We left the theatre at the close of the third act, and crossed the river to our quarters on the hill. A chill mist hung over the Fair, but the lamps still burned, the streets were thronged, and the Don Cossacks kept patient guard at every corner. The night went by like one unconscious minute, in beds unmolested by bug or flea; and when I arose, thoroughly refreshed, I involuntarily called to mind a frightful chapter in De Custine's "Russia," describing the prevalence of an insect which he calls the _persica_, on the banks of the Volga. He was obliged to sleep on a table, the legs whereof were placed in basins of water, to escape their attacks. I made many inquiries about these terrible _persicas_, and finally discovered that they were neither more nor less than--cockroaches!--called _Prossaki_ (Prussians) by the Russians, as they are sometimes called _Schwaben_ (Suabians) by the Germans. Possibly they may be found in the huts of the serfs, but they are rare in decent houses. We devoted the first sunny hours of the morning to a visit to the citadel and a walk around the crest of the hill. On the highest point, just over the junction of the two rivers, there is a commemorative column to Minim, the patriotic butcher of Novgorod, but for whose eloquence, in the year 1610, the Russian might possibly now be the Polish Empire. Vladislas, son of Sigismund of Poland, had been called to the throne by the boyards, and already reigned in Moscow, when Minim appealed to the national spirit, persuaded General Pojarski to head an anti-Polish movement, which was successful, and thus cleared the way for the election of Michael Romanoff, the first sovereign of the present dynasty. Minim is therefore one of the historic names of Russia. When I stood beside his monument, and the finest landscape of European Russia was suddenly unrolled before my eyes, I could believe the tradition of his eloquence, for here was its inspiration. Thirty or forty miles away stretched the rolling swells of forest and grain-land, fading into dimmest blue to the westward and northward, dotted with villages and sparkling domes, and divided by shining reaches of the Volga. It was truly a superb and imposing view, changing with each spur of the hill as we made the circuit of the citadel. Eastward, the country rose into dark, wooded hills, between which the river forced its way in a narrower and swifter channel, until it disappeared behind a purple headland, hastening southward to find a warmer home in the unfrozen Caspian. By embarking on the steamers anchored below us, we might have reached Perm, among the Ural Mountains, or Astrachan, in less than a week; while a trip of ten days would have taken us past the Caucasus, even to the base of Ararat or Demavend. Such are the splendid possibilities of travel in these days.