[10] The Russians make a kind of tea out of these blossoms, which they take as a cure for a cold; also of dried raspberries, which is used for the same purpose—a decoction of either producing a violent perspiration. [11] The coffin for an old person is generally covered with black and trimmed with silver, but for a young person it is pink or white, with a quantity of gold ornaments; wreaths of flowers, according to the age of the dead, are laid on the top. [12] The Russians have a strange idea that the Jews steal children to eat them, especially at the time of Pentecost, and no reasoning will persuade them of the absurdity and falsehood of this idea. [13] Cronstadt, the celebrated port of St. Petersburg, although strongly fortified, which of course is to protect the capital, is in itself a wretched town; most of the houses are of wood, the streets unpaved, and containing scarcely a single handsome building. There was much talk of immense batteries and mines under the water; but people who had resided there for years assured me that it was not possible that it could be true. [14] The expenses of the Russian Court, we were informed, amount to about forty millions of silver rubles per annum, or rather more than six million three hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds sterling.—_From a Russian authority._ [15] This unfortunate prince, although thus named, might have been the true heir: there are many more circumstances to prove that he was so than that he was not; his extreme resemblance to his father, his public recognition by his mother, and the cross that had been placed round his neck at his baptism, &c. But it was too much against the interest of his successors for them to acknowledge his rights; his name is still yearly anathematized in the Russian churches, to keep up the belief in his imposture. [16] A learned Russian traveller assured me that even the account he gave of his journeys in the north of Asia was not allowed to be published; only those parts wherein the desolation of the land was not exposed were permitted to be printed. [17] The executioner (it is said) is always made intoxicated before inflicting the punishment of the knout. [18] It is almost a compliment to Ivan IV. so to call him. [19] St. George with the dragon is the insignia of the Russian order, as well as of the garter in England. [20] Kremlin is a Tartar word; it means a fortress. [21] In Russia civilians, as well as military men, have the title of general; it is, therefore, usual to distinguish them by the designation of military or civil as the case may be. [22] Yet they always spoke of the United States as a half-savage country, and of the Americans as half civilized.