In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians, who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of ancient culture and high natural capacity; neither the instinct nor the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior, who is the instrument of a system of government rather than a born ruler, and who in general is lacking in those attributes of pliancy and individual initiative which it is the tendency of rigid bureaucracies to destroy. Moreover the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his system, like a child to whom his lessons are new; and, when you see him at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself how it has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such wooden figures as these. There are of course notable exceptions to this general statement, which resumes one's experience of the subordinate officers rather than of those who are highest placed. Taranoffsky was about as bad a specimen of his class as it has been my misfortune to meet. A short man of portly figure, fat red face, and little eyes, he had all the self-assertion which so often accompanies small stature, all the unfriendliness which seems the almost necessary outcome of a lack of physical grace. I at once perceived all the elements of an unpleasant situation; nor were my apprehensions disproved by the result. We were taken to a hotel, deprived of our papers and letters, and placed under close police surveillance pending a decision as to our future fate. The warmest pass of arms was that which took place over our photographic negatives, which our persecutor peremptorily required. I represented that many of the films were as yet undeveloped, and was absolute in my refusal to give them up. On the other hand I expressed myself anxious that he should see them developed in his presence, for which purpose I begged him to prepare a dark room. I forget whether he accepted this tempting proposal; the negatives remained intact. Permission was given us to drive under escort to the monastery of Safar, and the arrival that night or the following morning of Colonel Alander appeared to alleviate the disfavour with which we were viewed. Not that these two imperia work harmoniously together! How can it be expected that they should? The political police are particularly active in fortress towns such as Kars or Akhaltsykh; but I understood from Ivan that they are pretty widely distributed over the country, and that their functions extend to tracking down Socialists and Nihilists, and in general to the diffusion of alarm and annoyance far and wide. "How ugly is man!" has exclaimed a French novelist; indeed how ugly at such moments he appears.