For instance, if the archbishop were there I must give him my hand and

then lean forward and kiss his sleeve just below the shoulder. I only

hoped my chattering teeth would not meet in his robe. So when I saw the

state carriage of the princess at the station of Memel, drawn by four

horses, and with numbers of servants in such queer liveries to attend

to my luggage, I simply breathed a prayer that I would get through it

all successfully; and if not, that they would lay any lapses at the

door of my own eccentricities, and not to the ignorance of Americans in

general, for I never wish to disgrace my native land.

The servants wore an odd flat cap, like a tam-o’-shanter with a visor.

Their coats were of bright blue, with the coat-of-arms of the princess

on the brass buttons. This coat reached nearly to their feet, and in

the back it was gathered full and stiffened with canvas, for all the

world like a woman’s pannier. I thought I should die the first time I

got a side view of those men.

It was late Friday afternoon when we left the train, and we drove at a

tremendous pace through lonely forests which we were only too happy to

leave behind us. Suddenly we came upon the little village of Kretynga,

whose streets were paved with cobblestones the size of a man’s two

fists.

To drive slowly over cobblestones is not a joy, but to drive four

Russian horses at a gallop over such cobblestones as those was

something to make you bite your tongue and to break your teeth and to

shake your very soul from its socket.

The town is inhabited by Polish Jews, and a filthy, greasy, nauseating

set they are, both men and women. The men wear two or three long, oily,

tight curls in front of their ears. Their noses are hooked like a

parrot’s. Their countenances are sinister, and I believe they have not

washed since the Flood. The women, when they marry, shave their heads.

Then they either wear huge wigs, which they use to wipe their hands on

without the ceremony of washing them first, or else they wear a black

or white or gray satin hood-piece with a line to imitate the parting of

the hair embroidered on it.

Nothing is clean about them. I no longer wonder that Jews are expelled

from Russia. It makes one rather respect Russia as a clean country. As

it was Friday night, one window-sill in each house was filled with a

row of lighted candles representing each member of the family who was

either absent or dead.

Being so far away from home myself, this appealed to me as such a

touching custom that it made my eyes smart.

Presently a clearing in the forest revealed the famous monastery of

Kretynga—a monastery famous for being peopled with priests and monks

whom the Tzar has exiled because they took too much interest in

politics for his nerves. Then soon after passing this monastery we

entered the grounds of the castle. Still the longest part of the drive

lay before us, for this one of the many estates of the Princess lies

between the Memel and the Baltic Sea, and covers a large territory.

But finally, after driving through an avenue of trees which are worth a

dictionary of words all to themselves, we came to the castle, a huge

structure, which seemed to spread out before us interminably, for it

was too dark to see anything but its majestic outlines.

The Princess in her own home was even lovelier than she had been in

Paris, and charitably allowed us to have one night’s rest before

meeting the family.

About three o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a mournful chant,

all in minor, which began beneath my windows and receded, growing

fainter and fainter, until at last it died away. It was the hymn which

the peasants always sing as they go forth to their work in the fields;

but its mournful cadence haunted me. The next morning the largeness of

the situation dawned upon me. The size of the rooms and their majestic

furnishings were almost barbaric in their splendor. The tray upon which

my breakfast was served was of massive silver. The coffee-pot,

sugar-bowl, and plates were of repoussé silver, exquisitely wrought,

but so large that one could hardly lift them.

In a great openwork basket of silver were any number of sweetened

breads and small cakes and buns, all made by the baker in the castle,

who all day long does nothing but bake bread and pastry. They do not

serve hot milk with coffee, for which I blessed them from the bottom of

my soul, but they have little brown porcelain jugs which they fill with

cream so thick that you have to take it out with a spoon—it won’t

pour,—and these they heat in ovens, and so serve you hot cream for your

coffee.

I call the gods from Olympus to testify to the quality of the nectar

this combination produces. Some of those little porcelain jugs are

going on their travels soon.

Meeting the various members of the Princess’s charming family and

remembering their titles was not an ordeal at all—at least it was not

after it was over. They were quite like other people, except that their

manners were unusually good. There was to be a hunt that morning—an

amusing, luxurious sort of hunt quite in my line; one where I could go

in a carriage and see the animals caught, but where I need not see them

killed.

They were to hunt a mischievous little burrowing animal something like

our badger, which is as great a pest to Poland as the rabbits are to

Australia. They destroy the crops by eating their roots, so every

little while a hunt is organized to destroy them in large numbers. The

foresters had been sent out the night before to discover a favorite

haunt of theirs, and to fill up all the entrances to their burrows; so

all that we had to do was to drive to the scene of action.

It sounds simple enough, but I most solemnly assure you that it was

anything but a simple drive to one fresh from the asphalt of Paris,

for, like Jehu, they drove furiously.

Their horses are all wild, runaway beasts, and they drive them at an

uneven gallop resembling the gait of our fire-engine horses at home,

except that ours go more slowly. Sometimes the horses fall down when

they drive across country, as they stop only for stone walls or moats.

The carriages must be built of iron, for the front wheels drop a few

feet into a burrow every now and then, and at such times an unwary

American is liable to be pitched over the coachman’s head. “Hold on

with both hands, shut your eyes, and keep your tongue from between your

teeth,” would be my instructions to one about to “take a drive” in

Poland.

When we came to the place we found the foresters watching the

_dachshunde_. These I discovered to be long, flat, shallow dogs with

stumpy legs—a dog which an American has described as “looking as if he

was always coming out from under a bureau.” Very cautiously here and

there the foresters uncovered a burrow, and a _dachshund_ disappeared.

Then from below ground came the sounds of fighting. The _dachshunde_

had found their prey. The foresters ran about, stooping to locate the

sound. When they discovered the spot a dozen of them at once began to

dig as fast as they could.

Presently a writhing, rolling, barking bunch of fur and flying sand

came into view, when a forester with a long forked stick caught the

animal just back of its head and flung it into a coarse sack, which was

then tied up and thrown aside, and the hunt went on. After we all went

home the foresters gathered up these bags and killed the poor little

animals somehow—mercifully, I hope.

The dinner, which came at two o’clock, was so much of a function, on

account of the number of guests in the house, that it impressed itself

upon my memory.

First in the salon there were small tables set, containing _hors

d’oeuvres_. There were large decanters containing _vodke_, a liquor

something like Chinese rice-brandy. There were smoked goose, smoked

bear, and salmon, white and black bread, all sorts of sausages,

anchovies and caviar, of course. After these had been tasted largely by

the guests who were not Americans, and who knew that a formidable

dinner yet had to be discussed, we were all seated at a table in the

grand dining-room.

There were a hundred of us, and the table held enough for twice that

many. We began with a hot soup made of fermented beet-juice. This we

found to be delicious, but I seemed to be eating transparent red ink

with parsley in it. This was followed by a cold soup made of sour cream

and cucumbers, with _écrevisse_, a small and delicious lobster. There

was ice in this.

Cucumbers and sour cream! Let me see, wasn’t it President Taylor who

died of eating cherries and milk?

Then came a salad of chicken and lettuce, and then huge roasts

garnished with exquisite French skill.

After the sweets came the fruit, such fruits as even our own California

cannot produce, with white raspberries of a size and taste quite

indescribable. When dinner is over comes a very pretty custom. The

hostess, whose seat is nearest the door, rises, and each guest kisses

her hand or her arm as he passes out, and thanks her in a phrase for

her hospitality. Sometimes it is only “Thank you, princess”; sometimes

“Many thanks for your beautiful dinner,” or anything you like. They

speak Polish to each other and to their servants, but they are such

wonderful linguists that they always address a guest in his own

language. To their peasants, however, who speak an unlearnable dialect,

they are obliged always to have an interpreter.

At six o’clock came tea from samovars four feet high and of the most

gorgeous repoussé silver. Melons, fruit, and all sorts of bread are

served with this. Then at eight a supper, very heavy, very sumptuous,

very luxurious.

The whole day had been charming, exhilarating, different from anything

we had ever seen before; but there was to follow something which

impressed itself upon my excitable nerves with a fascination so

bewildering that I can think of but one thing which would give me the

same amount of heavenly satisfaction. This would be to have Theodore

Thomas conduct the Chicago orchestra in the “Tannhäuser” overture in

the Court of Honor at the World’s Fair some night with a full moon.

But to return. The Princess excused herself to her Protestant guests

after supper, and then her family, with the servants and all the guests

who wished, assembled in the winter garden to sing hymns to the Virgin.

The winter garden is like a gigantic conservatory four stories high. It

connects the two wings of the castle on the ground floor, and all the

windows and galleries of the floors above overlook it.

It is the most beautiful spot even in the daytime that I ever saw

connected with any house built for man. But at night to look down upon

its beauty, with its palms, its tall ferns, its growing, climbing,

waving vines and flowering shrubs, with its divine odors and fragrances

and sweet dampnesses from mosses and lovely, moist, green, growing

things, is to have one’s soul filled with a poetry undreamed of on the

written page.

The candles dotting the soft gloom, the spray from the fountains

blowing in the air and tinkling into their marble basins, the tones of

the grand organ rumbling and soaring up to us, the moonlight pouring

through the great glass dome and filtering through the waving green

leaves, dimpling on the marble statues and making trembling shades and

shadows upon the earnest faces of the worshippers, the penetrating

sadness of their minor hymns—all the sights and sounds and fragrances

of this winter garden made of that hour “one to be forever marked with

a white stone.”

V

VILNA, RUSSIA

We met our first real discourtesy in Berlin at the hands of a German,

and although he was only the manager of an hotel, we lay it up against

him and cannot forgive him for it. It happened in this wise:

My companion, being the courier, bought our tickets straight through to

St. Petersburg, with the privilege of stopping a week in Vilna, where

we were to be the guests of a Polish nobleman. When she sent the porter

to check our trunks she told him in faultless German to check them only

to Vilna on those tickets. But as her faultless German generally brings

us soap when she orders coffee, and hot water when she calls for ice, I

am not so severe upon the stupidity of the porter as she is. However,

when he came back and asked for fifty-five marks extra luggage to St.

Petersburg we gave a wail, and explained to the manager, who spoke

English, that we were not going to St. Petersburg, and that we were not

particularly eager to pay out fifty-five marks for the mere fun of

spending money. If the choice were left to us we felt that we could

invest it more to our satisfaction in belts and card-cases.

He was very big and handsome, this German, and doubtless some meek

_fräulein_ loves him, but we do not, and, moreover, we pity her,

whoever and wherever she may be, for we know by experience that if they

two are ever to be made one he will be that one. He said he was sorry,

but that, doubtless, when we got to the Russian frontier we could

explain matters and get our trunks. But we could not speak Russian, we

told him, and we wanted things properly arranged then and there. He

clicked his heels together and bowed in a superb manner, and we were

sure our eloquence and our distress had fetched him, so to speak, when

to our amazement he simply reiterated his statements.

“But surely you are not going to let two American women leave your

hotel all alone at eleven o’clock at night with their luggage checked

to the wrong town?” I said, in wide-eyed astonishment.

Again he clicked those heels of his. Again that silk hat came off.

Again that superb bow. He was very sorry, but he could do nothing.

Doubtless we could arrange things at the frontier. It was within ten

minutes of train time, and we were surrounded by no fewer than thirty

German men—guests, porters, hall-boys—who listened curiously, and

offered no assistance.

I looked at my companion, and she looked at me, and ground her teeth.

“Then you absolutely refuse us the courtesy of walking across the

street with us and mending matters, do you?” I said.

Again those heels, that hat, that bow. I could have killed him. I am

sorry now that I didn’t. I missed a glorious opportunity.

So off we started alone at eleven o’clock at night for Poland, with our

trunks safely checked through to St. Petersburg, and fifty-five marks

lighter in pocket.

My companion kept saying, “Well, I never!” A pause. And again, “Well, I

never!” And again, “Did you ever in all your life!” Yet there was no

sameness in my ears to her remarks, for it was all that I, too, wanted

to say. It covered the ground completely.

I was speechless with surprise. It kept recurring to my mind that my

friends in America who had lived in Germany had told me that I need

expect nothing at the hands of German men on account of being a woman.

I couldn’t seem to get it through my head. But now that it had happened

to me—now that a man had deliberately refused to cross the street—no

farther, mind you!—to get us out of such a mess! Why, in America, there

isn’t a man from the President to a chimney-sweep, from a major-general

to the blackest nigger in the cotton fields, who wouldn’t do ten times

that much for _any_ woman!

I shall never get over it.

With the courage of despair I accosted every man and woman on the

platform with the words, “Do you speak English?” But not one of them

did. Nor French either. So with heavy hearts we got on the train, feed

the porter four marks for getting us into this dilemma (and

incidentally carrying our hand-luggage), and when he had the

impertinence to demand more I turned on him and assured him that if he

dared to speak another word to us we would report him to His Excellency

the American Ambassador, who was on intimate terms with the Kaiser; and

that I would use my influence to have him put in prison for life. He

fled in dismay, although I know he did not understand one word. My

manner, however, was not affable. Then I cast myself into my berth in a

despairing heap, and broke two of the wings in my hat.

My companion was almost in tears. “Never mind,” she said. “It was all

my fault. But we may get our trunks, anyway. And if not, perhaps we can

get along without them.”

“Impossible!” I said. “How can we spend a week as guests in a house

without a change of clothes?”

In order not to let her know how worried I was, I told her that if we

couldn’t get our trunks off the train at Vilna we would give up our

visit and telegraph our excuses and regrets to our expectant hostess,

or else come back from St. Petersburg after we had got our precious

trunks once more within our clutches.

All the next day we tried to find some one who spoke English or French,

but to no avail. We spent, therefore, a dreary day. By letting my

companion manage the customs officers in patomime we got through the

frontier without having to unlock anything, although it is considered

the most difficult one in Europe.

The trains in Russia fairly crawl. Instead of coal they use wood in

their engines, which sends back thousands of sparks like the tail of a

comet. It grew dark about two o’clock in the afternoon, and we found

ourselves promenading through the bleakest of winter landscapes. Tiny

cottages, emitting a bright red glow from infinitesimal windows,

crouched in the snow, and silent fir-trees silhouetted themselves

against the moonlit sky. It only needed the howl of wolves to make it

the loneliest picture the mind could conceive.

When we were within an hour of Vilna I heard in the distance my

companion’s familiar words, “Pardon me, sir, but do you speak English?”

And a deep voice, which I knew without seeing him came from a big man,

replied in French, “For the first time in my life I regret that I do

not.”

At the sound of French I hurried to the door of our compartment, and

there stood a tall Russian officer in his gray uniform and a huge

fur-lined pelisse which came to his feet.

When my companion wishes to be amusing she says that as soon as I found

that the man spoke French I whirled her around by the arm and sent her

spinning into the corner among the valises. But I don’t remember even

touching her. I only remembered that here was some one to whom I could

talk, and in two minutes this handsome Russian had untangled my

incoherent explanations, had taken our luggage receipt, and had assured

us that he himself would not pause until he had seen our trunks taken

from the train at Vilna. If I should live a thousand years I never

shall forget nor cease to be grateful to that superb Russian. He was so

very much like an American gentleman.

We were met at the station by our Polish friends, our precious trunks

were put into sledges, we were stowed into the most comfortable of

equipages, and in an hour we were installed in one of the most

delightful homes it was ever my good fortune to enter.

I never realized before what people can suffer at the hands of a

conquering government, and were it not that the young Tzar of Russia

has done away, either by public ukase or private advice, with the worst

of the wrongs his father permitted to be put upon the Poles, I could

not bear to listen to their recitals.

Politics, as a rule, make little impression upon me. Guide-books are a

bore, and histories are unattractive, they are so dry and accurate. My

father’s grief at my lack of essential knowledge is perennial and

deep-seated. But, somehow, facts are the most elusive things I have to

contend with. I can only seem to get a firm grasp on the imaginary. Of

course, I know the historical facts in this case, but it does not sound

personally pathetic to read that Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided

Poland between them.

But to be here in Russia, in what was once Poland, visiting the

families of the Polish nobility; to see their beautiful home-life,

their marvellous family affection, the respect they pay to their women;

to feel all the charm of their broad culture and noble sympathy for all

that makes for the general good, and then to hear the story of their

oppression, is to feel a personal ache in the heart for their national

burdens.

It does not sound as if a grievous hardship were being put upon a

conquered people to read in histories or guide-books that Prussia is

colonizing her part of Poland with Germans—selling them land for almost

nothing in order to infuse German blood, German language, German

customs into a conquered land. It does not touch one’s sympathies very

much to know that Austria is the only one of the three to give Poland

the most of her rights, and in a measure to restore her self-respect by

allowing her representation in the Reichstag and by permitting Poles to

hold office.

But when you come to Russian Poland and know that in the province of

Lithuania—which was a separate and distinct province until a prince of

Lithuania fell in love with and married a queen of Poland, and the two

countries were joined—Poles are not allowed to buy one foot of land in

the country where they were born and bred, are not permitted to hold

office even when elected, are prohibited from speaking their own

language in public, are forbidden to sing their Polish hymns, or to

take children in from the streets and teach them in anything but

Russian, and that every one is taught the Greek religion, then this

colonization becomes a burning question. Then you know how to

appreciate America, where we have full, free, and unqualified liberty.

The young Tzar has greatly endeared himself to his Polish subjects by

several humane and generous acts. One was to remove the tax on all

estates (over and above the ordinary taxes), which Poles were obliged

to pay annually to the Russian government. Another was to release

school-children from the necessity of attending the Greek church on all

Russian feast-days. These two were by public ukase, and as the Poles

are passionately grateful for any act of kindness, one hears nothing

but good words for the Tzar, and there is the utmost feeling of loyalty

to him among them. I hear it constantly said that if he continue in

this generous policy Russia need never apprehend another Polish

revolution. And while by a revolution they could never hope to

accomplish anything, there being now but fourteen million Poles to

contend against these three powerful nations, still, as long as they

have one about every thirty-five years, perhaps it is a wise precaution

on the part of the young Tzar to begin with his kindness promptly, as

it is about time for another one!

Another recent thing which the Poles attribute to the Tzar was the

removal from the street corners, the shops, the railroad stations, and

the clubs, of the placards forbidding the Polish language to be spoken

in public.

Thus the Poles hope much from the young Tzar in the future, and believe

that he would do more were he not held back by Russian public opinion.

For example, the other day two Russians were overheard in the train to

say: “For thirty years we have tried to force our religion on the

Poles, our language on the Poles, and our customs on the Poles, but now

here comes ‘The Little Colonel’ (the young Tzar), and in a moment he

sweeps away all the progress we had made.”

To call him “The Little Colonel” is a term of great endearment, and the

name arose from the fact that by some strange oversight he was never

made a General by his father, but remained at the death of the late

Tzar only a Colonel. When urged by his councillors to make himself

General, as became a Tzar of all the Russias, he said: “No. The power

which should have made me a General is no more. Now that I am at the

head of the government I surely could not be so conceited as to promote

myself.”

The misery among the poor in Poland is almost beyond belief, yet all

charities for them must be conducted secretly, for the government

stills forbids the establishment of kindergartens or free schools where

Polish children would be taught in the Polish language. I have been

questioned very closely about our charities in America, especially in

Chicago, and I have given them all the working plans of the college

settlements, the kindergartens, and the sewing-schools. The Poles are a

wonderfully sympathetic and warm-hearted people, and are anxious to

ameliorate the bitter poverty which exists here to an enormous extent.

They sigh in vain for the freedom with which we may proceed, and regard

Americans as seated in the very lap of a luxurious government because

we are at liberty to give our money to any cause without being

interfered with.

One of the noblest young women I have ever met is a Polish countess,

wealthy, beautiful, and fascinating, who has turned her back upon

society and upon the brilliant marriage her family had hoped for her,

and has taken a friend who was at the head of a London training-school

for nurses to live with her upon her estates, and these two have

consecrated their lives to the service of the poor. They will educate

Polish nurses to use in private charity. With no garb, no creed, no

blare of trumpet, they have made themselves into “Little Sisters of the

Poor.”

I could not fail to notice the difference in the young girls as soon as

I crossed the Russian frontier and came into the land of the Slav. Here

at once I found individuality. Polish girls are more like American

girls. If you ask a young English girl what she thinks of Victor Hugo

she tells you that her mamma does not allow her to read French novels.

If you ask a French girl how she likes to live in Paris she tells you

that she never went down town alone in her life.

But the Polish girls are different. They are individual. They all have

a personality. When you have met one you never feel as if you had met

all. In this respect they resemble American girls, but only in this

respect, for whereas there is a type of Polish young girl—and a

charming type she is—I never in my life saw what I considered a really

typical American girl. You cannot typify the psychic charm of the young

American girl. It is altogether beyond you.

These Polish girls who have titles are as simple and unaffected as

possible. I had no difficulty in calling their mothers Countess and

Princess, etc., but I tripped once or twice with the young girls,

whereat they begged me in the sweetest way to call them by their first

names without any prefix. They were charming. They taught us the Polish

mazurka—a dance which has more go to it than any dance I ever saw. It

requires the Auditorium ball-room to dance it in, and enough breath to

play the trombone in an orchestra. The officers dance with their spurs

on, which jingle and click in an exciting manner, and to my surprise

never seem to catch in the women’s gowns.

The home life of the Poles is very beautiful; and, in particular, the

deference paid to the father and mother strikes my American

sensibilities forcibly. I never tire of watching the entrance into the

salon of the married sons of the Countess when each comes to pay his

daily visit to his mother. They are all four tall, impressive, and

almost majestic, with a curious hawk-like quality in their glance,

which may be an inheritance from their warrior forefathers. Count

Antoine comes in just before going home to dine, while we are all

assembled and dressed for dinner. He flings the door open, and makes

his military bow to the room, then making straight for his mother’s

chair, he kneels at her feet, kisses her hand and then her brow, and

sometimes again her hand. Then he passes the others, and kisses his

sister on the cheek, and after thus saluting all the members of his

family, he turns to us, the guests, and speaks to us.

The Poles are the most individual and interesting people I have yet

encountered. The men in particular are fascinating, and a man who is

truly fascinating in the highest sense of the word; one whose character

is worth study, and whose friendship would repay cultivating as

sincerely as many of the Poles I know, is a boon to thank God for.

Before I came to Poland it always surprised me to realize that so many

men and women of world-wide genius came from so small a nation. But now

that I have had the opportunity of knowing them intimately and of

studying their characteristics, both nationally and individually, I see

why.

Poland is the home of genius by right. Her people, even if they never

write or sing or act or play, have all the elements in their character

which go to make up that complex commodity known as genius, whether it

ever becomes articulate or not. You feel that they could all do things

if they tried. They are a sympathetic, interesting, interested, and,

above all, a magnetic people. This forms the top soil for a nation

which has put forth so much of wonder and sweetness to enrich the

world, but the reason which lies deep down at the root of the matter

for the _soul_ which thrills through all this melody of song and story

is in the sorrowful and tragic history of this nation.

The Poles are a race of burning patriots. To-day they are as keen over

national sufferings and national wrongs as on that unfortunate clay

when they went into a fiercely unwilling and resentful captivity. Their

pride, their courage, their bitterness of spirit, their longing for

revenge now no longer find an outlet on the battlefield. Yet it

smoulders continually in their innermost being. You must crush the

heart, you must subdue a people, you must be no stranger to anguish and

loss if you would discover the singer and the song. And so Poland’s

fierce and unrelenting patriotism has placed the divine spark of a

genius which thrills a world in souls whose sweetest song is a cry

wrung from a patriot’s heart.

VI

ST. PETERSBURG

It behooves one to be good in Russia, for no matter how excellent your

reputation at home, no matter how long you have been a member in good

and regular standing of the most orthodox church, no matter how

innocent your heart may be of anarchy, nihilism, or murder, you travel,

you rest, you eat, sleep, wake, or dream, tracked by the Russian

police.

They snatch your passport the moment you arrive at a hotel, and

register you, and if you change your hotel every day, every day your

passport is taken, and you are requested to fill out a blank with your

name, age, religion, nationality, and the name and hotel of the town

where you were last.

When we entered our Russian hotel—when we had entirely entered, I mean,

for we passed through six or eight swinging doors with moujiks to open

and shut each one, and bow and scrape at our feet—we found ourselves in

a stiflingly hot corridor, where the odor was a combination of smoke

and people whose furs needed airing.

It would be an excellent idea if Americans who live in cold climates

dressed as sensibly as Russians do. They keep their houses about as

warm as we keep ours, but they wear thin clothing indoors and put on

their enormous furs for the street. On entering any house, church,

shop, or theatre, the chuba and overshoes are removed, and although

they spend half their lives putting them on and taking them off, yet

the other half is comfortable.

The women seem to have no pride about the appearance of their feet, for

now the doctors are ordering them to wear the common gray felt boot of

the peasants, with the top of it reaching to the knee. It is without

doubt the most hideous and unshapely object the mind can conceive,

being all made of one piece and without any regard to the shape of the

foot.

St. Petersburg can hardly be called a typical Russian city. It is too

near other countries, but to us, before we had seen Moscow and Kiev, it

was Russia itself. We arrived one bitterly cold day, and went first to

the hotel to which we had been recommended by our friends.

I shall never forget the wave of longing for home and country which

settled down upon me as we saw our rooms in this hotel. It must have

been built in Peter the Great’s time. No electric lights; not even

lamps. Candles! Now, if there is one thing more than another which

makes me frantic with homesickness, it is the use of candles. I would

rather be in London on Sunday than to dress by the light of candles.

Even an excellent luncheon did not raise my spirits. Our rooms were as

dark and gloomy and silent as a mausoleum. Indeed, many a mausoleum I

have seen has been much more cheerful. It was at the time of year also

when we had but three hours of daylight—from eleven until two. Our

salon was furnished in a dreary drab, with a gigantic green stove in

the corner which reached to the ceiling. Then we entered what looked

like a long, narrow corridor, down which we blindly felt our way, and

at the extreme end of which were hung dark red plush curtains, as if

before a shrine. We pulled aside these trappings of gloom, and there

were two iron cots, not over a foot and a half wide, about the shape

and feeling of an ironing-board, covered with what appeared to be gray

army blankets, I looked to see “U.S.” stamped on them. I have seen them

in museums at home.

I gazed at my companion in perfect dismay. “I shall not present a

single letter of introduction,” I wailed. “I’m going to Moscow

to-morrow.”

Instead of going to Moscow in the morning, we went out and decided to

present just the one letter to our ambassador. He was at the Hôtel

d’Europe, and we went there. Behold! electric lights everywhere. Heaps

of Americans. And the entire Legation there. My companion and I simply

looked at each other, and our whole future grew brighter. We would not

go to Moscow, but we would move at once. We would introduce electricity

into our sombre lives, and look forward with hope into the great

unknown. We rushed around and presented all the rest of our letters,

and went back to spend a wretched evening with eight candles and a

smoky lamp.

The next day we called for our bill and prepared to move. To my

disgust, I found an item of two rubles for the use of that lamp. I had

serious thoughts of opening up communication with the Standard Oil

Company by cable. But we were so delighted with our new accommodations

in prospect that we left the hotel in a state of exhilaration that

nothing could dampen.

To our great disappointment we found a number of Americans leaving St.

Petersburg for Moscow because the Hermitage was closed. Now, the

Hermitage and the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters of the Neva

were what I most wished to see, but we were informed at the Legation

that we could have neither wish gratified. However, my spirit was

undaunted. It was only the American officials who had pronounced it

impossible. My lucky star had gone with me so far, and had opened so

many unaccustomed doors, that I did not despair. I said I would see

what our letters of introduction brought forth.

We did not have to wait long. No sooner had we presented our letters

than people came to see us, and placed themselves at our disposal for

days and even weeks at a time. Their kindness and hospitality were too

charming for mere words to express.

Although the Winter Palace was closed to visitors, preparatory to the

arrival on the next day of the Tzar and Tzarina, it was opened for us

through the influence of the daughter of the Commodore of the late

Tzar’s private yacht, Mademoiselle de Falk, who took us through it. It

was simply superb, and was, of course, in perfect readiness for the

arrival of the imperial family, with all the gorgeous crimson velvet

carpets spread, and the plants and flowers arranged in the Winter

Garden.

Then, through this same influential friend, the Hermitage—the second

finest and the very richest museum in all Europe—was opened for us,

and—well, I kept my head going through the show palaces in London, and

Paris, and Berlin, and Dresden, and Potsdam, but I lost it completely

in the Hermitage. Then and there I absolutely went crazy. A whole

guide-book devoted simply to the Hermitage could give no sort of idea

of the barbaric splendor of its belongings. Its riches are beyond

belief. Even the presents given by the Emir of Bokhara to the Tzar are

splendid enough to dazzle one like a realization of the Arabian Nights.

But to see the most valuable of all, which are kept in the Emperor’s

private vaults, is to be reduced to a state of bewilderment bordering

on idiocy.

It is astonishing enough, to one who has bought even one Russian belt

set with turquoise enamel, to think of all the trappings of a

horse—bit, bridle, saddle-girth, saddlecloth, and all, made of cloth of

gold and set in solid turquoise enamel; with the sword hilt, scabbard,

belts, pistol handle and holster made of the same. Well, these are

there by the dozen. Then you come to the private jewels, and you see

all these same accoutrements made of precious stones—one of solid

diamonds; another of diamonds, emeralds, topazes, and rubies. And the

size of these stones! Why, you never would believe me if I should tell

you how large they are. Many of them are uncut and badly set, from an

English stand-point. But in quantity and size—well, I was glad to get

back to my three-ruble-a-day room and to look at my one trunk, and to

realize that my own humble life would go on just the same, and my

letter of credit would not last any longer for all the splendors which

exist for the Tzar of all the Russias.

The churches in St. Petersburg are so magnificent that they, too, go to

your head. We did nothing but go to mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas

Day, for although we spent our Christmas in Berlin, we arrived in St.

Petersburg in time for the Russian Christmas, which comes twelve days

later than ours. St. Isaac’s, the Kazan, and Sts. Peter and Paul dazed

me. The icons or images of the Virgin are set with diamonds and

emeralds worth a king’s ransom. They are only under glass, which is

kept murky from the kisses which the people press upon the hands and

feet.

The interiors of the cathedrals, with their hundreds of silver

_couronnes_, and battle-flags, and trophies of conquests, look like

great bazaars. Every column is covered clear to the dome. The tombs of

the Tzars are always surrounded by people, and candles burn the year

round. Upon the tomb of Alexander II., under glass, is the exquisite

laurel wreath placed there by President Faure. It is of gold, and was

made by Falize, one of the most famous carvers of gold in Europe.

The famous mass held on Christmas Eve in the cathedral of St. Isaac was

one of the most beautiful services I ever attended. In the first place,

St. Isaac’s is the richest church in all Russia. It has, too, the most

wonderful choir, for the Tzar loves music, and wherever in all his

Empire a beautiful voice is found, the boy is brought to St. Petersburg

and educated by the State to enter the Emperor’s choir. When we entered

the church the service had been in progress for five hours. That

immense church was packed to suffocation. In the Greek church every one

stands, no matter how long the service. In fact, you cannot sit down

unless you sit on the floor, for there are no seats.

By degrees we worked our way towards the space reserved for the

Diplomatic Corps, where we were invited to enter. Our wraps were taken

and chairs were given to us. We found ourselves on the platform with

the priest, just back of the choir. What heavenly voices! What

wonderful voices! The bass holds on to the last note, and the rumble

and echo of it rolls through those vaulted domes like the tones of an

organ. The long-haired priest, too, had a wonderful resonant voice for

intoning. He passed directly by us in his gorgeous cloth of gold

vestments, as he went out.

The instant he had finished, the little choir boys began to pinch each

other and thrust their tapers in each other’s faces, and behaved quite

like ordinary boys. The great crowd scattered and huge ladders were

brought in to put out the hundreds of candles in the enormous

chandeliers. Religion was over, and the world began again.

The other art which is maintained at the government expense is the

ballet. We went several times, and it was very gorgeous. It is all

pantomime—not a word is spoken—but so well done that one does not tire

of it.

Every one sympathized so with us because we could not see the ceremony

of the Blessing of the Waters of the Neva, and our ambassador

apologized for not being able to arrange it, and we said, “Not at all,”

and “Pray, do not mention it,” at the same time secretly hoping that

our Russian friends, who were putting forth strenuous efforts on our

behalf, would be able to manage it.

On the morning of the 18th of January a note came from a Russian

officer who was on duty at the Winter Palace, saying that Baron Elsner,

the Secretary of the Prefect of Police, would call for us with his

carriage at ten o’clock, and we would be conducted to the private space

reserved just in front of the Winter Palace, where the best view of

everything could be obtained. My companion and I fell into each other’s

arms in wild delight, for it had been most difficult to manage, and we

had not been sure until that very moment.

Now, the person of the Tzar is so sacred that it is forbidden by law

even to represent him on the stage, and as to photographing him—a

Russian faints at the mere thought. Nevertheless, we wished very much

to photograph this pageant, so we determined, if possible, to take our

camera. Everything else that we wanted had been done for us ever since

we started, and our faith was strong that we would get this. At first

the stout heart of Baron Elsner quailed at our suggestion. Then he said

to take the camera with us, which we did with joy. His card parted the

crowd right and left, and our carriage drove through long lines of

soldiers, and between throngs of people held in check by mounted

police, and by rows of infantry, who locked arms and made of themselves

a living wall, against which the crowd surged.

To our delight we found our places were not twenty feet from the

entrance to the Winter Palace. We noticed Baron Elsner speaking to

several officials, and we heard the word “Americanski,” which had so

often opened hearts and doors to us, for Russia honestly likes America,

and presently the Baron said, in a low tone, “When the Emperor passes

out you may step down here; these soldiers will surround you, and you

may photograph him.”

I could scarcely believe my ears. I was so excited that I nearly

dropped the camera.

The procession moves only about one hundred feet—a crimson carpet being

laid from the entrance of the Winter Palace, across the street, and up

into a pavilion which is built out over the Neva.

First came the metropolitans and the priests; then the Emperor’s

celebrated choir of about fifty voices; then a detachment of picked

officers bearing the most important battle-flags from the time of Peter

the Great, which showed the marks of sharp conflict; then the Emperor’s

suite, and then—the Emperor himself. They all marched with bared heads,

even the soldiers.

My companion had the opera-glasses, I had the camera. “Tell me when,” I

gasped. They passed before me in a sort of haze. I heard the band in

the Winter Palace and the singing of the choir. I heard the splash of

the cross which the Archbishop plunged into the opening that had been

cut in the ice. I heard the priests intone, and the booming of the guns

firing the imperial salute. I saw that the wind was blowing the candles

out. Then came a breathless pause, and then she said, “Now!” A little

click. It was done; I had photographed Nicholas II., the Tzar of all

the Russias!

VII

RUSSIA

Yesterday we had our first Russian experience in the shape of a troika

ride. Russians, as a rule, do not troika except at night. In fact, from

my experience, they reverse the established order of things and turn

night into day.

A troika is a superb affair. It makes the tiny sledges which take the

place of cabs, and are used for all ordinary purposes, look even more

like toys than usual. But the sledges are great fun, and so cheap that

it is an extravagance to walk. A course costs only twenty kopecks—ten

cents. The sledges are set so low that you can reach out and touch the

snow with your hand, and they are so small that the horse is in your

lap and the coachman in your pocket. He simply turns in his seat to

hook the fur robe to the back of your seat—only it has no back. If you

fall, you fall clear to the ground.

The horse is far, far above you in your humble position, and there is

so little room that two people can with difficulty stow themselves in

the narrow seat. If a brother and sister or a husband and wife drive

together, the man, in sheer self-defence, is obliged to put his arm

around the woman, no matter how distasteful it may be. Not that she

would ever be conscious of whether he did it or not, for the amount of

clothes one is obliged to wear in Russia destroys any sense of touch.

The idvosjik, or coachman, is so bulky from this same reason that you

cannot see over him. You are obliged to crane your neck to one side.

His head is covered with a Tartar cap. He wears his hair down to his

collar, and then chopped off in a straight line. His pelisse is of a

bluish gray, fits tightly to the waist, and comes to the feet. But the

skirt of it is gathered on back and front, giving him an irresistibly

comical pannier effect, like a Dolly Varden polonaise. The Russian

idvosjik guides his horse curiously. He coaxes it forward by calling it

all sorts of pet names—“doushka,” darling, etc. Then he beats it with a

toy whip, which must feel like a fly on its woolly coat, for all the

little fat pony does is to kick up its heels and fly along like the

wind, missing the other sledges by a hair’s-breadth. It is ghostly to

see the way they glide along without a sound, for the sledges wear no

bells.

One may drive with perfect safety at a breakneck pace, for they all

drive down on one side of the street and up on the other. Nor will an

idvosjik hesitate to use his whip about the head and face of another

idvosjik who dares to turn without crossing the street.

He stops his horse with a guttural trill, as if one should say

“Tr-r-r-r-r” in the back of the throat. It sounds like a gargle.

The horses are sharp-shod, but in a way quite different from ours. The

spikes on their shoes are an inch long, and dig into the ice with

perfect security, but it makes the horses look as if they wore French

heels. Even over ice like sheer glass they go at a gallop and never

slip. It is wonderful, and the exhilaration of it is like driving

through an air charged with champagne, like the wine-caves of Rintz.

Our troika was like a chariot in comparison with these sledges. It was

gorgeously upholstered in red velvet, and held six—three on each seat.

The robes also were red velvet, bordered and lined with black bear fur.

There were three horses driven abreast. The middle horse was much

larger than the other two, and wore a high white wooden collar, which

stood up from the rest of the harness, and was hung with bells and

painted with red flowers and birds.

To my delight the horses were wild, and stood on their hind legs and

bit each other, and backed us off the road, and otherwise acted like

Tartar horses in books. It seemed almost too good to be true. It was

like driving through the Black Forest and seeing the gnomes and the

fairies one has read about. I told my friends very humbly that I had

never done anything in my life to deserve the good fortune of having

those beautiful horses act in such a satisfactory and historical

manner. We had to get out twice and let the idvosjik calm them down.

But even when ploughing my way out of snow up to my knees I breathed an

ecstatic sigh of gratitude and joy. I could not understand the men’s

annoyance. It was too ideal to complain about.

We drove out to the Island for luncheon, and on the way we stopped and

coasted in a curious Russian sledge from the top of a high place,

something like our toboggan-slides, only this sledge was guided from

behind by a peasant on skates.

A Russian meal always begins with a side-table of _hors d’oeuvres_,

called “zakouska.” That may not be spelled right, but no Russian would

correct me, because the language is phonetic, and they spell the same

word in many different ways. Their alphabet has thirty-eight letters in

it, besides the little marks to tell you whether to make a letter hard

or soft.

Even proper names take on curious oddities of spelling, and a husband

and wife or two brothers will spell their name differently when using

the Latin letters. If you complain about it, and ask which is correct,

they make that famous Russian reply which Bismarck once had engraved in

his ring, and which he believed brought him such good luck, “Neechy

voe,” “It is nothing,” or “Never mind.” You can spell with your eyes

shut in Russian, and you simply cannot make a mistake, for the Russians

spell with all the abandonment of French dancing.

This zakouska is so delicious and so varied and so tempting that one

not accustomed to it eats too much without realizing. At a dinner an

American looked at my loaded plate and said, with delicious

impertinence, “Confidentially, I don’t mind telling you that dinner is

_coming_.”

As we came back, the full delight of troika-riding came over us, for

driving in the country we could not tell how fast we were going. But in

town, whizzing past other carriages, hearing the shouts of the

idvosjik, “Troika!” and seeing the people scatter and the sledges turn

out (for a troika has the right of way), we realized at what a pace we

were going. We dashed across the frozen Neva, with its tramway built

right on the ice; past the Winter Palace, along the quai, where all the

embassies are, into the Grand Morskaia, and from there into the Nevski,

with the snow flying and our bells ringing, and the middle horse

trotting and the outer horses galloping, sending clouds of steam from

their heaving flanks and palpitating nostrils, and the biting air

making our blood tingle, and the reiterated shout of the idvosjik,

“Troika! troika!” taking our breath away.

We had one more excitement before we reached home, which was seeing a

Russian fire-engine. We passed it in a run. The engine was on one

sledge, and following it were five other sledges carrying hogsheads of

water.

I am glad we came to Russia in winter, for by so doing we have met the

Russian people, the most fascinating that any country can boast, with

the charm of the French, the courage of the English, the sentiment of

the Germans, the sincerity and hospitality of the Americans. Their

courtesy to each other is a never-ending pleasure to me. Poles and

Russians treat their women more nearly the way our American men treat

us than any nation we have encountered so far. They are the most

marvellous linguists in the world. We have met no one in Russia who

speaks fewer than three languages, and we have met several who speak

twelve. They are not arrogant even concerning their military strength.

They are quite modest about their learning and their not inconsiderable

literary and artistic achievements, and they hold themselves, both

nationally and individually, in the plastic state where they are

willing to learn from any nation or any master who can teach what they

wish to know. There is a marvellous future for Russia, for their riches

and resources are as vast and inestimable as their possessions. They

themselves do not realize how mighty they are.

Here is France grovelling at their feet, spending millions of francs to

entertain the Tzar—France, a nation which must see a prospect of double

her money returned before she parts with a sou; with the cathedrals

filled with _couronnes_ sent by the French press; with no compliment to

Russia too fulsome for French gallantry to invent finding space in the

foremost French newspapers; hoping, praying, beseeching the help of

Russia, when Germany makes up her mind to gobble France, yet dealing

Russian achievement a backhanded slap by hinting what a compliment it

is for a cultivated, accomplished, over-cultured race like the French

to beg the assistance of a barbarous country like Russia.

I believe that Russia is the only country in the world which feels

nationally friendly and individually interested in America. I used to

think France was, and I held Lafayette firmly and proudly in my memory

to prove it. But I was promptly undeceived as to their individual

interest, and when I still clung to Lafayette as a proof of the former

I was laughed to scorn and told that France as a nation had nothing to

do with that; that Lafayette went to America as a soldier of fortune.

He would just as soon have gone to Madagascar or Timbuctoo, but America

was accommodating enough to have a war on just in time to serve his

ambition. If that is true, I wish they had not told me. I would like to

come home with a few ideals left—if they will permit me.

When I was in Berlin I asked our ambassador, Mr. White, what Germany

thought of America. He replied, “Just what Thackeray thought of Tupper.

When some one asked Thackeray what he thought of Tupper, he replied, ‘I

don’t think of him at all.’”

But in Russia I have a sore throat all the time from answering

questions about America. I think I am not exaggerating when I say I

have answered a million in a single evening. My companion at first was

disgusted with my wearing myself out in such a manner, but I said, “I

am so grateful to them for _caring_, after the indifference of all

these other self-sufficient countries, that I am willing to sacrifice

myself at it if necessary.”

We never realized how little we knew about America until we discovered

the Russian capacity for asking unexpected questions. I bought an

American history in Russia, and sat up nights trying to remember what

my father had tried to instil into my sieve-like brain. After a week of

witnessing my feverish enthusiasm, even my companion’s dormant national

pride was roused. She, too, was ashamed to say, “I don’t know,” when

they asked us these terrible questions. When we get into the clutches

of a party of women we trust to luck that they cannot remember our

statistics long enough to tell their husbands and brothers (I have a

horror of men’s accuracy in figures), and we calmly guess at the

answers when our exact knowledge gives out.

One night they attacked my companion on the school question. Now, she

does not know one solitary thing about the public-school system, but,

to my utter amazement, I heard her giving the number of children

between the ages of eight and ten who were in the public schools in the

State of Illinois, and then running them off by counties. I was afraid

she would soon begin to call the roll of their names from memory, so I

rescued her and took her home. I suppose we must have an air of

intelligence which successfully masks our colossal ignorance of occult

facts and defunct dates, because they rely on us to inform them

off-hand concerning everything social, political, historical, sacred

and profane, spirituous and spiritual, from the protoplasm of the

cliff-dwellers to the details of the Dingley bill, not skipping

accurate information on the process of whiskey-making in Kentucky, a

crocodile-hunt in Florida, suffrage in Wyoming, a lynching-bee in

Texas, polygamy in Utah, prune-drying in California, divorces in

Dakota, gold-mining in Colorado, cotton-spinning in Georgia,

tobacco-raising in Alabama, marble-quarrying in Tennessee, the number

of Quakers in Philadelphia, one’s sensations while being scalped by

Sioux, how marriages are arranged, what a man says when he proposes,

the details of a camp-meeting, a description of a negro baptism, and

the main arguments on the silver question.

They get some curious ideas in their heads concerning us, but they are

so amazingly well informed about America that their specific

misinformation never irritated me. The small use they have for their

English sometimes accounts for the queer things they say.

The official costume for men who have no particular uniform is

regulation evening dress, which they are obliged to wear all day. They

become so tired of it that this is the reason, they tell me, why so

many men, even in smart society, go to the opera or even dinners in

frock-coats. One one occasion a most intelligent man said to me, “I am

told that in America the ladies always wear décolleté costumes at

dinners, and the men are always in night-dress.”

For one hysterical moment my mind’s eye pictured a dinner-table on

Prairie Avenue with alternately a low-necked gown and a pair of

pajamas, and I choked. Then I happened to think that he meant “evening

dress,” and I recovered sufficiently to explain.

The Tzarina has made English the Court language, and since her

coronation no state balls take place on Sunday.

Russian hospitality is delightful. We could remain a year in Russia and

not exhaust our invitations to visit at their country-houses. Russia

must be beautiful in summer, but if you wish to go into society, to

know the best of the people, to see their sweet home life, and to

understand how they live and enjoy themselves, you must go in the

winter. I cannot think what any one would find of national life in

summer in Russia, for everybody has a country-house and everybody goes

to it and leaves the city to tourists.

Russia, in spite of her vast riches, has not arrived at

supercivilization, where there is corruption in the very atmosphere.

She is an undeveloped and a young country, and while the Tzar is wise

and kind and beneficent, and an excellent Tzar as Tzars go, still

Russians, even the best and most enlightened of them, are slaves. I

have met a number of the gentlest and cleverest men who had been exiled

to Siberia, and pardoned. Their picture-galleries bear witness to this

underlying sadness of knowing that in spite of everything they are not

_free_. All their actions are watched, their every word listened to,

spies are everywhere, the police are omnipresent, and over all their

gayety and vivacity and mirth and spontaneity there is the constant

fear of the awful hand in whose complete power they are. His clemency,

his fatherhood to his people, his tremendous responsibility for their

welfare are all appreciated, but the thought is in every mind, “When

will this kindness fail? Upon whose head will the lightning descend

next?”

Title and gentle birth and the long and faithful service of one’s

ancestors to the Tzars are of small avail if the evidence should go

against one in Russia. I have heard princes say less than I have said

here, but say it in whispers and with furtive looks at the nearest man

or woman. I have seen their starts of surprise at the frank impudence

of our daring to criticise our administration in their midst, and I

felt as if I were in danger of being bombarded from the back.

In Russia you may spell as you please, but you must have a care how you

criticise the government. In America you may criticise the government

as you will, but you must have a care how you spell.

VIII

MOSCOW

I thought St. Petersburg interesting, but it is modern compared to

Moscow. Everything is so strange and curious here. The churches, the

chimes, the palace, the coronation chapel, and the street scenes are

enough to drive one mad with interest.

Moscow is said to have sixteen hundred churches, and I really think we

did not skip one. They are almost as magnificent as those in St.

Petersburg, and they impressed—overpowered us, in fact, with the same

unspeakable riches of the Greek Church.

The name of our hotel was so curious that I cannot forbear repeating

it, “The Slavansky Bazaar,” and they call their smartest restaurant

“The Hermitage.” I felt as if I could be sold at auction in “The

Bazaar,” and as if I ought to fast and pray in “The Hermitage.”

“The Slavansky Bazaar” was one of the dirtiest hotels it ever was my

lot to see. The Russians of the middle class—to say nothing of the

peasants, who are simply unspeakable—are not a clean set, so one cannot

blame a hotel for not living above the demands of its _clientèle_.

There were some antique specimens of cobwebs in our rooms, which made

restful corner ornaments with dignified festoons, which swung slowly to

and fro with such fascinating solemnity that I could not leave off

looking at them. The hotel is built up hill and down dale, and each

corridor smells more musty than the other. It has a curious arrangement

for supplying water in the rooms which I never can recall with any

degree of pleasure. One evening after I had dressed I went to the

wash-stand and discovered that there was no water. I was madly ringing

for the chambermaid when my companion called from her room, and said,

“Put your foot on that brass thing. There is plenty of water.”

I looked down, and near the floor was a brass pedal, like that of a

piano. Sure enough, there was a reservoir above and a faucet with the

head of a dragon on it peering up into my face, which I never had

noticed before. Now, the pedal of my piano works hard, so I bent all my

strength to this one, and lo! from that impudent dragon’s mouth I got a

mighty stream of water straight in my unconscious face, and enough to

put out a fire. I fell back with a shriek of astonishment and

indignation, and my companion laughed—nay, she roared. She laughs until

she cries even now every time she thinks of it, although I had to

change my gown. How was _I_ going to know that I was leaning over a

waterspout, I should like to know!

In this same hotel when I asked for a blotter they brought me a box of

sand. I tried to use it, but my hand was not very steady, and none of

it went on the letter. Some got in my shoe, however.

But our environments were more than compensated for by the exceeding

kindness that we received from the most delightful people that it ever

was my good fortune to meet, and their attentions to us were so

charming that we shall remember them as long as we live.

Americans, even though we are as hospitable as any nation on earth,

might well take a lesson from the Russians in regard to the respect

they pay to a letter of introduction. The English send word when you

can be received, and you pay each other frosty formal calls, and then

are asked to five-o’clock tea or some other wildly exciting function of

similar importance. The French are great sticklers for etiquette, but

they are more spontaneous, and you are asked to dine at once. After

that it is your own fault if you are not asked again. But in Russia it

is different. I think that the men must have accompanied my messenger

home, and the women to whom I presented letters early in the afternoon

were actually waiting for me when I returned from presenting the last

ones. In Moscow they came and waited hours for my return. I was

mortified that there were not four of me to respond to all the beauties

of their friendship, for hospitality in Russia includes even that.

They placed themselves, their carriages, their servants, at our

disposal for whatever we had to do—sight-seeing, shopping, or idling.

Mademoiselle Yermoloff, lady-in-waiting to the two empresses, simply

took us upon her hands to show us Russian society life. She came with

her sledge in the morning, and kept us with her all day long, taking us

to see the most interesting people and places in Moscow. She showed us

the coronation-robes, the embroideries upon which were from her own

beautiful designs. The Empress presented her with an emerald and

diamond brooch in recognition of this important service, for

undoubtedly the coronation-robe of the present Tzarina is much

handsomer and in better taste than any of the others. The designs are

so artistically sketched that they all have a special significance.

Here we visited the charming Princess Golitzine, a most beautiful and

accomplished woman. Her house, we were told, De Lesseps, the father of

the Suez De Lesseps, used as his headquarters during the French

occupation of Moscow.

Mademoiselle Yermoloff’s sledge was a very beautiful one, but it was

quite as low-set as all the others, and her footman stood behind. As

there was no back to the seat of her sledge, and her horses were rather

fiery and unmanageable, every time they halted without warning this

solemn flunky pitched forward into our backs, a performance which would

have upset the dignity of an English footman, but which did not seem to

disturb him in the least.

Mademoiselle Yermoloff took us to see Madame Chabelskoi, whose

contributions to the World’s Fair were of so much value. I never saw a

private collection of anything so rich, so varied, and of such

historical value as her collection of all the provincial costumes of

the peasants of Finland and Big and Little Russia. In addition to these

she has the fête-day toilets as well. The Kokoshniks are all

embroidered in seed-pearls and gold ornaments, and if she were not a

fabulously rich woman she could never have got all these, for each one

is authentic and has actually been worn. They are not copies.

But Moscow seems to take a peculiar national pride in preserving the

historical monuments of her country. There is a museum there, with a

complete set of all these costumes on wax figures, and they range all

the way from the grotesque to the lovely.

Madame Chabelskoi is now doing a very pretty as well as a valuable and

historical work. She has two accomplished daughters, and these young

girls spend all their time in selecting peasant women with typical

features, dressing them in these costumes, photographing them, and then

coloring these photographs in water-colors. They are making ten copies

of each, to make ten magnificent albums, which are to be presented to

the ten greatest museums in the world. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg

is to have one, the British Museum another, and so on. Only one was to

go to America, and to my metropolitan dismay I found that it was _not_

to go to Chicago. I shall not say where it was intended to go; I shall

only say that with characteristic modesty I asked, in my most timid

voice, why she did not present it to a museum in the city which she had

already benefited so royally with her generosity, and which already

held her name in affectionate veneration. It seemed to strike her for

the first time that Chicago _was_ the proper city in which to place

that album, so she promised it to us! I thanked her with sincere

gratitude, and retired from the field with a modest flush of victory on

my brow. I cannot forbear a wicked chuckle, however, when I think of

that other museum!

We dined many times at “The Hermitage,” which is one of the smartest

restaurants in Europe. The costumes of the waiters were too

extraordinary not to deserve a passing mention. They consisted of a

white cotton garment belted at the waist, with no collar, and a pair of

flapping white trousers. They are always scrupulously clean—which is a

wonder for Russian peasants—for they are made to change their clothes

twice a day. They have a magnificent orchestrion instead of an

orchestra here, and I could scarcely eat those beautiful dinners for

listening to the music. We became so well acquainted with the

répertoire that our friends, knowing our taste, ordered the music to

match the courses. So instead of sherry with the soup, they ordered the

intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” With the fish we had the

overture to “William Tell.” With the _entrecôte_ we had a pot-pourri

from “Faust.” With the fowl we had “Demon and Tamar,” the Russian

opera. With the rest we began on Wagner and worked up to that thrilling

“Tannhäuser” overture, until I was ready to go home a nervous wreck

from German music, as I always am.

A very interesting incident occurred while we were in Moscow. The Tzar

decorated a non-commissioned officer for an act of bravery which well

deserved it. He was in charge of the powder-magazines just outside of

Moscow, and from the view I had of them I should say that the gunpowder

is stored in pits in the ground.

Something caught fire right on top of one of these pits, and this young

officer saw it. He had no time to send for water, and if he delayed, at

any moment the whole magazine might explode; one pit would communicate

with another, and perhaps the whole city would be endangered; so

without a second’s hesitation he and his men sprang into the fire and

literally trod it out with their feet, running the risk of an explosion

by concussion, as well as by a spark of fire. It was a superb act of

courage, and the Tzar decorated this young sergeant with the order of

Vladimir—one of the rarest decorations in all Russia. I am told that

not over six living men possess it to-day. It was a beautiful thing for

the Tzar thus to recognize this heroic deed.

When we left Moscow we were having our first real taste of Russian

winter, for, strange to say, although so much farther south, the

climate is much more severe than that of St. Petersburg.

My companion complained bitterly that we were not seeing anything of

Russia because we came down from St. Petersburg at night, so we

abandoned the courier train, and took the slow day-train for Kiev, the

old capital of Russia, that she might see more of the country.

But now I come to my reward and her chagrin. Between Moscow and Kiev we

were snowed in for sixteen hours. It was between stations, the food

gave out—I mean it gave out because we did not have any to start

with—the train became bitterly cold, and we came near freezing and

starving to death. That made our Russian experiences quite complete. We

had foolishly started without even fruit, and there was nothing to be

had on board the train except the tea which the conductors make in a

samovar and serve to you at the slightest provocation. But even the tea

was exhausted at last, and then the fire gave out, because all the wood

had been used up.

There we were, penned up, wrapped in our seal-skins and steamer-rugs

and with nubias over our heads, so cold that our teeth chattered, and

so hungry we could have eaten anything. The conductor came and spoke to

us several times, but whether he was inviting us to lunch or quoting

Scripture we could never tell. There was no one on the train who spoke

English or French, and nobody else in our car to speak anything at

all—owing to our having come on this particular train, in order for my

companion to “see Russia.” I am delighted to record the fact that not

only the outside but the inside windows were frosted so thickly that

they had to light the sickly tallow candle in a tin box over the door

of the compartment, so she never got a peep at Russia or anything else

the whole way.

We consoled each other and kept up our spirits as best we could all

day, but we arrived at Kiev so exhausted with cold and hunger that

although we were received at the train by one of the most charming men

I ever met, we both cried with relief at the sight of a friendly face

and some one to whom we could speak and tell our woes. I have since

wondered what he thought to be met by two forlorn women in tears!

Whatever he thought, like all the Russians, he was courtesy itself, and

we were soon whisked away to the inexpressible comfort of being thawed

and fed.

Such a beautiful city as this is! Whitelaw Reid has declared Kiev to be

one of the four picturesque cities in Europe; certainly it lies in a

heavenly place, all up and down hills, with such vistas down the

streets to where a mosque raises its gilded dome, or where an historic

bronze statue stands out against the horizon. If Kiev had been planned

by the French, it could not be more utterly beautiful. The domes of the

cathedrals are blue, studded with gold stars; or else pale green or all

gold, and the most exquisite churches in all Russia are in Kiev. A

terrible monastery, where you take candles and go down into the bowels

of the earth to see where monks martyred themselves, is here; and poor

simple-minded pilgrims walk many hundred miles to kiss these tombs.

Their devotion is pathetic. We had to walk in a procession of them, and

I know that each of them had his own particular disease and his own

special brand of dirt. The beggars surrounding the gate of this

monastery are too awful to mention, yet it is reputed to be the richest

monastery in all Russia.

In Kiev we heard “Hamlet” in Russian, and the man who played Hamlet was

wonderfully good, surprisingly good. You don’t know how strange it

sounded to hear “To be or not to be” in Russian! The acting was so

familiar, the words so strange. The audience went crazy over him, as

Russian audiences always do. We watched him come out and bow

thirty-nine times, and when we came away the noise was still deafening.

They make a sort of candy in Kiev which goes far and away above any

sweets I ever have seen. It is a sort of candied rose. The whole rose

is there. It is a solid soft pink mass, and it tastes just as a

tea-rose smells. It is simply celestial.

We dearly love Kiev, it is so hauntingly beautiful. You can’t forget

it. Your mind keeps returning to it, but it is the sort of beauty that

you can’t describe satisfactorily. It is like your mother’s face. You

can see the beauty for yourself, but no one else can see it as you do,

for the love which is behind it.

In Odessa we began to leave Russia behind us. Odessa is all sorts of a

place. It is commercial, and not beautiful, but, as usual, our Russian

friends made us forget the town and its sights, and remember only their

sweet hospitality and friendliness.

We wished to catch the Russian steamer for Constantinople, but we were

told that the police would not permit us to leave on such short notice.

We felt that this was hard, for we had tried so consistently to be good

in Russia that I was determined to go if possible. So I took an

interpreter and drove to the police headquarters myself. To my

amazement and delight my man told me that it could all be arranged by

the payment of a few rubles. But that “few rubles” mounted up into many

before I got my passports duly viséd. I discovered that our American

police are not so _very_ different from Russian police after all, even

if they _are_ Irish!

We caught the steamer—the dear, clean, lovely _Nickolai II._, with the

stewardess a Greek named Aspasia, and I persisted in calling the

steward Pericles, just to have things match.

Then we crunched our way out of the harbor through the ice into the

Black Sea, and sailed away for Constantinople.

IX

CONSTANTINOPLE

Constantinople had three different effects upon me. The first was to

make me utterly despise it for its sickening dirt; the second was when

I forgot all about the mud and garbage, and went crazy over its

picturesque streets with their steep slopes, odd turns, and bewitching

vistas, and the last was to make me dread Cairo for fear it would seem

tame in comparison, for Constantinople is enchanting. If I were a

painter I would never leave off painting its delights and spreading its

fascinations broadcast; and then I would take all the money I got for

my pictures and spend it in the bazaars, and if I regretted my

purchases I would barter them for others, because Constantinople is the

beginning of the Orient, and if you remain long you become thoroughly

metamorphosed, and you bargain, trade, exchange, and haggle until you

forget that you ever were a Christian. The hour of our arrival in

Constantinople was an accident. The steamer _Nickolai II._ was late,

and as no one may land there after sunset, we were forced to lie in the

Bosphorus all night.

It was dark when we sighted the city, but it was one of those clear

darks where without any apparent light you can see everything. _Surely_

no other city in the world has so beautiful an approach! Our great

black steamer threaded her way between men-of-war, sail-boats, and all

sorts of shipping, and if there were a thousand lights twinkling in the

water there were a million from the city. It lies on a series of hills

curved out like a monster amphitheatre, and it stretches all the way

around. I looked up into the heavens, and it seemed to me that I never

had seen so many stars in my life. Our sky at home has not so many. Yet

there were no more than the yellow points of flame which flickered in

every part of that sleeping city. Three tall minarets pierced above the

horizon, and each of these wore circles of light which looked like

necklaces and girdles of fire. Patches of black now and then showed

where there were trees or marked a graveyard. Occasionally we heard a

shrill cry or the barking of dogs, but these sounds came faintly, and

seemed a part of the fairy-picture. It looked so much like a scene from

an opera that I half expected to see the curtain go down and the lights

flare up, and I feared the applause which always spoils the dream.

But nothing spoiled this dream. All night we lay in the beautiful

Bosphorus, and all night at intervals I looked out of my porthole at

that lovely sleeping princess. It never grew any less lovely. Its

beauty and charm increased.

But in the morning everything was changed. A band of howling,

screaming, roaring, fighting pirates came alongside in dirty row-boats,

and to our utter consternation we found these bloodthirsty brigands

were to row us to land. Not one word could we understand in all that

fearful uproar. We were watching them in a terror too abject to

describe, when, to our joy, an English voice said, “I am the guide for

the two American ladies, and here is the kavass which the American

minister sent down to meet you. The consul at Odessa cabled your

arrival.”

Oh, how glad we were! We loaded them with thanks and hand-luggage, and

scrambled down the stairway at the side of the steamer. A dozen dirty

hands were stretched out to receive us. We clutched at their sleeves

instead, and pitched into the boat, and our trunks came tumbling after

us, and away we went over the roughest of seas, which splashed us and

made us feel a little queer; and then we landed at the dirtiest,

smelliest quay, and picked our way through a filthy custom-house,

where, in spite of bribery and corruption, they opened my trunk and

examined all the photographs of the family, which happened to be on

top, and made remarks about them in Turkish which made the other men

laugh. The mud came up over our overshoes as we stood there, so that

altogether we were quite heated in temper when we found ourselves in an

alley outside, filled with garbage which had been there forever, and

learned that this alley was a street, and a very good one for

Constantinople, too.

The porters in Turkey are marvels of strength. They wear a sort of

cushioned saddle on their backs, and to my amazement two men tossed my

enormous trunk on this saddle. I saw it leave their hands before it

reached his poor bent back; he staggered a little, gave it a hitch to

make it more secure, then started up the hill on a trot.

I never saw so much mud, such unspeakably filthy streets, and so many

dogs as Constantinople can boast. You drive at a gallop up streets

slanting at an angle of forty-five degrees, and you nearly fall out of

the back of the carriage. Then presently you come to the top of that

hill and start down the other side, still at a gallop, and you brace

your feet to keep from pitching over the driver’s head. You would

notice the dogs first were it not for the smells. But as it is, you

cannot even see until you get your salts to your nose. The odors are so

thick that they darken the air. You are disappointed in the dogs,

however. There are quite as many of them as you expected. You have not

been misled as to the number of them, but nowhere have I seen them

described in a satisfactory way—so that you knew what to expect, I

mean. In the first place, they hardly look like dogs. They have woolly

tails like sheep. Their eyes are dull, sleepy, and utterly devoid of

expression. Constantinople dogs have neither masters nor brains. No

brains because no masters. Perhaps no masters because no brains. Nobody

wants to adopt an idiot. They are, of course, mongrels of the most

hopeless type. They are yellowish, with thick, short, woolly coats, and

much fatter than you expect to find them. They walk like a funeral

procession. Never have I seen one frisk or even wag his tail. Everybody

turns out for them. They sleep—from twelve to twenty of them—on a

single pile of garbage, and never notice either men or each other

unless a dog which lives in the next street trespasses. Then they eat

him up, for they are jackals as well as dogs, and they are no more

epicures than ostriches. They never show interest in anything. They are

_blasé_. I saw some mother dogs asleep, with tiny puppies swarming over

them like little fat rats, but the mothers paid no attention to them.

Children seem to bore them quite as successfully as if they were women

of fashion.

We went sailing up the Golden Horn to the Skutari cemetery, one of the

loveliest spots of this thrice-fascinating Constantinople. As we were

descending that steep hill upon which it is situated we met a darling

little baby Turk in a fez riding on a pony which his father was

leading. This child of a different race, and six thousand miles away,

looked so much like our Billy that I wanted to eat him up—dirt and all.

I contented myself with giving him backsheesh, while my companion

photographed him. Such an afternoon as that was on that lovely golden

river, with the sun just setting, and our picturesque boatmen sending

the boat through thousands upon thousands of sea-gulls just to make

them fly, until the air grew dark with their wings, and the sunlight on

their white breasts looked like a great glistening snow-storm!

One night we went to a masked ball given for the benefit of a new

hospital which is situated upon the Golden Horn. It was given by Mr.

Levy, one of the Turkish Commissioners at the World’s Fair, and the

decorations were something marvellous. The walls were hung with

embroideries which drove us the next day to the bazaars and nearly

bankrupted us. Every street of Constantinople looks like a masked ball,

so this one merely continued the illusion. We could distinguish the

Mohammedan women from the others because they all went home before

midnight without unmasking.

This ball is interesting because it is called “The Engagement Ball.” We

were told that only at a subscription ball given for a charity in which

their parents are interested and feel under moral obligation to support

by their presence are the young people of Constantinople allowed to

meet each other. The fathers and mothers occupy the boxes, and thus,

under their very eyes, and masked, can love affairs be brought to a

conclusion. During the week which followed no fewer than ten important

engagements were duly heralded in the columns of the newspapers.

The most exciting things in Constantinople are the earthquakes. We were

afraid they would not have any while we were there, but they

accommodated us with a very satisfactory one! It upset my ink-bottle

and broke the lamp and rattled everything in the room until I was

delighted. When my companion came in she was indignant to think that I

had enjoyed the earthquake all to myself, for she was in the rooms of

the American Bible Society, and being thus protected, did not feel it.

But I told her that that was her punishment for trying to prove that a

missionary had cheated her, for she was not in that place for a godly

purpose.

At another time, however, we met with better success in obtaining a

sensation of a different sort. We visited, in company with our Turkish

friend, a small but wonderfully beautiful mosque not often seen by

ordinary tourists, and afterwards went up on Galata tower to get the

fine view of Constantinople which may be had there. It was just before

sunset again, and I am quite unable to make you see the utter

loveliness of it. We crawled out on the narrow ledge which surrounds

the top, and I had just got a capital picture of my companion as she

clutched the Turk to prevent being blown off, for the wind was

something terrible, when suddenly the keepers rushed to the windows and

jabbered excitedly in Turkish and ran up a flag, and behold, there was

a fire! Galata tower is the fire observatory. By the flags they hoist

you can tell where the fire is. I never was at a fire in my life. Even

when our stables burned down I was away from home. So here was my

opportunity. The way we drove down those narrow streets was enough to

make one think that we were the fire department itself. But when we

arrived we found to our grief that it was our dear little mosque which

was burning. Undoubtedly we were the last visitors to enter it.

We went back to the hotel for dinner, and about nine o’clock, hearing

that the fire was spreading, we drove down again with our Turk, who

regarded it as no unusual thing to take American women to two fires in

the same day. We found the tenement-houses burning. Our carriage gave

us no vantage-ground, so our friend, who speaks twelve languages,

obtained permission to enter a house and go up on the roof. We never

stopped to think that we might catch all sorts of diseases; we were so

pleased at the courtesy of the poor souls. They had all their poor

belongings packed ready to remove if the fire crept any nearer, but

they ran ahead and lighted us up the dark stairway with candles, and

told us in Turkish what an honor we were doing their house, all of

which touched me deeply. I wondered how many people I would have

assisted up to _our_ roof if _my_ clothes were tied up in sheets in the

hall, with the fire not a square away!

Fortunately, it came no nearer, and from that high, flat roof we

watched the seething mass of yellow flames grow less and less and then

go completely under control. It was Providence which did it, however,

and not the Constantinople fire department, with its little streams of

water the size of slate-pencils!

The dogs were one of the sights we were anxious to see; the Sultan was

the other. We found the bazaars more fascinating than either. But we

wanted to photograph the Sultan—chiefly, I think, because it was

forbidden. I have an ever-present unruly desire to do everything which

these foreign countries absolutely forbid. But everybody said we could

not. So we very meekly went to see him go to prayers, and left our

cameras with the kavass. We had, with our customary good fortune, a

window directly in front of the Sultan’s gate, not twenty feet from the

door of the mosque.

“If I had that camera here I could get him, and _nobody_ would know!” I

declared.

“But there are so many spies,” our Turkish friend said. “It would be

too dangerous.”

We waited, and waited, and waited. Never have the hours seemed so

mortally long as they seemed to us as we watched the hands of the clock

crawl past luncheon-time, hours and hours later than the Sultan was

announced to pray, and still no Sultan. His little six-and seven-year

old sons, in the uniform of colonels, were mounted on superb Arabian

horses. These horses had tails so long that servants held them up going

through the mud, as if they were ladies’ trains. The children were dear

things, with clear olive complexions and soft, dark eyes—Italian eyes.

Then they grew tired of waiting, and dismounted, and came up to where

we were, and shook hands in the sweetest manner. My companion was for

coaxing the little one into her lap, but she looked somewhat staggered

when I reminded her that she would be trotting the colonel of the

regiment on her knee.

Then more cavalry came, and more bands, playing a little the worst of

any that I ever heard, and we impatiently thrust our heads out of the

window, thinking, of course, the Sultan was coining, but he was not.

Then some infantry with white leggings and stiff knee-joints, with

coils of green gas-pipe on their heads, like our student-lamps, marched

by with a gait like a battalion of horses with the string-halt, and we

shrieked with laughter. Our friend said they called that the German

step. Germany would declare war with Turkey if she ever heard that.

By this time we were so tired and hungry and disgusted that we were

about to go home and give up the Sultan when we saw no fewer than fifty

men come toiling up the hill with carpet-bags, as if they had brought

their clothes, and intended to see the Sultan if it took a week. I do

not know who or what they were, and I do not want to know. They served

their purpose with us in that they put us into instantaneous good

humor, and just then there was a commotion, and everybody straightened

up and craned their necks; and then, preceded by his body-guard, the

Sultan drove slowly down, looked directly up at our window (and we

groaned), and then turned in at the gate. Opposite to him sat Osman

Pasha, the hero of Plevna. The ladies of the harem were driven into the

court-yard surrounded by eunuchs, the horses were taken from their

carriages, and there the ladies sat, guarded like prisoners, until the

Sultan came out again. He then mounted into a superb gold chariot drawn

by two beautiful white horses, and he himself drove out. Everybody

salaamed, and he raised his hand in return as if it was all the

greatest possible bore.

While he was driving into the court-yard the priest came out on the

minaret and called men to prayer, and an English girl who sat at the

next window informed her mother that he was announcing the names of the

important persons in the procession! Her mother trained her glasses on

him—a mere speck against the sky—and said, “Fancy!”

The Sultan is not a beauty. If he were in America his sign would be

that of the three golden balls.

We went to see the mosques, and the officials and priests and boatmen

were so cross and surly on account of the fast of Ramazan that they

would not let us take photographs without a fight. During Ramazan they

neither eat nor drink between sunrise and sunset.

On the fifteenth day of Ramazan the Sultan goes to the mosque of Eyoob

to buckle on the sword of Mohammed in order to remind himself that the

power of that sword has descended to himself. He does not announce his

route, therefore the whole city is in a commotion, and they spread

miles of streets with sand for fear he might take it into his head to

go by some unusual way. It passes my comprehension why they should ever

put any more dirt in the streets even for a Sultan. But sand is a mark

of respect in Russia and Turkey, and it really cleans the streets a

little. At least it absorbs the mud. Just as we were about to start for

a balcony beneath which he was almost sure to pass, our Turkish friend

whispered to us that if we wore capes we might take our cameras.

Imagine our delight, for it was so dangerous. But the capes! Ours were

not half long enough to conceal the camera properly. It was growing

late. So in a perfect frenzy I dragged out my long pale blue _sortie du

bal_, ripped the white velvet capes from it, pinned a short sable cape

to the top of it with safety-pins, and enveloped myself in this

gorgeousness at eleven o’clock in the morning. We made a curious trio.

Our Turk was in English tweeds with a fez. My companion wore a smart

tailor gown, and I was got up as if for a fancy-dress ball, but in the

streets of Constantinople no one gave me a second glance. I was in

mourning compared to some of the others.

On the balcony with us were two small boys with projecting ears, of

whom I stood in deadly terror, for if their boyish interest centred in

that camera of mine I was lost. Presently, however, with a tremendous

clatter, the Sultan’s advance-guard came galloping down the street. I

got them, turned the film, and was ready for the next—the carriages of

the state officials. I aimed well, and got them, but I was growing

nervous. The boys writhed closer. I shoved them a little when their

mother was not looking.

“Don’t try to take so many,” said our Turk. “Here comes the Sultan. Aim

low, and don’t fire until you see the whites of his eyes.”

Again he looked up directly at us, and I snapped the shutter promptly.

It was done. I had succeeded in photographing the Sultan! To be sure,

it was an offense against the state, punishable by fine and

imprisonment, but nobody had caught me. The little boy next to me, who

had walked on my dress and ground his elbows into me, craned his neck

and stared at the Sultan with round eyes. He had been in my way ever

since we arrived, but in an exuberance of tenderness I patted his head.

But when we had those negatives developed I discovered to my disgust

that instead of the Sultan I had taken an excellent photograph of that

wretched little boy’s ear.

X

CAIRO

I need not have been afraid that the charms of Constantinople would

spoil Cairo for me, although at first I was disappointed. Most places

have to be lived up to, especially one like Cairo, whose attractions

are vaunted by every tourist, every woman of fashion, every scholar,

every idle club-man, everybody, either with brains or without. I

wondered how it _could_ be all things to all men. I simply thought it

was the fashion to rave about it, and I was sick of the very sound of

its name before I came. It was too perfect. It aroused the spirit of

antagonism in me.

First of all, when you arrive in Cairo you find that it is very, very

fashionable. You can get everything here, and yet it is practically the

end of the world. Nearly everybody who comes here turns around and goes

back. Few go on. Even when you go up the Nile you must come back to

Cairo. There is really nowhere else to go.

You drive through smart English streets, and when you find yourself at

Shepheard’s you are at the most famous hotel in the world; yet, strange

to say, in spite of its size, in spite of the thousands of learned,

famous, titled, and distinguished people who have been here, in spite

of its smartness and fashion, it is the most homelike hotel I ever was

in. Everybody seems to know about you and to take an interest in what

you are doing, and all the servants know your name and the number of

your room, and when you go out into the great corridor, or when you sit

on the terrace, there is not a trace of the supercilious scrutiny which

takes a mental inventory of your clothes and your looks and your letter

of credit, which so often spoils the sunset for you at similar hotels.

Ghezireh Palace is even more fashionable than Shepheard’s. Here we have

baronets and counts and a few earls. But there they have dukes and

kings and emperors, yet there is a gold-and-alabaster mantelpiece which

takes your mind even from royalty, it is so beautiful. Ghezireh is

situated on the Nile, half an hour’s drive away, so that in spite of

its royal atmosphere it never will take the place of Shepheard’s. Here

you see all the interesting people you have heard of in your life. You

trip over the easels of famous artists in an angle of the narrow

street, and many famous authors, scientists, archaeologists, and

scholars are here working or resting.

Yesterday I was told that four Americans who stood talking together on

the terrace represented two hundred millions of dollars. At dinner the

red coats of the officers make brilliant spots of color among all the

black of the other men, and at first sight it does seem too odd to see

evening dress consist of black trousers and a bright-red coat which

stops off short at the waist. But if you think that looks odd, what

will you say to the officers of the Highland regiments? _Their_ full

dress is almost as immodest in a different way as that of some women,

and one of the most exquisite paradoxes of British custom is that a

Highland undress uniform consists of the addition of long-trousers—more

clothes than they wear in dress uniform.