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The officer left the hall and entered a large antechamber adjoining.
It was a cabinet with plain oak furniture, situated in an angle of
the New Palace. Several pictures, amongst others some by Horace Vernet,
hung on the wall.
The officer hastily opened a window, as if he felt the want
of air, and stepped out on a balcony to breathe the pure
atmosphere of a lovely July night. Beneath his eyes,
bathed in moonlight, lay a fortified inclosure, from which
rose two cathedrals, three palaces, and an arsenal.
Around this inclosure could be seen three distinct towns:
Kitai-Gorod, Beloi-Gorod, Zemlianai-Gorod--European, Tartar,
and Chinese quarters of great extent, commanded by towers,
belfries, minarets, and the cupolas of three hundred churches,
with green domes, surmounted by the silver cross.
A little winding river, here and there reflected the rays
of the moon.
This river was the Moskowa; the town Moscow; the fortified inclosure
the Kremlin; and the officer of chasseurs of the guard, who, with folded
arms and thoughtful brow, was listening dreamily to the sounds floating
from the New Palace over the old Muscovite city, was the Czar.
CHAPTER II RUSSIANS AND TARTARS
THE Czar had not so suddenly left the ball-room of the New Palace,
when the fete he was giving to the civil and military authorities
and principal people of Moscow was at the height of its brilliancy,
without ample cause; for he had just received information that serious
events were taking place beyond the frontiers of the Ural. It had become
evident that a formidable rebellion threatened to wrest the Siberian
provinces from the Russian crown.
Asiatic Russia, or Siberia, covers a superficial area of 1,790,208
square miles, and contains nearly two millions of inhabitants.
Extending from the Ural Mountains, which separate it
from Russia in Europe, to the shores of the Pacific Ocean,
it is bounded on the south by Turkestan and the Chinese Empire;
on the north by the Arctic Ocean, from the Sea of Kara
to Behring's Straits. It is divided into several governments
or provinces, those of Tobolsk, Yeniseisk, Irkutsk, Omsk,
and Yakutsk; contains two districts, Okhotsk and Kamtschatka;
and possesses two countries, now under the Muscovite dominion--
that of the Kirghiz and that of the Tshouktshes. This immense
extent of steppes, which includes more than one hundred and
ten degrees from west to east, is a land to which criminals
and political offenders are banished.
Two governor-generals represent the supreme authority of the Czar
over this vast country. The higher one resides at Irkutsk,
the far capital of Eastern Siberia. The River Tchouna separates
the two Siberias.
No rail yet furrows these wide plains, some of which are in reality
extremely fertile. No iron ways lead from those precious mines
which make the Siberian soil far richer below than above its surface.
The traveler journeys in summer in a kibick or telga; in winter,
in a sledge.
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