pe, and size, not altogether unlike a
vast garden filled with brobdignagian tulips, but with more hues than
any tulip bed ever possessed; and, in addition to the many-coloured
tints of the rainbow, there appeared numberless balls of burnished gold
and silver, glittering brightly in the sun.

Cousin Giles first ascertained their position by his compass. Turning
to the north, they observed in that direction fewer churches, but
numerous villas and lines of wood, with the arid steppe beyond them. To
the south-west arose the Sparrow Hills, those celebrated heights whence
Napoleon and his then victorious army first caught sight of that magic
city which they deemed was soon to be the reward of all their toils, but
yet which, ere many days had passed, was to prove the cause of their
destruction. In the same direction the Moscowa was seen flowing down
towards the city, to circle round a portion of it under the walls of the
Kremlin, and then to run off again at an acute angle to the east. To
the south, on a plain near the banks of the river, rose high above other
buildings the red towers and walls of the Donskoy Convent, several other
convents, carefully painted of different colours, being scattered about.

"The birds which have their nests there can have no fear of mistaking
their proper abodes on their return from their morning flight," observed
Harry, who generally formed quaint notions on what he saw.

Directly below them were the numerous and strange gold, and black, and
blue, and green domes of the churches of the Kremlin,--its dark-green
pointed towers, its wide gravelled esplanade, the roofs of its vast
palaces and public buildings, its belt of turreted walls and gardens
with their green lawns and shade-giving trees; but stranger still was
the city itself, with its thousands of coloured cupolas, turrets, domes,
spires, roofs, and walls. To define this strangeness more clearly,
there were domes of bright-blue, with golden stars and golden chains
hanging from the golden crosses which surmounted them. There were some
domes of size so vast that they looked like huge mountains of gold; some
were of dark blue, and others of green and gold; some were black, and
others shone like burnished steel; some were perfectly white, others
grey, and others of the lightest blue, scarcely to be distinguished from
the tint of the azure expanse amid which they reared their heads, except
by the golden ball and cross and glittering chains