Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/122

94 asleep again, ordered the postilion to sing. There is, perhaps, no nation that has a greater natural talent for music, and likes it more than the Russians. Nothing is more melancholy and touching than their airs, and the expression with which they sing them; their slavery and miserable condition seem to find went in those mournful songs. They were suitable to my situation, and I have been often moved by them to tears.

The country around the capital is neither more populous nor better cultivated than the provinces through which we had passed; and it is not the least singularity of this immense empire, that as we approach the metropolis, the Russian language is lost, and the people speak Finnish. The first place that drew our attention near St. Petersburg was Gatchina, the country seat belonging to the Grand Duke Paul Petrowicz, the present Emperor. His continual residence in this village had raised it to the importance of a small town in the German fashion. The château is built in the Gothic style; it is not, however, more ancient