Mohileff was reputed to be about the most Jewish township in Russia, and, judging by the appearance of the inhabitants, that reputation was not undeserved. One had heard a lot about pogroms in the past, but they would not appear to be of the really thoroughgoing sort. It is an unattractive spot in the winter-time in spite of its effective position, emplaced on a plateau with the Dneiper winding round two sides of it in a deep trough. Hanbury-Williams was a great walker, always anxious for exercise, and each afternoon we wandered out somewhere in the snow for a constitutional; the Emperor used to do the same, but he always motored a good way out into the country before starting on his tramp. The only exercise that the other foreign officers ever seemed to take consisted in motoring backwards and forwards between the hotel and the Imperial headquarters for meals. It is wonderful how any of them survived. The last forenoon that we spent there, a special service took place in the principal church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's birthday; and the foreign missions received a hint to go, it being understood that the Emperor proposed to be present in person. This, however, proved to be a false alarm. The service began at 10 A.M., and we went at 11.30 A.M. and stayed till noon; it was still going on at that time, and we understood that they were only in the middle of it. Even half an hour of this was something of an ordeal, seeing that the church was overheated (as Russian interiors always are), that we had our furs on, and that we had to choose between standing or else kneeling down on the stone floor. Services of the Orthodox Church are not unimpressive even when one cannot follow them; the Chief Priest at Mohileff had a real organ voice and made the very most of it; he was almost deafening indeed at times. The prayers appeared to be devoted entirely to the welfare of the Imperial family; at all events the names of the Emperor, of the Empress, of the Empress Marie, of the Tsarevitch and of the Grand Duchess herself were thundered out every minute or two--they were the only words that I could understand Listening to the priest's sonorous incantation reverberating through the building that morning, one little dreamt that within less than two years' time the winsome princess--her photograph was to be seen everywhere in the Petrograd streets and she seemed to be especially popular--whose day we were engaged in celebrating, would have been foully done to death by miscreants in some remote eastern spot of Russia.