hat a vast, wavy
ocean of golden cupolas and fancy-colored domes, green-roofed houses
and tortuous streets circle around this magic pile! what a combination
of wild, barbaric splendors! nothing within the sweep of vision that
is not glowing and Oriental. Never was a city so fashioned for scenic
effects. From the banks of the Moskwa the Kremlin rears its glittering
crest, surrounded by green-capped towers and frowning embattlements,
its umbrageous gardens and massive white walls conspicuous over the
vast sea of green-roofed houses, while high above all, grand and
stern, like some grim old Czar of the North, rises the magnificent
tower of Ivan Veliki. Within these walls stand the chief glories of
Moscow--the palaces of the Emperor, the Cathedral of the Assumption,
the House of the Holy Synod, the Treasury, the Arsenal, and the Czar
Kolokol, the great king of bells. All these gorgeous edifices, and
many more, crown the eminence which forms the sacred grounds,
clustering in a magic maze of beauty around the tower of Ivan the
Terrible. Beyond the walls are numerous open spaces occupied by booths
and markets; then come the principal streets and buildings of the
city, encircled by the inner boulevards; then the suburbs, around
which wind the outer boulevards; then a vast tract of beautiful and
undulating country, dotted with villas, lakes, convents, and public
buildings, inclosed in the far distance by the great outer wall, which
forms a circuit of twenty miles around the city. The Moskwa River
enters near the Presnerski Lake, and, taking a circuitous route,
washes the base of the Kremlin, and passes out near the convent of St.
Daniel. If you undertake, however, to trace out any plan of the city
from the confused maze of streets that lie outspread before you, it
will be infinitely worse than an attempt to solve the mysteries of a
woman's heart; for there is no apparent plan about it; the whole thing
is an unintelligible web of accidents. There is no accounting for its
irregularity, unless upon the principle that it became distorted in a
perpetual struggle to keep within reach of the Kremlin.

It is sometimes rather amusing to compare one's preconceived ideas of
a place with the reality. A city like Moscow is very difficult to
recognize from any written description. From some cause wholly
inexplicable, I had pictured to my mind a vast gathering of tall,
massive houses, elaborately ornamented; long lines of narrow and
gloomy st