felt in the
unsculpturesque architecture of Russia. Pilgrims and beggars--the
line of demarcation it is not always easy to define--have an Oriental
way of throwing themselves into easy and paintable attitudes; in
fact posture plays a conspicuous part in the devotions of such
people; they pray bodily almost more than mentally,--the figure
and its attendant costume become instruments of worship.

The Cathedral of St. Sophia, which dates back to the Eleventh Century,
is of interest from its resemblance to St. Mark's, Venice, in the
plan of the Greek cross, in the use of domes and galleries, and
in the introduction of mosaics as surface-decorations. I saw the
galleries full of fashionable worshippers; the galleries in St. Mark's
on the contrary, are always empty and useless, though constructed for
use. In the apse are the only old mosaics I have met with in Russia;
it is strange that an art which specially pertains to Byzantium
was not turned to more account by the Greco-Russian Church. There
is in the apse, besides, a subject composition,--a noble female
figure, colossal in size, the arms upraised in attitude of prayer,
the drapery cast broadly and symmetrically. In the same interior
are associated with mosaics, frescoes, or rather wall-paintings
in _secco_. On the columns which support the cupola are frescoes
which, though of no art value, naturally excited curiosity when
they were discovered some few years since, after having been hid
for two or more centuries by a covering of whitewash. Some other
wall-pictures are essentially modern, and others have been restored,
after Russian usage, in so reckless and wholesale a fashion as to
be no longer of value as archaeologic records. In the staircase
leading to the galleries are some further wall-paintings, said to
be contemporaneous with the building of the cathedral; the date,
however, is wholly uncertain. These anomalous compositions represent
a boar-hunt and other sports, with groups of musicians, dancers,
and jugglers, intervening. In accord with the secular character of
the subjects is the rude naturalism of the style. Positive knowledge
as to date being wanting, it is impossible to speak of these works
otherwise than to say that they cannot be of Byzantine origin.
If of real antiquity they will have to join company with other
semi-barbaric products in metal, etc., which prove, as we have
seen, that Russia has two historic schools, the Byzantine, on the
one hand, debil