I like several of the other men very much but they bother me with
questions. They refuse to believe that I am connected with a mission,
and consider it all as a huge joke.

I wish you could see this place. It is built in terraces up the
greenest of mountains and forms a crescent around the bay. Everybody
seems to be in uniform of some kind, and soldiers and sailors are at
every turn. The streets are a glittering panorama of strange color and
form. At night everything is ablaze, bands playing, uniforms
glittering, and flags flying. It is all just one intense thrill of
life and rhythm, and the cloven foot of my worldliness never fails to
keep time.

But when daylight comes and all the sordid ugliness is revealed,
disgust takes the place of fascination. The streets are crowded with
thousands of degraded Chinese and Koreans, who, even in their
brutality, are not as bad as the ordinary Russians.

Through this mass of poverty and degradation dash handsome carriages
filled with richly clad people. The drivers wear long blue plush
blouses with red sleeves and belt, and trousers tucked in high
boots. On their heads they wear funny little hats that look as if they
had been sat on. They generally stand up while driving and lash the
poor horses into a dead run from start to finish. Many of them are
ex-convicts and can never leave Siberia. If their cruelty to horses
is any criterion of their cruelty to their fellow men, I can't help
thinking they deserve their punishment.

I won't dare to mail this letter until I get out of Russia for they
are so cranky about their blessed old country. They would not even