Again, ascend the belfry of St Nikita in the Goncharevskaya; time--the very early morning, and see the rising sun glitter on the domes of the Kremlin, and the churches of the Bielo Gorod; or, when it has long passed the meridian, watch the afterglow reflected from the thousand domes, tinting the white walls from the balcony of Krinkin's on the Hill of Salutation. Stay on and watch the great white town, silent, reposeful and glorious, fade into the haze of the "white-night"; see it shimmering in the moonlight, or the glare of midday sun; sparkling feebly in the blue star light, or glowing like a new-cast ingot in the blackness of winter's midnight; see it how, when and where you may, solve the enigma of its vitality if you can--but neither doubt its strength, nor question its beauty. [Russian poetry in cyrillic letters] CHAPTER XII _The Convents and Monasteries_ "These are the haunts of meditation,--these The scenes where ancient bards th' inspiring breath Esctatic felt; and from the world retired, Conversed with angels and immortal forms, On gracious errands bent."--THOMSON. Russian monks all belong to one order, that based on the rule of St Basil the Great, practically the only order of "black" clergy recognised by the Eastern Church. The first monastery in Russia was founded by St Anthony, a Russian who, after living some time on Mount Athos, returned to Kiev, and there, in 1055, conjunctly with St Theodosius, established the Pecherski Monastery, on the same rule as that of the Studemi--one of the strictest of the clerical institutions in Constantinople. The Pecherski still ranks highest among the monasteries of Russia. The one of greatest importance in Moscow, though not the most ancient, is that of the Miracles (Chudov) founded in the fourteenth century by St Alexis, the Metropolitan. It stands within the Kremlin, between the two Imperial palaces, on a spot which long ago was a part of the enclosure around the dwelling of the Tartar bashkak, or "resident." At the time when one Chani-Bek was khan, his wife, Taidula, fell ill and was healed by Alexis, to whom out of gratitude she presented her gold signet ring with its effigy of the Great Dragon, and a site for the Monastery of the Miracles. The first building was erected in 1365, and the monastery long served as the residence of the primates of Moscow; it has been many times destroyed and rebuilt; the present building dates from the reign of the first Romanof, and, at the time of writing, is in course of extensive alteration. Passing before the Church, with the curious paper ikon outside, a large gateway will be found in the angle where the Chudov buildings abut against those of the smaller Imperial palace; passing through this, the visitor will find himself in a large Courtyard; the Church of St Michael is on the right, a small railed-in cemetery among the trees on the left. The Monastery, a mean,