The question of passport did not trouble me. The French consul would
know how to give me all the references required by the Russian
administration.

Six o'clock to-night, and it is already nine o'clock in the morning!
Bah! When certain guide books tell you how to explore Paris in two
days, Rome in three days, and London in four days, it would be rather
curious if I could not do Tiflis in a half day. Either one is a
correspondent or one is not!

It goes without saying that my newspaper would not have sent me to
Russia, if I could not speak fluently in Russian, English and German.
To require a newspaper man to know the few thousand languages which are
used to express thought in the five parts of the world would be too
much; but with the three languages above named, and French added, one
can go far across the two continents. It is true, there is Turkish of
which I had picked up a few phrases, and there is Chinese of which I
did not understand a single word. But I had no fear of remaining dumb
in Turkestan and the Celestial Empire. There would be interpreters on
the road, and I did not expect to lose a detail of my run on the Grand
Transasiatic. I knew how to see, and see I would. Why should I hide it
from myself? I am one of those who think that everything here below can
serve as copy for a newspaper man; that the earth, the moon, the sky,
the universe were only made as fitting subjects for newspaper articles,
and that my pen was in no fear of a holiday on the road.

Before starting off round Tiflis let us have done with this passport
business. Fortunately I had no need for a "poderojnaia," which was
formerly indispensable to whoever traveled in Russia. That was in the