I asked the interpreter to ask him if he couldn't think of an anecdote or two about MacGahan that I could send to my paper. I realized that there was a sorry task ahead of me writing about far-off Trans-Caspia--truly _terra incognito_ to most Americans--unless America could be dragged into the story somehow. But Kuropatkin was not in the anecdotal mood. "When MacGahan and I were together," he said, "there were too many other things to think about and remember." This is the upshot of my intercourse with Kuropatkin. Had there not been something about the man and his surroundings that took hold of my imagination this slim report would not have been made here. Throughout my journey in Trans-Caspia I thought of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. At Merv we were told that there, once upon a time, Genghis had slaughtered one million people. At Samarcand, we were shown Tamerlane's tomb. As a modern representative of might and force Kuropatkin seemed to be an improved edition of Genghis and Tamerlane. Whatever else he was, or was not doing, he was plainly trying to experiment with civilization before resorting to the sword. His schools, railroads and agricultural experiments were all indicative of his constructive ability. For this side of his character I liked him. I disliked his career in butchering, and I was not pleased with his hard face. Nevertheless, there was something so companionable and soldier-like in his parting "Bonne Chance," when we bade him good-by, that, for me, there was more in him to like than to scold about. As regards the alleged five million rubles he is supposed to have "grafted" in Manchuria, I can merely say that he did not look like a thief to me. CHAPTER XX IN ST. PETERSBURG A police raid that I attended in St. Petersburg, although not directly connected with any tramp experience there, has remained memorable, and, after all, was due to my interest in tramp lodging houses. I explored the local vagabonds' resorts pretty carefully during my investigations, visiting among others the notorious Dom Viazewsky, the worst slum of the kind I have ever seen anywhere. On a winter's night in 1896 (the conditions have not changed, I am told), 10,400 men, women and children slept in five two-story buildings enclosed in a space about the size of a baseball diamond. Only a hundred paces away is the Anitchkoff Palace. The inmates of the Dom Viazewsky are the scum of the city's population, diseased, criminal and defiant. On one occasion, a woman belonging to the Salvation Army was met in the dead of night by a police sergeant and some patrolmen, as she was leaving the most dilapidated of the buildings. She had been doing missionary work. "My God!" the sergeant exclaimed, seeing her unattended. "You in here alone?" "Oh, no, not alone, officer," the intrepid little woman replied. "God is with me." "Huh," the officer grunted. "I wouldn't come in here alone with God for a big sum."