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 the genuine Slav, the officials whose names terminated in 'off,' 'eff,' and 'ow,' were hostilely suspicious, and at times overbearingly rude; their conduct, we fondly hoped, contrasts strongly and glaringly with the demeanour which we believe would be adopted by British officials in the native districts of India or in the disturbed quarters of Ireland towards a Russian diplomatist travelling obviously en touriste for the simple and avowed object of instruction and personal amusement. Some allowance must, perhaps, be made for the inability of the average Russian officer to realise the fondness of Europeans in general, and Englishmen in particular, for travelling on their own account for the simple pleasure of seeing new places. Many of the Russian officers whom we met had lived three, four, or five years in the same district without even going outside of it; they were extraordinarily ignorant and indifferent to the resources of their own newly acquired territories, and in some cases they did not even know the names of the stations on their own railway. Painful from one point of view as this ignorance may