LETTERS FROM PROFS. JOHNSTON AND ROGERS. 181 



has, of late years, been very satisfactory, and Bristol has in 

 this noble race fully kept pace with her competitor. 



FROM PROFESSOR J. F. W. JOHNSTON. 



Moscow, August 24, 1842. 



BEFORE entering Russia, I have been paying 



a visit to my old friend Berzelius, at Stockholm, and since 

 that time have run over some one thousand miles of this 

 infantile region of country. What a contrast between the 

 internal progress of your really young country and of this 

 gigantic and almost unwieldy empire, every wheel of which 

 is moved by one main spring, the tension of which regulates 

 the progress of every hand. Here are vast plains, exten- 

 sive forests, great rivers, all rich capabilities undeveloped 

 by the great mass of the nobles, even as yet unperceived. 

 But everything here partakes more or less of the eastern 

 origin of the people. Gold and silver, scarlet, blue and 

 green, fine dress, fine armor, splendid uniforms, military 

 display, everything that at once attracts and pleases the 

 eye, these are the objects sought after by the people from 

 Petersburg to Ispahan. From the whole Empire itself to 

 the gaudy ornamental goods manufactured at Moscow, 

 everything is external and for effect ; the goods will not 

 bear inspection ; they are rude and unfinished when you 

 look beneath the gildings ; the Empire is a mere great out- 

 line, which long time alone can fill up. It is a vast canvas 

 on which the painter has yet only put in and partially fin- 

 ished a few prominent figures, Petersburg, Moscow, and 

 scarcely another, while here and there faint sketches only 

 of many others appear. And yet there is great progress 

 everywhere observable, but that progress is retarded as that 

 of the traveller is, at every step, by the necessity of attend- 

 ing to a thousand forms, and by the military organization 

 of everything 



