We on the Entente side have not improved our cause. We have tried to fight the Germans in their way. We have seemed to behave abominably in Greece--have become entangled in an irrelevant political quarrel there. But then we have simply been doing the best we can, according to our ability. Not many idealists would rush to offer their life for our cause now and great numbers have lost interest in it. But the unsolvable quarrel remains. How long the war will last seems to depend chiefly on the length of time the German armies can hold out against the ever-increasing machinery of death and destruction which faces them. XVII HOME BECAUSE of the regulations regarding taking printed matter in one’s luggage I was obliged to post to London some thirty packets of books. Possibly by appealing to our Embassy at Petrograd I might have obtained what is called a Foreign Office bag and have been immune from censor revision. A considerable number of British subjects are accommodated in this way. But it seems to me to be an incorrect thing to do. I had bought some dozens of pictures and ikons. I had precious manuscript which I should not dream of trusting to the post, and if it had been proposed to confiscate that manuscript at Archangel as I stepped aboard I should have remained in Russia to save it. But I got through without trouble. Our people at Archangel were extremely kind to me, and put me on a returning ammunition ship, and I went all the way to Britain in comfort and without change. The boat was a turret ship, one of those with hollowed-in sides, constructed to evade the true charges of the Suez Canal, where the toll is according to the breadth of the vessel. It had been ten times a year through the Suez Canal for twenty years, and now for the first time in its history was in northern latitudes. The crew were shivering Lascars, tripping about in one garment and looking more like girls than men. Each and every one had received from the Government two warm suits of underclothing, woolly trousers, coats, and wraps, but these things were locked away in their boxes, and you could not persuade them to wear one. For the Lascar is a real Jew in temperment and has a passion for selling clothes and chaffering over them. We steamed out gently through the traffic and along the narrow channels of the many-mouthed river, and after some hours got clear into the White Sea.[7] [7] Seven lines concerning mines and buoys excluded by Censor. When we passed a buoy the captain, who was rather a character, would retire to his sitting-room, take up his concertina, and play “Land of Hope and Glory,” the “Dead March” in _Saul_, “Ip-I-addy,” and other favourites. We sailed under sealed orders and did not sight another vessel except British war-ships and patrol boats till we were nearing Lerwick.