A single drive or stroll through Moscow will suffice to convince the traveller, even if he knows nothing of Russian history, that the city is not, like its modern rival on the Neva, the artificial creation of a far-seeing, self-willed autocrat, but rather a natural product which has grown up slowly and been modified according to the constantly changing wants of the population.  A few of the streets have been Europeanised—­in all except the paving, which is everywhere execrably Asiatic—­to suit the tastes of those who have adopted European culture, but the great majority of them still retain much of their ancient character and primitive irregularity.  As soon as we diverge from the principal thoroughfares, we find one-storied houses—­some of them still of wood—­which appear to have been transported bodily from the country, with courtyard, garden, stables, and other appurtenances.  The whole is no doubt a little compressed, for land has here a certain value, but the character is in no way changed, and we have some difficulty in believing that we are not in the suburbs but near the centre of a great town.  There is nothing that can by any possibility be called street architecture.  Though there is unmistakable evidence of the streets having been laid out according to a preconceived plan, many of them show clearly that in their infancy they had a wayward will of their own, and bent to the right or left without any topographical justification.  The houses, too, display considerable individuality of character, having evidently during the course of their construction paid no attention to their neighbours.  Hence we find no regularly built terraces, crescents, or squares.  There is, it is true, a double circle of boulevards, but the houses which flank them have none of that regularity which we commonly associate with the term.  Dilapidated buildings which in West-European cities would hide themselves in some narrow lane or back slum here stand composedly in the face of day by the side of a palatial residence, without having the least consciousness of the incongruity of their position, just as the unsophisticated muzhik, in his unsavoury sheepskin, can stand in the midst of a crowd of well-dressed people without feeling at all awkward or uncomfortable.

All this incongruity, however, is speedily disappearing.  Moscow has become the centre of a great network of railways, and the commercial and industrial capital of the Empire.  Already her rapidly increasing population has nearly reached a million.* The value of land and property is being doubled and trebled, and building speculations, with the aid of credit institutions of various kinds, are being carried on with feverish rapidity.  Well may the men of the old school complain that the world is turned upside down, and regret the old times of traditional somnolence and comfortable routine!  Those good old times are gone now, never to return.  The ancient capital, which long gloried in its past historical associations,