The Emperor’s Majesty useth every year in the month of December to have all his ordnance that is in the city of Moscow carried into the fields which are without the suburbs of the city, and there to have it planted and bent upon two houses of wood filled within with earth. Against which two houses there were two fair white marks set up, at which marks they discharge all their ordnance, to the end the Emperor may see what his gunners can do. They have fair ordnance of brass of all sorts-bases, falcons, minions, sakers, culverins, cannons (double and royal), basilisks (long and large); they have six great pieces, whose shot is a yard of height, which shot a man may easily discern as they flee. They have also a great many of mortar pieces or pot guns, out of which pieces they shoot wild fire. The 12th of December the Emperor’s Majesty and all his nobility came into the field on horse-back in most goodly order, having very fine jennets and Turkey horses garnished with gold and silver abundantly; the Emperor’s Majesty having on him a gown of rich tissue and a cap of scarlet on his head, set not only with pearls, but also with a great number of rich and costly stones; his noblemen were all in gowns of cloth of gold, who did ride before him in good order by three and three, and before them there went 5,000 arquebusiers, which went by five and five in a rank in very good order, every of them carrying his gun upon his left shoulder and his match in his right hand, and in this order they marched into the field where the aforesaid ordnance was planted. And before the Emperor’s Majesty came into the field there was a certain stage made of small poles, which was a quarter of a mile long, and about three score yards off from the stage of poles were certain pieces of ice of two feet thick and six feet high set up, which rank of ice was as long as the stage of poles; and as soon as the Emperor’s Majesty came into the field, the arquebusiers went upon the stage of poles, where they settled themselves in order. And when the Emperor’s Majesty was settled where he would be, and where he might see all the ordnance discharged and shot off, the arquebusiers began to shoot off at the bank of ice as though it had been in any skirmish or battle, who ceased not shooting until they had beaten all the ice flat on the ground.