464 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-I 



found that all the old clothing which had been stored there 

 during many generations had descended from the shelves 

 and hooks and had assumed kneeling postures about the 

 floor. All of us heard the story with much solemnity, 

 when good old Dr. Law, chaplain of the British church, 

 broke the silence with the words, &quot;That must have been 

 a family of very pious habits.&quot; This of course broke the 

 spell. 



I should be sorry to have it thought that all my stay 

 in the Russian capital was given up to official routine and 

 social futilities. Fortunately for me, the social demands 

 were not very heavy. The war in the Crimea, steadily 

 going against Eussia, threw a cloud over the court and 

 city and reduced the number of entertainments to a mini 

 mum. This secured me, during the long winter evenings, 

 much time for reading, and in addition to all the valuable 

 treatises I could find on Eussia, I went with care through 

 an extensive course in modern history. 



As to Eussian matters, it was my good fortune to be 

 come intimately acquainted with Atkinson, the British 

 traveler in Siberia. He had brought back many portfolios 

 of sketches, and his charming wife had treasured up a 

 great fund of anecdotes of people and adventure, so that 

 I seemed for a time to know Siberia as if I had lived there. 

 Then it was that I learned of the beauties and capabilities 

 of its southern provinces. The Atkinsons had also 

 brought back their only child, a son born on the Siberian 

 steppe, a wonderfully bright youngster, whom they des 

 tined for the British navy. He bore a name which I fear 

 may at times have proved a burden to him, for his father 

 and mother were so delighted with the place in which he 

 was born that they called him, after it, &quot;Alatow-Tam 

 Chiboulak.&quot; 1 



The general Eussian life, as I thus saw it, while intensely 

 interesting in many respects, was certainly not cheerful. 

 Despite the frivolity dominant among the upper class and 



1 Since writing the above, I have had the pleasure of receiving a letter from this 

 gentleman, who has for some time held the responsible and interesting posi 

 tion of superintendent of public instruction in the Hawaiian Islands, his son, 

 a graduate of the University of Michigan, having been Secretary of the Ter 

 ritory. 



