In this dilemma, I turned to Colonel Greig and explained that it was not possible for me to attend the banquet as I had no dress clothes with me. He looked me over, and replied: "I think we are about the same size. Suppose you try one of my suits?" I accepted the offer at once, and found that his suit fitted me as well as my own. The banquet was a great affair, with a vast concourse of "skis," "offs," "neffs," and so on--little tag-ends of words by which one may tell a Russian name, even if it were possible not to tell it from its general appearance and sound without them. After a few days at the Greigs', I left for Moscow, where I was received by Prince Dombriski, brother-in-law of the Emperor. The old city of Moscow impressed me more than any other city of Europe. It seemed to belong to quite another world and to a different civilization. There is something primitive and prehistoric about it--elemental in its somberness and in its grandeur. I was astonished to find in the Kremlin a portrait of Napoleon at the battle of Borodino. In going from the capital to Moscow over the straight line of railway, I heard much of the way that the Czar Nicholas had built the road. It is said that he summoned to him his chief contractor and engineer, Carmichael, and asked him to make specifications for the line as arranged for between the two cities. The Czar confidently expected that he was being deceived about all matters of this kind, and was prepared for fraud in this enterprise. Carmichael drew up elaborate specifications, which Nicholas saw at once were entirely too elaborate, and gave abundant room for "pickings." He turned to Carmichael and asked if the specifications were all right. Carmichael assured him they were. "All right, then," said Nicholas, "I shall turn them over, just as they are, to Major Whistler." The Major was the uncle of the famous artist of to-day. Whistler built the road on Carmichael's specifications, and made a fortune, which has been the foundation of a half dozen family estates--the Winans, Harrison, Whistler estates, et al. I observed a peculiar effect of the direct method of the Czar in building a straight road to Moscow. All the big cities and even the prosperous and important towns had, without exception, been left at varying distances from the line of railway. At the little stations on the route the Russians would get off and get hot water in samovars and make tea, each of them carrying a supply of tea in bricks, with square loaf sugar in their pockets.