The paper of instructions left by Monomakh, for his sons, indicates the moral superiority of this half-barbaric prince. As early as his day, monasticism had become a recognized element of the national life. But he wrote: “Neither solitude nor fasting, nor the monastic vocation will procure for you the life eternal. Well doing alone will help you in this world, and be put to your credit for the next. Do not bury your riches in the earth”—a custom still practiced in Russia—“for that is contrary to the precepts of Christianity. Judge yourselves the cause of widows, and extend a fatherly protection to orphans. Put to death no one, not even the guilty; for the most sacred thing our God has made is a Christian soul.... Strive continually to get knowledge; and when you have learned aught that is useful, put it away carefully in your memory. Without ever leaving his palace, my father Vsevolod spoke five languages. This ability to learn foreign tongues, foreigners admire in us.... I have made altogether twenty-three campaigns, without counting some lesser ones. With the Polovtsui I have concluded nineteen treaties of peace, have taken at least a hundred of their princes prisoners, and have restored them their liberty; besides more than two hundred whom I threw into the rivers. No one has traveled more rapidly than I. If I left Tchernigof early in the morning, I arrived at Kief before vespers.” The distance between the two cities is eighty miles. The Russians are rapid travelers to this day. “Sometimes amidst sombre forests I caught wild horses, tied them together, and subdued them. How often have I been thrown from the saddle by buffalos, thrust at by deer, trampled upon by elands! A furious boar once tore my sword from its belt. A bear threw my horse, and rent my saddle. In my youth how often did I narrowly escape death, when, thrown from my horse, I received many wounds! But the Lord watched over me.” Such was the Russian hero-prince of the eleventh century,—valiant, hardy, magnanimous, pious; a sovereign whose duty did not permit him to repose on rose leaves. The regalia that, according to a tradition circulated by the tsars of Moscow, belonged to their illustrious Kievan ancestor, is still preserved in the museum of the former city. It consists of a “bonnet” or crown, and collar of Byzantine elegance; with them is a throne and a cornelian cup, the latter said to have belonged to the Roman emperor Augustus. According to the tradition, the whole were gifts from the Greek emperor to his Russian kinsman, sent by the Bishop of Ephesus, who, in solemn state, crowned Monomakh sovereign of all Russia. The legend is an invention for the interest of the Muscovite tsars, but the crown and collar are still used at the ceremony of coronation: the collar representing the burden imposed upon him whose “shoulders” receive the weight of government. The first manifesto of the present tsar alludes to this painful “perilous burden.” _CHAPTER VI._