what he did was for my old kindnesses to him in dispatching of his
business, which I was glad to hear, and with my heart in good rest and
great joy parted, and to my business again. At noon to the 'Change, where
by appointment I met Sir W. Warren, and afterwards to the Sun taverne,
where he brought to me, being all alone; L100 in a bag, which I offered
him to give him my receipt for, but he told me, no, it was my owne, which
he had a little while since promised me and was glad that (as I had told
him two days since) it would now do me courtesy; and so most kindly he did
give it me, and I as joyfully, even out of myself, carried it home in a
coach, he himself expressly taking care that nobody might see this
business done, though I was willing enough to have carried a servant with
me to have received it, but he advised me to do it myself. So home with it
and to dinner; after dinner I forth with my boy to buy severall things,
stools and andirons and candlesticks, &c., household stuff, and walked to
the mathematical instrument maker in Moorefields and bought a large pair
of compasses, and there met Mr. Pargiter, and he would needs have me drink
a cup of horse-radish ale, which he and a friend of his troubled with the
stone have been drinking of, which we did and then walked into the fields
as far almost as Sir G. Whitmore's, all the way talking of Russia, which,
he says, is a sad place; and, though Moscow is a very great city, yet it
is from the distance between house and house, and few people compared with
this, and poor, sorry houses, the Emperor himself living in a wooden
house, his exercise only flying a hawk at pigeons and carrying pigeons ten
or twelve miles off and then laying wagers which pigeon shall come soonest
home to her house. All the winter within doors, some few playing at
chesse, but most drinking their time away. Women live very slavishly
there, and it seems in the Emperor's court no room hath above two or three
windows, and those the greatest not a yard wide or high, for warmth in
winter time; and that the general cure for all diseases there is their
sweating houses, or people that are poor they get into their ovens, being