Droskies were taken, and the captain directed them to drive to Minin's Tower. It is on a bluff, where the old town stood, including a part of the Kremlin, and commands a fine view of the river and the fairgrounds, on the tongue of land between the Volga and the Oka. The party entered the Cathedral of the Transformation, where Minin is buried.
"Who was Minin?" asked Lincoln, as they stood by the obelisk erected to his memory.
"You remember Mr. Mapps told you about the false Dimitris, and that, in the confusion and anarchy brought about by them, the crown was offered to Vladislas, son of the King of Poland, for the Poles were really the masters of the country. The Russians had been beaten by them in many battles, for the former had no suitable leader. When everything seemed to be lost, Kosma Minin, a butcher of this town, obscure and uneducated, but possessed of good judgment, brave, honest, and unselfish, roused his fellow-citizens to a sense of their peril. His words and his example induced the people to take up arms, and appropriate all their fortunes for the deliverance of the nation from its oppressors. This spirit of patriotic devotion extended to other places, and Prince Pojarski, was soon able to take the field at the head of a large force. Minin seconded all the efforts of the prince, and by this sudden uprising the Poles were driven from the country. The movement was followed by the election to the throne of Michael Romanoff. The bronze statues which you saw in Moscow, opposite the bazaar, represents Minin urging Pojarski to deliver Moscow from the Poles."
The tourists returned to the droskies, and the doctor directed his driver by pointing in the direction of the fair grounds.
"This does not look much as it does during the fair," said the surgeon, as they drove across the bridge of boats. "The rivers are crowded with boats of every description, from all parts of the vast empire. The Oka here is literally filled with them, so that there is hardly a channel for the passage of others. These craft are quite a study, for they comprise an immense variety, and it is said that the _floating_ population of this vicinity during the fair is about fifty thousand. This bridge is quite as crowded as London Bridge during business hours, and mounted Cossacks are stationed upon it to keep it from being obstructed. These soldiers are also on duty in the crowded streets, to preserve order. The mud here is sometimes a foot deep--at least it was when I visited the fair several years ago. Even the paved streets are ploughed and furrowed by the wheels of heavily-loaded vehicles."