ON BOARD “THE SALSETTE”
20th August, 1908
It has been rather rough and cold all day but for all that I have greatly enjoyed it. I was so tired after last night that I slept on till past 9 o'clock this morning, and then had breakfast in bed. All the competitions have started again, and out of the two I have played to-day I have again won one. It has been very nice and restful having another whole day at sea - one gets so frightfully tired sightseeing. Every town we have been to see so far has been paved with cobble stones, roads and pavements alike, and this, especially when one has thin soles to one's shoes, very quickly makes one's feet ache.
I cannot yet quite realise that to-morrow morning when I wake up we shall really be in Russia! I am looking forward to it with very mixed feelings. It will seem so strange to be regarded by everyone with the greatest suspicion and to feel that many of the people against whom one brushes in the streets may be either police spies or anarchists. But oh! it ought all to be so fearfully interesting - I only wish I were more accustomed and better able to write down my impressions. I am conscious of the different atmosphere (this is the only word I can think of to explain what I mean) that envelope all the new countries to which we have been, yet I find it dreadfully difficult to put into words all I feel and see. But I must just let everything soak into me, and simply content myself with writing here the bare actual facts, and without doubt all I see and feel will influence the whole of my nature, and deepen my understanding and make altogether a greater artist.
Friday 21st August
When I came on board this morning I found the whole place swarming with Russian officials of every kind and description, and the ship herself entirely surrounded by Russian warships. Somehow my first impression was horribly gruesome. Standing right out on the water - one on either side of us, are two big great buildings, these are prisons and fortresses combined,
