24 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 21

My Russian and Tartish Journals. By the Dowager Marchioness of

Dufferin and Ava. (John Murray. 10s. Gd. net.)—Lord Dufferin, after his return from Canada, was our Ambassador at Petrograd from 1879 to 1881, and at Constantinople from 1881 to 1884, when he became Viceroy of India. Lady Dufferin has already published her Canadian and Indian journals, and now prints in this interesting volume the journal-letters which she sent home from Russia and Turkey. The two winters which she spent at Petrograd were marred by continual Nihilist plots, ending in the murder of the Tsar Alexander ITT. on January 13th, 1881 ; but Lady Dufferin had her fill of gaiety. She describes very brightly her pleasant years at Constantinople. with a visit to Egypt, and gives a humorous account of a lunch with Abdul Hantid, an insig- nificant little man who ate in silence amid his terrified Ministers. Those agreeable times seem very distant.