Petrograd through middle-aged eyes--Russians very constant
friends--Russia an Empire of shams--Over-centralisation in
administration--The system hopeless--A complete change of scene--The
West Indies--Trinidad--Personal Character of Nicholas II--The weak
point in an Autocracy--The Empress--An opportunity missed--The Great
Collapse--Terrible stories--Love of human beings for ceremonial--Some
personal apologies--Conclusion.
I returned twice to Petrograd in later years, the last occasion being
in 1912. A young man is generally content with the surface of
things, and accepts them at their face value, without attempting to
probe deeper. With advancing years comes the desire to test beneath
the surface. To the eye, there is but little difference between
electro-plate and solid silver, though one deep scratch on the
burnished expanse of the former is sufficient to reveal the baser
metal underlying it.
Things Russian have for some reason always had a strange attraction
for me, and their glamour had not departed even after so many years.
It was pleasant, too, to hear the soft, sibilant Russian tongue
again. My first return visit was at mid-summer, and seeing Peter's
City wreathed in the tender vivid greenery of Northern foliage, and
bathed in sunshine, I wondered how I could ever {341} have mentally
labelled it with the epithet "dreary." Rising from the clear
swift-rushing waters of the many-channelled Neva, its stately
pillared classical buildings outlined through the soft golden haze in
half-tones of faintest cobalt and rose-madder, this Northern Venice
appeared a dream-city, almost unreal in its setting of blue waters
and golden domes, lightly veiled in opal mist.
Russians are not as a rule long-lived, and the great majority of my
old friends had passed away. I could not help being affected by the
manner in which the survivors amongst them welcomed me back. "Cher
ami," said the bearer of a great Russian name to me, "thirty-three
years ago we adopted you as a Russian. You were a mere boy then, you
are now getting an old man, but as long as any of your friends of old
days are alive, our houses are always open to you, and you will
always find a place for you at our tables, without an invitation. We
Russians do not change, and we never forget our old friends. We know
that you like us and our country, and my husband and I offer you all
we have." No one could fail to be touched by such steadfast
friendship, so characteristic of these warm-hearted people.
The great charm of Russians with three or four hundred years of
tradition behind them is their entire lack of pretence and their
hatred of shams. They are absolutely natural. They often gave me as
their reason for disliking foreigners the artificiality of
non-Russians, though they expressly {342} exempted our own
nationality from this charge. That is, I think, the reason why most
Englishmen get on so well with educated Russians.
Seeing Petrograd with the wearied eyes of experienced middle age, I
quite realised that the imposing palaces that front the line of the
quays and seem almost to float on the Neva, are every one of them
built on piles, driven deep into the marshy subsoil. Every single
house in the city rests on the same artificial base. Montferrand the
Frenchman's great cathedral of St. Isaac has had its north front
shored up by scaffolding for thirty years. Otherwise it would have
collapsed, as the unstable subsoil is unable to bear so great a
burden. On the Highest Authority we know that only a house built on
the rock can endure. This city of Petrograd was built on a quagmire,
and was typical, in that respect, of the vast Empire of which it was
the capital: an Empire erected by Peter on shifting sand. The whole
fabric of this Empire struck my maturer senses as being one gigantic
piece of "camouflage."
For instance, a building close to St. Isaac's bears on its stately
front the inscription "Governing Senate" (I may add that the terse,
crisp Russian for this is "Pravitelsvouyuschui Senat"). To an
ordinary individual the term would seem to indicate what it says; he
would be surprised to learn that, so far from "governing," the Senate
had neither legislative nor administrative powers of its own. It was
merely a consultative body without {343} any delegate initiative;
only empowered to recommend steps for carrying into effect the orders
it received.
And so with many other things. There were imposing façades, with
awe-inspiring inscriptions, but I had a curious feeling that
everything stopped at the façade, and there was nothing behind it.
Students of history will remember how, on the occasion of Catherine
the Great's visit to the Crimea, her favourite, Potemkin, had
"camouflage" villages erected along the line of her progress, so that
wherever she went she found merry peasants (specially selected from
the Imperial theatres) singing and dancing amidst flower-wreathed
cottages. These villages were then taken down, and re-erected some
fifty miles further along the Empress's way, with the same
inhabitants. It was really a triumph of "camouflage," and did great
credit to Potemkin's inventive faculty. Catherine returned North
with most agreeable recollections of the teeming population of the
Crimea; of its delightfully picturesque villages, and of the ideal
conditions of life prevailing there.
The whole Russian Empire appeared to my middle-aged eyes to be like
Potemkin's toy villages.
My second later visit to Petrograd was in 1912, in midwinter, when I
came to the unmistakable conclusion that the epithet "dreary" was not
misplaced. The vast open spaces and broad streets with their scanty
traffic were unutterably depressing during the short hours of
uncertain daylight, {344} whilst the whirling snowflakes fell
incessantly, and the low, leaden sky pressed like a heavy pall over
this lifeless city of perpetual twilight.
The particular business on which I had gone to Petrograd took me
daily to the various Ministries, and their gloomy interiors became
very familiar to me.
I then saw that in these Ministries the impossible had been attempted
in the way of centralisation. The principle of the Autocracy had
been carried into the administrative domain, and every trivial detail
affecting the government of an Empire stretching from the Pacific to
the Baltic was in theory controlled by one man, the Minister of the
Department concerned. Russians are conspicuously lacking in
initiative and in organising power. The lack of initiative is
perhaps the necessary corollary of an Autocracy, for under an
Autocracy it would be unsafe for any private individual to show much
original driving power: and organisation surely means successful
delegation. A born organiser chooses his subordinates with great
care; having chosen them, he delegates certain duties to them, and as
long as they perform these duties to his satisfaction he does not
interfere with them. The Russian system was just the reverse:
everything was nominally concentrated in the hands of one man. A
really able and zealous Minister might possibly have settled a
hundredth part of the questions daily submitted for his personal
decision. It required no great political foresight to understand
{345} that, were this administrative machine subjected to any unusual
strain, it would collapse into hopeless confusion.
Being no longer young, I found the penetrating damp cold of Petrograd
very trying. The airlessness too of the steam-heated and
hermetically sealed houses affected me. I had, in any case, intended
to proceed to the West Indies as soon as my task in Petrograd was
concluded. As my business occupied a far longer time than I had
anticipated, I determined to go direct to London from Petrograd, stay
two nights there, and then join the mail steamer for the West Indies.
Thus it came about that I was drinking my morning coffee in a room of
the British Embassy at Petrograd, looking through the double windows
at the driving snowflakes falling on the Troitsky Square, at the
frozen hummocks of the Neva, and at the sheepskin-clothed peasants
plodding through the fresh-fallen snowdrifts, whilst the grey
cotton-wool sky seemed to press down almost on to the roofs of the
houses, and the golden needle of the Fortress Church gleamed dully
through the murky atmosphere. Three weeks afterwards to a day, I was
sitting in the early morning on a balcony on the upper floor of
Government House, Trinidad, clad in the lightest of pyjamas, enjoying
the only approach to coolness to be found in that sultry island. The
balcony overlooked the famous Botanic Gardens which so enraptured
Charles Kingsley. In front of me rose a gigantic Saman tree, larger
than {346} any oak, one mass of tenderest green, and of tassels of
silky pink blossoms. At dawn, the dew still lay on those blossoms,
and swarms of hummingbirds, flashing living jewels of ruby, sapphire,
and emerald, were darting to and fro taking their toll of the nectar.
The nutmeg trees were in flower, perfuming the whole air, and the
fragrance of a yellow tree-gardenia, an importation from West Africa,
was almost overpowering. The chatter of the West Indian negroes, and
of the East Indian coolies employed in the Botanic Gardens, replaced
the soft, hissing Russian language, and over the gorgeous tropical
tangle of the gardens the Venezulean mountains of the mainland rose
mistily blue across the waters of the Gulf of Paria. I do not
believe that in three short weeks it would be possible to find a
greater change in climatic, geographical, or social conditions. From
a temperature of 5° below zero to 94° in the shade; from the Gulf of
Finland to the Spanish Main; from snow and ice to the exuberant
tropical vegetation of one of the hottest islands in the world! The
change, too, from the lifeless, snow-swept streets of Petrograd,
monotonously grey in the sad-coloured Northern winter daylight, to
the gaily painted bungalows of the white inhabitants of the
Port-of-Spain, standing in gardens blazing with impossibly brilliant
flowers of scarlet, orange, and vivid blue, quivering under the
fierce rays of the sun, was sufficiently startling. The only flowers
I have ever seen to rival the garish rainbow brilliance of the
gardens of Port-of-Spain {347} were the painted ones in the
"Zauber-Garten" in the second act of "Parsifal," as given at Bayreuth.
It so happened that when Nicholas II visited India in 1890 as
Heir-Apparent, I stayed in the same house with him for ten days, and
consequently saw a great deal of him. He was, I am convinced, a most
conscientious man, intensely anxious to fulfill his duty to the
people he would one day rule; but he was inconstant of purpose, and
his intellectual equipment was insufficient for his responsibilities.
The fatal flaw in an Autocracy is that everything obviously hinges on
the personal character of the Autocrat. It would be absurd to expect
an unbroken series of rulers of first-class ability. It is, I
suppose, for this reason that the succession to the Russian throne
was, in theory at all events, not hereditary. The Tsars of old
nominated their successors, and I think I am right in saying that the
Emperors still claimed the privilege. In fact, to set any
limitations to the power of an Autocrat would be a contradiction in
terms.
Nicholas II was always influenced by those surrounding him, and it
cannot be said that he chose his associates with much discretion.
There was, in particular, one fatal influence very near indeed to
him. From those well qualified to judge, I hear that it is unjust to
accuse the Empress of being a Germanophile, or of being in any way a
traitor to the interests of her adopted country. She was obsessed
with one idea: to hand on the Autocracy intact to her idolised little
son, and she had, in addition, a {348} great love of power. When the
love of power takes possession of a woman, it seems to change her
whole character, and my own experience is that no woman will ever
voluntarily surrender one scrap of that power, be the consequences
what they may. When to a naturally imperious nature there is joined
a neurotic, hysterical temperament, the consequences can be
disastrous. The baneful influence of the obscene illiterate monk
Rasputin over the Empress is a matter of common knowledge, and she,
poor woman, paid dearly enough for her faults. I always think that
Nicholas II missed the great opportunity of his life on that fateful
Sunday, January 22, 1905, when thousands of workmen, headed by Father
Gapon (who subsequently proved to be an agent provocateur in the pay
of the police), marched to the Winter Palace and clamoured for an
interview with their Emperor. Had Nicholas II gone out entirely
alone to meet the deputations, as I feel sure his father and
grandfather would have done, I firmly believe that it would have
changed the whole course of events; but his courage failed him. A
timid Autocrat is self-condemned. Instead of meeting their
Sovereign, the crowd were met by machine-guns. In 1912, Nicholas II
had only slept one night in Petrograd since his accession, and the
Empress had only made day visits. Not even the Ambassadresses had
seen the Empress for six years, and there had been no Court
entertainments at all.
{349}
The Imperial couple remained in perpetual seclusion at Tsarskoe Selo.
In my days, Alexander II was constantly to be seen driving in the
streets of Petrograd entirely alone and unattended, without any
escort whatever. The only things that marked out his sledge were the
two splendid horses (the one in shafts, the loose "pristashka"
galloping alongside in long traces), and the kaftan of his coachman,
which was green instead of the universal blue of public and private
carriages alike.
The low mutterings of the coming storm were very audible in 1912.
Personally, I thought the change would take the form of a "Palace
Revolution," so common in Russian history; _i.e._, that the existing
Sovereign would be dethroned and another installed in his place.
I cannot say how thankful I am that so few of my old friends lived to
see the final collapse, and that they were spared the agonies of
witnessing the subsequent orgies of murder, spoliation, and lust that
overwhelmed the unhappy land and deluged it in blood.
Horrible stories have reached us of a kindly, white-headed old couple
being imprisoned for months in a narrow cell of the Fortress, and
then being taken out at dawn, and butchered without trial; of a
highly cultivated old lady of seventy-six being driven from her bed
by the mob, and thrust into the bitter cold of a Petrograd street in
January, in her night-dress, and there clubbed to death in {350} the
snow. God grant that these stories may be untrue; the evidence,
though, is terribly circumstantial, and from Russia comes only an
ominous silence.
If I am asked what will be the eventual outcome in Russia, I hazard
no prophecies. The strong vein of fatalism in the Russian character
must be taken into consideration, also the curious lack of
initiative. They are a people who revel in endless futile talk, and
love to get drunk on words and phrases. Eighty per cent. of the
population are grossly ignorant peasants, living in isolated
communities, and I fail to see how they can take any combined action.
It must be remembered that, with the exception of Lenin, the men who
have grasped the reins of power are not Russians, but Jews, mainly of
German or Polish origin. They do not, therefore, share the fatal
inertness of the Russian temperament.
I started with the idea of giving some description of a state of
things which has, perhaps, vanished for all time from what were five
years ago the three great Empires of Eastern Europe.
There is, I think, inherent in all human beings a love of ceremonial.
The great influence the Roman and Eastern Churches exercise over
their adherents is due, I venture to say, in a great measure to their
gorgeous ceremonial. In proof of this, I would instance lands where
a severer form of religion prevails, and where this innate love of
ceremonial finds its rest in the elaborate ritual of Masonic and
kindred bodies, since it is denied it in ecclesiastical matters. The
reason that Buddhism, {351} imported from China into Japan in the
sixth century, succeeded so largely in ousting Shintoism, the ancient
national religion, was that there is neither ritual nor ceremonial in
a Shinto temple, and the complicated ceremonies of Buddhism supplied
this curious craving in human nature, until eventually Buddhism and
Shintoism entered into a sort of ecclesiastical partnership together.
I have far exceeded the limits which I started by assigning to myself
and, in extenuation, can only plead that old age is proverbially
garrulous. I am also fully conscious that I have at times strayed
far from my subject, but in excuse I can urge that but few people
have seen, in five different continents, as much of the surface of
this globe and of its inhabitants as it has fallen to my lot to do.
Half-forgotten incidents, irrelevant it may be to the subject in
hand, crowd back to the mind, and tempt one far afield. It is quite
possible that these bypaths of reminiscence, though interesting to
the writer, may prove wearisome to the reader, so for them I tender
my apologies.
I have endeavoured to transfer to others pictures which remain very
clear-cut and vivid in my own mind. I cannot tell whether I have
succeeded in doing this, and I hazard no opinion as to whether the
world is a gainer or a loser by the disappearance of the pomp and
circumstance, the glitter and glamour of the three great Courts of
Eastern Europe.
The curtain has been rung down, perhaps {352} definitely, on the
brave show. The play is played; the scenery set for the great
spectacle is either ruined or else wantonly destroyed; the puppets
who took part in the brilliant pageant are many of them (God help
them!) broken beyond power of repair.--_Finita la commedia!_
{355}
INDEX
A
Abdurrahman Khan, 316
A deaf diplomat, 32
Aehrenthal, Baron von, 306, 308, 309
Agra Palace, India, 186
A journalist outwitted, 310
Akbar, 186
Albuquerque, 237
Alexander II, 116; attempted assassination of, in 1880, 125,
assassination of, 157 _sqq._; sorrow of the people for, 159; funeral
of, 159 _sqq._; King Edward and Queen Alexandra at, 162, 208, 349.
Alexander III, Order of the Garter conferred on, 162 _sqq._;
precautions for safety of, 164, 189.
Alexandra Colony, 269 _sqq._
Ali Pasha and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 66.
Alsace, 15
Ampthill, Lady, 27; saves the life of William II, 73
Ampthill, Lord, 26
Andrassy, Count, and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 66
An embarrassing situation, 114
An exclusive Court, 63
Arabi Pasha, 201, 204
Argentine girls, beauty of, 260
Aristocratic waitresses, 24-25
Arisugawa, Prince, 336
Arisugawa, Princess, 336
Asuncion, 276 _sqq._
Augusta, Empress, 34
Austria, disappearance of the Court, 13
Austrian aristocracy, characteristics of, 49; interrelationship of, 50
Austrian diplomat, a deaf, 32
Awkward predicament, an, 137-138
B
Bahia, 240
Barmecides' feast, a, 25
Bay of Chaleurs, 300
Beaconsfield, Lord, and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 66, 67
Bear hunt in Russia, a, 139-141
Beauharnais, Countess Zena, 179
Beethoven, 59
Bieloselskaya, Princess, 179
Bismarck, 16 _sqq._, 27, 28; on male and female nations, 28
Bismarck, Count Herbert, 30, 39, 308
Biting-fish in South America, 274
Blessing of the Neva, the, 122
Blowitz, M. de, 68, 69
Botanic Gardens at Rio de Janeiro, the, 245
Brazil, 238
British Minister, a, in Carnival time, 250 _sqq._
Broadminded Scots parents, 111
Buckingham Palace and Berlin Schloss compared, 39-40
Buenos Ayres, 248 _sqq._; carnival at, 250; masked balls in, 255;
sport in, 264 _sqq._
Bulow, Hans von, 26
C
Calcutta, the Maidan at, 321
"Camp," the, Buenos Ayres, 249
Campbell, Colonel, 234
Canada, 300 _sqq._
Carnival at Buenos Ayres, the, 249
Cathedrals, three famous Moscow, 183
Carolath-Beuthen, Princess, 39
Catherine the Great, 192; and the violet in Tsarskoe Park, 194
Charlemagne, 50
Cintra, 235
Circus in Lisbon, 221
Circus performer who became a Bishop, 225-226
Classification of nationalities, Bismarck's, 28
Clown, the author's personal experience as a, 223
Commercial Court Chamberlain, a, 243
Congress of 1878, the, in Berlin, 66
Connaught, Duchess of, 43
Conversational difficulties, 43-47, 166
Court beauties, 39, 179
Courting in Portugal, a curious custom, 217
"Croissants"--Viennese roll, origin of, 57
Crown Prince, 79
Culinary curiosities in Japan, 318-319
Curious sporting incidents, 145 _sq._
D
Darwin, 257
Dawn in a Finnish forest, 174 _sq._
"Deaf and dumb people," 134
Deference paid to Austrian Archdukes, 63
Delyanoff, M., Minister of Education, 127; curious obsequies of,
127-129
Delyanoff, Mme., 127
Dentist, a polite, 205-206
Depreciated currency in the Argentine, 275
De Reszke, Edouard, 220
De Reszke, Jean, 220
De Reszke, Mlle., 220
Diaz, 237
Dolgorouki, Prince Alexander, 180
Dolgorouki, Princess Kitty, 179
Dolgorouki, Princess Mary, 179, 180
Dom Fernando, 212, 213, 235
Dom Luiz, 212-213
Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, 243-244-245-246
Doré, Gustave, 234-235
Dowdeswell, Admiral, 231
Drunkenness in Russia, 141-142
Duc de Croy, the, a Belgian and an Austrian subject, 53
Dué, M., Swedish Minister to Russia, 128
Dufferin, Marchioness of, 88-89, 129, 139, 154, 159, 160
Dufferin, Marquis of, Ambassador to Petrograd, 88 _sqq._, 128, 129,
153; his diplomatic methods, 156-157-310
E
Easter Supper in Russia, the, 109
Easy-going Austria, 49
Edinburgh, Duchess of, 125
Edinburgh, Duke of, 123
Elector of Brandenburg, 52
Emperor Frederick, 34, 79
Emperor William I, 32-33
Empress Marie, 208
Empress Elisabeth, 63-64
Empress Frederick, 33, 79
England, "Junker" Party's hostility to, 20
Environs of Berlin, 70 _sqq._
European Courts, disappearance of, 13
Exciting salmon fishing, 166-167
Expensive entertainment, an, 153
Exquisite Russian church music, 92
Extradition Treaty between Great Britain and Paraguay, 204
F
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, Prince, 212
Finland, 164-165 _sqq._
Footman as entomologist, the, 246-247
Formosa, 277
Fortress Church, Petrograd, 89, 90
Francis II, last of the Holy Roman Emperors, 50-51
Franz Josef of Austria, 52, 308
Frederick Charles of Prussia, Princess, 34
Frederick Count of Hohenzollern, 52
Frederick the Great, 27, 36, 74-75
Frederick William I, 74
French Ambassador's ball at Moscow, unusual incident at, 190-191
G
Gapon, Father, 348
Gargantuan dinner, a, 187-188
Gatchina Palace, 208; children's play-room at, 209-210
George V, 186
German "door-politeness," 219
Germany, disappearance of the Court, 13
Germany, music in, 22-23
Ghika, Prince, Roumanian Minister to Russia, 128
Giers, M. de, Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 103, 202, 203, 204
Gigantic Court Pages, 40
Gonçalves, 241
Gortchakoff, Prince, and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 66, 67
Gourmet, an ecclesiastical, 41-45
Gran Chaco, the, 268
Groote Constantia, 197
Gulf between Russian nobility and peasants, 147
H
Harraka Niska, 164 _sqq._
Henry the Navigator, Prince, 237
Hilarious funeral, a, 127-128
Hohenzollerns ever a grasping race, 52
"Holy Roman Emperor," the, 50
Hooveny M. van der, Netherlands Minister to Russia, 128
Howard, Dick, 207, 281, 285
Humbert, King, 326
Hungary, invasion of, by the Turks in 1683, 56
I
Ice-boating on the Gulf of Finland, 176
India, 186
Indoor games, Russians' love for, 177
Inelegant palaces, 75
Inquisitive peasant, an, 135
"Intelligenzia," the, 104
Irritating customs in Vienna, 54-55
Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 201
Ivan III, 184
J
Japan, 317-330, 343 _sqq._
Japanese advertising, 338
Japanese politeness, 334
Jardine, Captain, 284 _sqq._
Jena, 16
Jomini, Baron, 103
"Junker" Party, hostility of, towards England, 20
K
Karolyi, Countess, Austrian Ambassadress in Berlin, 38, 63
Katheodory Pasha and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 66
Kiderlin-Waechter, Baron von, 306-307
King Edward attends Alexander II's funeral, 162
King of Prussia proclaimed German Emperor at Versailles, 15
Kingsley, Charles, 345
Klepsch, Colonel, 309
Koltesha, 167-168-169
Koltesba, shooting at, 168 _sqq._
Königgrätz, 15
Kremlin, the, 182 _sqq._; the Great Palace, 185
Kyoto, the Emperor's palace, 321
L
Ladies' unchangeable Court fashions in Russia, 117
Lapp encampment on the Neva, 112-113
Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, 307
Lazareff and the great Orloff diamond, 124
Leopold I, 52
"Les Bals des Palmiers," 120
Leuchtenberg, Duchess of, _see_ Beauharnais
Liebknecht, Herr, 29
Lisbon, 211
Lisbon, beauty of, 229
Lister, Lord, 192
Liszt, 26
Lobkowitz Palace, 59
Lobkowitz, Prince, 59
Lopez, Francisco, 277
Lorraine, 15
Louis XIV, 52
Louis XVI, 57
Louise Margaret of Prussia, Princess, 43
Louise, Queen, of Prussia, 30-31
Lovendal, Count, Danish Minister in Petrograd, 306-307
Luncheon in pyjamas, 154
Luxembourg Palace, the, 36
M
"Making the Circle," trying ordeal of Prussian Princesses, 43
Margherita, Queen, 326
Maria II, Queen, 212
Marie Antoinette, 57
Mendelssohn, 31
Midnight drive, an exciting, 150-151
Militarism in Germany, 15 _sqq._
Misguided midshipmen, 231-232
Mitsu, Count, 333
Mitsu, Countess, 334, 337
Moltke, Field-Marshal von, 30
Montebello, Comte de, French Ambassador, 189-190
Montebello, Comtesse de, 189
Montferrand, M., Architect of St. Isaac's, Petrograd, 91
Moscow, beauty of, 181-182 _sqq._
Moscow cathedrals, three famous, 183
Moscow, Imperial Treasury at, splendour of, 184
Music, Germans as lovers of, 22
"Musical chairs" in Japan, 319
N
Napoleon I, 16; coronation of, 50-51; bribes electors of Bavaria,
Württemberg, and Saxony, 51
"Napoleon III," 36-37
Narrow escape from drowning of William II, 73
Natural beauties of Brazil, 246
Neva, blessing of the, 121
Newspaper enterprise, 316
Nicholas I, 185-194
Nicholas II, 158, 189, 347 _sqq._
Nihilist friends, 104 _sqq._
Nikko river, Japan, 331
Nondescript waiters, 184
Novel form of sport, a, 171-172 _sq._
O
Old Schloss, Berlin, 34-35; comparison with Buckingham Palace, 39-40
Opera in Lisbon, 221
Organ Mountains, the, 245, 248
Oriental traits in Russian character, 101
Orloff diamond, the, 124
P
Paget, Sir Augustus, 327
Palaeologus, Sophia, wife of Ivan III, 184
Paraguay, 276 _sqq._; Extradition Treaty between Great Britain and,
204
Paraguayan race meeting, a, 281
Paraguayan women, attractive, 282
Paraná river, the, 277
Patiño Cué, 285 _sqq._
Peace Congress between Russia and Turkey in Berlin, 1878, 66 _sqq._
Peasant's house in Russia, a, 131-132 _sqq._
Pernambuco, 240
Peter the Great, 51, 95, 102-103 _sq._
Peterhof, 196; its charming park, 197; a plethora of palaces round,
198
Petrograd, transference to, 76; a disappointing capital, 86; English
Embassy at, 89; Palace ball, 119; balls at, peculiarities of, 178;
famous Society beauties of, 179; inclement climate of, 193;
revisited, 340 _sqq._
Petropolis, diversions at, 245-246, 248
Pombal, Marquis de, 230
Portugal, two Kings of, 212
Portuguese bull-fights, bloodless, 214 _sqq._; comparison of with
Spanish, 216
Portuguese coinage, 228
Portuguese politeness, 220
Potemkin, 343
Potsdam, 71-72 _sqq._
Potsdam Palaces, 74-75
Prussian militarism, 15 _sqq._
Prussian Princesses, a trying ordeal, 43
"Princesse Château," 95 _sqq._, 180
Pugnacious Court Pages, 40-41
Q
Quebec, 300
Queen Alexandra attends Alexander II's funeral, 162
Queen Victoria, queenly dignity of, 116
Queen Victoria confers Order of the Garter on Alexander III, 162
_sqq._
Quirinal at Rome, the, 14
R
Radziwill, Princess William, 39
"Rag-time" and Rubinstein, 25-26
Rasputin, 348
Rauch, 31
Red-bearded priest, the, 110
Richter, Gustav, 30
Richter, Mme., 31
River Plate, the, 299
"Ring," the, in Berlin, 23
Rio de Janeiro, beauty of, 240
Rome, the Quirinal, 14
Rubinstein and "Rag-time," 25-26
Russia, disappearance of the Court, 13
Russia and Turkey, Peace Congress in Berlin, 66
Russian frontier police, 84
Russian gipsies, 149-150; their fascinating singing, 151-152
Russian illusions, 198-199
Russian Imperial Yacht Club, the, 100
Russian ladies' unchangeable Court fashions, 117
Russian language, difficulties exaggerated, 94
Russian limitations, 102
Russian police, 77
Russian village habits, 146
Russians really Orientals, 101
S
Sadowa, 15
St. Isaac's church, Petrograd, 91; midnight Easter Mass at, 105 _sqq._
Salisbury, Lord, and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 66-69
Scandalized governess, a, 155
Schleinitz, Mme. de, 25
"Schlüssel-Geld," an unpopular tax, 55
Schouvaloff, Count Peter, and the Peace Congress in Berlin, 1878, 66;
180
Schouvaloff, Countess Betsy, 179-180
Secret Police in Russia, the, 99
Seven Weeks' War, the, 15
Shah Jehan, 186-196
Shennan, Mr. David, 261-262
Sigismund, 52
Ski-ing, 168 _sq._
Skobeleff, General, 179
Slovenly Russian uniforms, 118
Sobieski, John, King of Poland, routs the Turks, 56
Spanish and Portuguese bull-fights, difference between, 216
Sport in Russia, 128-129
Strauss, Johann, 58; an exacting conductor, 59
"Street of toleration," the, 126
Strousberg, Herr, railway magnate, 31
Stürmer, M., destroyer of the Russian Empire, 158
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, in Petrograd, 93
T
Talleyrand, 50
Tel-el-Kebir, 204
Tetschen, 48
Teutonic Knights, the, 16
Tewfik, 201
Tigre, the, 299
Toboganning in Finland, 174-175 _sq._
Tokugawa dynasty, 320
Tokyo, 317
Tokyo, Uyeno Park at, 325; 332
Trinidad, 345
Tsarskoe Park, curiosities in, 193
Tsarskoe Selo, 191 _sqq._
Turkey and Russia, Peace Congress in Berlin, 66
Turks, invasion of Hungary, by, in 1683, 56
Turks routed by John Sobieski in 1683, 56
U
Ultimatum to Russia, a young man's, 202
Unusual occupants of a palace, 126
Urbain, the cook, 42
V
Van der Stell, Governor, 197
Vasco de Gama, 237
Victoria, Queen, 42
Victor Emmanuel, 14
Vienna, 48 _sqq._
Vienna, delightful environs of, 64
Viennese Court entertainments, 62
Viennese orchestras, 55 _sq._
Viennese restaurants and orchestras, excellence of, 55
Viennese women, comeliness of, 57
Villages in Russia, similarity of, 131-132
Vladimir, Grand Duke and death of Alexander II, 159
W
Waddington, M., and the Congress of Berlin, 1878, 67
Wagner, the "Ring" in Berlin, 23-24, 25
Waitresses, aristocratic, 24-25
Water-throwing at Buenos Ayres Carnival, 249
Wends, the, 16
William IV, 72
Winter Palace, Petrograd, the, 114-122 _sqq._
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 204
Wolves as fellow travelers, 131
Y
Yellow fever at Rio de Janeiro, 241-242-243