ON THE 



PAST IN THE PRESENT, IN ASIA 



BY 



JOHN BELLOWS 



(WRITTEN FOR THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY) 



READ TO THE COTTESWOLD CLUB, JANUARY 19th, 1894 



During the closing days of 1892 I was travelling from 

 Moscow to Tiflis with an English friend. The last 130 

 miles of this journey was taken up in crossing the great 

 mountain barrier of the Caucasus, from Europe into Asia : 

 or rather from Russia, where Asia overlaps Europe, to the 

 Transcaucasus, where the European tide of change is very 

 slowly wearing its way into the cliff of oriental thought 

 and customs accumulated from a distant past. 



It is through the Tartar influence in its history, and 

 the Tartar element in its population, that Asia overlaps 

 European Russia. A Western European is at once struck 

 in Petersburg and other Russian towns, with the " Dvors " 

 or Markets, where the shops are built round a cloistered 

 square : that is, they are a modified form of the Oriental 

 " Bazaar." This Asian influence is more marked in 

 Moscow than in Petersburg. Moscow is European in 

 its railroads and steam-engines, its factories and tram-lines, 

 its telegraphs and telephones: Asiatic in its " Kitai Gorod " 

 or Chinese town, as the KremHn is called : in the quaint 

 old-world style of the Kremlin's battlemented walls,* in 



* Tliese walls were anciently of timber : a stockade such as still surrounds some 

 of the minor towns, and many villages, in China. The Comte de Kergaradec (Consul- 

 General for France, and an experienced antiquary), who resides in Moscow, has also 

 remarked the Chinese character of the Kremlin. 



