We entered the gates at the same moment as an old grey-beard, tottering on his staff, wan and weary, worn out with the long journey on foot from a distant part of Russia, so feeble that nothing but the intoxication of fanaticism could have carried him on to its end. Inside the gates were more beggars, but these were apparently collectors for the monastery, for I noticed that a reverend brother was going his rounds among them, peering into the contents of the little tin plates to see that there should be no alienation of alms for private purposes. I felt rather indignant at this, but it occurred to me afterwards that the idea might be simply to pool all the receipts, that the fraternity of beggars might all share and share alike. Swiftly a serving brother laid hold of us; he was half, if not wholly, an idiot, and having an impediment in his speech, promised to be very troublesome; but a jolly little monk coming up delivered us from our tormentor and sent him about his business. He invited us into his cell and offered to act as our cicerone. His humble home was tiny and neat and scrupulously clean—one might have eaten off the floor. In one corner before the ikona (sacred image), a little lamp was burning. His furniture consisted of a white sofa-bed, two chairs and a cupboard. The little window, on the sill of which he had the luxury of a sweet-scented verbena and a pot of mignonette—one of those touches of poetry which make the whole world akin—looked out upon a very pretty view of the monastery garden fringed by the woods beyond. The dear little man made us very welcome, and gave us each a rude print of St. Sergius as a remembrance of the monk Vaccian and of the Troitzkaia Lavra. He made me write down his name in my pocket-book, and then I must write mine for him. To my amazement, for I had written it in the Russian character, he had to spell it painfully, letter by letter. Print he could read fairly well, and of course the old Slavonic script of the liturgies. But writing, and the reading of the written character, were beyond his capabilities. Indeed, during the seven hours that I spent with him and his brethren, I was continually being struck by the proofs of the most crass and darkest ignorance. Beyond the four walls of their convent they knew nothing, absolutely nothing. One of them asked me whether England was not supplied with gold by Russia. When I alluded to California and Australia, they had never heard of either. They knew that there was a place called America, and another quite unimportant place called India, but what they were, to whom they belonged, or by whom they were peopled—that was a blank.