From early morning till late at night these streets are full of people, and the signs of profitable busi- ness and brilliant social life are abundant. In scen- ery, architecture, and ethnographical features, Buda- Pesth is a city full of interest to the traveller, and the inhabitants resemble those of Chicago in their 256 ACEOSS RUSSIA. admiration for their own metropolis. As the cajiital of Hungary it is of great political importance. Here is the seat of the government and the various departments of state, the centre of an unusually active public life, during several months the resi- dence of a numerous and brilliant aristocracy, and the emporium of the trade and commerce of a great country. No other European city has developed with such rapidity and in so magnificent a style. The new parts of Pesth will challenge comparison with any capital in the elegance of the buildings, the width and beauty of the streets, and the admirable cleanliness, police, and sanitary arrangements. One has only to cross the fine suspension bridge to stand among by-gone centuries in Buda; and he who desires a fine view of the place should cross the Danube and climb St. Gellert or Blocksberg; the former name being derived from the Bishop of Csanad, who was thrown from the top of the hill by the heathen Huns in 1047. Our visit included the Emperor's birthday, and we were aroused at sunrise by the booming of guns from the castle. The people soon began to pour towards the military parade ground, and by nine o'clock there were many thousands on all the heights which over- looked the field. Tents had been pitched for the officers, and many ladies were among invited guests at the doors of these tents. Members of the Em- peror's household represented him upon the field, and for three hours between five and ten thousand infantry, cavalry, and artillery paraded and saluted and manoeuvred as on a battle-field. Bands of music BUDA-PESTH. 257 accompanied each regiment and played national airs which were stirring and beautiful. The Hungarians are fond of music, and have many societies in Buda- Pesth for its cultivation. Besides the classical music for the refined taste, there is an abundance of gypsy musicians who play without notes at the din- ing-rooms of the large hotels, and at the cafds and gardens. Chief among these latter is the great re- sort of Margaret's Island, known as the "Pearl of the Danube." Here in the afternoons from May to September, a great part of the fashion of the town, and many distinguished foreigners, assemble to bathe, promenade, dine, and amuse themselves. Steamers run frequently from the wharves of the town to the island, and crowds throng the groves and walks and summer-houses of this delightful spot. There are also beautiful gardens, with statues to noble and famous Hungarians, within the city. Museums of painting and sculpture, great libraries, universities, schools of art, and numerous technical schools afford excellent opportunities for enjoyment and culture, of which students are quick to take ad- vantage; and of the five hundred and sixty-one newspapers published in Hungary, nearly one-half appear in this capital, which is at once the social and intellectual metropolis of Hungary. We were never tired of driving along the quays, where the broad river, ploughed by multitudes of large steamers, crossed by three monumental bridges, among which is the famous suspension bridge, and lower down bordered by markets where piles of fruit and melons lay ripening in the warm sun, formed the 258 ACROSS RUSSIA. chief feature in an ever-changing scene. All the pleasures of a high civilization charmed and de- lighted us, and a new zest was given to life by the sense of freedom from espionage, which is an especial American blessing often ignorantly undervalued. We were glad to have passed out at last from auto- cratic rule and degraded peoples into a society where education and civilization were prominent and influ- ential. From Buda-Pesth it is five hours' ride by rail to Vienna, the Austrian Paris. Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston. Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston. 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