As Moscow follows Petersburg in fashions and customs, so does Warsaw Vienna. The Russian tongue in Warsaw is seldom heard. No longer is the sacred ikon seen in apartments and bedrooms. Tea is drunk in cups, not glasses; but coffee is the favourite beverage of all classes. We had evidently done with Russia for good, though the town swarmed with the Czar’s troops in their ugly pea-soup-coloured coats and white caps. Here, unlike most Russian and Siberian towns, the soldiers are encouraged to walk about and show themselves, but I do not think I saw a dozen uniforms the whole time I was in Moscow.
Reaching Vienna the 17th of October, ten days later sees us rattling along in the eleven o’clock train from Paris for London, viâ Calais. A thick haze hangs over the Channel as we approach the coast. The sea is of a dirty grey, and presents a very different appearance to when we last saw it, blue and sparkling, in the Gulf of Pechili! It is with a queer but pleasant feeling of rest and relief that we leave land at last to step on to the broad white deck of the steamer Victoria, at Calais.
“Would you care to do it again?” says a casual acquaintance to whom we have narrated our adventures, if such they may be called.
“Not for ten thousand pounds,” says Lancaster, emphatically. And yet, as a ray of sun shines out of the mist, lighting up the white cliffs of England, bright augur of the comfort and civilization we are nearing, I cannot help thinking that to experience such a moment as this is well worth even the discomfort and privations that have attended our long, weary voyage from Pekin to Calais by land.
[19]. The transactions at the fair of Nijni Novgorod are said to amount yearly to over four millions sterling.
THE END
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