Upon entering the Spassky Gate, or Gate of the Redeemer, every hat has to be removed in honour of the _ikon_ of the Saviour which is placed above it. The picture was placed there, by the Tsar Alexis, in 1647, to be regarded as the "palladium of the Kremlin," and the order was given then that hats should be removed when passing through. The law is rigorously enforced still, and though it is sometimes a trial--I had frostbite in consequence when I last went through a year ago--yet the act is almost an instinctive one when entering or leaving the Kremlin. Warsaw, again--for no one in this generation can dissociate it from Russia and call it Polish only--with its glorious position on the Vistula in the midst of its great plain, though not so ancient and inspiring as Cracow, in Galicia, is full of moving appeal to the national and historic sense for those who visit it for the first time, and especially, as in my own case, when entering the empire by that route. I have seen Warsaw in spring, summer, and winter, and always felt its charm; and I have not felt more deeply moved for a long time than by the Emperor's proclamation that he intended the Poles once more to be a nation and--there can be but little doubt about it--with Warsaw as its capital. Riga also, the great shipping-port on the Baltic, which I have entered by sea and by land, and when coming in by sea have had the pleasure of seeing our beautiful English church on the shore with its graceful spire standing out conspicuously, yet blending in with other towers and pinnacles. How very characteristic of the Baltic and attractive the city is, with its blending of the Teuton and Slav populations! But how essentially Russian it is in all its leading features, while different from all other Russian cities! It is so wherever one goes both on this and on the other side of the Urals. There always seems to be something specially characteristic in these great centres of population; and they all seem as if, unlike other towns, they had each their own interesting story to tell for those who have ears to hear. Town or city life in Russia is not very representative of the true life of the country and its people, though it undoubtedly exerts a widespread influence upon their general social life; for Russia's vast population is not gathered together in either towns or cities, but in hamlets and villages. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace tells us that when he wrote his first book on Russia, in 1877, there were only eleven towns with a population of over 50,000 in European Russia, and that, in 1905, they had only increased to thirty-four. The increase of the future will no doubt be more rapid when the war is over.