barded (it was taken two or three days later
by the Germans), and we met many of the peasants hurrying away from it
carrying their possessions with them. You may know the peasants of
Lowice anywhere by their distinctive dress, which is the most
brilliantly coloured peasant dress imaginable. The women wear gorgeous
petticoats of orange, red and blue, or green in vertical stripes and a
cape of the same material over their shoulders, a bright-coloured shawl,
generally orange, on their heads, and brilliant bootlaces--magenta is
the colour most affected. The men, too, wear trousers of the same kind
of vertical stripes, generally of orange and black. These splashes of
bright colour are delicious in this sad, grey country.

The General of the Staff was quartered at Radzivilow Castle, and I
explored the place while the Prince and Monsieur Goochkoff did their
business. The old, dark hall, with armour hanging on the walls and
worm-eaten furniture covered with priceless tapestry, would have made a
splendid picture. A huge log fire burning on the open hearth lighted up
the dark faces of the two Turkestan soldiers who were standing on guard
at the door. In one corner a young lieutenant was taking interminable
messages from the field telephone, and under the window another
Turkestan soldier stood sharpening his dagger. The Prince asked him
what he was doing, and his dark face lighted up. "Every night at eight,"
he said, still sharpening busily, "I go out and kill some Germans." The
men of this Turkestan regiment are said to be extraordinarily brave men.
They do not care at all about a rifle, but prefer to be at closer
quarters with the enemy with their two-edged dagger, and the Germans
like them as little as they like our own Gurkhas and Sikhs.

The next day the wounded began to arrive in Skiernevice, and in two
days' time the temporary hospital was full.

The Tsar had a private theatre at Skiernevice with a little separate
station of its own about 200 yards farther down the line than the
ordinary station, and in many ways this made quite a suitable hospital
except for the want of a proper water-supply.

The next thing we heard was that the Russian General had decided to fall
back once more, and we must be prepared to move at any moment.

All that day we heard violent cannonading going on and all the next
night, though the hospital was already full, the little country carts
came in one after another filled with wounded. They were