lves could before, at the same
time giving good prices for the skins of reindeer and other wild
animals killed by the Lapps. So far no want of grazing plots has been
felt. The Zirians have already over 10,000 head of deer, deriving,
comparatively speaking, enormous gains from them. But then, unlike
the Lapps, the Zirians go about their business in systematic and
sensible fashion, safeguarding their stock from the incursions of
beasts of prey, tending them carefully winter and summer, driving
them from time to time to suitable pastures, etc.

_MOSCOW_

_THE KREMLIN AND ITS TREASURIES. THE ANCIENT REGALIA. THE ROMANOFF
HOUSE_

_ALFRED MASKELL_

Moscow is the second capital of the Empire, but by ancient right
the first, although now surpassed both in commerce and population by
the modern city of Peter the Great. Moscow occupies almost exactly
the geographical centre of European Russia. Artistically it is of
far greater interest to us than its northern rival. It has preserved
the old oriental type: in its palaces has been displayed the barbaric
pomp of the Muscovite Tsars of which much yet remains, not only
in their renovated halls but also in what is left of the plate,
jewels and ornaments with which they once abounded.

The general plan resembles somewhat that of Paris; the different
quarters have gradually developed around a centre, and the river
Moskva meanders through them as the Seine. The centre is the Kremlin;
in shape an irregular triangle surrounded by high walls, outside
which is the first walled-in quarter--the Kitai-Gorod, that is
the Chinese city, about the meaning of which term there is some
dispute. It is not, nor ever has been, in any way Chinese.

The name of Moscow appears first in the chronicles in 1147, when
Youri, a son of Vladimir Monomachus, built the first houses of a
town on the hill where the Kremlin now stands, but it was not until
at least a century later that the city became of any importance.
In 1237, it was burned by the Tartars and the real founder was
Daniel, a son of Alexander Nevski. He was the first prince buried
in the church of St. Michael where, until the time of Peter the
Great, all the sovereigns of Russia have been buried; as in the
metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption, but a few steps distant,
they have all been crowned up to the present day. From the Fifteenth
to the Seventeenth Centuries, at the time when the arts flourished
in Russia, in the greatest profusio