Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1913-01-25
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ON 5InPEFON Pass

try and all his fixed habits had bet
ter remain at home, for the science
and fine art of travelling consists in
reducing our material necessities and
local fads to a minimum. For all
that. those whose pleasure it is to
Journey with "all the comforts of
home" can do so today on all the
main lines of travel in Russia-from
Riga to st. Petersburg, Moscow.
Mimi, Don. and Odes-
sa. International wagon-lits, polyglot
porters, electric lifts, and meals
served to the wailing of Hungarian
music all are there, combining the
creature comforts Of trip to Paris
with rapid impression of the land
scapes and people of Russia. But for
the man who can doff on occasion his
garments Of custom, to whom the
cities of men offer something more
than museums and meals, the byways
of desultory travel in Russia open up
a new and inspiring field of recrea-
ton and knowledge. Especially won
derful are the unfrequented beauties
of the Caucasus and the Armenian
highlands. all that fertile and historic
land which lies between the Black
Sea and the Caspian; and the jour
ney thence, from Tif1is by railway and
steamer, to Tashkend and Fergana,
Bokhara and Samarkland. Here, in
summer vacations wanderings, one
may see Europe and Asia overlap
ping and dovetailing, their conflict of
ethics and economics acting and re-
acting at thousand points of absorb
ing interest; and all in comfort quite
sufficient for any sensible man.
Buying Railway Tickets.
In buying tickets at Russian rail-
way station, one soon learns also
that 1t is wiser to book them in ad-
vance. for the drawbacks Of the
"Nichevo" system of philosophy are
nowhere so conspicuous as at
crowded ticket Office TO the writer
1t has happened on nearly every rail-
way in Russia, including the Trans
Siberian at Moscow, and at Kharbin,
that, after being informed at the tick
ct office that no sleeping-car accom-
mediation was available, coupe has
been Forthcoming on the train as the
result of largesse to the conductor
and other douceurs. On one occa-
sion. boarding the Revel-Petersburg
express at Weimarn station at a. m,
/ was informed by the conductor that
there was no room except in the cor
ridor, only to discover that every de-
partment was occupied by single
passenger with a single ticket, each
of whom had paid the conductor for
undisturbed privacy. Incidents of this
kind are contrary to the Anglo
Saxon's ideas of the fitness of things.
but they can usually be adjusted by
invoking the Intervention of any dis
interested member of the staff, say,
the next station master The patience
with which the average Russian,
sucked in the "Nichevo" creed, en-
dures these things, Is at first source
of constant surprise to the foreigner
not only a race that has borne for
centuries with bureaucratic inetfi-
NlCASy SOuAu buu5 dSCSpI lhChl no P1A
of the established order of things i'm
mutable.
remember. one hot afternoon last
July, watching the sale of tickets to
passengers by Black Sea steamer at
Novorossisk There was a surging
crowd and but one ticket Office, with
a tiny window, some four feet high,
at which each suppliant squirmed in
turn. and inside it sat a weary clerk.
apparently utterly Indifferent to time
and tide and all the things that strug-
gled under an unkind heaven. In the
intervals of his toll, after writing out
an officers special ticket in duplicate
with a reluctant pen, he would light
a cigarette, signing heavily, and sip
his lemonade tea, oblivious of the per-
spring crowd. And again. when he
had issued to an ordinary passenger
his passage ticket and his berth tick
ct, his wifes tickets, and a special
ticket for the baby. and had care
fully blotted all the endorsements
thereon, the change out Of a ten
rouble note had to be laboriously cal
| culated, and then checked on an
| abacus in the corner.