I Singapore, an island at the point of the Malay Peninsula, midway between India and China. really finished at Northumberland Avenue, London, W.C. Between these points I crossed Asia and I crossed Europe, and I took eighty-three days to do SO. When I started I took with me letters of credit from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank for £350, and a very little cash. When I arrived in London I had unexpended letters of credit for £238, and some cash. The account is as follows: Passage ticket (bought at Singapore) to Shanghai Drew on letters of credit at Shanghai £10 Drew on letters of credit at Peking Sold my cheque for taels at Kalgan Deduct cash in hand at London 15 97 18 £143 7 Sum expended £136 Our party consisted of three, and the three of us, I think, drew £97 each at Peking, taking the money partly in dollars and partly in rough silver, and partly in drafts payable in roubles at Kiakhta and at Irkutsk. We sold the unexpended silver at Kiakhta for roubles, and there also iny companions paid me in roubles for their proportion of the little cheque I issued at Kalgan. The roubles I got at Kiakhta and at Irkutsk paid my expenses to St. Petersburg and bought for me some sovereigns, of which I had seven left when I arrived in London. The sum expended was thus £136; and deducting from that £7, expended in purchases not essential to the journey, I find the net expense of the journey to be £129. That, when averaged over an eighty-three days' journey, works out as an expense of about 31s. a day. I call that a cheap journey. If I place against it the sum that I might have paid for a direct mail passage homewards viâ Brindisi, and the additional sum that I might have expended for sixty days' additional residence in England, it seems to me that I have saved a good deal by coming back to Europe through the mainland of Asia. Let me add, finally, that this cost was worked out neither upon methods of extravagance nor upon methods of economy. Wherever I went on this journey I got the best accommodation that was available, and when I wanted anything I bought it. On the other hand, I have not made myself clear unless the reader has grasped the fact that I do not buy superfluous or luxurious articles, and that, speaking generally, my wants are not materially different from my needs. CHAPTER XIX. MOSCOW AND PETERSBURG. I SPENT only three days each in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and, since I was more interested in seeing persons than in places, I must not be expected to give a description of those cities. In any case that, obviously, can be found more fully and better in the usual guide-books. I was, however, greatly interested by those cities, and what I desire to record is the impression produced by Moscow and Petersburg upon a traveller who had come through China and Siberia, and who at other times had seen most of the great cities of Europe, of America, and of Asia. The keynote of Moscow, as compared with Petersburg, is that Moscow is a city that has grown, as London has. It is a quaint and interesting city. It is a city of churches whose golden domes flashing to the sunlight connote the wealth of diamonds, of pearls, and of rubies that enrich the inside of the temples and record the zealous piety of the worshippers. It is a city whose ornate and costly shops mark the luxurious life of a wealthy population. It is a city whose old churches, projecting their shrines to the very street front, invite and receive the obeisance of a population that is never too intent, whether on business or on pleasure, to pay with humble mien the outward signs of respect to the faith that dominates Russia. It is a city of piety and pleasure, of old customs and modern bustle, of extravagance of life and extravagance on death. It is a city that reflects the life of Russia more fully than London reflects the life of England-a city that is half Asiatic, yet wholly Russian. It is a magIt is a city of Turning to Petersburg, I find a city whose keynote is that it is a city built to order. nificent city; I know none more so. broad streets and imposing thoroughfares; a city well kept and well maintained; a city rich in order, rule, and design-but always there is on it the mark of artificiality, the mark of a city built to order. There is also the mark of a desire for outward show, with too little thought of unobtrusive usefulness. The drainage is not what it might be; the water supply is bad; the city is not healthy. It is a wellgoverned city, but it is not governed from the highest standpoint. It is a city that bears the impress of Peter just as much as does the little house by the river where Peter lived when Petersburg was building the house that is now a shrine, and that lives in the loving thought of every Russian. Petersburg does not typify Russian life, except in so far as it typifies that Peter was the inventor of Russia. Petersburg does not typify the thought of Russia save in so far as it typifies the Government of Russia. It typifies the will of the Tsar, it typifies the orderly movements of a great machine-the machine of Government, whose arms stretch from the Arctic Ocean and the China Sea to the lands that border on the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. As to Moscow, it was in early October that I was there, in moderately cold weather, with a little snow on the ground. I judge that it was taken as the beginning of winter from the fact that, while I was in Moscow, the house windows were being sealed for the season. Each room has a double window, and, when winter begins, the outer window is bolted and a coating of putty is put round the window-frames. Then, between the outer and the inner frame, round the edges of the frames, they put a layer of cotton-wool. Then they close the inner window-sash, and from the inside of the room they put another layer of putty round the windowframe; and so it remains until spring. Meanwhile, the rooms are heated from the inside by stoves, or as may be by hot-air or hot-water pipes, there being so many different systems that it would be useless to describe them except by saying |