TULA. 
244 
chap, apprehension. We had reason to fear that 
. ^ ; known roads might not suit a carriage ill-con- 
structed for an adventurous journey; being lofty, 
with narrow axle-trees, and more calculated for 
cities than deserts. To our great satisfaction, 
however, and for the comfort and assurance of 
other travellers who may choose to follow our 
route, the whole distance to Woronetz may be 
passed over like a bowling-green, and the 
lightest vehicle would be exposed to no hazard of 
injury. This vast plain afforded us the finest road 
in the world, not excepting even those of Sweden, 
being all the way a firm hard turf, exactly re- 
sembling that which covers the South Downs in 
Sussex, and with the additional advantage of 
being for the most part level, extending like an 
ocean, in which the eye discerns no object to 
interrupt the uniformity of the view. Over the 
first part of the journey from Tula, small copses, 
in patches, might be distinguished ; and in these 
we noticed some dwarf oaks, the first seen since 
we entered Russia from the Swedish frontier; 
excepting a single tree in a garden at Moscow, 
shewn there as a rare plant, and cut into a 
barbarous form, like the yew-trees in old- 
fashioned English shrubberies'. Among those 
(1) The practice of cutting evergreens so as to resemble the shape 
of animals is as old as the time of the Younger Pliny, and probably 
much 
