My friends the M.s have long wished to sell their large house in Vladikavkaz, but have held its value at what was in the old days an absurdly high figure. People used to laugh when the price was mentioned. But this year, “as if by miracle,” to use my friends’ phrase, a purchaser turned up, agreed to their price and completed the transaction in six hours. He was pleased and they were pleased. “What sort of a man was he?” I asked. “Oh, a sort of a Tartar,” they replied. He made a long way the better bargain, for he understood to what extent the rouble had lost value. On the other hand my friends paid off a big debt with these depreciated roubles, and there also they gained. The people who have made money by the war are busy buying land and houses. This is reproachfully called land speculation, but is in reality commonsense action on the part of those who wish to make fast their wealth. When I paid a visit to Kislovodsk in the Caucasus, an extremely popular watering place in the mountains, I found a perfect rage of buying and selling property, brought about by this elementary change in values. The public are still exhorted to pay for their railway tickets in gold, but are less inclined to do so than ever. There is reason to believe that there are a number of millions of gold coins being hoarded in the country. Friends have shown me their private supplies. When one reads of burglaries, there is often a mention of several hundreds of roubles in gold being stolen. In the southern districts of the Empire German agents have appeared, offering 15 roubles paper for 10 roubles gold. In this way Germany is said to have collected a considerable amount of Russian gold. The traffic was discovered by the police in Russian Central Asia, where men were found to be carrying this gold into Persia and thence to Turkey and Germany in small hand-bags. Many arrests were made, including that of M. Poteliakhof, a rich Bokhara Jew and dealer in cotton, who was found to be deep in this nefarious trade.