Dead letters

by Maurice Baring

I am alive and well, and I hope you are alive and well, and that all the family are thriving, and I beg you to greet my father, my stepmother, my brother Andrew, my sister, little Peter, and all my near ones from me. Please also greet Dimitri Ivanovitch and Paul Borisovitch and Anna Nikolaevna. We arrived yesterday in this country. It belongs to the English, who possess so many countries. Their great Queen is no longer alive, but there is now a King in her place who is a blood relation of our Emperor.

We were sent on shore yesterday to buy provisions. Everything is very cheap, except vodka, which costs three roubles a small bottle. But the English drink a vodka of their own which is also very dear, and they drink a kind of beer which we do not care for much. The houses are all built of brick and warmed with coal. Even the working men live in stone houses and heat them with coal. There is no wood anywhere. The houses and the streets are kept clean, and the people, even the gentry, obey the police, and are humble when they are given orders. The English are Christians, and like white men in all respects. They are not heathens. Most of them are rich, and they have many lacqueys who obey their masters like dumb slaves, and dare not look them in the face when they speak to them.

The English food is nasty, and there is little to eat, although all eat meat every day, except the very poor, who seldom receive alms from the passers-by. There are here many beggars in the streets, but nobody gives them food or money. We gave a cripple a quarter of a rouble and he was surprised.

There are many luxurious ships in the harbour all painted white and pretty to look at. At night they are lit up by electricity. The English Fleet is here, too, and it is very big, and the ships are fine, and we were heavy-hearted when we looked at it and thought of our brave sailors who had been obliged to fight like lions for their dear country. But there is no help for it, and if Providence wills we shall one day have another fleet bigger than the first. The tide is strong here, and dangerous for us who do not know where the rocks are, and when we ask nobody can explain, for the English do not speak Russian at all. I only know three things in English: “Plenty whisky,” which means vodka; “five o’clock,” which means shabash (all over); and “alright,” which means “I thank you.”

The English sailors are like ours, but they have little to eat or drink. The laws are strict here, and if a man who has taken drink walks about in the streets he is put in prison. If that happened in Russia we should mutiny. Moreover, it is forbidden to smoke almost everywhere. This is strange, as the English smoke a great deal; but they are an obedient people, and clean. They respect their laws.

On shore it is merry. There are many clowns and acrobats dancing and singing, just as though it were a fair. But the English do not know how to sing, and they do not dance at all. Although there is much merrymaking I have not seen one drunken man, so much afraid are they of being put in prison.

The English have a Duma, but an Englishman who speaks Russian told us that it was just like ours, and that they did nothing but talk there. He also told us that the English women had mutinied because so many of them had been put in prison for beating the police, and that they were being starved in the prisons until they should submit. This seems to us cruel, but the English are often not kind to women and animals, and they say the women interfere in what is not their business, just as they do at home.

The English have no army, only mercenaries who are paid money. Some of them are niggers. I asked the man who talked Russian why it was that if men were paid so much to be soldiers every one was not a soldier. He said that soldiers were sent away to foreign climates, and that men did not respect soldiers in England. It is also like that in China. The sailors are much respected and much loved, and they are all Englishmen, and white men, and not mercenaries. They are merry people, too.

The English naval officers are clean shaven, which makes them look very funny, but they are good officers and know their business. The police are dressed in long great-coats and carry no weapons, because the English people are docile and submissive; and they have few hooligans here, although they say that in London there are many hooligans, but these are hanged.

Yesterday we went to Portsmouth, a town, for we could not buy what we wanted in this place, which is only a village, although all the houses are built of stone. Portsmouth is a beautiful town, with many shops, palaces, theatres, and churches, and full of beautiful women who are all married to sailors. It is the custom of the place to obey the sailors in everything, and not to rob them. The English sailors are rich, much richer than some of our generals. They spend their money generously and treat everybody. They would be robbed in Russia, but here everybody lives in terror of the police, and I am told that if a poor man is arrested there is no chance of his not being condemned to prison. They are strict, so they say, in their prisons, and the “unfortunates” are not allowed even to speak to each other or to smoke. Fancy this happening in Russia! If they are very bad they are sent to America! But this only happens to the very bad criminals.