osition analogous to the tutelary deities of ancient pagan
cities. Thus when Napoleon was about to enter the city in 1812, the
populace clamorously called upon the Metropolitan to take the Madonna,
and lead them out armed with hatchets against the hosts of the infidel;
and when the Tsar visits Moscow he generally drives straight from the
railway-station to the little chapel where the Icon resides--near one of
the entrances to the Kremlin--and there offers up a short prayer.
Every Orthodox Russian, as he passes this chapel, uncovers and crosses
himself, and whenever a religious service is performed in it there
is always a considerable group of worshippers. Some of the richer
inhabitants, however, are not content with thus performing their
devotions in public before the Icon. They like to have it from time to
time in their houses, and the ecclesiastical authorities think fit to
humour this strange fancy. Accordingly every morning the Iberian Madonna
may be seen driving about the city from one house to another in a
carriage and four! The carriage may be at once recognised, not from any
peculiarity in its structure, for it is an ordinary close carriage such
as may be obtained at livery stables, but by the fact that the coachman
sits bare-headed, and all the people in the street uncover and cross
themselves as it passes. Arrived at the house to which it has been
invited, the Icon is carried through all the rooms, and in the principal
apartment a short religious service is performed before it. As it is
being brought in or taken away, female servants may sometimes be seen
to kneel on the floor so that it may be carried over them. During
its absence from its chapel it is replaced by a copy not easily
distinguishable from the original, and thus the devotions of the
faithful and the flow of pecuniary contributions do not suffer
interruption. These contributions, together with the sums paid for the
domiciliary visits, amount to a considerable yearly sum, and go--if I am
rightly informed--to swell the revenues of the Metropolitan.

A single drive or stroll through Moscow will suffice to convince the
traveller, even if he knows nothing of Russian history, that the city
is not, like its modern rival on the Neva, the artificial creation of a
far-seeing, self-willed autocrat, but rather a natural product which has
grown up slowly and been modified according to the constantly changing
wants of the population. A few of the streets have be