Orient Gallery

Orient Express in Snow

The Simplon-Orient Express train, snowbound at the village station of Cherkeskoy, sixty miles from its final destination, Constantinople (Istanbul). The train left Paris on 29 January and was due to arrive at Constantinople on 1 February. Instead, it remained snowed up for ten days. A train travelling in the opposite direction was similarly snowbound alongside it for 96 hours. With no heating on the train, the passengers of both trains huddled together in the station buffet, passing the time by playing cards, reading, listening to gramophone music and dancing, including improvised performances by a German ballerina

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Avenue des Francais in Beirut (Beyrouth), Lebanon

Avenue des Francais in Beirut (Beyrouth), Lebanon, with the Orient Hotel on the left and the New Royal Hotel, the Kit Kat club and the St. Georges Hotel in the background on the right. Date: circa 1940s

© Mary Evans / Pharcide

1940s, Avenue, Beirut, Beyrouth, Capital, Cities, City, Club, Des, Francais, Georges, Hotel, Hotels, Kat, Kit, Lebanese, Lebanon, New, Orient, Palm, Palms, Pedestrian, Pedestrians, Road, Roads, Royal, St, Town, Towns, Tree, Trees

Ships of the P&O, Cunard, Orient, Union and Guion Lines, 188

Engravings of the steamships Lusitania, Khiva, Mexican, Australia, Arizona, Zambesi, Poonah, Nepaul, Ganges, Geelong, Rosetta, Umbria and Etruria (left to right, top to bottom). These ships, from the P&O, Cunard, Orient, Union and Guion Lines, were among 150 merchant vessels that the British Government could have taken over to act as Armed Cruisers in the event of a war with Russia

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans