THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



163 



parity and equality in which the two 

 States are considered. 



San Marino has coined its own money, 

 though at present the Italian monetary 

 system is adopted. It has its own postage 

 stamps, the ever - present three towers 

 being engraved in different colors in ac- 

 cordance with their value. The interna- 

 tional telegraph and postal regulations 

 are placed in the hands of the Italian 

 Government. 



Anomalous as it may seem, the little 

 Republic has, on rare occasions in the 

 past, bestowed titles of nobility upon for- 

 eigners who have greatly benefited the 

 country. As for its nobility or patrician 

 order, which seems to have crept in dur- 

 ing the seventeenth century, when the 

 title was given the regents, later councils 

 eliminated such distinctions among a free 

 people. The patrician families whose 

 names are enrolled upon the Republic's 

 "Book of Gold" are those who have per- 

 formed exceptional services for the com- 

 munity. 



THE REPUBLIC'S ORDER OE KNIGHTHOOD 



There is a knightly order of five grades 

 called the Equestrian Order of Civil and 

 Military Merit. The first three grades 

 are bestowed for service to the Republic ; 

 the last two for service to humanity. 



All the forms and ancient customs are 

 very dear to the people. The peasants 

 evince a wonderful reverence for their 

 country. These contadini live among 



their vines and fields, with their sheep 

 and their great white cattle, keeping alive 

 customs that are only picturesque mem- 

 ories in other lands. Here the women, 

 sitting in the doorvard, carding the wool 

 or spinning the flax, have ever before 

 them the unchanging outline of the three- 

 towered mountain. Men guiding the 

 plow, behind the great white oxen, seem 

 ever laboring toward . the protecting 

 heights of the guardian citadel. 



On Sundays, the outpouring from the 

 churches in the castelli, or villages, is a 

 colorful picture of peasant life which 

 could have been posed a hundred or many 

 hundred years ago. And a sight which 

 makes the Republic a decided contrast to 

 Italy, only a few miles away, is the num- 

 ber of young men, living over again today 

 the customs of their fathers. A change 

 in their habits would be a disaster. 



San Marino has had its opportunities 

 to change from unassuming quiet and 

 simple integrity. Some years ago an al- 

 luring offer was made to turn the Repub- 

 lic into another Monte Carlo. Though it 

 would have meant wealth to the citizens 

 as well as the government, the offer was 

 rejected. 



The littlest Republic in the world, true 

 to the precepts of its fourth century 

 Christian founder, the Dalmatian stone- 

 cutter, has perhaps found the secret of 

 eternal peace and perpetual liberty in the 

 modesty of its pretensions. 



THE BRITISH 



WHILE lacking the romantic in- 

 terest and religious significance 

 of their triumphant Holy Land 

 campaign, which resulted in the elevation 

 of the Christian cross once more over 

 Jerusalem, no military operation of Brit- 

 ish forces in the Near East has been of 

 greater importance than the recent occu- 

 pation of Baku, the great oil city of the 

 Russian Empire. 



Four-fifths of all the oil produced in 

 Russia comes from the 2,700 wells of the 

 two vast oil fields of the Baku region. 

 In 191 5 (the latest available statistics, 



TAKE BAKU 



owing to the chaotic conditions which 

 have obtained for two years throughout 

 the Slav dominions) the Baku output was 

 more than seven million tons of oil. The 

 lighter grades formerly were transported 

 by pipe line to Batum, on the Black Sea. 



Baku is built in the form of an amphi- 

 theater on the south side of the Apsheron 

 peninsula, which juts far out into the 

 Caspian Sea. It is said to derive its name 

 from the violent squalls (badkube) which 

 frequently strike this section of the west 

 Caspian coast. 



Although there was a settlement at this 



