these places. Here a good-natured folk has created a jewel-box, gay and dazzlingly ornamented, careless of what the culture of the West has declared beautiful and holy; hither gravitate all the national feelings of a hundred million people; and, finally, all this is created to the harm of no one, to frighten no one, to oppress no one. Here the Czar is not the general-in-chief of so many million bayonets, but "Little Father Czar," who yields the countless holy images and chapels just the same devotion as his lowest muzhik. And here is the past--not alone the brazen, threatening present--the past of a strange people, but a people of lovable individuals, who, besides, are brought nearer to us than many of our nearest neighbors by a literature of unparalleled fidelity to life. One must grow to love this childlike, slow-blooded, and yet care-free people, with their irresistible heartiness. And he who has learned to love the Russians must love their Little Mother Moscow, in spite of, or just on account of, her quietness. From St. Petersburg an express train brings us to Moscow in thirteen hours. It is always a night train that disposes of this traffic, for the Russian likes to sleep in his comfortable berth. And so we arrive in Moscow in the morning, ready at once to assimilate the first impressions of the enormous city. Our expectancy is great, of course. Moscow, the object of all most Russian! It must differ, at first sight, from all we have as yet seen. But while the hotel omnibus rattles through the streets from the depot but little that is peculiar is to be seen. An affable fellow-passenger explains to us that that is only the foreign business quarter. But now one after another the church cupolas appear, one after another in increasing brightness and variety. At our "Ah!" in expression of our satisfaction, we are instructed that we had better be more sparing of that vowel sound or we might soon become hoarse. Moscow has no less than four hundred and fifty such churches and twenty cloisters in addition. So let us be sparing. But the resolution is hard to keep. A long and mighty wall suddenly rises before us with countless angles, towers, and turrets. The wall is white, the towers are green, and through the gate we see long streets and buildings in all possible colors, dark included. It is Kitay-Gorod, the inner city, with the bazars. Bokhara cannot appear more Asiatic. Now we feel already all that we are about to see. A giant modern hotel almost destroys for us the ensemble. Look quickly to your lodgings and then out again!