My good friend the monk had at last found the keys of the Risnitzi (treasure chamber), and we went there together. The door was as thick as the trunk of an oak-tree, the locks looked as if they had been forged from anchor iron, and of a form only in use in convents and churches. The Risnitzi is a little dark room, containing, in the first place, twelve Persian standards with silver hands, and several presses full of all kinds of costly objects ; brilliant popochs, or long staves of the hierarchy and metropolitans carried at the coronation of the emperor, most magnificent mitres belonging to the metropolitans, with more precious stones than in the crowns in the Orusheinaya palata, and several " Umnivalnifzi^^' one in particular of gold, of Grecian workmanship. The umnivalnitzi are costly washing apparatus, in which the metropolitan washes his hands in rosewater, when celebrating divine service. One principal garment of these dignitaries is called a Sakos. One formerly belonging to Alexis is still here. He must have worn it in days when he was stronger than when he bestowed that blessing on Demetrius Donskoi, which gained the battle of Kulikoff over the Tartars, for it is as heavy with gold as the coat of mail of many a czar with iron.
The greater part of the things in this treasury date from Plato, the last celebrated metropolitan of Moscow, who enjoyed great credit under the three reigns of Catherine, Paul, and Alexander. Plato must have been a man of noble and cultivated mind ; on the worthiness of no metropolitan are opinions more unanimous than on his, and he has left several highlyesteemed works, among others, a volume of excellent sermons delivered by him. Alexis and Nikon are the two main pillars of the church. A Bible, transcribed by the former, is bound in a net-work of pearl. Pearls are made great use of in the Russian Greek church. Not only whole books are sown, and pictures covered with them, but they form the trimmings of wide full robes and of large curtains. In the presses of this chamber I saw vessels full of pearls, sorted according to their size ; the vessels were filled to the brim. In other respects the Risnitzi of this cloister is not so rich as those of the Archangelski Sabor, and that of the patriarchs. The richest of all is in the Troitski convent, in the neighbom-- hood of Moscow.
The first reception of strangers by the hospitable Russians is generally so extremely courteous, that I could hardly believe my ears, when on asking permission to visit the " Sa-Ikono-Spasskoi" convent, to which is attached a school for young people destined for the church, the Otetz Rector (father rector), answered without ceremony, " U nas Smatritelei Tie 77.ushno," (We don't want visiters, I can't permit it). I had, as I thought, made my request so very courteously, and he had with such decided coldness thrown his refusal in my face, that on considering the matter with my usual philosopliy, I could not help finding my position extremely comic, and had like to have betrayed my thoughts by a hearty burst of laughter. I restrained myself, however, and pretending not fully to understand him, replied with a smile, " No, that is not what I meant ; I only wished if possible to see the library, and, if it did not cause too much disturbance, to pay a visit to the school, for which, as a sort of schoolman myself, I have a particular interest."
The Otetz Rector had by this time repented of his inhospitable speech, and so to turn my attention from his commencement, he invited me into his room, and said he would follow as soon as he had settled some business with a monk.
In this room I had time to have my laugh out, and then to look at the portraits with which it was adorned, before a pale friendly-looking man presented himself, to whom I took an immediate liking. He offered himself as my cicerone for the school of which he was the inspector, and entered forthwith into conversation, half in Latin, and half in Russian. I learnt that he was called Father Eusebius, that his employment was to Overlook the school under the authority of the Otetz Rector, and that he had advanced so far in ecclesiastical dignity as to be Canonicus Hieromonach, which is the nearest step to an Archimandrite. His full address when written to was: " To the Inspector of the Sa-Ikono-Spasskoi Monastir, the Reverend Canonicus Hieromonach Pater Eusebius."