the weather was bad; on this fresh summer
morning, however, and after the dusty monotony of Frankfort, the Rhine
has risen very considerably in my estimation. I promise myself complete
enjoyment in spending a couple of days with you at Ruedesheim; the place
is so quiet and rural, honest people and cheap living. We will hire a
small boat and row at our leisure downwards, climb up the Niederwald and
a castle or two, and return with the steamer. One can leave this place
early in the morning, stay eight hours at Ruedesheim, Bingen, or
Rheinstein, etc., and be back again in the evening. My appointment here
appears now to be certain.

Moscow, June 6th, 1859.

I will send you at least a sign of life from here, while I am waiting
for the samovar; and a young Russian in a red shirt is exerting himself
behind me with vain attempts to light a fire--he puffs and blows, but it
will not burn. After having complained so much about the scorching heat
lately, I woke to-day between Twer and here, and thought I was dreaming
when I saw the country and its fresh verdure covered far and wide with
snow. I shall wonder at nothing again, and having convinced myself of
the fact beyond all doubt, I turned quickly on the other side to sleep
and roll on farther, although the play of colors--from green to
white--in the red dawn of day was not without its charm. I do not know
if the snow still lies at Twer; here it has thawed away, and a cool gray
rain is rattling on the green tin of the roofs. Green has every reason
to be the Russian favorite color. Of the five hundred miles I have
passed in traveling here, I have slept away about two hundred, but each
hand-breadth of the remainder was green in every shade. Towns and
villages, and more particularly houses, with the exception of the
railway stations, I did not observe. Bushy forests with birch-trees
cover swamp and hill, a fine growth of grass beneath, long tracts of
meadow-land between; so it goes on for fifty, one hundred, two hundred
miles. Ploughed land I do not remember to have remarked, nor heather,
nor sand. Solitary grazing cows or horses awoke one at times to the
presumption that there might be human beings in the neighborhood.
Moscow, seen from above, looks like a field of young wheat: the soldiers
are green, the cupolas green, and I do not doubt that the eggs on the
table before me were laid by green hens.

You will want to know how I come to be here. I also have already asked
myself