MY INTERPRETER RETURNS. 233 



The proprietor of this lively concern was an amiable, 

 and, for a Russian, fairly honest young man, who 

 kindly informed me that serfage was abolished through- 

 out the Czar's dominions; speaking as though he were 

 communicating a piece of news that I, being a for- 

 eigner, had perhaps not heard of, though the emanci- 

 pation must have taken place soon after he came into 

 the world. 



Shortly after crossing the Dneiper I happened on an 

 old acquaintance that I had last seen in Persia, in the 

 form of the neat iron posts and triple wires of the 

 Indo-European Telegraph Line. 



From London to Calcutta, overland, by the most 

 direct practicable route is somewhere near 8000 miles. 

 Stationed here and there at intervals of a few hundred 

 miles all along this distance are little groups, or solitary 

 British subjects, the links of an active chain of politi- 

 cal and commercial sympathy connecting two widely 

 separated capitals of the British Empire, the home 

 capital and the metropolis of India. The links of this 

 great Anglo-Indian chain are strung out through 

 Belgium, Germany, and European Russia to Odessa; 

 thence through the Crimean Peninsula to Kertch ; 

 down through Circassia and Georgia to Tiflis ; across 

 Transcaucasia and the Persia frontier to Tabreez. 

 From Tabreez they continue on eastward to Teheran. 

 At the Persian capital the Indo-European line con- 

 nects with the line owned and operated by the Indian 

 government. Practically one is but a continuation of 

 the other, however, and from Teheran the little groups 

 of Englishmen extend on south to Bushire, passing 

 through the cities of Ispahan and Shiraz. From 



