What will Christmas Day be like at home? I think of all the village churches, with the holly and evergreens, and in almost every one the little new brass plates to the memory of beautiful youth, dead and mangled, and left in the mud to await another trumpet than that which called it from the trenches. There is nothing like a boy, and all the life of England and the prayers of mothers have centred round them. One's older friends died first, and now the boys are falling, and from every little vicarage, from school-houses and colleges, the endless stream goes, all with their heads up, fussing over their little bits of packing, and then away to stand exploding shells and gas and bombs. No one except those who have seen knows the ghastly tale of human suffering that this war involves every day. Down here 550,000 Armenians have been butchered in cold blood. The women are either massacred or driven into Turkish harems. Yesterday we heard some news at last in this most benighted corner of the world! England has raised four million volunteers. Hurrah! Over one million men volunteered in one week. French takes command at home and Haig at the front. * * * * * _To Mrs. Charles Young._ HOTEL ORIENT, TIFLIS, _26 December._ DARLING J., It seems almost useless to write letters, or even to wire! Letters sometimes take forty-nine days to get to England, and telegrams are _always_ kept a fortnight before being sent. We have had great difficulty about the ambulance cars, as they all got frozen into the river at Archangel; however, as you will see from the newspapers, there isn't a great deal going on yet. I do hope you and all the family are safe and sound. I wired to ---- for her birthday to ask news of you all, and I prepaid the reply, but, of course, none came, so I am sure she never got the wire. I have wired twice to ----, but no reply. At last one gives up expecting any. I got some newspapers nearly a month old to-day, and I have been devouring them. This is rather a curious place, and the climate is quite good; no snow, and a good deal of pleasant sun, but the hills all round are very bare and rugged. I have had a cough, which I think equals your best efforts in that line. How it does shake one up! I had some queer travelling when it was at its worst: for the first night we were given a shakedown in a little mountain hospital, which was fearfully cold; and the next night I was put into a newly-built little place, made of planks roughly nailed together, and with just a bed and a basin in it. The cold was wonderful, and since then--as you may imagine--the Macnaughtan cough has been heard in the land! [Page Heading: GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS]