Travelling in Ruritania
SHALL we ever travel, as thought travels, without a passport, in a world untroubled by the fears and stresses of the past ? I believe we shall, but the day seems distant, for never were frontiers more jealously guarded than they are to-day.
In order to obtain permission to travel in the twelve countries which I recently visited, I had to spend long evenings and at least one laborious day in filling up a multiplicity of forms inquiring into my past and present circumstances and future intentions, and submitting them to the representatives of the nations concerned.
Poland demanded my original nationality, what my family was composed of (if a married lady state name of husband), and concluded with a sinister demand for the description of my passport—against which I wrote " Nuisance." The form on which Lithuania catechizes intending travellers is lithographed on a kind of blotting paper which smudges all entries not made in indelible pencil, a weapon I do not possess. As for Latvia, that country demanded to know what my social position was, the name of the authority which issued my passport, and in what army I had served—difficult and delicate questions to answer off-hand. On some of the forms I had to declare that " the above informations are correct " after affixing my " Paraksts, taydellinen, nimi, unter- schrift, paraksa, podpis " or signature, in the several vernaculars, and paying various sums to the officials concerned for stamping my petitions with violet eagles, hippogriffs and other emblems.
The document in which a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter has commended me to the care and good offices of all concerned, praying that I be allowed to pass freely on my occasions, is really only a ticket-of- leave : at the end of my month's tour it had been attacked by thirty officials in thirty places, in addition to the original dozen, so that when I go abroad again I shall have to trouble Sir Austen Chamberlain once more. Of course, if I were an international " crook," these formalities would be simpler and not much more expensive, for I could have the whole thing forged for a five-pound note. I speak of what I know in regard to this matter, -for once when I was a prisoner of war in hiding in Constantinople, I did, in fact, secure a forged passport, complete with photographs, signatures, and visas ; and what may be done in the dry leaf of a war-time city may be easily duplicated in the green of London to-day.
But passports are not the only snags in the path of the wayfarer. In the middle of the night one hears the clank of swords outside one's wagon-lit when travel- ling in Ruritania. Comes a knock, and a cloaked, spurred, belted figure demands that one should come to the other end of the train to open one's luggage. It is a hard life; the traveller's. Yet it is with travellers that the hope of the world's peace rests to-day.
If one is travelling fast, flying part of the way and sending one's heavy baggage by sea, in an effort to cover as much territory as possible in a limited time, officialdom comes down with a heavy hand. In one small country, where my luggage was in bond, I enlisted the help of a Ruritanian Foreign Office official, but even with his prevailing presence it took four hours of patient endeavour to release my effects from the convolutions of that Chinese Wall which is stifling Europe.
First of all my friend called at the Customs House with my keys. The box was duly inspected. All that was now needed, he said, was for me to appear in person to sign my name. So I arrived at the Customs House at the appointed hour and after some delay the documents relating to the trunk were produced. I noticed, however —and to my alarm—that they were bound into a large blue file. Knowing the ways of Government Depart- ments, I felt this boded evil.
The papers required a stamp which could only be obtained upstairs. We waited in a queue to buy it. But we waited in the wrong place, so we had to go and stand in another queue. Then we returned to the first queue, which was where the stamps were affixed. These manoeuvres occupied half an hour. The blue file was now given to a matron, who led us back to the bureau whence it had originated. There was now a queue here also, in which we lingered patiently. Finally I was informed that as I was in a hurry and a foreigner, the Chief of the Customs himself would pass on my case. A note was written to him asking him to "rush" the matter through. Behind another damsel I now ascended the stairs to the Chief's room, where my jubilance was damped by a wait of twenty minutes until he could attend to me. At last, however, he asked for my passport. I had guessed he might do so, and I produced it with pride and pleasure. More entries were now made in the blue file, and it was given to a girl who took me to another girl, who called a third girl to spell out my name to her. She wrote it down very carefully in an immense ledger.
After all this powerful help, I felt that my box must surely be in sight. Alas for my callow optimism ! A bent and very aged man now shouldered the blue file and bore it downstairs once more, to an official whose head resembled that of the adolescent Nietzsche. Nietzsche searched among a collection of rubber stamps ; chose the largest and impressed it three times on three sheets of the file. Then he fumbled among some carbon papers and wrote answers to the dozen questions of the stamp. He thought that by the aid of his carbons he was doing this in triplicate. Unfortunately the two carbons were turned the wrong way up, so that on examining the second page he found nothing but looking-glass writing on the back of the first sheet. This he tried to read, in order to fill in the other two forms, with small success. But I grow tedious, and will skip the next three interviews with scrutineers of the blue file. Feeling that I was in a dream, I found myself at a pigeon hole opposite a pretty girl in green. Had she a lover ? Was she human ? She sent me to another room, smelling of glue and sweat, where men were counting roubles.
At long, long last I appeared at a wicket where the final stamp was affixed, the compelling, crowning signa- ture written ! We were now free to leave the Customs House. The joy of open road now lay before us to the warehouse where my belongings lay.
But no, my Foreign Office friend had first to go to another part of the building to obtain a permit to accom- pany me on the journey. This took only a quarter of an hour. When at last I saw my property, already passed by an inspector, tears of gratitude stood in my eyes. It was the work of not more than a few minutes to acquire another couple of signatures for the good blue file and hand it all over with my blessing to the Ruritanian Customs.
Such is the strictly accurate and unembellished account made from notes taken in situ of one wayfarer's experience. Merchants and travellers will agree, I think, that the Customs Houses of the world need " bucking up." If we are to build a new Atlantis out of the distracted Europe of to-day, we shall have to do something about
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