36 SIBERIA 



2.30. We decided to take that train, so we made 

 the best of the few hours we had to spend in Moscow 

 by visiting the British Consul and doing some 

 necessary shopping. 



Reminiscences of what I had heard and read of 

 this ancient capital crowded through my mind as 

 we drove through the narrow, old-fashioned streets : 

 Napoleon's disastrous march and the heroic burning 

 of the city, and the still earlier destruction of the 

 " city of white stones " by the Moguls under Baton 

 in the thirteenth century. I determined to pay the 

 town a second visit on my return journey and spend 

 a few days there. 



The town impressed me as a compact good 

 Russian centre — the Manchester of Russia. The 

 narrow streets made it easy to get about, and were 

 a great contrast to those of St. Petersburg, but the 

 round stones with which they are paved are quite as 

 hard, and their effect on the anatomy of the 

 uninitiated quite as discomposing. The round stones 

 serve, no doubt, to prevent snow-slides, by enabling 

 the deep layers to obtain a firm grip of the roads. 

 The weather was colder than at St. Petersburg, 

 although the latter is farther north. 



Accompanied by an English friend who spoke 

 Russian like a native, it was unlikely that I should 

 experience any difficulty in finding the British Consul, 

 yet, with the assistance of a particularly dull driver, 

 we managed for a time to get hopelessly lost, so 

 that after our interview we had little time to spare, 

 but 'drove straight to the railway station. This is 

 a particularly handsome building. The winter snow 

 was being removed from its wide approach. It 

 looks what it is — a busy terminus, with numbers of 

 droskies waiting outside for fares, and an army of 

 stalwart porters, wearing badges and dressed in 

 blue shirts tied round the waist, hovering about like 



