Toward evening I returned to my hotel. In all the large hotels in Russia it is the custom for every man to dine in his own apartment. Travelling alone, I always avoided this when I could, as, besides my dislike of the thing itself, it prevented my making acquaintances and acquiring such information as I needed in a strange city; and I was particularly averse to dine alone the first day of my arrival at Moscow; but it was the etiquette of the house to do so, and as I had a letter of introduction which I intended to deliver, from Count Woronzow to Prince Galitzin, the governor of Moscow, I was bound to make some sacrifice for the credit of my acquaintance. After the table was spread, however, finding it too severe a trial, I went down stairs and invited myself to dine with my landlord. He was a German of about fifty-five or sixty, tall, stout, with gray hair, a frank, manly expression, and great respectability of appearance and manners; and before the dinner was over I regarded him emphatically as what a Frenchman would call _un brave homme_. He had been in Russia during the whole of the French invasion, and, among the other incidents of a stirring life, had been sent in exile to Siberia; and the curious part of it was, that he was sent there by mistake. Rather an awkward mistake, though, as he said, not so bad as being knouted or hanged by mistake; and in his case it turned out a rather interesting adventure. He was taken by the French as a Russian spy, and retaken by the Russians as a French spy, when, as he said, he did not care a fig for either of them. He was hurried off to Siberia, but on the journey succeeded in convincing the officer who escorted the prisoners that there was error in the case, and on his arrival was merely detained in exile, without being put to hard labour, until, through the medium of friends, he had the matter brought before the proper tribunal, and the mistake corrected, when he came back post, in company with a Russian officer, smoking his pipe all the way, at the expense of the government. He gave me many interesting particulars in regard to that celebrated country, its mines, the sufferings of the noble exiles; and much also, that was new to me, touching its populousness and wealth, and the comfort and luxury of a residence there. He spoke of Tobolsk as a large, gay, and populous city, containing hotels, theatres, and all kinds of places of amusement. The exiles, being many of them of rank, have introduced there all the luxuries of the capital, and life at Tobolsk is much the same as life at Moscow.