But whosoever of a summer's night will wander into the suburbs will hear the policeman on his round beating two pieces of wood together with aggravating rhythm. If the listener be country-bred the noise will remind him of the farm boy of old days who, with wooden clapper, scared birds from the corn. If he be so curious as to examine the instrument he will find it to be a piece of board with a handle, and a wooden ball attached to it with a piece of twine. The knocking of the two together to produce an intermittent whirr is accomplished by a curious turn of the wrist. The watchman will explain that the noise is to warn garden-robbers and other depredators of his coming, or to advise his employers that he is about his duty. The most learned ethnologist of the west says that an identical instrument, handled in the same manner, is employed by the minor priests of a wild race in the far far east to drive away evil spirits from the native temple. Further a-field--a twenty-five kopeck ride on a _lineika_ from the Trubaya--Ostankina is reached. There is a curious and elegant church of red brick built by Moscow artisans in the golden age, at the cost of the boyard Mikhail Cherkassky. Near by is a great wooden palace, stuccoed and prim, the property of the Sheremetievs. Passing through its park where Le Bruyn shot his great crane flying by a single bullet from his musket, and where the upper reaches of the Yauza are still haunted by wild fowl, is a thick wood to the north of the stream, and in the middle of that near the path, a clearing where at midday a drove of mares are coralled and milked by men who speak a strange tongue, and are of quite different appearance to the Muscovites. A mile further on is their village, near a large pool. It is a poor, insignificant, rather dirty and very untidy place. Mordva its name; Mordva its people, whose ancestors, many centuries ago, left their home among the Altai Mountains on the confines of Manchuria and spread westward over Russia, fighting with their later conquerors almost to their own extermination. Various isolated groups of this once powerful race are scattered about Russia, mixing but little with its people. These, who through long centuries have been resident in the heart of Muscovy, seems as incongruous and impossible as would be the present occupation of Hampstead Heath by survivors of ancient Picts in the full glory of their primitive customs. It is nearest to the great towns that primitive methods and beliefs persist most strongly, and just as in the villages about London, antiquated farming implements and old country superstitions are more plentiful than in the rural districts of England, so near Moscow the old customs and manners die hard. In villages within easy walk of the Kremlin, mediæval practices are rife, especially during the celebration of marriages, and the performance of minor domestic pageants. The curious, if persistent and lucky, may see the bowl of Tantalus presented