s.
The ornaments on the banisters, screens, railings, and cornices are
great wooden heads of beasts--lions, or tigers, or monsters of some
sort. The part of the walls enclosing the stoves are of curiously
coloured tiles; indeed, the whole building is a most bizarre, strange
place, a perfect specimen of a Byzantine palace. In variety of
colouring it is something like the Alhambra, but, though equally
wonderful, it is barbarous in the extreme compared to that celebrated
edifice of Southern Spain. Our travellers climbed to the top of this
strange little palace, and went out on the roof, whence they looked down
on a whole mass of golden and coloured domes and minarets, a
considerable number of them belonging to the smallest and most ancient
church in the Kremlin. In the Granovitaya Palata is a window, at which
the Emperor shows himself on state occasions to the troops, drawn up on
the parade. It is one of the windows of the Hall of Justice, and here
suppliants used to be drawn up in a basket, to present their petitions
and to hear judgment pronounced.

"It would have been a convenient way of getting rid of a troublesome
petitioner to let it and the petitioner come down together by the run,
as you would say, Cousin Giles," observed Fred, laughing. "Some such
idea was probably in the minds of the inventors of the custom."

From the old palaces the party proceeded to the Treasury. It is
beautifully arranged, and full of arms and armour of all ages--the
coats, and boots, and hats, or crowns, or helmets, and swords, or
battle-axes of all the Czars who ever sat on the throne of Russia. Some
of the crowns, or other head-pieces, are literally covered with jewels,
placed as close together as the setting will allow. Most of them are
rather curious than elegant; indeed, they nearly all look as if they
belonged to a barbarous age and people.

Among other curious things there is a globe, studded with jewels, sent
by the Greek Emperor to Prince Waldemar, and the crown of the King of
Georgia, the diamond crown of Peter the Great, and the throne on which
Peter and his brother, both children at the time, were placed when he
was crowned. There is a curtain at the back, behind which their mother
stood, and, putting her hands through it, held them in, and guided them
to make the proper signs at the right moment, which movements caused
much wonder and admiration among the admiring multitude.

In the armoury is the chair of Charles