Between Kristiania and Stockholm I wrote an article on the Poles, and directly afterwards, puzzling out a Swedish newspaper, I read the manifesto of the Grand Duke Nicholas. We had with us Poles who were travelling right round to Warsaw. From Stockholm the more apprehensive members of our party went northward for the long land journey by Torneô. The rest of us risked the voyage across the Gulf of Bothnia. In the beautiful Skerries, we were at one point sent back by a Swedish gunboat and piloted past a mine field. I was on a Finnish boat, which was fair prize; so I had an interest in any ship that showed itself on this hostile sea. When we reached Raumo, a little improvised port in Finland, there was an outburst of relief for those who had come so far and were home again at last. All classes joined and enjoyed the home-coming together. The train picked up detachments of Russian troops on their way to the war. I had no seat, and went and slept or drowsed for an hour or two in a carriage full of soldiers. As I lay on a wooden bench I listened to a young peasant recruit with a bright clear face who was talking to his mother. It seemed to be a kind of fairy tale that he was telling her, and the clearly spoken words mingled with the movement of the train: "And he went again to the lake, and there he found the girl, and there was the golden ring, the ring of parting." _Petrograd._ I shall not dwell on the six weeks or so that I spent in St. Petersburg. My time was taken up with a number of details and with arrangements for getting to the front. I had volunteered for the Red Cross when I was asked to serve as official correspondent.