he was visiting me, to Moscow. He was
accompanied by Augustus Trowbridge, an old friend of my brother's and a
rarely good linguist. The latter qualification proved of the greatest
possible assistance to Richard in his efforts to witness the actual
coronation ceremony. To have finally been admitted to the Kremlin my
brother always regarded as one of his greatest successes as a
correspondent.

En route--May 1896.

DEAR CHAS:

The night is passed and with the day comes "a hope" but during the
blackness I had "a suffer"-- I read until two--five hours--and then
slept until five when the middle man who had slept on my shoulder all
night left the train and the second one to whom Bernardi was so polite
left me alone and had the porter fit me up a bed so that I slept until
seven again-- Then the Guardian Angel returned for his traps and I bade
him a sleepy adieu and was startled to see two soldiers standing
shading their eyes in salute in the doorway and two gentlemen bowing to
my kind protector with the obsequiousness of servants-- He sort of
smiled back at me and walked away with the soldiers and 13 porters
carrying his traps. So I rung up the conductor and he said it was the
King's Minister with his eyes sticking out of his head--the conductor's
eyes--not the Minister's. I don't know what a King's Minister is but
he liked your whiskey-- I am now passing through the Austrian Tyrol
which pleases me so much that I am chortling with joy-- None of the
places for which my ticket call are on any map--but don't you care, I
don't care-- I wish I could adequately describe last night with nothing
but tunnels hours in length so that you had to have all the windows
down and the room looked like a safe and full of tobacco smoke and damp
spongey smoke from the engine, and bad air. That first compartment I
went in was filled later with German women who took off their skirts
and the men took off their shoes. Everybody in the rear of the car is
filthy dirty but I had a wash at the Custom house and now I am almost
clean and quite happy. The day is beautiful and the compartment is all
my own-- I am absolutely enchanted with the Tyrol-- I have never seen
such quaint picture book houses and mills with wheels like that in the
Good for Nothing and crucifixes wonderfully carved and snow mountains
and dark green forests-- The sky is perfect and the air is filled with
the sun and the train moves so smoothly that I can see little blue
flow