to slay secretly by night; and Ivan fought them with the weapons of torture and the knout, and death painful and full of horror. Hardly a day passed that many did not suffer death; in one day fifteen hundred men of Novgorod were slain, and before Ivan died he dared to ask the prayers of the Church for the souls of nearly four thousand victims.

He could no longer trust his subjects. The last words he said to his sons were, "Be ever on the watch against your subjects." That is a sad government where the nobles and the king watch each other like treacherous, deadly foes.

Yet Ivan did not rule the Russian nation hardly. To them he was merciful and just, and made good laws for them. And he did much for Russia.

It was in his reign that Siberia was first discovered. The Cossack Jermak with a band of men crossed the low wall of the Urals, and terrified the fur-clad Fins by the sound of his guns. He went through the vast plains of snow, conquering east to west; and when he came back he told the Czar that Siberia belonged to Russia.

And for the people of Russia Ivan did much. He was the cleverest man in the whole land. He wrote books, and he was the first to bring in printing. The people thought it was a wicked, magic art.

He too began to make friends for Russia among

H

the countries of Europe. In his reign the English first came to Russia. Three ships were sent by King Edward VI. to discover what land lay in the northern seas. Two were wrecked, and only one came to land. The captain of that ship was astonished to find that he had reached the land of the Czar. "For," said he, "I have found Russia at the North Pole." After that many Englishmen travelled in Russia, and were surprised to find how great a country it was. One said with astonishment, "The Russians are not wild heathens after all, but Christians, and civilised."

Many European workmen and artists came to Russia in the time of Ivan. You remember the German engineer at the siege of Kazan. By their help Ivan did much to make Moscow beautiful. He finished building a stone wall round part of the city, which was called the Kremlin.

At last his reign drew to an end. He had had seven wives and a son, Dmitri, whom he loved dearly. But in one of his passions he struck this son with his iron staff, and the blow was so hard that his son died. Great and fierce was the sorrow of the Czar.

One day he fell ill. He called in the help of witches and magic herbs, but it was all of no avail. And at length Ivan the Terrible lay dead.

What had he done? He was cruel to his boyards,

When he died

but he had done much for Russia. the Russians owned three times the land they had owned before. He had helped to make Russia a mighty country, and paved the way for the great Czar Peter.

CHAPTER IX.

SLEDGING THROUGH MUSCOVY.

It is very difficult always to know exactly how other people behave and what they do. It took a very clever man many years to observe enough about the habits of worms to write a book about them. So it takes longer still to observe the habits of human beings, as they are more interesting than worms. And it becomes harder and harder the longer ago they lived. However, in spite of all that, I mean to take you a fresh journey across Russia, to observe the ways of the Russians. There was a clever Englishman who took that kind of journey in the days of Ivan the Terrible, and his name was Fletcher. So we must look with his eyes at the Russians.

This time we will travel, not in a balloon, but, as the Russians travel, in sledges. And we will suppose it to be the winter-time, and that we are travelling south to Moscow. The roads, you see, are covered with snow, and full of holes and great ruts