Wirt Gerrare 
The Story of Moscow [EPUB ebook] 

THE mediæval pilgrim to Moscow, getting his first glimpse of the Holy City from Salutation Hill, saw before him much the same sight as the tourist of to-day may look upon from the same spot. Three miles away a hill crowned with white-walled buildings, many towers, gilded domes and spires topped with Cross-and-Crescent; outside the wall that encircles this hill, groups of buildings, large and small; open fields, trees—singly, in rows, clumps and thickets—separate group from group; ever and anon above the many hued roofs reach belfries, spires, steeples, domes and minarets innumerable. Beyond, to right and left, the scene repeats itself until the bright coloured buildings become indistinguishable from the masses of verdure and all merge in the haze of the plains east and west, or the faint outline of forest to the north.