Czecho-slovakia is the watchdog of the new peace in Central Europe. She is the strongest new power, and is manifestly the best governed State which has arisen out of the ruins of the old. The new Bohemia (for Czecho-Slovakia is truly Bohemia) is a much more credible resurrection than the new Poland. One London daily refused to believe in the existence of Czecho-Slovakia for a long while. "Unless I see it," said the editor, "I will not be convinced." But Czecho-Slovakia is quite convincing--and is much less of a Frankenstein than Jugo-slavia. The Czechs are no doubt obscurely placed in Europe, but the traveller when he gets to their country--not the "seacoast of Bohemia"--will find that they make good showing. Prague is a fine old city on the rolling Moldau--what a fine name, suggestive of rolling boulders down from the hills! Ancient Prague has this river for its moat. It rises on heights from old bridges to the royal palace and cathedral of the old kings of Bohemia. The new city has yet to be built. It will be on the level ground below, where there is to-day an agglomeration of shops and hotels as yet unworthy of the capital of a great new State. Here up above is all that is worth while, though seen from the battlements, the new below, especially on a cloudy day with lowering skies, is a very fine view. Here lie the old kings of Bohemia--one of them apparently "Good King Wenceslas." Here at a little distance are the mysterious walls with sentries posted at the gates--walls curiously and accidentally associated in the minds of thousands of children with Longfellow's lines: I have read in some old, marvellous tale That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague. Not a good place in which to lose yourself at night--outside these walls--as a party of us found on our first expedition there. In the royal palace and offices are now accommodated the various ministeries of the new republic. Up in this purer air live also the President, M. Masaryk, and some of the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers. It is no doubt rare in this lazy age to find a new State administered and governed from the top of a crag, a steep climb on foot. But Czecho-Slovakia and Prague are governed from a mountain, and have the mountain point of view, which is the view of youth and vision. The new State has some thirteen millions of inhabitants, and the majority of the people speak both Czech and German. German is naturally discouraged as being anti-national, and it is now only used in emergencies. All names of places have been Slavonized. Even Carlsbad and Marienbad are now Carlovivari and Mariansky Laznie. Where names of places have to be printed both in German and in Czech--German goes into small letters and Czech into large. After the armistice was declared in 1918, it only took a few hundred Czechs to overthrow the Austrian power and proclaim a new national republic. It was a bloodless revolution.