"Moscow, with its undulating and irregular streets, with the Moskva winding through it in the shape of the letter S, with its four hundred churches and an immense variety of towers and domes and minarets, with the variations of palace and hovel already mentioned, and with the great buildings of the Kremlin forming the foreground of the scene, lay before and below us. It was Moscow (the Holy), the city of the Czars and beloved of every patriotic Russian; the city which has existed through Tartar, Polish, and French invasions; has risen from the ashes again and again; has been ravaged by famine, the plague, and the sword of the invader, but surviving all her calamities, welcomes the stranger within her walls, whose circuit is more than twenty miles. From the top of this tower we looked down upon seven centuries of historical associations.
"Listen to a fragment of the history of Moscow: It was plundered by the Tartars under Tamerlane, and many of its inhabitants were killed; again it fell into Tartar hands, and again was pillaged, and its inhabitants murdered. Twice under the Tartars (1536 and 1572) it was set on fire, and on both occasions many thousands of people perished by fire or sword. The Poles burned a large part of the city in 1611, and in 1771 the plague carried off half the population. Is it any wonder that the Russians love their ancient capital, after all that it has suffered and survived?
[Illustration: THE GREAT BELL UNDERGROUND.]
"We lingered for an hour or more in the tower, and then descended. Our next object of interest was the '_Czar Kolokol_,' or Great Bell, which stands at the foot of the Ivan Veliki Tower, and near the place where for a long time it lay buried in the earth. It is literally the great bell not only of Moscow but of the world.
"It has a strange history. It is said to have been cast originally in the time of Boris Godounoff, and a traveller in 1611 mentions a bell in Russia which required twenty-four men to swing the clapper. During a fire it fell to the ground and was broken; in 1654 it was recast, and weighed at that time 288,000 pounds. Twenty years later it was suspended from a wooden beam at the foot of the tower; the beam gave way during a fire in 1706, and the bell was again broken. The Empress Anne ordered it recast in 1733, but it only lasted four years. The falling of some rafters in 1737 broke the bell as we now see it, and it lay on the ground just ninety-nine years, or until 1836, when it was raised and placed in its present position by the Emperor Nicholas.