19 OCTOBER 1945, Page 4

In the days of M. Molotov a glimpse at the

Russia of Nicholas I has its charms. In his posthumous book Water Under the Bridges published this week,. Sir Nevile Henderson, our last Ambassado at Berlin, tells how when he was a secretary at the St. Petersbur Embassy in 1906 he spent a week-end in Volhynia with Coun Joseph Potocki. There were in the stables over a hundred Engli hunters for the guests to choose from, and an Arab and a Russi stud as well, with two private packs of hounds, and the guests o leaving were driven fifty miles in sleighs to the nearest railway statio to catch the night express. The first sleigh was empty, except fo the driver, but carried two flaming torches to light the way. Th next carried passengers, the next again only torches, and so o with the whole 38. The sleighs were drawn by 95 horses, and th change to relays after twenty-five miles was effected in little mor than five minutes. Such was Russia pre-hammer and pre-sickle.

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