verify the observations. There is an account of how from one peak in a sudden blink of fine weather the leader saw two portions of the expedition in different parts of the range moving about their allotted tasks. The result of this wise organisation is that to-day the world knows every peak, glacier, and valley in Ruwenzori far more minutely than many habitable parts of the East African plateau. The expedition was not only a fine adventure, but a wonderful piece of solid and enduring scientific work. No Englishman will grudge that the honours of the pioneer have fallen to so brilliant a climber and so unwearied a traveller as the Duke of the Abruzzi. The Italian name has always stood high in mountaineering annals, and the Duke has long ago earned his place in that inner circle of fame which includes Mummery and Guido Rey, Moore and Zsigmondy. The riddle of equatorial snow has been solved, and there is nothing very startling in the answer. The upper part of the mountain has no marvels to show equal to the giant groundsels and lobelias and the forest of heath on the lower slopes. The glaciers are all small, without tributaries, as in Norway; and there are no real basins, but merely "a sort of glacier caps from which ice digitations flow down at divers points." All the same, the glacier formation is more respectable than Mr Freshfield thought, for he saw only the small ice-stream at the head of the Mobuku, and was not aware of the much greater one from Mount Stanley which descends to the upper Bujuku valley. The limit of perpetual snow is about 14,600 feet. Mr Freshfield was so struck by the small size of the Mobuku torrent where it issues from the glacier, and by its clearness, that he thought it must come from some underground spring rather than from a real melting of the ice. He maintained that tropical glaciers were consumed mainly by evaporation and only in a small degree by melting. The Duke has, however, made it clear that the glaciers of Ruwenzori are subject to the same conditions as those of the Alps, and that their streams are true glacier torrents. The limpidity of the water he ascribes to their almost complete immobility, which means that there is no grinding of the detritus in their beds. On the whole, the range offers no great scope for the energies of the mountaineer. The ice and snow work is easy, and even the huge cornices, such as are found on Margherita, are fairly safe for the climber, owing to the way in which they are propped by a forest of ice stalactites caused by the rapid melting of the snow. On the other hand, there seems to be abundance of rock climbing of every degree of difficulty, for the mountains below the snow-line fall very sheer to the valleys. Luigi di Savoia, Emin, and Gessi are virtually rock peaks; an isolated summit, Mount Cagni, is wholly rock; and there are fine rock faces on Mount Baker and the Edward and Savoia Peaks of in wind and limb, can stand on Mount Stanley. We doubt, the dome of Margherita. But however, if Ruwenzori will the experience will still be ever be a centre for the rock unique, for these mountains gymnast. The weather would have no fellows on the globe. damp the ardour of the most The other day Dr Cook pubearnest habitué of Chamonix or lished his narrative of the first San Martino. A few hours of ascent of Mount M'Kinley in sunshine once a-week are not Alaska, and there is a certain enough in which to plan out kinship between his tale and routes up cliffs whose scale far that of the Duke of the Abruzzi. exceeds the measure of the Alps. That gaunt icy peak is as unlike The Grèpon or the Dru would the ordinary snow mountain as have long remained virgin if Ruwenzori. The climb begins their crags had been for ever from the glacier at a height of slimy with moisture and draped a thousand feet, and nineteen in mist, and the climber had to thousand feet of snow and ice descend to no comfortable Mont- have to be surmounted. The anvert, but to a clammy tent pioneers slept out on the slopes among swamps and mildews. six nights before they sucAnd yet it remains almost ceeded in crawling to the sumthe strangest of the world's mit. The Alaskan giant and wonders, and its ascent will the Mountains of the Moon always be one of the finest of stand at the opposite poles of human adventures. They are climate, but both are alike in Mountains of the Moon rather being outside the brotherhood than of this common earth. of mountains. They are exThe first discoverers brought travagances of nature, moulded back tales which were scarcely without regard to human needs. credible-ice-peaks of Hima- For mountains, when all has layan magnitude, soaring out of been said, belong to the habitflame-coloured tropic jungles. able world. They are barriers For long mountaineers have between the settlements of man, been consumed with insatiable and from their isolation the curiosity as to what mysteries climber looks to the vineyards lay behind that veil of mist. and corn-lands and cities of the For all they knew, equatorial plains. An ice peak near the snow might be difficult beyond Pole and a range veiled in the the skill of man, and Ruwenzori steaming mists of the Line are the eternal and unapproachable solitudes more retired, and goal of the adventurer's ambi- sanctuaries tion. The truth is prosaic beside these imaginings. Any man who can afford the time and money, who selects the right time of year, and is sound more inviolate. The common mountain-top lifts a man above the tumult of the lowlands, but these seem to carry him beyond the tumult of the world. TIFLIS TO CONSTANTINOPLE VIA THE BLACK SEA PORTS. EAST of Belgrade no one is ever in a hurry, and what is more, no one anxious to hustle receives much sympathy. When I arrived at Tiflis I received advices which required my presence in Constantinople at the earliest possible date. From Tiflis to Constantinople is no great journey. In ordinary circumstances the traveller drops down the picturesque mountains by a quite quite fast train to Batum; here he finds a German, French, Austrian, or even Russian steamer which will land him on the shores of the Bosphorus in any time from forty-eight hours to six days. But it may well be said that in the Russian Caucasus all normal standards of reckoning have ceased. When I reached Batum I found not only a town terrorised by a handful of Georgian brigands, but a seaport under the ban of quarantine. Cholera was raging in St Petersburg. Therefore the Ottoman Government had ostracised all Russian ports. It has ever been impossible to argue with the Ottoman Government, but to impose a five days' quarantine on shipping from Batum because there is cholera in St Petersburg would seem as sagacious a measure as a similar imposition on ships bound for Liverpool from New York because of disease at Gibraltar. As a consequence of this Ottoman dread of epidemic, practically CONSTANTINOPLE, November. all foreign shipping had been withdrawn from the Black Sea ports. Therefore to reach Constantinople and evade quarantine, the traveller had perforce to make almost a complete circuit of the Black Sea in a Russian coaster, then squeeze up the Danube in a river boat, train to Bucharest, and there avail himself of one of the great Continental railway arteries. Even though this was a journey of nine days, it showed on the reckoning a profit of five days over the direct route plus the enforced quarantine. A journey along the coasts of the Black Sea in October is probably one of the most delightful yachting cruises that the traveller can take. Except in very rare circumstances, he will find the treacherous inland sea as smooth as a mill-pond. The atmosphere is perfect, retaining a little of the balmy heat of the Euxine summer tempered with a freshness that is delightful. As you coast along the land you have in turn the grandeur of the Caucasian mountains and the almost Italian beauties of the Crimea. You touch port after port, each furnished with its individual interest. You see that strange mingling of East and West which is peculiar to these regions of the Russian empire. The personal interests upon the deck of a Russian coaster are alone worth a journey to the Euxine. Here you find, con The fined in the small area which sundry of the fittings, The Russian Steam Navigation Company's Xenia left Batum at two o'clock on & Wednesday morning. Being possessed of a full measure of British dislike of shipboard gregarianism, I had approached the head steward as to the possibility of reserving in their crowded ship a four-berthed cabin to myself. You must not wonder at my audacity, for I have travelled in Russia before. The head steward said that it was impossible. I jingled a five-rouble gold piece on the marble top of a saloon table. The steward showed me to my cabin, and in exchange for the little disc of gold I received the magic key. Nor had I been unwise. On the first morning we called at two little ports, little white-barred settlements nestling at the foot of the grand wooded mountains, which seemed to rise sheer out of the dark waters of the sea. At first the routine of shipboard life was disconcerting. On Russian ships luncheon is served at half-past ten in the morning, dinner at four-thirty. As both are heavy meals, they rather outrage English appetite and digestion. I found myself placed at an exclusively Russian table. At the head of the board sat the captain, gorgeous Russian both in size and raiment. Opposite me was In an opulent Jew with his wife the next cabin to mine was and daughter. They reminded an American who had as his me of the flesh-reducing advercompanion a Russian General. tisements- dainty girl, com This American was a well fortable girl, and fat a girl. equipped traveller. His dress- Papa's figure served for the ing-case was a marvel of fat girl. Madam was, to say ivory fittings and useless glass the least of it, "comfortable," bottles with silver stoppers. and Mademoiselle might still The second day he missed claim to be in the " dainty category. Next to me was a good-looking naval lieutenant bound for Sevastopol. With the latter I was able to converse in French. But the captain filled me with admiration. He was such an enormous eater that the steward always served him last, and left the entire dish at his side. As far as I could judge, the captain never failed to empty it. As was only natural, my conversation with the sailor drifted into the quicksands of the late war with Japan. I have always admired the open and unprejudiced way in which Russian officers are prepared to discuss their recent adversities in the Far East. My latest Russian friend was possessed of a new theory concerning the passage of Rodjesvenski's fleet past the Dogger Bank. He admitted that, at the time of the disaster, he, with other officers of the Black Sea fleet, did not believe in the myth of the presence of Japanese torpedo boats, but, since the war, two circumstances had given rise to a different opinion. They were both hospital instances. In one a Russian officer was in the next bed to a Japanese officer who discussed the war with great freedom. At last the Russian put the question squarely: "Were there any Japanese torpedo boats with the English fishingfleet?" The Japanese turned away with an expressive smile as he said, "That would be telling you too much." In the other case a sick Russian officer met a Japanese commander in hospital. The latter was suffering from some lung trouble which he attributed to exposure in North Sea waters. On such shadowy evidence is the Russian Navy content to justify its own nervous breakdown. The second morning out of Batum the Xenia arrived at Novo Rassüsk. Here the landscape had undergone a change. The giant wooded hills of the Caucasus had given place to bare low downs. Novo Rassüsk has the appearance of having been a failure as a commercial seaport. Although half a dozen great corn-shoot jetties stretch out into the sea; though the town possesses wonderful quays and sea-walls; though there is berthage for scores of big vessels, the port was deserted. Our own little packet was the sole occupant of all this engineering grandeur. The town itself is primitive Russian, and, as a town, presents no attractions. In winter, with the well-known north-east wind blowing from the vast steppes of Siberia, its climate is said to be unbearably cold. We untied from Novo Rassüsk at midday and steered our course for Theodosia. Leaving the mountains behind us, we skirted the flatter coast-line leading down to the Azov. During the night we called at Theodosia, and on the following morning steamed in alongside the sea-wall at Yalta. Russia possessed a middle class I would be inclined to say that Yalta was its Margate. But, as the Russian middle class does not exist in sufficient quantities to admit this parallel, I can only allow myself to suggest that Yalta is to Russia what If |