St. For GIRLS who wish a high standard A church school in a delightful suburb of Richmond. CHESTNUT HILL A Preparatory School for Boys In the Open Country, 11 Miles North of Philadelphia T. R. HYDE, M.A. (Yale), Head Master SEVERN SCHOOL A country boarding school for boys. Ideal location on Severn River near Annapolis. Prepares for College, West Point and Annapolis. Exceptionally thorough work given and demanded. Students taught how to study. Water sports and all athletics. Limited to fifty. Catalogue. ROLLAND M.TEEL, Ph. B., Princípal, Boone, Md. RUTGERS PREPARATORY SCHOOL RUTGERS PREPARATORY SCHOOL has maintained a continuous service for 160 years preparing boys of cultured families for college life and good citizenship. The equipment is complete and modern. Limited to 100 selected boys. Affiliation with Rutgers University offers many advantages. Catalogue and views. WILLIAM P. KELLY, HEADMASTER PRINCETON PREPARATORY SCHOOL J. B. Fine, Headmaster Preparatory for all colleges. Rapid progress. Limited number of pupils and freedom from rigid class organization. Excellent equipment. Special attention to athletics and moral welfare. New gymnasium. 53rd year. For catalog, address Box D, Princeton, N. J. Box 618 Sweetwater, Tenn. One of America's best schools. Fifty-second year. Satisfied patrons in more than forty States. Thorough work. Permanent faculty of experienced teachers. Write for catalogue. Col. C. R. ENDSLEY, Superintendent ST. JAMES SCHOOL A select home school for BOYS of the GRADES. Virginia Episcopal School LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA prepares boys at cost for college and university. Modern equipment. Healthy location in the mountains of Virginia. Cost moderate, made possible through the generosity of founders. For catalogue apply to REV. WILLIAM G. PENDLETON, D. D., Rector Massie School A College Preparatory School for Boys, in the blue grass section of Kentucky, near Lexington. Thorough instruction, new equipment. Out-of-door sporta. For catalogue, address: R. K. Massie, Jr., M. A., Headmaster Second Educational Section, Third Cover Page THERE were three of us in Pahlevi: Radcliffe and myself and Mrs Rodney, who had come through Persia with a shooting-stick and a tireless demand for hot baths. Pahlevi is on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, and for the moment our business was to go to Baku in the territory of the U.S.S.R. On the map and from a distance it had looked a trifling journey of about two hundred miles, but at Pahlevi we came into sea-mist and a fog of regulations and a cloudy babel of tongues. We spoke French and a little German and enough Persian to ask for shaving-water; but the matter of passports and police exeats and Customs needed Russian or more Persian than a dozen household terms would compass. This was our difficulty before dinner, a shadow over the VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLIII. caviare and fried sturgeon, the chicken and spinach and Persian oranges. But the shadow shortened as the evening passed, and eventually disappeared under the boots of a little motheaten kind of fellow who introduced himself as a Russian émigré of the old régime, now a man of affairs and acquainted with the douane, capable and willing to take all our troubles on to his own narrow shoulders. His name was something like Hæmorrhage, and and once, he said, he had been a rich man. We nodded sympathetically and filled his glass. Everything would be quite all right, he said. He knew the Police and the Customs. He knew everybody, and everybody would assist in making our journey pleasant and expeditious. What was the Udarob like, L He accepted our remuneration and left us with inconspicuous speed, while the porters squabbled ferociously over the last of our Persian money. The boat seemed small for the number of passengers, but we had been assured of cabins, and went up the gangway confidently. It was unpleasant to find all the cabins opening off a central saloon, but travellers' choice, like beggars', is some this ship which was to take us to Russia ? Magnifique! he replied. She was lying at the quay now, and in the morning she would take on her passengers and exquisite foods to tempt their idle palates on the silky calm of the inland sea. Ah, magnifique ! And the Russian railways? They too, it seemed, were magnifique. Our spirits rose, and we called for another bottle of wine. In wagon-lit and in restaurant-car times limited, and we sniffed everything was ordered with the stale air with dutiful perfect cleanliness, and splen- philosophy. dour tempered only by surprising cheapness. We clapped M. Hæmorrhage on his dingy shoulder and drank his health for his good news. 'My name is Humoreske," he corrected us diffidently. "C'est égal," we assured him, and went to bed happy. In the morning he led us importantly from police station to Customs sheds, and to noisy money-changers, where with the mysterious aid of bobbins on a wire frame the tomans of Persia were exchanged for Soviet roubles. Eventually we looked through a tall wooden paling and saw the Udarob, a pile of luggage, mail-bags, and a dozen or two passengers waiting with indifferent patience. Four porters, hairy men in dark smocks and long boots, demanded extortionate sums for a minimum of service. M. Humoreske regretted his inability to pacify them. They bellowed with greedy wrath and extended enormous avid hands. M. Humoreske seemed anxious to go. The stewardess, a middleaged peasant with a handkerchief round her head, was incomprehensibly explanatory in Russian, but with nods and becks made it clear that the lady's cabin was here and the men's there. Mrs Rodney looked through the door of hers. It was very small, completely airless, and already occupied by a melancholy-looking Turk and a stout Frenchwoman, whose fingers glittered with splendid rings as she stooped comfortably to take off her boots. "Take my things out of there immediately. I insist on having a cabin to myself," said Mrs Rodney, and scorning the seats in the saloon, sat resolutely on her shooting-stick to await a more happy disposal. The stewardess was puzzled. Misunderstanding, she showed Radcliffe and myself to our room. In it were two Circassian girls, one plump and painted, the other like a dishevelled and dissipated Ma donna. It looked embarrassing, and our Puritan inhibitions took us by the elbow and led us out again. The stewardess was now puzzled enough to be unhappy; and Mrs Rodney sat on her shooting-stick and coldly demanded that the captain should be summoned immediately. When the ship pulled out we, with all our baggage, sat aloofly on a hatch, insular even under the Hammer and Sickle. The flag of the Soviet floated overhead, and packed in stuffy cabins men and women-Russians, Persians, Georgians, and Turks- accepted its red protection. We decided to sleep on deck. Our berths, once disowned, had quickly been claimed by others; but we had bedding-rolls, and the weather was mild. A night under the Caspian stars might not be unpleasant. By-and-by a bell rang for dinner, and we returned to the saloon. At the head of the table was a Belgian official in Persian service with his wife; next to him there was a little dark-skinned man wearing a Soviet badge-an enamel flag lettered C.C.C.P.-and a remarkably pretty girl; the Madonna - her hair framed lankly the long oval of her face and her luscious friend; the brown-faced melancholy Turk from Mrs Rodney's cabin, and a bald oldish Persian; several nondescript Russians and a vivacious fair-haired girl; the fat aquiline Frenchwoman with the rings; and ourselves. A shuffling grey-moustached steward carried in an enormous soup-tureen and set it laboriously in the centre of the table. On each side of it a plate was piled with vast ragged slices of bread. There was communal passing of soup plates and ladling of thick meaty broth, and the meal started with a clatter of spoons and babble of talk. The Russian girls were cheerful and noisy, and their voices were rich with laughter, but the two Circassians ate silently, their heads bent low over their plates. They bit hungrily into their bread, and put it back on the table with little circular stains of red on it from their painted lips. When the soup was finished the steward brought two flat dishes of sturgeon. That, too, was divided, plates were cleaned, and the meal was over. thought of M. Hæmorrhage, and regretted his second bottle of wine. We Morning came white and windless as we awoke in our blankets on the boat - deck. Slowly the sun climbed a colourless sky, but never showed himself clearly, hiding all day behind a thin curtain of mist. The sea was calm and expressionless, a glazy bottle-green, opaque, and looking deadly deep. Faint far away hills seemed to keep pace with us, so alike were they and so slow was our speed, for, in spite of the Udarob being a mail-boat, she had taken in tow a lighter filled with a week's sturgeon fishing, and the black hulk hung heavily on our tail. Each meal was like the first supper, communal bowls of soup and massive wedges of new bread. The Russians grew more talkative, the girls more mirthful; the melody of their laughter roused even the listless weary Madonna. We exchanged polite phrases with the French woman, who was going to Paris by way of Moscow, and we enlisted the aid of the whole table when we tried to ask the steward for beer. The pretty darkhaired girl with the Soviet official was the first to take our meaning. "Peeva! she shrilled delightedly to the bewildered steward. "Peeva! Peeva! shouted the company in chorus, laughing happily, and the steward shambled away amiably gesticulating. We did our best to bow all round the table. This at last was magnifique. The melancholy Turk and his Persian friend did not come down to lunch. They were standing by the shoreward rail, looking unhappily at the hazy outline of land. "We don't seem to have gone far," Radcliffe remarked. "No," said the Persian a little tremulously. "It is difficult with this boat. She is so old, and they are frightened of the engines. My friend here has just been talking to the driver." He pointed to a large ⚫ quartermaster standing woodenly at the wheel. 66 gone down now to see how much she is leaking," said the Turk. They dare not go out of sight of land in case she sinks." We looked again at the quartermaster; he had the solemn air of a constitutional jester, and we felt relieved. There was another diversion in the afternoon. A small bear-cub escaped from its home in the fo'c'sle and, pursued by the ships' boys, padded clumsily aft. It climbed a ladder, and disappeared through the open door of the captain's cabin. Unhesitatingly the boys followed it, tumbling over each other into the sacred stateroom, and finally retrieving the bear from the captain's bunk. With a cord round its neck the cub sat unhappily on the deck, shyly hanging its overgrown head and considering the spectators out of sidelong eyes. Attracted by the sound of the chase a boy in knickerbockers-a hitherto unnoticed passenger appeared with a kind of attenuated and halfgrown beagle, a fierce little dog, which immediately attacked the bear. The cub was unwilling either to fight or play, but clipped the dog neatly on its ear; infuriated, the pseudo-beagle bit savagely, and the bear fled in ungainly froghops, whining pitifully. It was caught and taken back to the fo'c'sle, where the baiting continued. About this time the stewardess came out to sun herself in a "He told me that they have yellow dress, brightly flowered. |