s his pretty, plump hand,--I had become
very skillful at that sort of thing,--but I confess that I shrank from
the obligatory salute to the skull, and from that special chrism.
Nevertheless, I wished the Russians to think that I had gone through
with the whole ceremony, if they should chance to look back. I felt sure
that I could trust the priest to be liberal, but I was not so certain
that our lay companions, who were petty traders and peasants, might not
be sufficiently fanatical to construe our refusal into disrespect for
their church, and resent it in some way.

Though we returned to the monastery more than once after that, we were
never attracted to the catacombs again, not even to witness the mass at
seven o'clock in the morning in that subterranean church. The beautiful
services in the cathedral, the stately monks, the picturesque pilgrims,
with their gentle manners, ingenuous questions, and simple tales of
their journeys and beliefs, furnished us with abundant interest in the
cheerful sunlight aboveground.

Next to the Catacombs Monastery, the other most famous and interesting
sight of Kieff is the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Built on the highest
point of the ancient city, with nine apses turned to the east, crowned
by one large dome and fourteen smaller domes,--all gilded, some
terminating in crosses, some in sunbursts,--surrounded by turf and
trees within a white wall, with entrance under a lofty belfry, it
produces an imposing but reposeful effect. The ancient walls, dating
from the year 1020, are of red brick intermixed with stone, stuccoed and
washed with white. It has undergone changes, external and internal,
since that day, and its domes and spires are of the usual degenerate
South Russian type, without a doubt of comparatively recent
construction. So many of its windows have been blocked up by additions,
and so cut up is its space by large frescoed pillars, into sixteen
sections, that one steps from brilliant sunshine into deep twilight when
he enters the cathedral. It is a sort of church which possesses in a
high degree that indefinable charm of sacred atmosphere that tempts one
to linger on and on indefinitely within its precincts. Not that it is so
magnificent; many churches in the two capitals and elsewhere in Russia
are far richer. It is simply one of those indescribable buildings which
console one for disappointments in historical places, as a rule, by
making one believe, through sensations unconscio