own identity.

There can be little doubt that the passport was established from the
first in the interests of the community, for it is entirely in their own
interests that people should possess them. No one who is honest in
purpose can have any difficulty in procuring one or be brought to any
trouble through it. The necessity of frequently producing them, in
moving from place to place, is always in the interests of the traveller
in a vast empire like Russia. It has given me a great feeling of
confidence in launching out, as has been necessary now and then, into
the unknown, to feel "They will be able to trace me all along by the
entries made in official registers, as the passport has been stamped."
If any one disappeared in Russia the police would be able to trace his
movements to very near the place of disappearance.

It is a great help in getting letters also to have a passport, for we
are just as anxious as the officials can be that our letters should not
go to the wrong people; and in travelling in out-of-the-way places it is
simply invaluable in getting the help, advice, and recognition that
sometimes are so very necessary. Even the passport, therefore, helps to
deepen the sense of security and freedom with which one launches out
into Russian travel, anxious to gain all that it has to give in
information and stimulating experience.

It will be remembered, however, that I speak always not as a resident,
but as a traveller; and there is just this difference--_indeed, it is a
vast difference_--between my own opportunities and those of an ordinary
traveller. Travelling as the bishop for the English Church work in
Russia, in every place our clergy and residents have only been too happy
to speak of their own experiences and impressions, some of them lifelong
and all-important. When travelling in Siberia, and the guest from time
to time of managers of the great mines, I go out with them day after day
and get long conversations with them, their wives, and members of the
staff. I hear all about early struggles, hopes and fears, difficulties
and triumphs extending over many years. The conditions of life and
characteristics of the people in vast tracts of country are described to
me by those who know them well. No one but a bishop travelling through
the country would have the same information so freely volunteered to
him. And it is this which has led me to feel that I might, without undue
presumption, write for ordinary re