t Polish only--with its glorious position on the
Vistula in the midst of its great plain, though not so ancient and
inspiring as Cracow, in Galicia, is full of moving appeal to the
national and historic sense for those who visit it for the first time,
and especially, as in my own case, when entering the empire by that
route. I have seen Warsaw in spring, summer, and winter, and always felt
its charm; and I have not felt more deeply moved for a long time than
by the Emperor's proclamation that he intended the Poles once more to be
a nation and--there can be but little doubt about it--with Warsaw as its
capital.

Riga also, the great shipping-port on the Baltic, which I have entered
by sea and by land, and when coming in by sea have had the pleasure of
seeing our beautiful English church on the shore with its graceful spire
standing out conspicuously, yet blending in with other towers and
pinnacles. How very characteristic of the Baltic and attractive the city
is, with its blending of the Teuton and Slav populations! But how
essentially Russian it is in all its leading features, while different
from all other Russian cities! It is so wherever one goes both on this
and on the other side of the Urals. There always seems to be something
specially characteristic in these great centres of population; and they
all seem as if, unlike other towns, they had each their own interesting
story to tell for those who have ears to hear.

Town or city life in Russia is not very representative of the true life
of the country and its people, though it undoubtedly exerts a widespread
influence upon their general social life; for Russia's vast population
is not gathered together in either towns or cities, but in hamlets and
villages. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace tells us that when he wrote his
first book on Russia, in 1877, there were only eleven towns with a
population of over 50,000 in European Russia, and that, in 1905, they
had only increased to thirty-four. The increase of the future will no
doubt be more rapid when the war is over.

The great cities will probably, as practically all the cities of Europe
have done of late years, follow the lead of Paris under Baron Hausmann
in the character of their imposing blocks of houses and wide boulevards,
and one capital will be much the same as any other in Europe in its
general appearance and social life.

Russian cities, however, even the capital, though ever becoming more
cosmopolitan, sti