through the ice--Religion in Russia--Toleration and tyranny--The
Catholics in Poland--The Old Believers--The Skoptsi, or
mutilators--Devotional character of the Russian peasantry--Diminishing
the priestly power--Church and state--End of a long sleigh ride--Nijne
Novgorod--At the wrong hotel--Historical monuments--Entertained by the
police

CHAPTER LII.

Starting for Moscow--Jackdaws and pigeons--At a Russian railway
station--The group in waiting--The luxurious ride--A French governess
and a box of _bon-bons_--Cigarettes and tea--Halting at
Vladimir--Moscow through the frost--Trakteers--The Kremlin of
Moscow--Objects of interest--The great bell--The memorial
cannon--Treasures of the Kremlin--Wonderful churches of Moscow--The
Kitai Gorod--The public market--Imperial Theatre and Foundling
Hospital--By rail to St. Petersburg--Encountering an old friend






CHAPTER I.


It is said that an old sailor looking at the first ocean steamer,
exclaimed, "There's an end to seamanship." More correctly he might
have predicted the end of the romance of ocean travel. Steam abridges
time and space to such a degree that the world grows rapidly prosaic.