AT ST. PETEESBUEG 87 



unrecognised, unable to speak a word of the language, and 

 utterly helpless. We fortunately had many kind personal 

 friends, and I was able through them to do much of this duty. 

 (To Asa Gray, June 25, 1869.) 



To Darwin he writes both of science and society, June 6, 1869, 



At the Academy I was much interested with old Brandt, 

 the Zoological Director, who declares that all the Bos'es 

 longifrons and Co. are one species, that there is but one fossil 

 elephant, and that the Dinotheriumis simpliciter a Mammoth ! 

 He believes in you with a vengeance, and I hope I do not 

 misinterpret his ideas. I saw the Rhinoceros tichorinus 

 with skin and hair on head and feet found in East Russia. 

 I was not aware, or had forgotten, that this animal had been 

 found with the soft parts preserved. The Mammoth is 

 certainly a magnificent thing. The skin is preserved in huge 

 masses. But the Syremi Stelleri (I cannot spell the name) 

 of which they have a complete skeleton, is even more interest- 

 ing ; the texture of all the bones is like the hardest ivory, 

 and the proportion of bone to size of animal I should think 

 exceeds that of any other animal : this and its curious organi- 

 zation rendered it to my eyes the most curious thing I ever 

 saw. The Birds and beasts at the Academy are most admir- 

 ably stuffed and set up, and the series of varieties of Rodents 

 &c. is most instructive in the variability point of view. 



With St. P. I was a good deal disappointed ; it is huge, 

 tasteless and void of all national architecture, except the 

 Churches which are sublime, and the choral services celes- 

 tial ; beside these our emasculated Anglican service, with its 

 halting imagery and puling intonation, is contemptible ; 

 if we are to have music and gesticulation and incense and 

 gold and jewels, give them me hot and strong, and the Russo- 

 Greek Church is the place for my money. The altar screens 

 and chapels are literally ablaze with jewels, and every jewel 

 given is a full and perfect sacrifice for some real stunning 

 crime, sin or misdemeanour committed by this most immoral 

 people. 1 



1 ' As regards the people, their devotion is emotional wholly ; they under- 

 stand not a word, but go to worship with a blind faith and feeling of the deepest 

 humiliation : it is Adoration in fact, pure and simple, not worship in any 

 intellectual sense. We combine (or endeavour to combine) both, and not 

 always harmoniously.' (To his Mother, May 23, 1869.) 



