Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

y generations been much neglected in Russia, the water sources, springs, wells, reservoirs, etc., were often unsanitary. Therefore, unboiled water was always regarded with suspicion. But hot water alone is not a very attractive drink, and so Russia became a confirmed tea-drinking country. The third day we arrived in Moscow, early in the afternoon, but the clocks indicated evening because Russia had adopted day-light saving time in full earnest and had set the hands of the clock forward three whole hours. It might be added here that in recent years Russia has quit playing with the clock in make believe fashion, dispensing REFUELLING THE LOCOMOTIVE Much of the wood is not properly cured or dry, so it is a common oc- eurrence for the train to halt for the purpose of raising steam. TRAVELING IN SIBERIA The A. M. R. native representative in Siberia getting ready for a long drive through the famine stricken villages. UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 129 entirely with daylight-saving time, and in a realistic way simply begins its work in summer time an hour earlier than in winter thus getting exactly the same results but without the sham of setting the hands of the clock for- ward with the attendant confusion of the varieties of time. As we approached Moscow the imagination took wings. Here would be the ancient city of the Slavs and the Scandinavians and the Tartars and the Russian Boy- ars; here the picturesque old Kremlin and the gloomy city walls, the strongholds of mighty Boyars who made of themselves even mightier Czars; here the city that gave itself in ashes to the invincible Napoleon and in the giving overcame the man of destiny; here the glorified domes of its ‘‘forty times forty” churches with their golden throated bells, full-toned and deep and vibrant as the soul of Russia. The city was bathed in the soft mellow glow of an autumn sun that lighted carressingly the quaint old houses and blazed a challenge from the hundreds of crosses that marked the many places of worship. THE Comrorts or Moscow When our train arrived at the Windau railroad sta- tion in Moscow on August 27, 1921, it was met by two representatives, one from the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Volodin; and one from the Central Commit- tee for Combatting Famine of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, a young woman who could not speak English. This reception committee was there to receive the first contingent of the American Relief Administration personnel. As the living quarters for this group of seven Americans had not yet been prepared, they remained in their special car at the railroad station. It was Saturday and they could not hope to get quarters ready before Monday. 130 FEEDING THE HUNGRY While the reception committee was conveying myself and one or two others in a Government automobile to the Foreign Office, Volodin was expansively explaining how simply life is organized und