ON THE CZAR'S HIGHWAY. 73 



the Muscovite Empire, and of the traditions that cen- 

 ter around Moscow, which it gave birth to and nour- 

 ished into a capital city. 



From the bluffs beyond the bridge could be obtained 

 a splendid view of Moscow. Its many golden spires 

 and domes glittered and twinkled in the sun like 

 yellow stars, and the scene was as Oriental, on the 

 whole, as anything the writer had seen anywhere in 

 Asia. Even more than the tall minarets of the Stam- 

 boul mosques, or the beautiful temples of the Hindoo 

 gods at Benares, the twinkling beacons of the golden 

 domes of Moscow the Holy, impressed one as the 

 metropolis of a people's religion. Surely, those 

 beacons indicated a harbor where all who wished 

 might find comfort and repose of soul in the calm 

 waters of the " Orthodox Church." If anything were 

 wanting to complete the Eastern character of the scene, 

 it was provided by a band of pilgrims, who were 

 gathered on the bluff, touching their foreheads to the 

 ground toward Moscow, and making the sign of the 

 Cross. These were people, who had come on foot, in 

 rags and begging their way, from the distant confines 

 of the Empire, making a pilgrimage to the shrines of 

 the Saints at Moscow. Four years before I had seen 

 Persian devotees, on the hills near Meshed, bowing to 

 the earth at their first glimpse of the golden dome of 

 Imam Riza's Mosque ; vividly alike these two occasions 

 seemed, — the yellow, twinkling domes and the bowing 

 rapturous figures on the hills, — though one was a 

 Christian, the other a Moslem scene. 



We rode through many small villages, devoted to the 

 cultivation of cherries, currants, and other small fruits; 



