reasonable, I should have been whirled
off to a dungeon to a certainty," exclaimed poor Evergreen, shuddering
at the thought of the danger he had escaped.

Moscow is one of the most romantic cities in Europe--indeed, there is no
other to be compared with it; but our friends had entered it in so
ordinary, every-day a manner that at first they could hardly persuade
themselves that they had reached a considerable way towards the centre
of Russia, and were really and truly in that far-famed city.

"Now, my boys, we will steer a course for the Kremlin," cried Cousin
Giles, having taken the bearings of their hotel as they walked along the
street called the Grand Lubianka.

Their course was nearly a straight one. In a little time, crossing an
open space, they found themselves before a line of fortified walls, and
a gateway, such as they might have expected to see in a picture of China
or Tartary, with strange-looking eastern turrets, and domes, and roofs
rising within them.

"This must be the Chinese city we have heard of," said Cousin Giles.

So it was. It is a city within a city. It has three sides, the walls
of the Kremlin making the fourth. They passed through the gateway and
found themselves in a narrow street, the buildings on either side of
them having a still more Chinese appearance. On the left was a little
church, with numerous parti-coloured domes, and minarets, and towers,
and outside staircases leading nowhere, and railings, and balconies, and
little excrescences of roofs, altogether forming an edifice much more
like a Chinese than a Christian temple. Close to it, on the left, they
saw a long open space, just inside the walls, crowded with people of the
lowest order, with booths on either side. This was what may be called
the rag fair of Moscow. The booths or shops contain all the articles
either for dress or household purposes used by the mujicks. The sellers
and purchasers were all talking and laughing, and haggling and
chattering away as if the affairs of the nation depended on what they
were about, and yet probably a few kopecks would have paid for any one
of the articles bought or sold. At the end of the street the travellers
came to the entrance of the great bazaar of Moscow, and as they looked
down its numerous long alleys, glazed over at the top, they saw lines of
little shops,--jewellers, and silversmiths, and makers of images, and
hatters, and shoemakers, and tinmen, and trunk-makers, and o