a royal castle to be built within recent years in the city of
Posen, and appointed a popular Polish gentleman who had served
in the Prussian army and was attached to the Emperor, the Count
Hutten-Czapski, as its lord-warden. In this castle was a very
beautiful Byzantine chapel built from designs especially selected
by the Emperor. In January, 1914, we went with Allison Armour
and the Cassatts, Mrs. Wiltsee and Mrs. Whitehouse on a trip
to Posen to see this chapel.

Some of our German friends tried to play a joke on us by telling
us that the best hotel was the hotel patronised by the Poles. To
have gone there would have been to declare ourselves anti-German
and pro-Polish, but we were warned in time. The castle has a
large throne room and ball-room; in the hall is a stuffed aurochs
killed by the Emperor. The aurochs is a species of buffalo greatly
resembling those which used to roam our western prairies. The
breed has been preserved on certain great estates in eastern
Germany and in the hunting forests of the Czar in the neighbourhood
of Warsaw.

Some of the Poles told me that at the first attempt to give a
court ball in this new castle the Polish population in the streets
threw ink through the carriage windows on the dresses of the
ladies going to the ball and thus made it a failure. The chapel
of the castle is very beautiful and is a great credit to the
Emperor's taste as an architect.

While being shown through the Emperor's private apartments in
this castle, I noticed a saddle on a sort of elevated stool in
front of a desk. I asked the guide what this was for: he told