4 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



interest had we but guessed at the titanic battle which 

 only four months later was to be fought under its walls. 

 But even at the time, one sight struck me forcibly, and 

 in the light of after events I recall it vividly. We 

 were driving down one of the shady streets, when our 

 carriage drew up to allow a regiment of Cossacks to 

 pass. There were some hundreds of them, returning 

 from manoeuvres outside the city. They were all small 

 men, and sat well up on their horses' withers, as you 

 may see our English jockeys ride. As they rode by 

 they sang some monotonous marching song to the clash 

 of cymbals and the thud of their horses' feet. Our 

 companion, a Polish gentleman, drew attention sarcastic- 

 ally to their dusty accoutrements and careless ranks, but 

 for the moment I could not look at those thino-s. What 

 struck me, even in that fleeting vision of ochre and 

 scarlet and thumping cymbals, was the virility of the 

 corps. Here was no war machine, but a living force — 

 the stuff with which battles must be won. . . . Their 

 voices rose and fell in abrupt barbaric cadence, as they 

 streamed away down the sunny road, and turned towards 

 the Vistula. 



In the evening we left Warsaw for Moscow, where 

 we were to meet Miss Czaplicka. The rather tedious 

 journey across the plains of Poland would have been 

 wearisome no longer if we could have foreseen the part 

 that the country was so soon to play in the greatest war 

 in the world. 



At Moscow, a disaster occurred. Our luggage, which 

 had been registered correctly from London, and which 

 we had seen safely through the customs at AlexandrovQ, 



