'tall Gothic pile
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
Bearing aloft the arched and ponderous roof.
Which by its own weight stands immovable.'
"At night, it being the anniversary of the coronation of the Emperor, the gardens about the Kremlin were magnificently illuminated, and crowded, perhaps, with two hundred thousand people. The walls and turrets of the Kremlin were filled with lamps wrought into the most grotesque shapes and festooned with innumerable lights. So were the trees, and in the dark and luxuriant foliage of the gardens they looked
'Like winged flowers or flying gems.'"
From Moscow Forrest journeyed to Odessa, and thence through the Crimea to Constantinople. Passing Balaklava and Inkerman and Sevastopol, with what emotions he would have gazed about him could he but have foreseen the terrific battles that were in twenty years' time to rage there between the stubborn Slavonic power on one side and the leagued array of France, England, and Turkey on the other! No such premonition visiting his mind, he plodded on through the weary wastes till he reached Aloupka, where the Count Woronzoff, General Nerisken, and the Prince Gallitzin were resident proprietors of estates and lived in sumptuous style. The Gallitzin family were intimate acquaintances of that remarkable Russian lady, Madame Swetchine, whose conversion from the Greek Church to the Roman, whose rare character and genius, great friendships and brilliant salon in Paris, have secured for her name such high and permanent celebrity.
Taking a horse and a guide, Forrest started out from Aloupka to explore one of the neighboring Tartar villages.
"The houses are small, and generally built," he writes, "of stone, with flat roofs made of logs covered with dirt and clay, smoothed so as to form a comfortable floor to dry tobacco or grain upon. I asked permission to enter one of the huts, which was immediately granted. I found the clay floor scrupulously clean, the fire-place nicely swept, and some woollen cloths spread upon raised surfaces on the sides of the room, which seemed to serve as beds. The woman had a silver belt about her, which, when I admired it, she took off and handed to me. I put it around my waist. At this the children laughed. I gave them some money, and mounted my horse and rode to the village church,—or mosque, as they are Mohammedans. It was an old building of wood and stone, with a ruinous wooden tower by its side, from which they cry to prayers. I entered it. No one was there. There was a small wooden gallery at one end, to which they ascend by a ladder. It was a shabby and dismal place, and I hurried out of it back to the hotel."
On the following day, with his friend Wikoff, Forrest dined with the Count Woronzoff. "At five o'clock a cannon is fired as a signal to dress for dinner. In a half an hour a second gun is fired, and the guests are seated. Soon after the first gun we started for the castle. I saw there for the first time the Countess Sabanska. I paid my respects to her and retired to another part of the room, as she was talking with several gentlemen. She was very animated in her conversation, with particularly vivid gesticulation and expression of face. The Count's Tartar interpreter was playing billiards with one of the attendants. In a few minutes the Count and Countess entered, followed by a train of ladies and gentlemen. He introduced me to his lady, also to Madame Nerisken and the Princess Gallitzin and her daughter. I led Madame Nerisken to the table, and sat between her and the Countess Woronzoff, whom I found to be a most agreeable and interesting woman. Count Woronzoff sat opposite, with the Princess Gallitzin on one side and the Countess Sabanska on the other. The conversation, conducted in French, was anything but intellectual, as the growth of the prince's vines seemed the all-absorbing topic. The Countess Sabanska had now changed her whole manner from the extreme vivacity and gayety she first evinced, and had become silent and melancholy. Her thoughts seemed to be far away. How I should have liked to read the depths of her soul and know what was moving there! After dinner some of the ladies smoked cigarettes, and others played cards."