Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

the governor's camp.233

save the royal relics from the fate of the most vulgar furniture. What is here called keeping up old things is the baptizing of new ones with ancient names.

We also visited a very pretty convent: the nuns are poor, but their house exhibits edifying marks of cleanliness. Afterwards, the governor took me to see his camp: the rage for manoeuvres, reviews, and bivouacs is universal. The governors of the provinces, like the emperor, pass their life in playing at soldiers ; and the more numerous these assemblages are, the more proudly do the governors feci their resemblance to their master. The regiments which form the camp of Nijni are composed of the children of soldiers. It was evening when Ave reached their tents, reared on a plain which is a continuation of the table of the hill on which stands old Nijni.

Six hundred men were chanting the prayers; and at a distance, in the open air, this religious and military choir produced an astonishing effect; it was like a cloud of perfume rising majestically under a pure and deep sky : prayer ascending from that abyss of passions and sorrows — the heart of man—may be compared to the column of smoke and fire which rise¡` through the torn crater of the volcano, until it reaches the firmament. And who knows if the pillar of the Israelites, so long lost in the desert, did not image the same thing ? The voices of these poor Slavonian soldiers, softened by the distance, seemed to come from on high. When the first notes struck our ears, a knoll on the plain hid the tents from our eyes. The weakened echoes of earth responded to these celestial voices; and the music was interrupted by distant discharges of musquetry — a warlike orchcstre, which