Returning northwards and continuing the journey to the other side of the Baltic, the dominions of the Grand Duke of Muscovy would not be reached immediately. Riga, the port most usually aimed at, belonged to Poland; the alternative harbour of Revel to Sweden. The choice of Riga is another instance of the contemporary preference for travelling by water rather than by land. However far out of the straight line between Danzig and Moscow, it was both the nearest coast town to the latter and also at the mouth of the river, the Dwina, which is navigable for the longest distance west of Moscow. One other route remains, discovered by the English, left wholly to them and to the Dutch, and only used by them because of commercial quarrels with the rulers of the Baltic. This was the sea-voyage of about two months from London to Archangel, then up the Dwina and Suchona to Vologda, and thence by land to Moscow. [Illustration: DANGERS OF THE NORTHERN SEAS] Moscow then possessed about forty thousand houses. It may be doubted if any town in Europe surpassed that number. Yet it was not size that caused going to Muscovy to be practically identical with going to Moscow, but the fact that the latter was the residence of a ruler whose despotism was so unlimited that every other settlement became insignificant compared with that where he dwelt. This is typified by the prominence given by all foreigners to the banquet they generally attended as the guests of the Tsar, a display of barbaric magnificence that must evidently have been one of the most striking sights of Europe. Unfortunately the magnificence was apt to stop short at the door of the banquet-hall. One Italian[59] in particular could not forget leaving after three hours, picking his way through the outer rooms, pitch dark and strewn with courtiers in the weeping-stage of drunkenness, down the stairs. About twenty yards away from the foot of the stairs a crowd of servants were waiting with horses to take their masters home. Towards these they had to wade, knee-deep in mud, still in pitch-darkness, and so continue a good part of the way home, since no one was allowed to ride till he had passed out of the palace precincts.