Yesterday we heard some news at last in this most benighted corner of the world!  England has raised four million volunteers.  Hurrah!  Over one million men volunteered in one week.  French takes command at home and Haig at the front.

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To Mrs. Charles Young.

HOTEL ORIENT, TIFLIS,
26 December.

DARLING J.,

It seems almost useless to write letters, or even to wire!  Letters sometimes take forty-nine days to get to England, and telegrams are always kept a fortnight before being sent.  We have had great difficulty about the ambulance cars, as they all got frozen into the river at Archangel; however, as you will see from the newspapers, there isn’t a great deal going on yet.

I do hope you and all the family are safe and sound.  I wired to ——­ for her birthday to ask news of you all, and I prepaid the reply, but, of course, none came, so I am sure she never got the wire.  I have wired twice to ——­, but no reply.  At last one gives up expecting any.  I got some newspapers nearly a month old to-day, and I have been devouring them.

This is rather a curious place, and the climate is quite good; no snow, and a good deal of pleasant sun, but the hills all round are very bare and rugged.

I have had a cough, which I think equals your best efforts in that line.  How it does shake one up!  I had some queer travelling when it was at its worst:  for the first night we were given a shakedown in a little mountain hospital, which was fearfully cold; and the next night I was put into a newly-built little place, made of planks roughly nailed together, and with just a bed and a basin in it.

The cold was wonderful, and since then—­as you may imagine—­the Macnaughtan cough has been heard in the land!

[Page Heading:  GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS]

Yesterday (Christmas Day) we were invited to breakfast with the Grand Duke Nicholas.  A Court function in Russia is the most royal that you can imagine—­no half measures about it!  The Grand Duke is an adorably handsome man, quite extraordinarily and obviously a Grand Duke.  He measures 6 feet 5 inches, and is worshipped by every soldier in the Army.

We went first into a huge anteroom, where a lady-in-waiting received us, and presented us to “Son Altesse Imperiale,” and then to the Grand Duke and to his brother, the Grand Duke Peter.  Some scenes seem to move as in a play.  I had a vision of a great polished floor, and many tall men in Cossack dress, with daggers and swords, most of them different grades of Princes and Imperial Highnesses.

A great party of Generals, and ladies, and members of the Household, then went into a big dining-room, where every imaginable hors d’oeuvre was laid out on dishes—­dozens of different kinds—­and we each ate caviare or something.  Afterwards, with a great tramp and clank of spurs and swords, everyone moved on to a larger dining-room, where there were a lot of servants, who waited excellently.