race.

From _Translations of Russian Works_ you can glean nothing but what the
Russian government chooses, as every work goes through a severe censorship
before it is allowed to be printed for circulation; and if there is
anything in it that is not liked, it is not permitted to be published
unless those parts are suppressed.

It is perhaps only partially known that there is some difficulty in getting
English books and newspapers into Russia, as all must go through the
censor's office. _The Times_ (which is however all but, if not quite,
prohibited at St. Petersburg, and has been so a long time), _Punch_, and
other of our papers, possess a ludicrous appearance after having passed
through the hands of the worthies in the censor's office, sometimes there
being very little left of them to read.

Whilst writing about images, I omitted to name one or two other
circumstances that have come under my own notice, showing still farther the
superstitious veneration in which they are held by the Russians.

In the case of a house on fire, one of the inmates, with his head
uncovered, carries the image three times round the burning house, under the
{499} belief that it will cause the fire to cease, never attempting to put
it out by any other means.

At Moscow there is a very noted image of the Virgin Mary; it is deposited
in a recess at one side of an archway leading to the Kremlin. Every person
passing through this archway is _obliged_ to uncover his head. I had to do
so whenever I passed through. The belief of the efficacy of this image in
healing diseases is universal. When any person is ill, by paying the
priests handsomely, they will bring it with great pomp, in a carriage and
four horses, to the sick person's house, who _must_ recover, or else, if
death ensues, they say it is _so fated_.

Instances of other images in various parts of the empire, some believed to
have fallen from heaven, might be multiplied to any extent. I mention these
to show that, whatever these representations of the Deity may be called, I
had not written unadvisedly previously, as might be surmised by G. W.'s
remarks. Everybody must deplore the wretched condition of these people; and
the Czar, well knowing their superstitious ideas, works upon their
fanatical minds with such letters as we all have had the sorrow of seeing a
specimen of in _The Times_ of to-day.[2]

J. S. A.

May 15, 1854.

[Footnote 1: Owing to an error in my original MS., or of th