the churches, and bright green roofs of the houses, and far
away, beyond these, the gently undulating country with the "Sparrow
Hills," from which Napoleon is said, in cicerone language, to have
"gazed upon the doomed city." Occasionally I walked about the bazaars
in the hope of finding interesting specimens of genuine native
art-industry, and was urgently invited to purchase every conceivable
article which I did not want. At midday or in the evening I visited the
most noted traktirs, and made the acquaintance of the caviar, sturgeons,
sterlets, and other native delicacies for which these institutions
are famous--deafened the while by the deep tones of the colossal
barrel-organ, out of all proportion to the size of the room; and in
order to see how the common people spent their evenings I looked in at
some of the more modest traktirs, and gazed with wonder, not unmixed
with fear, at the enormous quantity of weak tea which the inmates
consumed.

* Allowance must be made here for poetical licence. In
reality, very few of the domes are gilt. The great majority
of them are painted green, like the roofs of the houses.

Since these first weeks of my sojourn in Moscow more than thirty years
have passed, and many of my early impressions have been blurred by time,
but one scene remains deeply graven on my memory. It was Easter Eve,
and I had gone with a friend to the Kremlin to witness the customary
religious ceremonies. Though the rain was falling heavily, an immense
number of people had assembled in and around the Cathedral of the
Assumption. The crowd was of the most mixed kind. There stood the
patient bearded muzhik in his well-worn sheepskin; the big, burly,
self-satisfied merchant in his long black glossy kaftan; the noble with
fashionable great-coat and umbrella; thinly clad old women shivering
in the cold, and bright-eyed young damsels with their warm cloaks drawn
closely round them; old men with long beard, wallet, and pilgrim's
staff; and mischievous urchins with faces for the moment preternaturally
demure. Each right hand, of old and young alike, held a lighted taper,
and these myriads of flickering little flames produced a curious
illumination, giving to the surrounding buildings a weird
picturesqueness which they do not possess in broad daylight. All stood
patiently waiting for the announcement of the glad tidings: "He is
risen!" As midnight approached, the hum of voices gradually ceased,
till, as