We dined at Mr. Cavenaugh’s with a party of English. Among others I met Mr. Camidge there. His appearance, manners and conversation in private society did not answer the expectations I had formed of him from his preaching.
Thursday.
On the 20th of June we left Moscow at eight in the evening, and arrived at St. Petersburg on Monday, the 24th, at 2 P. M., having slept two nights on the road. At Vouischnije Volotschok we saw the sluice connecting the Tivortza with the Atsta. It can only be used by vessels going towards St. Petersburg.
The following letter to one of his Pennsylvania friends was written immediately after his return to St. Petersburg.
[MR. BUCHANAN TO G. LEIPER, ESQ.]
St. Petersburg, July 3, 1833.
My Good Friend:—
It was with no ordinary pleasure that I received a letter by Mr. Clay with your well-known superscription. You make a strong mark, and your writing would be known among a thousand. I now have the joyful anticipation of being ere long once more among you. A land reposing under the calm of despotism is not the country for me. An American of proper feelings who visits any portion of Europe, must thank his God that his lot has been cast in the United States. For my own part, I feel that I am a much greater Republican than ever.
I hope with the blessing of Heaven to be able to leave St. Petersburg in perfect consistency with the interests of my country some time during the next month. I shall then spend a few weeks in seeing other parts of Europe, and embark for home the last of October or beginning of November.
I have recently returned from a short excursion to Moscow; the city which rolled back the tide of victory upon Napoleon. St. Petersburg is a cosmopolite city; but at Moscow you see Russia. It is a most picturesque and beautiful city. Its numerous churches surmounted by cupolas of every form and of every color give it a romantic and an Asiatic appearance. Many of these are gilt, and when the rays of the sun are reflected from them, the eye is dazzled with the richness and splendor of the spectacle. From Moscow I made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Sierge, a distance of forty miles. Going and returning I suppose we saw ten thousand pilgrims upon the way. They were chiefly of the fair sex, and nearly all on foot. This shrine is at the Monastery of the Trinity, a place famous in Russian history, having been at the same time a convent, a palace, and a fortification. Here the family of the czars have often taken refuge. In passing round on the top of the walls with the abbot (which is more than a mile in circumference), he told me in a tone of triumph and national antipathy that these walls had never been taken by the Poles; on taking leave he presented me with a consecrated picture of St. Sierge, and from him I submitted to the operation of being kissed, first on the right cheek, then on the left, and finally plump on the mouth. This is the general custom of the country; but it was my first experiment of the kind. The pious Catharine, although she seized the peasants and the broad acres of this monastery, made a pilgrimage on foot from Moscow to the shrine of St. Sierge. But enough of this bagatelle.