m, and the walls the same with large fresco paintings, darkened by
age.

Here is Mount Sinai, and a golden Moses of pure gold, with a golden
table of the law, and also a golden coffer to contain the Host, said to
weigh 120,000 ducats. A Bible, the gift of the mother of Peter the
Great, the cover so laden with gold and jewels that it requires two men
to carry it into the church; it is said to weigh 120 lbs. The emeralds
on the cover are an inch long, and the whole binding cost 1,200,000
roubles, or L200,000 sterling.

In the house of the Holy Synod are thirty silver vessels containing the
holy oil used in baptising all the children in Russia. It is made of the
finest Florence oil, mingled with a number of essences, about three or
four gallons serving all Russia for one and a half or two years.

Here one of our fellow travellers, impelled by that curiosity common to
the sex, dipped her finger into one of the holy jars and forthwith
anointed herself, bidding me to do the same; and, thus tempted, I
followed her example and also tried its efficacy upon my other half,
without finding, I must confess, any material change. I have since
thought that such antics, though not done in derision, might have proved
serious and led to our detention and perhaps final removal to a distant
part of the empire.

In the church of St. Michael the Archangel are the tombs of the Russian
sovereigns, which are raised sepulchres, mostly of brick, in the shape
of a coffin and about two feet high.

In addition to the churches and palaces there is in the Kremlin an
immense pile of buildings called the Senate.

In the upper storey are collected and arranged the crowns of the early
Tzars, also a throne covered with crimson velvet and blazing with
diamonds. The two long galleries which open out of this room contain
innumerable treasures, the captured crowns of the various countries now
forming provinces of this vast empire, as well as those of the Moscovite
Tzars, one containing 881 diamonds, another 847, and that of Catherine,
the first widow of Peter the Great, 2,536 fine diamonds, to which the
Empress added a ruby of enormous size. In addition to these crowns are
several rich diadems similarly ornamented.

Many thrones are to be seen in these rooms, one adorned with 2,760
turquoises and other precious stones--that of Michael Romanoff, the
first of the reigning families, is enriched with 8,824 diamonds, and the
throne of Alexis contains 876 dia