, with its remnants of tarnished finery, its three
surviving families of Russian blood, its handful of Indian converts,
seems not likely to hold long together.

We witnessed a service in St. Michael's. The tinkling bells in the green
belfry--a bulbous, antique-looking belfry it is--rang us in from the
four quarters of the town. As there were neither pews, chairs nor prayer
carpets, we stood in serio-comic silence while the double mysteries of
the hidden Holy of Holies were celebrated. Not more than a dozen
devotees at most were present. These gathered modestly in the rear of
the nave and put us to shame with their reverent gravity. Strange chants
were chanted; it was a weird music, like a litany of bumblebees. Dense
clouds of incense issued from gilded recesses that were screened from
view.

It was all very strange, very foreign, very unintelligible to us. It was
also very monotonous; and when some of the unbelievers grew restless and
stole quietly about on voyages of exploration and discovery, they were
duly rewarded at the hands of the custodian of the chapel, who rather
encouraged the seeming sacrilege. He left his prayers unsaid to pilot us
from nook to nook; he exhibited the old paintings of Byzantine origin,
and in broken English endeavored to interpret their meaning. He opened
antique chests that we might examine their contents; and when a volume
of prayers printed in rustic Russian type and bound with clumsy metal
clasps, was bartered for, he seemed quite willing to dispose of it,
though it was the only one of the kind visible on the premises. This
excited our cupidity, and, with a purse in our hand, we groped into the
sacristy seeking what we might secure.

A set of small chromos came to light: bright visions of the Madonna,
done in three or four colors, on thin paper and fastened to blocks of
wood. They were worth about two cents--perhaps three for five. We paid
fifty cents apiece, and were glad to get them at that price--oh, the
madness of the seeker after souvenirs! Then all unexpectedly we came
upon a collection of half-obliterated panel paintings. They were thrown
carelessly in a deep window-seat, and had been overlooked by many. They
were Russian to the very grain of the wood; they were quaint to the
verge of the ludicrous; they were positively black with age; thick
layers of dust and dirt and smoke of incense coated them, so that the
faint colors that were laid upon them were sunk almost out of sight.