poke fluent
Finnish, at once secured the only cart to take our things over the ferry
to the railway station about half a mile away.

It was borne in upon me during this journey what an immense country
Russia is. From Torneo to Petrograd does not look far on the map, but
we left Torneo on Wednesday night, and did not arrive in Petrograd till
12.30 A. M. on Saturday, about fifty-two hours' hard travelling
to cover this little track--a narrow thread, almost lost the immensity
of this great Empire.

Petrograd is not one of those cities whose charms steal upon you
unawares. It is immense, insistent, arresting, almost thrusting itself
on your imagination. It is a city for giants to dwell in, everything is
on such an enormous scale, dealt out in such careless profusion. The
river, first of all, is immense; the palaces grandiose, the very blocks
of which they are fashioned seem to have been hewn by Titans. The names
are full of romance and mystery. The fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul,
for instance, how it brings back a certain red and gold book of one's
youth, full of innocent prisoners in clanking chains confined in fetid
underground dungeons. It seemed incredible to really behold its slender,
golden minarets on the other side of the Neva. But this was no time for
sight-seeing, we were all very anxious to get to work at once. So my
first excursion in Petrograd was to the Central Bureau of the Red
Cross.

The director of the Red Cross received me most kindly and promised that
we should have work very soon. He suggested that in the meantime we
should go and stay in a Russian Community of Sisters, who had a hospital
in Petrograd. I was very glad to accept this offer for us all, for we
must assimilate Russian methods and ways of thought as soon as possible,
if we were to be of real use to them. Still I very much hoped that we
should not be kept in Petrograd very long, as we wanted, if possible, to
get nearer the front. I told the director that we had been inoculated
against cholera and typhoid, and would be quite pleased to be sent to
the infectious hospitals if that would be more help, as there are always
plenty of people to nurse the wounded, but comparatively few who for one
reason or another are able to devote themselves to this other very
necessary work.

We betook ourselves without delay to the Community of Russian Sisters,
and were installed in dear little cell-like rooms at the top of the
house devoted to the Siste