serve; indeed the sturgeon
and sterlet fisheries constitute its greatest wealth.

When the train has rattled heavily and slowly over the Volga, it
proceeds west-north-west into the very heart of holy Russia, and late on
January 7, 1909, we roll into the station of Moscow, the old capital of
Russia.

Moscow is a type of the old unadulterated Russia, a home of the simple,
honest manners and customs of olden days, of faith and honour, of a
child-like, pure-hearted belief in the religion of the country, the
Catholic Greek Church. In its crooked, winding, badly-paved streets
swarm Tatars, Persians, and Caucasians, among Slav citizens and
countrymen, those inexterminable Russian peasants who suffer and toil
like slaves, look too deep into the _vodka_[20] cup on Saturday, yet are
always contented, good-tempered, and jovial.

The town stands on both sides of the small Moskva River, which falls
into the Oka, a tributary of the Volga, and is inhabited by more than a
million souls. The Kremlin is the oldest part, and the heart of Moscow
(Plate XXIII.). Its walls were erected at the end of the fifteenth
century; they are 60 feet high, crenellated, and provided with
eighteen towers and five gates. Within this irregular pentagon, a mile
and a quarter in circumference, are churches, palaces, museums, and
other public buildings. There stands the bell tower of Ivan Veliki, 270
feet high, with five storeys. From the uppermost you can command the
whole horizon, with Moscow beneath your feet, the streets diverging in
every direction from the Kremlin like the spokes of a wheel, and crossed
again by circular roads. Between the streets lie conglomerations of
heavy stone houses, and from this sea of buildings emerge bulb-shaped
cupolas with green roofs surmounted by golden Greek crosses. Large
barracks, hospitals, palaces, and public buildings crop up here and
there. Right through the town winds the Moskva in the figure of an S,
and the walls of the Kremlin with their towers are reflected in the
water.

[Illustration: PLATE XXIII. THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.]

In the tower of Ivan Veliki hang thirty-three bells of various sizes. At
its foot stands the fallen "Tsar" bell, which weighs 197 tons and is 65
feet in circumference. In its fall a piece was broken out of the side,
and it is therefore useless as a bell, but it is set up on a platform as
an ornament.

Within the walls of the Kremlin is also the Church of the Ascension of
the Virgin, whi