The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1914-08-23

| a mile between the German frontier sta.
ton and the Russian frontier station one
civilization vanished and another re-
placed it
When the passengers descend from the
train to the soil of the Autocrat of all
the Russias, they find themselves in a
world transformed. In their faces, theiI
eyes, their boards, their caps. their coats
and their boots, the people on the plat
form are as different from their nejghbors
mile away as If oceans divided them. As
the arriving strangers gaze curiously
about them upon the minions and sub
tects Of the Gar and reflect that they are
In darkest Russia" the land of the Tar
tar and the Nihilist, the spy, the censor,
the knout and Siberia a umid hush falls
upon them. With unwonted docility they
surrender their passports as they file be-
tween big uniformed men, who with
pistols in their belts, guard the one exit
from the platform, the only open door
into Russia Herding into a big room OF
the station as into a pen, they are made
aware by the incense which fills the wait
ing room and startles their nostrils that
was Rome to the glory that was Greece
and that they stand before an altar of
the Greek Church. For the altar is as
distinctive a feature of Russian railway
stations as the samovar. with its boiling
water always ready for the brewing OF
the cup that cheers race of inveterate
tea drinkers
Travellers on crossing frontiers are used
to finding another language and another
money, but now at this frontier station
they are bafiled by another alphabet. The
letters are lying down, rolling over, or
standing on their heads as II in a drunken
revel, and make hooking faces at the
hungry Westerner when he takes up the
bill Of fare in the station restaurant Per-
haps the next discovery that surprises
him is the calendar on the wall, by which
he learns that while he was crossing the
little bridge over the brook he lost thir-
teen days: and that although he may have
celebrated New Years in New York, he
is in time to celebrate it again in st.
Petersburg.
When at last the bell rings and he is
permitted to leave his cage the passenger
goes out to enter his car by steep gang
plank and finds that the very railroad bed
Is changed. For the Gar has prudently
seen to II that the rails are laid wider
apart, so that II the troops of the Kaiser
have to come afoot and horseback, as Ma
poleon's did in 1872 when they moved
upon the Russian border in a front of
400 miles.
The Invasion of 1919.
Thus widely spread out. the oncoming
host bewildered the Gar and his gem
erals, VINO had $4,000 armed serfs drawn
concentrate them, since the point of in
yasion was unknown. The handsome
Car himself had come from St Peters,
burg to an outpost of his empire and
made his headquarters in the town OF
wilma There he was waiting and watch
ing when the French Emperor SWEET
down from the Baltic, the plumes Of King
Murat waving at the head of a magnifi-
cent body of cavalry. while another army
marched under Prince Eugene ahd a third
under the command Of King Jerome, of
Westphalia-
Napoleon's first purpose was to push
back the boundary line of Russia, which
had been stealthily moving ii westward
over PROSTATE Poland. But he failed and
at his downfall Russia crept still farther.
forward, gathering in most Of the terri
tory of the Grand Duchy OF Warsaw.
The railway passenger, therefore rides
fifty miles into the empire as il now Is
before he comes to the frontier that Ma
poleon crossed, when he found the boun-
dairy in the middle Of the Niemen at
Kovno.
A little way out Of Rovno there is a
steep, round hill and the townspeople
still call it the Hill of Napoleon, since
from its crown he looked across the river
one morning in the fourth week of June
He had discarded the too weIl-known
three-cornered black hat and green coat
and disguised himself in the cap and
cloak of a Polish soldier Of his guard.
Standing there at the top, with his hun
dreds Of thousands Of soldiers swarming
the forest behind him and Russia lying
only oyer beyond the narrow stream. he