358 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



are the ones that contribute the interest to the tourist, because in 

 the cities we see people just as we are accustomed to see and dressed 

 much as we are accustomed to seeing. We found one thing in the 

 churches, the Greek Church of Russia, wliicli inlerosted us very much 

 and that is Iheir "ijions" which are similar lo the painted images 

 we tind in the Koman Catholic Church. They are made of gold and 

 silver and inlaid with diamonds and precious stones. We found a 

 great immense amount of wealth ])ut into some of these single ipcms 

 and in a procession we were able to see we counted somewhere up- 

 wards of 100 ipons carried through the streets, and in Moscow in 

 one of their oldest chapels, the Iberian Chapel, you find an ipon 

 brought many centuries ago from Iberia, which is taken out when 

 sickness or any occasion calls for it and placed on wagons drawn 

 by six horses and taken through the streets to the house where it is 

 desired to come to and in the meantime, of course, a painted copy is 

 put in the chapel and this is supposed to take away the disease or 

 whatever it is that the particular people in the house are afflicted 

 with. It is a matter of interest that this particular i})on is the one 

 that the Czar, who is the head of the Greek Church, and all the dukes 

 and various .prominent members of the royal family com© first to 

 worship. We find great quantities of the most beautiful, marvelous 

 and precious stones in Russia and we had the privilege of visiting 

 the royal granite works and I have never seen such stones in such 

 quantities as we saw" there and the most wonderful carving in stones 

 possible to imagine. In my hand I hold one of the choicest of the 

 Russian Marble-s and the tomb of Alexander II, the liberator of 

 Russia, is made of that marble. You will recall that this particular 

 ruler was assassinated in 1888 and you will remember that it was a 

 girl that b}^ throwing a handkerchief to the street gave the signal to 

 the student who threw the bomb and that Alexander was not in- 

 jured in the throwing of this bomb and he got out of the carriage 

 to see what assistance could be rendered to the injured and the 

 second boom was thrown which fatally injured Alexander, and this 

 is one of the reasons why the Russian common people are held under 

 suppression because of the dreadful assassination of this particular 

 ruler who was doing everything in his power for the people of Russia. 

 And on the spot where Alexander fell they built a memorial chapel 

 and it is one of the most magnificent chapels that it is possible to 

 imagine. This chapel has some of the most expensive ipons in it. 



I Avant to say that in Russia one finds better sleeping car arrange- 

 ments than we do find in America. While we find some things most 

 primitive in contrast to that, we find everything Ihat caters to wealth 

 there and in the five nights that we rode in the sleeper in Russia we 

 were much better accommodated than if we had been in American 

 sleei»ers. 



The Russian language is a most difficult one to understand. They 

 have so many letters in their words that people cannot understand 

 what they do with them. I hold in my hands the Lord's prayer 

 written in Russian on this and if you would write the Lord's prayer 

 in English in corresponding sized script I think you would find that 

 it would not cover half this space. There is not a word here that 

 bears any resemblance to my Lord's prayer. And when you travel on 

 the streets I want to say that the droskimen and their droski wagons 



