Albuquerque morning journal., 1920-11-29


train was scarcely well started be-
fore l hit the Greeks and for three
days / got abundant exercise open
ing and closing luggage and assur-
ing officials | didn't have more
than 100 cigarettes The quest for
cigarettes seems to be the faVorite
pastime in the Balkans. ....
Waits Two Days for Train.
At Trieste | had to wait two days
for a train and consumed most of
the time hurrying up a visa getter
who tried to make the task of get
ting me through the Italian police
control appear to be extremely diff
ficult. / also amused myself shop
ping among the money-changers IN
order to get my odd assortment OF
rubles, francs. piastres. leis and
drachmas converted into Austrian
crowns. There were only six sets
of customs officials to pass between
Trieste and Berlin. AS there We're
no sleeping cars the frontiers were
not especially annoying. one gets
used to anything.
In the matter of travel intorma-
ton, Berlin is farther from the
new Baltic sea than Zamboanga.
The travel agencies did't know how
to get to Riga. Yes, there were
ships from Stettln-sometllhes'
Also from Danzig-posslbly. IL
had been rumored there were
trains through Lithuania a few
weeks ago, but the war had been
! resumed. Somebody was flghtlnse
somebody else, somewhere, and
military passes were probably nee
esssary. If one went TO Memel II
might be one could get a motor
car to Libau, but there generally
wasn't any petrol. The railroads
were out of coal, but sometimes
thev ran with wood if they could
get it cut. and could induce their
disabled locomotives to work.
Nothing TO DO but Start.
There was nothing to do but
start In fact that is all one can
do almost anywhere in Europe
today. And it is safe to conceal
plenty of expense money in one
clothing and trust to luck that the
customs officials won't take 1t II
they find it. Berlin was filled
with correspondents trying to flnd
a way to get to the Riga peace con-
ference. They tried various routes,
but | managed to get there ahead
of most OF them by taking the train
to the Lithuanian frontier. | was
thrown back by the military con-
troll. which wouldn't let me go 10
Kovno. / shuttled back to lnster-
burg and caught a train to MemeE
There l caught up with two corre-
spondents Of London papers, ana
we started by motor bus for Lbau.
We tried to take a boat but the
wind was so high the captain
wouldn't start. And as 1t was the
windy season he didn't know what
day he could make the run.
Highway Extremely Muddy.
The highway from Memel TO
Ijbau runs through a marshy FOR
est and was extremely muddy. The
NOTORIOUS was old and wheezy But
il was our last hope. After we had
run ten miles it baked. 1t was
getting dark and most of the pas
sengers wanted to go back to Me
mel. Libau was fifty miles ahead,
but we newspaper men INSISTED
upon going on, and finally argued
down the other twenty passengers.
The machine was patched up ana
limped on. Two hours later /.
stalled in the mud and we lay all
night in the forest, far from any
house, without food. A heaVy
rainstorm made the situation worse
and intensified the INDICATION OF
many of the passengers, VINO
cursed the Englishmen in seven
different languages. .,
The German conductor OF the
motorbus tried to drown his sor-
row by drinking champagne ne was
carving as freight and Voclferous-
" declared he was young African
tiger. This added to the terror OF
several of the timid passengers VINO
cheered up their friends by telling
them that eight persons mad peeh
murdered by robbers in that very
forest the week before.
But we weren't murdered ana
when daylight came the driver
managed to tinker up the bus, so
we ran a few miles further TO
telephone and arranged for tow
which landed us in Libau in time
to catch a night train for Riga. we
were there a day before the poi
shevists arrived and in the five or
six days which elapsed before tfie
Poles came had an opportunity 10
look over Riga and all LetVia'
which proved to be extremely Well
ordered in spite of the poverty and
youth of the Letvian republlc, punt
on the ruins of the War-torn Rus-
sian province.
Another Associated Press eorre-
spondent who had been at the pre-
vious conference at Minsk, came
from Poland with delegates, ana
was the only foreign correspondent
so honored. The Poles arrived at
DanZig by special trains and traV-
eled on a British destroyer to LII
bau, thus avoiding Lithuanla'
which extends no welcome to Poles
in these days because of the Polisn