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REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



Xovemhcr 1, 1913. 



naval warfare he went out on the flag- 

 ship of the Russian squadron at Port 

 Arthur, the " Petropavlovsk," and 

 perished with all her crew when she 

 struck a floating Japanese mine and 

 sank. He painted a marvellous series of 

 Scriptural pictures, which excitid much 

 discussion and provoked an uproar in 

 the Catholic circles of Vienna. But it 

 was his score of pictures showing with 

 horrible reality the greatest catastrophe 

 in war that has ever appalled the imagi- 

 nation of mankind, which most im- 

 pressed those who saw them. 



THE RETREAT OF THE GRANDE ARMEE. 



In the whole blood-stained tragedy of 

 war there is no more terrible chapter than 

 that which describes the retreat of Napo- 

 leon and his Grand Army. 



I will always remember the last pic- 

 ture, which represents Napoleon leaning 

 upon a stick, walking through the snow 

 followed by his staff and a long line of 

 his dwindling army. There he was 

 tramping along through the desolate 

 landscape white with snow, through 

 which peeped here and there ghastly 

 relics which reminded us that the few 

 flgures we see are but a miserable hand- 

 ful of survivors, while hundreds of thou- 

 sands of their fellows have perished be- 

 neath the winding sheet of the Rus- 

 sian winter. It makes one feel cold, so 

 marvellously had the painter caught the 

 frozen stillness of the scene. " Pictures 

 like these," said the Kaiser, " are our best 

 guarantee against war." After looking 

 long and earnestly at the Napoleon on 

 tramp in the snow, he turned awaj' with 

 the remark : " And in spite of that there 

 will still be men who want to govern the 

 world. But they will all end like this." 



A PYRAMID OF SKULLS. 



His "Pyramid of Skulls" is one of 



the most famous pictures in the Moscow 



Gallery. It is dedicated to all the great 



conquerors that have been, that are, and 



that will be. It is the Apotheosis of the 



Glory of War. It is the grim pyramid 



that remains to commemorate " the first 



and last of fields, Kingmaking Victory." 



In Western Europe, wrote my father, tliere 

 is &inflBcient veneer of civilisation and 

 humanity to render it impossible for even a 

 Napoleon to commemorate lids triumplis by 

 rearing a pyramid of the skulls of his slaugh- 



tered enemies. But in Central Asia, where 

 the human animal is not ashamed to give 

 full vent to hia natural savagery, the cus- 

 tom of commemorating victories by piling up 

 skulls of the slain is one of the most ancient 

 and familiar practices of great conquerors. 

 Even with comparatively recent times a pyra- 

 mid of skulls erected near Nisch, in Southern 

 Servia, survived as a relic of Turkish bar- 

 barism, an unmistakable fingerpost of Otto- 

 man conquest. But «-ith the exception of the 

 pyramid at Nisch, Europe has hitherto pre- 

 ferred to commemorate her victories in less 

 realistic fashion. In the place of pyramids of 

 skulls we have the Arc de Triomphe, but 

 both are expressions of the same sentiment; 

 and if the skulls of all the slain in the battles 

 whose names are inscribed in the Arc de 

 I'Etoile were collected in one vast hean, they 

 would dwarf even the pyramids which were 

 reared to commemorate the devastating con- 

 quests of Tamerlane. There is, it must be 

 admitted, a certain charm about the Asiatic 

 method of demonstrating a victory by a 

 monument of skulls that appeals to the 

 simple instincts of the barbarian, which are 

 never far beneath the surface of any of us. 



Whether historically accurate or not, there 

 is no doubt that Vassili Verestchagin has pro- 

 duced a very remarkable picture, one upon 

 which the eye rests with a certain melancholy 

 satisfaction, which is natural to man when 

 he feels that he has arrived at the ultimate 

 and bottom fact of things. There is in these 

 grey skulls, all wind-worn and sabre-slashed, 

 on which the raven perches, looking eagerly 

 for some stray shred of human flesh not yet 

 shrivelled in the sun or gnawed by vermin, 

 the last word of the great drama, the open- 

 ing scenes of which are bright with all the 

 pomp and circumstance of war. After many 

 succeeding acts of the deepest tragedy, it 

 culminates in this silent pyramid on the frame 

 of which the artist has inscribed his ironical 

 dedication: "To all conquerors, past, pre- 

 sent, and to come I" 



FROM MOSCOW TO THE CRIMEA. 

 In Moscow we experienced a heavy 

 fall of snow, and sledges took the place 

 of cabs in the streets. The quaint 

 spired churches, their gorgeous interiors, 

 covered with mosaic, pictures and pre- 

 cious metals, so that no speck of wall is 

 visible, the priceless painting protected 

 with gold shields, sprinkled with valu- 

 able stones, and the ikones with faces 

 and hands kissed away by devout wor- 

 shippers, all interested father immensely, 

 and remain a vivid memory with me. 



THE CRIME OF THE CRIMEA. 

 We left Moscow with the thermometer 

 below freezing point, but found Sebas- 

 topol under a smiling Italian — or 

 Queensland — sky, with a winter climate 

 like summer in England. As the train 

 ran through the rocky Crimea, an 



