I
A CHAIN OF HAPPENINGS
Winter changing to summer I gave up life in
towns and set off upon a new adventure. In May
I was looking at Bokhara and the gay-coloured
meditative Mohammedan world. In June I was
tramping across Russian Central Asia the way
the pioneers go to find new land and new life.
My road companions were people who had given
up the old and were seeking the new—not farther
West but farther East. By July I had crossed to
southern Siberia, and was away on the Altai
Mountains when the War with Germany broke out.
In the autumn I returned in the wake of the
mobilised Russian army, and was in Moscow during
the first month of its enthusiasm, then at Libau
and Vilna and Warsaw, at Petrograd, and home to
England. I wrote my book on the War. All the
winter I wrote and spoke for Russia. Life resolved
itself into lectures, speeches, addresses, meetings,
and all with the view of making Russia and
especially Russian Christianity better known in
England. Time flies in such a way, and very