Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 70 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0070	Among the Celestials : vol.1

46 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. II.

the Russian station of Swanka, situated among

some low rather bare hills. There were

stationed here at the time of our visit about

three . hundred Cossacks. Some low rough

barracks had just been constructed for them,

and small cottages for the officers were dotted

about. The colonel's house was larger and

better built, but all of them were of the rough

simple description one would expect to find at

a distant frontier outpost.

Here we were most cordially received by the

Russian colonel. Russians never err in want

of cordiality to Englishmen especially and

in this remotest part of Asia, thousands of

miles from either St. Petersburg or London,

we met, uninvited guests as we were, with real

warmth of reception. The colonel's house had

about it no superfluity of luxury. It had glass

windows and a stove which are luxuries the

Russian would not have met with if he had

visited my late headquarters in Chitral but.

the walls and the floors were quite bare, and

the furniture of the very simplest. There was

only one room, a part of which was partitioned

off into a bedroom and dressing-room, and the

whole place was crowded up with military

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