Japan for a Week, Britain Forever

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Empire of the Tsar A eight in the morning we were startled by a fresh inrush of brigands, and though some of us were still in our beds, and most of us only partly dressed, we were tumbled out without warning upon the platform at Warsaw, neck and crop, bag and baggage, to complete our toilets as best we...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Empire of the Tsar A eight in the morning we were startled by a fresh inrush of brigands, and though some of us were still in our beds, and most of us only partly dressed, we were tumbled out without warning upon the platform at Warsaw, neck and crop, bag and baggage, to complete our toilets as best we could during the long drive through the rain to another station at the far extremity of the town. Here, after the usual altercation with droschky drivers and porters, and the customary wait for the opening of platform doors, we took seats in the train for the twenty-seven-hour journey to Moscow. The only clear impression I retain of the long ride which followed through the day, night, and following forenoon, is that it began to open our eyes to the vastness of the Russian Empire. Up to Moscow we travelled continuously for thirty-four hours through Russian territory, and then started again on another continuous journey of 216 hours to Vladivostock, duringthe whole of which, except for a few hours in China, we were traversing the Empire of the Tsar. Russia occupies half of Europe and a third of Asia, or more than a seventh of the habitable globe. From Behring's Sea to Baltic it stretches over 172 degrees, or nearly half the whole world's circuit. To realise the full significance of these dimensions, one would need to travel through the whole length and breadth of the colossal country, from frost-bound Arctic clime of white bears to wine-growing Southern Crimea; from tropical Eastern gardens of the Persian borderland to icy mountain shores of Japan and China seas. The hundreds of miles through which we passed between Alexandrowa and Moscow form part of the great plain of Central Europe, unbroken in all its vastness by hill or mountain. Flat corn-fields alternate wit...