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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph from Ella R. Christie 

 FLOWER GIRLS AND BOYS AT A WAY STATION ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY 



being on the west coast of South America, 

 I inquired why large sums were being 

 expended on the construction of harbor 

 works at Antofagasta when, only a few 

 miles away to the north, there was a better 

 sheltered bay at Mejillones. "Because," 

 was the reply, "there was nobody at 

 Mejillones to put up the money that was 

 needed to outbid the people who wanted 

 the harbor to be at Antofagasta." 



WHERE COURTESY BECAME A TRIAL 



We arrived at Tomsk at i a. m. and 

 on stepping out of the cars were received 

 by a bevy of uniformed officials, headed 

 by the chief of the police, a grave per- 

 sonage, decorated with seven medals and 

 six orders (crosses and ribbons). In 

 Russia under the old regime orders and 

 medals were distributed according to 

 length of service and the satisfaction 

 given to the superiors in the department, 

 and the medals determined and indicated 

 the salary paid, a useful method in a 



bureaucracy both of securing perfect 

 subservience and of impressing the mind 

 of the undecorated private citizen. 



We were driven three miles through 

 woods to the city — in Siberia, as in India, 

 stations are apt to be far from towns — 

 and lodged in a passable hotel, where, 

 however, though it was August, no win- 

 dow was open or could be opened, and 

 baths were unattainable. 



No one spoke anything but Russian, 

 and as I had forgotten the little I had 

 learned thirty-seven years before, the 

 position was difficult. Our police chief's 

 sense of duty and politeness compelled 

 him to remain along with us, though it 

 was now 2 a. m. and our grateful and 

 frequently repeated bows did not seem to 

 intimate to him that his further stay was 

 needless. 



Searching up and down through a 

 Franco-Russian phrase book, I could 

 find, as usually happens, no sentence that 

 fitted the occasion, but many that seemed 



