Heber and Thornton had meant to remain in St Petersburg until after the New Year, then if possible return home through Germany. This was thwarted by Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805 and the treaties that followed. Instead they extended their stay in Russia, leaving St Petersburg on 31 December 1805 by sledge for the 500-mile journey to Moscow, where they arrived on 3 January. They found it a hospitable city—in a letter home Heber refers to it as an "overgrown village"—and they made friends with many of its leading citizens and clergy. They left by stage coach on 13 March, heading south towards the Crimea and the Black Sea. This took them through the Cossack country of the Don River Basin. Heber sent home a vivid account of the night celebrations for Easter at Novo Tcherkask, the Cossack capital: "The soft plaintive chaunt of the choir, and their sudden change at the moment of daybreak to the full chorus of 'Christ is risen' were altogether what a poet or a painter would have studied with delight".