The generality of travellers in Russia, at least of those tourists who have obliged the world with ‘Winters in St. Petersburg’ and ‘Journeys to Moscow,’ containing the most flourishing accounts of the state of the roads, the high civilization, the rapid strides to excellence, &c., of the Czar’s dominions, are unfortunately limited to a class who, having a few months’ leisure, and being desirous of change, take the voyage to Russia as one promising more novelty than the hackneyed roads of France and Switzerland. Their ordinary plan is, to take the steamer to St. Petersburg, and after a stay of a short time take a “run” to Moscow, whence they return in time for the “boat,” and hasten back at the rate of ten or twelve knots an hour, carrying away with them the most erroneous and false ideas of the real state of things, the mere surface of which they have scarcely had time to skim. Had they remained a few years among the Russians, not living, as the most part of the English do, in little colonies by themselves, but mixing with the people, and had they travelled a few thousand miles over the cross-country roads, they would soon have had “the gilding taken off the gingerbread” of Muscovite civilization. In fact, the excessive exterior polish always reminded me of a woman with her face painted, who hopes by factitious bloom on her cheeks to hide her ugliness. Moscow and St. Petersburg are certainly fine cities; the former may be regarded as the true Russian capital, the latter is merely a handsome imitation of other European great towns. Having seen them, the stranger has seen all that is civilized in the empire. In illustration of what I have said, I may remark that, excepting the chaussée from the western to the inland capital, and from the former to Warsaw, there are really no roads; those fine macadamised highways so much lauded by travellers, and deservedly so, extend but a few miles beyond the towns: farther on the route lies through immense plains of sand, endless morasses, and interminable forests in the north, and steppes in the south, across which the post-road has been cut; but this post-road scarcely deserves the name, for, generally, it is merely a cleared space cut through the woods, with boughs of trees laid down here and there where there are spots that would be otherwise impassable. There is little enough to vary the monotony of the journey; the miserable villages with their wretched inhabitants scarcely serve to enliven the scene.