Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/33

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NOTES UPON RUSSIA.
5

bility: and even these are generally accompanied home by the watchmen. Such watches are generally set wherever there is an open entrance into the city, for the Mosqwa flows by one side of the city, and the river Jausa, which flows into it under the city itself, has such steep banks, that it scarcely admits of being forded. In this latter river many mills have been erected for the public use of the city, which seems to be mainly defended by these rivers; with the exception of a few stone houses, churches, and monasteries, it is entirely a city of wood. The number of houses which it is said to contain is scarcely credible. For they say, that six years before my arrival at Moscow, the houses were counted by an order of the prince, and that the number exceeded 41,500. This city is so broad and spacious, and so very dirty, that bridges have been constructed here and there in the highways and streets and in the other more distinguished parts. There is a fortress in it built of burnt tiles, which on one side is washed by the Mosqwa and on the other by the River Neglima [Neglinaia]. The Neglima flows from certain marshes, but is so blocked up before the city around the upper part of the fortress, that it comes out like stagnant water, and running down thence, it fills the moats of the fortress, in which are some mills, and at length, as I have said, is joined by the Mosqwa under the fortress itself. The fortress is so large, that it not only contains the very extensive and magnificently built stone palace of the prince, but the metropolitan bishop, the brothers of the prince, the peers, and a great many others, have spacious houses of wood within it. Besides these, it contains many churches, so that from its size it might itself almost be taken for a city. This fortress was at first surrounded only by oaks, and up to the time of the Grand Duke Ivan Danielovich was small and mean in appearance. It was he, who, by the persuasion of Peter the metropolitan, first transferred the imperial residence to

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