I take my ticket to Kief and a supplement to Warsaw. At half-past three we are allowed to board the Russian train and spread out our bedding and make ourselves comfortable. The station is dark and gloomy, the dreariest station in western Russia. As we stand at the windows of the train and look out a strange procession comes up out of the darkness—threescore of men in irons, following a soldier who carries on a pole high above his head a flaming naphtha torch. The faces of the men are pale, furtive, hairy, their shoulders awkward; some are in old blouses, some in collars, some in sheepskins; they are Jews, Poles, Russians, chained together in fours, marching along the railway track to a barred convict-train waiting at a siding. Foot soldiers accompany them with drawn swords in their uplifted hands. They come out of the darkness like living shadows and disappear into the darkness again. “_Soloveiki_,” says the conductor disparagingly. “Well,” says a Russian, “I don’t suppose they’re heroes. Poland swarms with thieves and smugglers, and people smuggling themselves across the frontier in order to get to America.” “They are human beings,” says another. “They are in chains and we free. It is a heavy sight.” But the second bell and the third bell sound, and the train moves gradually out of the station and nearly every one lies down to sleep. Even when we arrive at Warsaw many of the passengers are snoring and have to be awakened up by acquaintances or porters. Across the two miles of the slush-covered cobbles of Warsaw, through driving rain and sleet, in an open _droshky_ at dawn, from the Vienna to the Brest station. “_A vam ne skoro!_” says the Russian porter who greets me. “Your train is not soon. The next for Kief is at four o’clock in the afternoon.” I have breakfast. I stroll into the rainy city and back, have a plate of hot soup, read the papers, write letters. Opposite me in the Kief train was a little girl in simple but antique national attire, in soiled clothes, but having a fresh and delicate classical face and black hair in two plaits, one about each little ear—a rare beauty: it was a piquant pleasure just to look at her. “When do we get to Kharkof?” she asked. “Seven, to-morrow night.” “Oh, what a long time! It’s a long way: it’s the first time I’ve been away from home.” As the guard blew his whistle she stood up, looked towards the city, and crossed herself. “Are you a little Russian?” I asked. “No; a Pole. I was once a Jewess, but have just been baptized. See....” She showed me a little crucifix, and the figure of the Virgin on a little medallion hanging from her neck. “You’re a Catholic now?” “Yes; and I don’t like the Jews.” I wondered whether in view of the ill odour in which the Jews were at that time, she had been told by her mother to announce her conversion very distinctly.