Somewhat more than forty years ago, Mr Baillie Fraser published a lively and instructive volume under the title A Winter’s Journey (TatÂr) from Constantinople to Teheran. Political complications had arisen between Russia and Turkey–an old story, of which we are witnessing a new version at the present time. The English government deemed it urgently necessary to send out instructions to our representatives at Constantinople and Teheran; and this could only be done in those days by means of Messengers bold and hardy enough to bear a great amount of fatigue in the saddle. Mr Fraser, intrusted with this duty, told the tale of his hard work. The word TatÂr, in Turkey, is applied to a native courier, guide, and companion, a hardy horseman who fulfils all these functions, speaking two or more languages, and ready to do the best that can be done to overcome the multiplied tribulations of regions almost roadless and innless. When travelling TatÂr, these men have been known to make truly wonderful journeys on horseback. One of special character was made in 1815, when the British government wished to convey to Persia the stirring news of the escape of Napoleon from Elba. The British Embassy at Constantinople sent a Messenger from thence to Demavend, a Persian city nearly two thousand miles distant, across a dangerously rugged country; this amazing horse-ride was accomplished in seventeen days; averaging nearly a hundred and twenty miles a day.

Mr Baillie Fraser gives a vivid description of his own experience in this kind of life, riding day and night, and stopping only when the absolute need of a few hours’ rest drove him into a wretched post-house or a mere hovel. It was ‘a TatÂr journey of two thousand six hundred miles, which for fatigue and anxiety, and suffering from cold and exposure, I will venture to match against anything of the sort that ever was done.’ First came seven hundred and fifty miles across European Turkey, from Belgrade to Constantinople; and then seven hundred along the whole extent of Asia Minor to Amasia; but during the remaining seven weeks of the journey, he says: ‘We have been wading night and day through interminable wastes of deep snow, exposed to all the violence of storms, drift, and wind, with the thermometer frequently from fifteen to twenty degrees below zero. Our clothes and faces and beards were clotted into stiff masses of ice; our boots, hard as iron, frozen to the stirrup; and our limbs tortured with pain, or chilled into insensibility by intense cold.’

Another famous journey across European Turkey, in 1849, has been described by Major Byng Hall, whose volume we shall presently advert to. A Messenger was directed to haste as fast as horse-flesh could carry him from Belgrade to the Morava, then on through Alexinitz and Nissa, across the Balkans, and so on through Sofia to Constantinople–in great part the very route which Russian and Turkish troops have been devastating. When he crossed the Balkans at one of the passes or ravines, he had been riding continually night and day, and reeled backward and forward in his saddle; and more than once he nearly fell to the ground through exhaustion and want of sleep, at places where precipices were perilously near. He reached Constantinople in five days eleven hours from Belgrade, contending the whole time on horseback against wind, mud, and rain. Sir Stratford Canning (now Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), British ambassador at Constantinople, complimented him by saying that it was ‘the quickest winter journey ever known.’ Lord Palmerston adverted in the House of Commons to this journey, on an occasion when some members were animadverting on the great cost of the diplomatic service: ‘As a proof of the zeal with which these royal Messengers render their services to the government of this country, I will mention an instance in which one of these gentlemen performed his duty on an occasion when it was required that he should make an extraordinary effort in order to carry a despatch of very considerable importance from the Foreign Office to Constantinople, at a time when a question was pending between Russia and Turkey. He was days and nights in the saddle without quitting it, and performed the journey in the worst weather and under the greatest possible difficulties.’

Major Byng Hall, just named, has published a pleasant work under the title of the Queen’s Messenger, recounting some of his own journeys and those of his colleagues. Amongst others was a sledge-journey to St Petersburg in midwinter; when his driver got intoxicated, drove into some sledges coming in the opposite direction, and nearly brought about a perilous scene of scuffle and bloodshed–all in a dark night amid enormous accumulations of snow. He draws attention to the varied qualifications necessary to any one who fills this office: ‘No man, be he who he may, who holds the post of one of Her Majesty’s foreign Messengers, and who must, for the due performance of the constant and arduous duties intrusted to him, be acquainted with foreign languages, but must obtain much knowledge by the wayside, impracticable if not impossible to the holiday traveller’–which all becomes essentially serviceable to him in subsequent journeys. A writer in Blackwood pleasantly spoke a few years ago of these ‘foreign Mercuries, who travel throughout Europe at a pace only short of the telegraph. They are wonderful fellows, and must be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, and yet so easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be equal to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad dinners, bad roads, bad servants, and bad smells! How patient must they be here, how peremptory there! How they must train their stomachs to long fastings, and their skin to little soap!’

And now for a brief account of the organisation of this small but remarkable body of men.

The Queen’s Messengers of the present day are virtually employÉs of the Foreign Office; seeing that the conveyance of despatches to and from British ambassadors and representatives at foreign courts is the chief duty intrusted to them. Many a declaration of war has been thus conveyed.

About thirty years ago the House of Commons requested and obtained from the Foreign Office an account of the expense connected with the system of Queen’s Messengers. The payments to these gentlemen were found to be made up in an odd way, such as no commercial firm would dream of adopting. There was a small annual salary, whether the Messenger were travelling or not. There were board wages, so much per day when in actual service. There was an allowance for his trouble, anxiety, and fatigue in riding and driving along–so much a mile if on horseback, so much in a vehicle, so much in a steam-boat. There was a reimbursement for actual outlay for railways, vehicles, horses, postillions, hostlers, road and bridge tolls, passports, loss on exchange of moneys, &c. This reimbursement was in nearly all cases more than he actually paid, owing to the liberal scale on which it was calculated.

Every Messenger, it was found, received about four hundred a year for himself, and six hundred for travel-outlay. Some of the journeys, we learn from the parliamentary paper, were enormously expensive; railways on the continent were at that time comparatively few, and the old system of posting and horse-riding had still to be kept up over very long distances. One single journey from London to Frankfurt was set down at L.46; to Berlin, L.70; to Turin, L.83; to Vienna, L.86; to Madrid, L.123; to Rome, L.143; to Naples, L.162. The giant items were: London to St Petersburg vi Berlin (1964 miles), L.166; and London to Constantinople vi Vienna (2192 miles), L.269. It is probable that at that time there was scarcely any rail beyond Vienna, whatever may have been the case on this side; and that the Messenger to Constantinople had to travel by relays of horses or of post vehicles more than eleven hundred miles of his journey. The outward journey alone is mentioned in each instance; the homeward was probably about equal to it in cost. One Messenger, Mr Crotch, went from Calais to Paris (carrying despatches which had come from London vi Dover) sixteen times in the year, and sixteen times in the reverse direction; receiving about L.25 per journey for expenses and emoluments.

In 1868 the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs resolved that the time had come for remodelling the system. In a circular addressed to all British representatives abroad, he pointed out numerous ways in which the number of despatches sent might be reduced, and the expense lessened still more considerably. The post and the electric telegraph might safely be intrusted, under the improved modern arrangements, with many of the questions, answers, and instructions hitherto conveyed by Queen’s Messengers. It was also pointed out that, when telegrams were sent, an unnecessary verbiage was indulged in, tending to increase the cost without in any way conducing to the intelligibility of the message. The employment of cipher-writing[A] would be available by post and by telegraph as well as by Messenger, so long as the key to the cipher is known only to the Foreign Office.

Irrespective of the quantity of circumlocution involved in the matter, there is the question of emolument to the Messengers employed. The Foreign Secretary found, on close examination, that these gentlemen were in the receipt of eight hundred a year each on an average. The amount had doubled itself in the course of twenty years, chiefly by means of the profit derived from the allowance for travelling–economical railway and steam-boat fares being charged to the government as if they were the expensive old-fashioned fares. Thus the mileage profit increased as the mileage expenditure decreased. All these lumbering arrangements were swept away, and a fixed salary decided on, just as for government clerks, &c. Five hundred a year was the amount decided on, to be paid whether the Messenger were employed or unemployed, whether at home or abroad.

It need hardly be said that by the introduction of railways the duties of these Messengers have been immensely simplified. ‘For many years they have scarcely if ever been called upon to travel on horseback; the communication with Constantinople, which was formerly carried on partly by that means, having for some time past been wholly kept up by railway and steam-vessel. In consequence of the accelerated rate of travelling by railway, they are rarely kept out of bed as formerly, for six, eight, ten, or even more nights; and even when they are travelling at night, they are almost always able to enjoy uninterrupted rest, instead of being obliged, as formerly, to be constantly on the alert, in order to stimulate the exertions of postillions and owner.’

The salary was subsequently settled by making the amount five hundred guineas instead of pounds.

Important personages in their way are these foreign Messengers, sufficiently high in social position to comprise among their number (at the present time) an ‘honourable,’ a major, and six captains. Evidently the post is eagerly sought for when a vacancy occurs. One of those at present in the service has been a Messenger during the long period of thirty-five years: what a prodigious amount of travel he must have gone through! Good salaries are not the only attractions; several past Messengers have retired on pensions, pretty well wearied of knocking about Europe; while widows of Messengers receive allowances under exceptional circumstances.

Smart-looking personages are these messengers, as attired to distinguish them from ordinary civilians. The official regulations on this subject tell us that ‘the Messengers must be furnished with a uniform–consisting of a dark-blue cloth double-breasted frock coat with turn-down collar; blue single-breasted waistcoat, buttoned up to the throat, with edging of gold-lace; trousers of Oxford mixture, with a scarlet cord down the side seams; gilt buttons embossed with the royal arms encircled by the crown and garter, and having a greyhound pendent; blue cloth cap with leather peak, band of black braid, and the royal cipher and crown gilt in front; a badge of the regulation size, with the royal crown and silver greyhound pendent, suspended from the neck by a dark-blue ribbon. This uniform, and more especially the badge, must be always worn by Messengers when travelling; but the badge must not be worn at any other time.’

We have said nothing of home Messengers, those who carry despatches to and fro within the limits of the British Islands. Nor indeed is there much to say concerning them. They are fewer in number, and less handsomely paid than those employed abroad. Under the system which prevailed before the reforms effected eight or nine years ago, each home Messenger had quite a medley of emoluments–so much fixed salary, so much board wages, so much excess or surplus above actual travelling expenses of all kinds. This is now altered; each Messenger receives a definite annual remuneration for his services–less than formerly, but quite sufficient for the kind of work done. In fact postal facilities and the electric telegraph are gradually lessening the necessity for the adoption of the Messenger system. Nevertheless there are times when a home Messenger is thrown upon his own resources. When the Queen is at Balmoral, and floods and snow-storms block the railways and render the roads impassable, the Messenger must perforce get on somehow or other with his despatch bag, at any cost of money, toil, and anxiety; and he does get on, although the newspapers are not told much about it.