At daybreak I rubbed the frost from a window and looked upon a stretch of snow and frost, with peasant cottages few and far between.  An hour later, our speed slackened.  Again cleaning the glass and peering through it, a large city came in sight.

It was Moscow,—­“Holy Moscow,”—­the city of the Czars, and beloved of every Russian.  Suffering through Tartar, Polish, and French occupations, it has survived pillage, massacre, fire, and famine, and remains at this day the most thoroughly national of the great cities of the empire.  The towers and domes of its many churches glittered in the morning sunlight as they glittered half a century ago, when Napoleon and his soldiers first climbed the hills that overlook the city.

It was a long drive from the station to the hotel.  The morning was clear and cold, and the snow in the streets had been ground into a sand-like mass several inches deep.  The solid foundation beneath was worn with hollows and ridges, that vividly recalled the oukhabas of the post road.  Streets were full of sleds and sleighs, the latter dashing at a rapid rate.  In the region near the station there were so many signs of ‘Trakteer’ as to suggest the possibility of one half the inhabitants selling tea, beer, and quass to the other half.  Near the center of the city the best shops displayed signs in French or English, generally the former.

Of course I went early to the Kremlin.  Who has ever read or talked of Moscow without its historic fortress?  Entering by the Sacred Gate, I lifted my hat in comformity to the custom, from which not even the emperor is exempt.  One of my school-books contained a description of the Czar Kolokol, or Great Bell, and stated that a horse and chaise could pass through the hole where a piece was broken from one side.  Possibly the miniature vehicle of Tom Thumb could be driven through, but, certainly, no ordinary one-horse shay could have any prospect of success.  The hole is six feet in height, by about a yard wide at the bottom, and narrows like a wedge toward the top.  The height and diameter of the bell are respectively nineteen feet four inches by twenty feet three inches.  It weighs 444,000 pounds.  It was cast in 1733, by order of the Empress Anne, and the hole in its side was made by the falling of some rafters during a fire in 1737.  It remained buried in the ground until 1836, when it was raised and placed on its present pedestal by order of the Emperor Nicholas.

[Illustration:  GREAT BELL OF MOSCOW.]

To enumerate all the wonders of the Kremlin would consume much time and space.  Somebody tells of a Yankee gazing at Niagara, and lamenting that a magnificent water power should run to waste.  I could not help wondering how many miles of railway could be built from the proceeds of the mass of wealth inside the Kremlin.  Diamonds, rubies, pearls, crowns, sceptres, thrones, princely and priestly robes, are gathered in such numbers that eye and brain become weary in