mselves up in their cloaks and pick out a soft plank on the floor.
In an hour fresh horses were procured, and once more the tarantasse was
rattling along the road. About twenty-four hours after leaving Moscow,
the travellers reached the ancient city of Vladimir, with the Golden
Gate. It was once upon a time the capital of the Empire, and is still a
city of considerable size. It is picturesquely situated on a hill, on
which stand about twenty churches, overlooking a wide extent of wooded
country, with a magnificent river flowing through it. The Golden Gate,
which still rises in dignified solitude, a proud monument of the past,
is not an ungraceful building. It is no longer used as a gate.

The temptations held out by the hotel here did not induce our travellers
to stop, but, ordering fresh horses, they pushed on towards Nishni.
They were now entering a fertile tract of country; but, fertile as it
is, the population is not more dense than that of the most barren
districts of Scotland. Mile after mile of thick forest was passed
through, varied occasionally, as they approached the river Okka, by
large villages. These villages have a strong similarity to each other,
the houses being built of logs, and the gable-ends being turned to the
road, and being inhabited by people with a very great likeness to each
other. At length the town of Nishni-Novogorood appeared before them.
At most times of the year it contains but few inhabitants. It was now
crowded by persons from all parts of Russia and the provinces to the
south and east, who had assembled to dispose of the produce of their
respective districts, or to make purchases for exportation. Here
assemble merchants from all parts of Siberia, Tartars, Georgians,
Persians, and Armenians, to meet Russians and Germans, and even English
and French, from Saint Petersburg and Moscow, who come to buy their
produce or exchange them for manufactures from the West. Nishni stands
on a high promontory, whose base is washed on one side by the Volga, on
the other by its tributary the Okka. The Kremlin, or Citadel, with its
low, embattled walls, stands on the highest point, and overlooks a vast
plain, through which, at the base of the hill, the Volga flows proudly
past. On this plain, close to the banks of the river, was a whole city
of booths of various styles of architecture--those for the tea merchants
being in the shape of pagodas. Some of the booths are of considerable
size, bei