“Designing to go [to Sophia] _incognita_, I hired a Turkish coach. These voitures are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded; the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are covered all over with scarlet cloth, lined with silk, and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely hides the persons in them, but may be thrown back at pleasure, and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four people very conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised.” [Illustration: _The Darnley Chariot. Early Eighteenth Century_ (_From Smith’s “Concise History of English Carriages”_)] They were, it would seem, mere covered waggons, and, indeed, in another place Lady Mary speaks of them as such. Turkey possessed also “open gilded chariots,” but in these the women were not allowed to drive. Russia, too, at this time possessed coaches, and we read that Peter the Great in his trans-European journey travelled with “thirty-two four-horse carriages and four six-horse waggons.” One or two particulars are forthcoming of the royal coach-house. It contained but two coaches, with four places in each, for the use of the Empress and a smaller, low-hung carriage, painted red, for the Emperor. This was replaced in winter by a small sledge. Peter, however, was not fond of his carriage. “He never,” says Waliszewski,[36] “got into a coach, unless he was called upon to do honour to some distinguished guest, and then he always made use of Menshikof’s carriages. These were magnificent. Even when the favourite went out alone, he drove in a gilded fan-shaped coach, drawn by six horses, in crimson velvet trappings, with gold and silver ornaments; his arms crowned with a prince’s coronet, adorned the panels; lacqueys and running footmen in rich liveries ran before it; pages and musicians, dressed in velvet, and covered with gold embroideries, followed it. Six gentlemen attended it at each door, and an escort of dragoons completed the procession.” It is difficult to conceive the appearance of this fan-shaped coach, but it must have been almost startlingly magnificent, just the kind of carriage for the Russian Buckingham. In the imperial collection at Petersburg are preserved one or two Russian carriages of this period. “One,” says Bridges Adams, “is close, made of deal, stained black, mounted on four wheels, the windows of mica instead of glass, and the frames of common tin: the other is open, with a small machine behind of the shipwright-emperor’s invention—its purpose to determine the number of miles traversed on a journey. In the same collection,” he adds, “is the litter of Charles XII used at the battle of Pultowa.”