feet above sea-level, to its outlet into the Caspian
Sea. Many cities and thriving towns are situated upon its banks. At
Nijni-Novgorod it is joined by the Oka River. In addition to these
water-ways there are also the Obi, the Yenisee, the Lena, the Don, and
the Dnieper, all rivers of the first class, whose entire course from
source to mouth is within the Russian territory, saying nothing of the
several rivers tributary to these. Nor should we forget those frontier
rivers, the Danube, the Amoor, and the Oxus, all of which are auxiliary
to the great system of canals that connects the important rivers of the
empire. The Volga by this system communicates with the White Sea, the
Baltic, and the Euxine.

While we are narrating these interesting facts relating to the material
greatness of Russia, we are also approaching its ancient capital. It
stands upon a vast plain through which winds the Moskva River, from
which the city derives its name. The villages naturally become more
populous as we advance, and gilded domes and cupolas occasionally loom
up above the tree-tops on either side of the road, indicating a Greek
church here and there. As in approaching Cairo in Egypt, one sees first
and while far away the pyramids of Ghizeh, and afterwards the graceful
minarets and towers of the Oriental city gleaming through the golden
haze; so as we gradually emerge from the thinly inhabited Russian plains
and draw near the capital, first there comes into view the massive
towers of the Kremlin and the Church of Our Saviour with its golden
dome, followed by the hundreds of glittering steeples, belfries, towers,
and star-gilded domes of this extremely interesting and ancient city.

Though some of these religious temples have simply a cupola in the shape
of an inverted bowl, terminating in a gilded point capped by a cross and
crescent, few of them have less than five or six, and some have sixteen
superstructures of the most whimsical device, with gilded chains
depending from each apex and affixed at the base. A bird's-eye view of
Moscow is far more picturesque than that of St. Petersburg, the older
city being located upon very uneven ground, is in some places quite
hilly. St. Petersburg is European, while Moscow is Tartar. The latter
has been three times nearly destroyed: first by the Tartars in the
thirteenth century; next, by the Poles, in the seventeenth century; and
again at the time of the French invasion under Napoleon, in 1812. Still