Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/257

Rh the figures of the soldiers seated below the muzzle, you can get an idea of the colossal size of this piece.

"As we came out through the 'Holy Gate' of the Kremlin we were in front of the Church of St. Basil, the one whose architect is said to have been blinded by order of John the Terrible, to make sure that the structure should not be duplicated. It stands on the site of an ancient church where St. Basil was buried, in 1552. It was begun in 1555, and is said to have occupied twenty years in building.

"There is not anywhere in the world a more fantastic church than this; none of its towers and domes resemble each other, and they present all the colors of the rainbow. One of the cupolas is striped like a melon, while another suggests a pineapple; another is like an onion in shape and general appearance; another suggests a turban covered with folds; and still another might readily have been copied from an artichoke. The stripes are as strange as the forms, and the irreverent could be forgiven for calling this the Harlequin Church in consequence of its peculiar architecture.

"Napoleon ordered his engineers to destroy 'The Mosque,' as he called the Church of St. Basil, but for some unexplained reason the order was not carried out. In the chapel below the church is the shrine of the saint, but it presents nothing remarkable; and altogether the building is more interesting from an external than from an internal view."