pillows in white pillow-cases, children in baskets, and masses of
eatables of every kind. Out of politeness they bowed me into a sleeping
car, where I was worse off than in my seat. Altogether, it is
astonishing to me to see the fuss made here about a journey.


Moscow, June 8th.

This city is really, as a _city_, the handsomest and most original
existing: the environs are cheerful, not pretty, not ugly; but the view
from the top of the Kremlin on this panorama of green-roofed houses,
gardens, churches, spires of the strangest possible form and color,
mostly green, or red or bright blue, generally crowned at the top with a
gigantic golden onion, and mostly five or more on one church,--there are
certainly a thousand steeples!--anything more strangely beautiful than
all this lit up by the slanting rays of the setting sun it is impossible
to see. The weather has cleared up again, and I should stay here a few
days longer if there were not rumors of a great battle in Italy, which
may perhaps bring diplomatic work in its train, so I will be off there
and get back to my post. The house in which I am writing is, curiously
enough, one of the few that survived 1812; old, thick walls, like those
at Schönhausen, Oriental architecture, big Moorish rooms.


June 28th, Evening.

After a three hours' drive through the gardens in an open carriage, and
a view of all its beauties in detail, I am drinking tea, with a prospect
of the golden evening sky and green woods. At the Emperor's they want to
be _en famille_ the last evening, as I can perfectly well understand;