very sorry,” says she, “but it’s time for me to die.”... She just went on singing for another half-hour, and then she gave up the ghost. _A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LETTER FROM EMS._ BY GORBOUNÒV. [Illustration] Most Orthodox Tzar! Thy faithful slave strikes the earth with his brow before thy glory! In this present year (377) received I the letter which Thou didst deign to write to me. In that letter is it written: “Go thou, oh Ivàn, and journey through the towns of the realm of Germany, and look upon the folk that dwell therein and write of them to me, thy great master. And thou shalt take with thee much goods and riches. And when thou journeyest through the towns of the land of Germany, so shalt thou neither rob nor steal, nor shalt thou drink of strong drink to be drunken therewith, but thou shalt speak with the men of Germany; softly and fair shalt thou speak with them, and shalt give answer in soberness and truth, and in the fear of my displeasure, that I chastise thee not in my wrath. And if any man that is a chieftain among the men of Germany shall ask of thee for what need has thy mighty lord sent thee hither, thou shalt say unto him: ‘For State matters of great moment.’ And gifts shalt thou not give unto him. And if any man of Germany shall ask of thee help, so shalt thou give unto him food that he may eat and coins that he may have wherewithal to drink, even three pennies unto every one.” Therefore, oh Most Orthodox Tzar, by Thy command did I go out from the borders of the land of Muscovy in the month of May, on the seventeenth day of the month, even the day of the memory of the holy Saint N.N. And on my right hand I beheld the wide sea, and ships thereon, and by the sea standeth the town which is called Königsberg. And in the olden days that town and land were ruled over by the King of Poland, but now all these men of Poland are become changed into Germans, and are commanded to live after the fashion of the Germans, but to believe in the Catholic faith, even as their fathers before them. Yet if any man of them shall turn to the Lutheran faith, to that man shall be shown much honour. And the town of Ems is but a little town, and it standeth in the mountains, and the water therein is alive, and the water hisseth and bubbleth, and the water floweth from a stony mountain and many trees grow thereon. And if any man have a sickness in his entrails, or an evil, or any unsoundness, then the doctors in their wisdom look upon his sickness and command him that he drink the hissing waters, and that he sit in them naked. But the men of the land of Muscovy drink not of the water; they drink much Rhine-wine and are whole and sound. And the wine of the Rhineland is good, and every day do I drink to Thee, Most Orthodox Tzar. And in that town is built a great stone hall, and a German sitteth therein and turneth a foolish toy like a wheel. And the German is small of stature and fair.