"Our boat travelled on, day after day, through an unknown and mysterious land."

This is the version of the letter that appears in The Problem of China, at the end of the first chapter. The tense has been changed. It is not presented as a letter but instead as part of the text. It is on pp. 13-16 of the manuscript of The Problem of China.

The original letter ended up in Ottoline Morrell's possession. It is number 1565 in the numbered sequence of letters to Ottoline (document .001565, record 18772).

In the Autobiography Russell writes that this and the other letters were "antedated letters to Colette", i.e. Constance Malleson.

It is number 8 in a sequence of eight Russia letters. In the Autobiography, however, it becomes number 4 as the letters that Colette wrote are not published there.

This letter was not written on the Volga or on the date on the letter. It was written after his return from Russia on 30 June 1920.

There are five transcriptions of this letter:

Document .200651, record 19656 (ribbon copy);
Document .052461, record 99939 (carbon of .200651);
Document .052469, record 99955 (ribbon);
Document .200652, record 19657 (carbon copy of .052469);
Autobiography chapter "Russia", document .007050f2, pp. 151-2, record 116403.