Far to the north is Russia. Extending through no less than one hundred and seventy-three degrees of longitude, and covering forty parallels of latitude, from the Baltic to the Pacific, and from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean, with an area of eight and a half million square miles, lies this great lone land. This gigantic empire, touching on the one hand the ice-bound shores of Nova Zembla, and on the other the caravan trails of Bokhara, stretches from the Gulf of Finland in the west to Kamtchatka on the east. Within its boundaries are comprised bleak deserts and fertile plains. Verdant valleys, unscalable mountains, and vast steppes break the monotony of the landscape, and diversify a surface watered by great rivers from the arctic Yenisei to the Oriental Oxus. Great among the powers is this mysterious Colossus, her head white with the snows of eternal winter and her feet laved in the sunlight of tropic streams. The land of the seafarers--so its name indicates--developing enormously and steadily in power, wealth, and civilization, in the nine hundred years which have elapsed since Rurik the Viking first stepped upon its shores, has not yet reached its zenith. It is to-day the home of more diverse nationalities than any other existent country, and foreshadowings of unlimited predominance are apparent. Its sway extends over more races and peoples than any other power has governed since the days of Augustus Cæsar, and the end is not yet. Well do its rulers arrogate to themselves the imperial title of the ancient head of the Roman Empire. Holy Russia, the home of the Orthodox Church, the country of the White Czar, the land of the once despised Slav, yet contains within its borders, in Lithuania, the focal point of that Aryan race which has filled Europe with its splendor. This Russia, the land of the Tartar, the Mongol, the Samoyede, the Cossack, the Finn, and the Pole; this Russia, the land of Ivan the Terrible, of Peter the Great, was now in the hands of a woman--of Catherine II.