most picturesque portion, St Catherine's, is due to an Englishman, one John Taylor, in the service of the Tsars. On Palm Sundays there used to form in the little square before the porch the head of that procession in which the Tsar led the Patriarch, seated upon an ass, by the Redeemer Gate to the Lobnoe Mesto. Peter the Great turned the procession to mere burlesque, mounting the Patriarch upon an ox and himself playing the buffoon. Here, too, were the miracle plays and church mysteries performed in the seventeenth century, and here the church processions still form for the more stately pageants of to-day. The only old private dwelling remaining within the Kremlin is that now known as the Potieshni Dvorets, or "palace of amusements," which was originally the house of the boyards Miloslavski and was acquired by the crown after the marriage of the Tsar Alexis with Maria Miloslavski. The interior has now nothing of particular interest, but the exterior is an excellent example of Russian architecture as modified by mid-European influence in the late seventeenth century. Part of the third and fourth storeys instead of retreating, in the Russian style, is made to project, but the "belvedere," with a balcony all round, is retained for the top storey; retained, too, are the bulbous pillars which serve as, or decorate the side posts of doors and windows, and the long pendant keystones to form the double-arch instead of a lintel; all of which are peculiar to Russian architecture. [Illustration: POTIESHNI DVORETS (PLEASURE PALACE)] Several explanations for the common use of the ogival arch, the bulbous dome, and the double arch with hanging keystones, have been advanced by antiquaries, but none are altogether satisfactory. The errors have possibly resulted from studying masonry to the exclusion of carpentry, and the early Slavs were users of wood--not of stone or brick. It may be that these forms were due to the execution in light elastic wood of arches and vaults copied from foreign work composed of voussoirs, but such is unlikely. Assuming that round wood poles, the stems of the plentiful young birch trees, and wattles were the materials of which the frames of the early dwellings were constructed, then such forms naturally result.