of the cheering of vast multitudes, the booming of artillery, the clash of the pealing joy-bells. In stately procession the Emperor reached the altar, bent his head, and his lips touched the sacred image. When he turned to leave the building, the wildest confusion of enthusiasm laid hold of the throng. His people closed in about the Czar till he had no power to move. The great struggle was but to touch him, and the chaos of policemen, officers, shrieking women, and enthusiastic peasants swayed and heaved to and fro; the Emperor in the centre, pale, his lips trembling with emotion, just as I had seen him when his troops were cheering him on the battlefield; struggling for the bare possibility to stand or move forward, for he was lifted by the pressure clean off his feet, and whirled about helplessly. At length, extricated by a wedge of officers, he reached his carriage, only to experience almost as wonderful an ovation when he reached the raised portico of the Winter Palace. As for the Czarevna, the lady who is now Empress of Russia, her experiences at the Winter Palace were unique. As her carriage, following that of the Emperor, approached the terrace, the populace utilised it as a point whence to see and cheer the Emperor. Men scrambled on to the horses, the box, the roof, the wheels; progress became utterly impossible. A group of cadets and students, who lined the base of the terrace, were equal to the occasion. They dragged open the carriage door by dint of immense exertion: they

lifted out the bright little lady, who clearly was greatly enjoying the fun, and they passed her from hand to hand above their heads, till the Emperor caught her, lifted her over the balustrades, and set her down by his side on the terrace.

The fall of Plevna, and the welcome of his capital, had restored the Czar to apparent health and spirits. I watched him as he moved around the great salon of the Winter Palace, greeting his guests at the home-coming reception. He strode the inlaid floor a very emperor, upright of figure, proud of gait, arrayed in a brilliant uniform, and covered with decorations. A glittering court and suite thronged about the stately man with enthusiastically respectful homage; the dazzling splendour of the Winter Palace formed the setting of the sumptuous picture; and as I gazed on the magnificent scene, I could hardly realise that the central figure of it, in the pomp of his Imperial state, was of a verity the self-same man in whose presence I had stood in the squalid Bulgarian hovel, the same worn, anxious, shabby, wistful man who, with spasmodic utterance and the expression in his eyes as of a hunted deer, had asked me breathless questions as to the episodes and issue of the fighting.

In many respects the monarch whom the Nihilists slew was a grand man. He was absolutely free from that corruption which is the blackest curse of Russia, and whose taint is among the nearest relatives of the Great White Czar. He had the purest

aspirations to do his loyal duty toward the huge empire over which he ruled, and never did he spare himself in toilsome work. He took few pleasures; the melancholy of his position made sombre his features, and darkened for him all the brightness of life. For he had the bitterest consciousness of the abuses that were alienating the subjects who had been wont in their hearts, as on their lips, to couple the names of "God and the Czar." He knew how the great nation writhed and groaned; and he, absolute despot though he was, writhed and groaned no less in the realisation of his impotency to ameliorate the evils. For although he was honest and sincerely well intentioned, there was a fatal weakness in the nature of Alexander II. True, he began his reign with an assertion of masterfulness; but then, unworthy favourites gained his ear; his family compassed him about; the whole huge vis inertiæ of immemorial rottenness and obstructive officialism lay doggedly athwart the hard path of reform. Alexander's aspirations were powerless to pierce the dense, solid obstacle; and the consciousness of his impotency, with the no less disquieting consciousness that it behoved him to cleanse the Augean stable of the State, embittered his whole later life.

A YARN OF THE "PRESIDENT"

FRIGATE

CONCERNING the history of the subjoined curious narrative, the original manuscript of which, written in now faded ink on the rough dingy paper of sixty years ago, was placed in my hands in the course of a recent visit to America, only a few words are necessary. The narrative is addressed to "Mrs. Rodgers and sister," and bears to have been written at the request of the former lady, after its author's return from sea on the termination of his service as surgeon of the President frigate, the famous fighting cruiser of the American Republic in the war with England of 1812-14. Commodore Rodgers, who commanded the President during the war, and who was the husband of the lady for whom the account was written, gave to Dr. Turk's narrative his endorsement of its perfect accuracy. Of the authenticity of the document there can be no possibility of doubt.

NARRATIVE

Although the events now for the first time recorded occurred ten years since, they are still fresh

in my recollection, and have made so strong an impression on my mind that time can never obliterate them. They partake so much of the marvellous that I would not dare to commit them to paper were there not so many living witnesses to the truth of the facts narrated, some of them of the greatest respectability, even sanctioned by Commodore Rodgers. The story is considered by all who have heard it too interesting to be lost; I therefore proceed to the task while those are in existence who can confirm it. Living in an enlightened age and country, when bigotry and superstition have nearly lost their influence over the minds of men, particularly among the citizens of this republic, where knowledge is so universally diffused, I have often been deterred from relating circumstances so wonderful as to stagger the belief of the most credulous. But facts are stubborn things, and the weight of testimony in this case cannot be resisted. Unable for want of time and room to enter so far into particulars as I should wish, I will give, to the best of my recollection, the most prominent and striking occurrences, in the order in which they took place, without comment or embellishment.

"Some time in the latter part of December 1813, a man by the name of William Kemble, aged about twenty-three (a seaman on board of the U.S. Frigate President, commanded by Commodore John Rodgers, on a cruise, then near the Western Islands), was brought to me from one of the tops, in which he was stationed,