1503, records his reception at the Citadel. After passing the iron gate at the head of the fifty steps, where some 300 Mamluks in white stood silent and respectful 'like observant Franciscan friars,' the embassy passed through eleven more doors, each with its guards, till, tired out, they had to sit down to rest themselves.'

"They then entered the area or courtyard of the castle, which they judged to be six times the area of St Mark's Square. On either side of this space 6000 Mamluks dressed in white and with green and black caps were drawn up; at the end of the court was a silken tent with a raised platform covered with a carpet, on which was seated Sultan Kansuh el-Ghuri, his undergarment being white surmounted with dark green cloth, and the muslin turban on his head with three points or horns, and by his side was a naked scimitar.' *

Thirteen years later, on Aug. 24, 1516, the brave old Sultan fell fighting against the Ottomans in the disastrous battle near Aleppo. Tuman Bey, who reluctantly took up the sceptre at Cairo, and made a gallant stand, was defeated and hanged at the Zuweyla gate. Selim of Turkey was hailed Sultan in the Friday prayers of the mosque of Cairo in January 1517; and the last of the shadowy caliphs was carried a prisoner to Constantinople.

So ended the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, of which it may at least be recorded that it staved off the flood of barbarism, both east and west, of Mongols and of Crusaders, rescued Egypt from the fate of Persia, and preserved the unbroken continuity of Muslim learning and civilisation, as it was preserved nowhere else, in the city which the Mamluks made beautiful and renowned as the capital of imperial Islam.

STANLEY LANE-POOLE.

* Paton's Egyptian Revolution,' quoted in Prof. Margoliouth's interesting sketch of the history of Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus,' p. 135.

Art. 13.-A VISIT TO RUSSIA.

IT may not be without value to sum up in a few pages some personal observations made in Petrograd and Moscow in the course of a visit to Russia this winter. Blood is thicker than water; and, as a Russian, I felt intensely the desire to come into direct touch with Russian society, to learn about its needs and aims, to convey tidings from England and, possibly, to help by deed or advice. It would be out of the question to trouble the readers of the 'Quarterly Review' on the present occasion with dry data and statistics, but something may be gleaned from opinions and impressions; and it is in this unassuming spirit that I should like to submit some recollections and thoughts.

I may say at once that what impressed me most was the spectacle of a grand mobilisation of society in the service of the Commonwealth, a mobilisation not decreed nor ordered but spontaneous and organic. The best introduction to what I saw in Russia was provided by what I saw in England. Those who have lived in England during the momentous autumn and winter months of 1914 will never forget the transformation of the country at sight, the all-pervading khaki which spread over the land, the martial aspect of doctors, the dwindling of the Universities in their hibernating state, the tramping and drilling of recruits on all roads and squares. The British were indeed showing that they were in earnest about their voluntary army system, and one did not want to read about the feats of the United States volunteers in the Civil War in order to feel that a great national force has been roused to action.

I saw something of the same kind in Russia; but, if I may say so, the dominating emblem was not the khaki uniform, but the Red Cross. Not that Russia had sent out fewer soldiers, but the millions of armed men had already, to a great extent, been pushed to the front; and the reservists and conscripts on drill did not make the same show in contrast with the rest of the population as in England. On the other hand, everybody was more or less engaged in hospital work or in preparing equipment for the troops.

I am speaking from personal experience about the

two capitals-Moscow and Petrograd, but I have been assured on reliable authority that the same characteristic applies to the provinces as well. I witnessed, for example, the hospital work done by the personnel of a large girls' school in Moscow. After a full day's teaching, the mistresses started off to help in the daily routine of two hospitals, one of which was organised and maintained at their cost in co-operation with other high schools, while the other was supported by voluntary contributions from the pupils, each of the eighteen forms providing for the maintenance of one patient. The pupils were naturally full of personal interest for their patients, and were allowed to visit them at certain hours. There was accommodation for some 100,000 wounded in Moscow alone; and 64,000 beds were actually occupied in December when I visited the city.

The only complaint on the side of the military authorities was that the patients were too well cared for and rather spoilt as regards commodities of life. Such a consideration may have some weight from the point of view of a strict disciplinarian, looking forward to a new career of hardships in the trenches for those many who were able to go back to their regiments. But, humanly speaking, it was touching to see how assiduously the poor heroes from the Bzura or the Carpathians were tended and comforted after the terrible days of fighting and privation, and thus received some acknowledgment of their unstinted efforts in the cause of their country. One scene comes back to my memory with special vividness. A Christmas tree gathering in the hall of one of those hospitals, a crowd of swarthy men around the room, some with pale, emaciated faces, all with some sign of suffering about them, eagerly watching a figure in a Pierrot dress dancing a lively jig. The merry dancer, a sergeant with a shattered arm and a 'George' on his breast, had led his company under a hellish fire when all the officers had fallen.

The communion between the army at the front and the nation in its rear makes itself felt in many small but significant facts. The regular medical service of the Army would have been powerless to cope with the unheard-of requirements of this gigantic war. The medical staff of the Army is fully absorbed by the

immediate assistance to the wounded in the field. Even in this respect the Red Cross organisation, with its sanitary trains and hospital installations immediately behind the front, is giving efficient help. But the base hospitals had to be practically given over to the management of voluntary organisations; and it is this that one sees at work in the interior of the country. The most powerful are the Union of the Counties (Zemstvos) and the Union of Municipalities, but there are many others. Moscow city, for example, acts both as a member of the municipal union and as a separate city unit; and it may be said without fear of contradiction that the ancient capital has assumed a unique position in the competition of efforts and sacrifices. The State has assigned over 100 million roubles (10,000,000l.) to finance the work of the unions; but great sums are being levied and contributed daily in addition to the State grants. And the value of the personal services entailed by these huge organisations cannot be gauged even approximately. Men like Prince Lvoff, President of the County Union, or Mr Avinoff, the manager of the 'evacuation' department of the County Union, give their whole time to the work of organisation and supervision; others, like Mr Chelnokoff, Mayor of Moscow and President of the Municipal Union, somehow contrive by dint of energy and unceasing labour to combine their war duties with an enormous quantity of ordinary business.

The work performed is conspicuous by the orderly, efficient and energetic manner in which it is being carried out. In the beginning the organisations formed in the provinces were met by unexpected and trying emergencies. In Kaluga, for instance, the town had volunteered to provide accommodation for 600 wounded; towards the beginning of September 2000 were dumped down on one day. Hospital attendance and accommodation had to be literally improvised; and this was done by calling to aid the owners of all the likely houses in the town. It has happened that people came from the street with the wounded in order to assist in these hurried arrangements, and have remained in these improvised hospitals as improvised attendants ever since. A similar miracle of speedy organisation was achieved by the infirmary of the Women's College in Moscow.

Gradually, however, action became more and more systematic; and now the Unions of self-governing bodies control not only the base hospitals in the interior, but a very large number of hospital centres at the front, and are sending out numerous hospital trains to assist in the transport of the wounded from the field. It would have been impossible to carry out such a gigantic task if the workers had not been animated by ardent patriotism and by the sense of self-imposed duty. This voluntary character of the machinery is very remarkable in a country which is supposed to be entirely ruled by discipline and compulsion. The truth is that behind the frontage of the official hierarchy an immense power of self-government and independent action is rapidly growing, and that in seasons of great stress and peril like the present this force becomes irresistible, and brushes away all the restrictions of red-tape and officialism.

This feature of the situation was forcibly brought home to me almost on the first day of my stay in Moscow. A young graduate and a girl student called to ask me to deliver a public lecture in aid of a relief organisation acting in a distant quarter of the city. It came out in the course of conversation that the relief committee in question, formed under the auspices of the City executive, consisted largely of students and young graduates. No special police formalities had to be gone through; people joined and left the committee of their free accord; and the work was going on splendidly, with self-denial and energy. I went to look at their local centre, and found by the side of hospitals a canteen providing meals at halfprice, a large factory building turned into barracks for homeless families, and a labour dispensary in which the staff distributed materials to the wives and daughters of soldiers at the front and other unemployed persons for the making of underwear ordered by the Commissariat. The dispensary was crowded with women taking work; most of these were using cheap Singer machines bought at a discount, while those who had no such machines went to a central workshop provided with some forty machines by the organising committee. I may add that the price paid for making a shirt ranged from 7 to 9 kopecks (from 14d. to 2d.). A skilful worker was able to make nine or ten shirts in one day.