An ill-fortune took us to the Hotel Slav, which is very inferior to our dining car--at least as regards its bill of fare.

It contained, in particular, a national soup called "borchtch," prepared with sour milk, which I would carefully refrain from recommending to the gourmets of the _Twentieth Century_.
With regard to my newspaper, and that telegram relative to the mandarin our train is "conveying" in the funereal acceptation of the word?
Has Popof obtained from the mutes who are on guard the name of this high personage?
Yes, at last! And hardly are we within the station than he runs up to me, saying: "I know the name." "And it is ?" "Yen Lou, the great mandarin Yen Lou of Pekin." "Thank you, Popof." I rush to the telegraph office, and from there I send a telegram to the _Twentieth Century_.
"Merv, 16th May, 7 p.m.
"Train, Grand Transasiatic, just leaving Merv.

Took from Douchak the body of the great mandarin Yen Lou coming from Persia to Pekin." It cost a good deal, did this telegram, but you will admit it was well worth its price.
The name of Yen Lou was immediately communicated to our fellow travelers, and it seemed to me that my lord Faruskiar smiled when he heard it.
We left the station at eight o'clock precisely.

Forty minutes afterwards we passed near old Merv, and the night being dark I could see nothing of it.

There was, however, a fortress with square towers and a wall of some burned bricks, and ruined tombs, and a palace and remains of mosques, and a collection of archaeological things, which would have run to quite two hundred lines of small text.
"Console yourself," said Major Noltitz.