# From President to Prison/Chapter 3

SUPPLIES FOR KUROPATKIN'S ARMY
ON the return from my trip to the capital I arrived at Harbin in the spring of 1905 and, though I heard the stories of the destruction of the Russian warships at Port Arthur, I found the general sentiment everywhere excellent. People still had faith in the ultimate victory of Russia and expected much from the new regiments constantly arriving from the west.
In the meantime, having completed the organization and equipment of my laboratory, I had a great deal of accumulated work upon my hands. Orders from the General Staff directed me to search out some local supply of oil for use as a lubricant in the artillery, for the transport wagons in the field and for the axles of the railway carriages, as well as for the manufacture of soap. The problem was shortly resolved by the discovery in the oil extracted from the soya bean of the qualities necessary for these purposes. Also these beans were produced in such a really fabulous amount in northern Manchuria that the question of quantity production for military purposes was thus taken care of. After having worked out a new method of manufacture, I organized and opened a factory at Harbin which turned out all sorts of oils and soaps by a cold process that was very simple and quick, and in such quantities as to meet all the needs ​in the war area and thus save the railway from the necessity of transporting these supplies from Europe.
The Manchurian spring, which merges so quickly into summer, found me busily engaged in this new and absorbing task. The fresh levies of soldiers from Europe arrived with the first swallows, coming as though out on a sporting expedition and decked in white, blue and pink blouses, which gave to the whole neighbourhood of Harbin the appearance of bright groups of flowers. It was a pleasing sight to watch these gay spots of colour on the dark emerald ground of meadows and the foliage that is so rampant in Manchuria.
But when these same brilliant colours were transferred to the battle lines around Liaoyang, they served as admirable targets for the Japanese gunners and riflemen, who found such shooting easy and often wiped out whole companies or even battalions. Only then, after these costly and fatal lessons, was the difference between the uniforms of the Russians and the Japanese appreciated. The Japanese had adopted the regular khaki and enjoyed its natural protection against the greenish-brown background of the landscape. A popular outcry soon arose for a change in the disastrous hues of the multi-coloured blouses and had its repercussion in my laboratory, where I soon found a method of extracting from the lignite, or brown coal, that abounds in the region, a dye for giving a neutral hue to the soldiers' linen.
In the meantime my voracious soap factory was always demanding more and more of the soya bean oil. As it was then not available in sufficient quantity on the Harbin market, I determined to start out in search of a district where the oil was plentiful and from which it could be readily transported to Harbin. With my assistant and two Cossacks I journeyed up the Sungari River in a ​southwesterly direction with the thought in mind that, if big bean plantations and supplies of the oil were found in this region, the Chinese could easily bring the oil downstream in their single-masted junks. I had been told that I should find large plantations of soya beans in the neighbourhood of Hsin Ch'eng Fu or Petuna, a large trading centre located near the point where the Sungari bends round to the eastward, as it comes down from the mountains of Kirin. Consequently I took passage on the steamer Pogranitchnik for that place.
The Sungari has cut its course through layers of loess, this characteristic fertile, yellow Chinese soil, composed of the dusts of the north, the blowing sands from the Gobi, mud from the spring freshets and the remains of decaying vegetation and small organisms. As we made our way up against the swift yellow current, we frequently saw immense pieces of the yellow clay, sometimes carrying bushes and even trees, break off from the bank and sink into the undermining stream to be borne northward to help build up some new shoals in process of formation below or to be carried out and deposited on the bar at the mouth of the Amur.
We passed numerous small villages between the Chinese port of Harbin where we embarked, called Fu Chia Tien, and Petuna, numbering as a rule a few of the mud-coloured fang-tzu, or Chinese houses, and the inevitable shrine, built near the river bank in the shadow of the trees.
Often, when our steamer in its tortuous windings skirted close to the bank, the Chinese rushed out from their mud-plastered houses, stared at us curiously and voiced their comments in monosyllabic, incomprehensible words. Then, as we drew alongside and stopped at one of the larger villages to take on wood fuel for the engine, ​well-armed Russian soldiers would come on board and take post along the docks. When I asked one of them the reason for this amount of precaution out in these apparently tranquil places, he answered:
"Many of the villages along the Sungari are the headquarters or hiding-places of gangs of hunghutzes. These Manchurian brigands are really very dangerous, for they have fair equipment, an unusual scouting system and a clever organization. Attacks on steamers, especially when they are carrying money and arms, are rather frequent. They are a dangerous people, these Chinese, sir; and they don't like us."
I made no reply to the soldier, though I might have given him one very strong reason why the Chinese did not like the Russians, if I had chosen to relate to him the story of the Blagoveschensk massacre in 1899, when General Gribsky, Governor of the Amur Province, caused the drowning of about three thousand Chinese, men, women and children alike, by his order that they should leave Russian territory and cross at once to their own bank of the Amur. That there should be no delay in the execution of his order, he had his soldiers drive these helpless people into the fast-flowing and deep river with the very natural and expected result that they were all drowned.
Also the general treatment accorded by the Russians to the Chinese in Manchuria had conduced only to this end. We Poles had known the same thing in our country, and naturally hated the Russians for it; but I realized that it would be a useless task to point out these facts to the soldier, for he would not understand having respect for anyone who was not a Russian, especially for a people whose virtues did not demonstrate themselves in a military manner. A Russian distinguishes only the ​weak, whom he despises and persecutes, and the strong, whom he fears.
During our days on the river my hunter's heart was thrilled with watching, in the early morning hours and during the dusk of evening, the flocks of wild duck and the V's of honking geese going north in their spring migration. They usually flew easily and low, calling to one another with notes that betokened no distrust. One could even distinguish the sounds of the heavier wings of the geese and swans mingled with the quicker rhythms of duck and teal. They flew without fear, as they had not experienced danger in the marshy jungles of Siam and Burma; only now they were nearing attractive feeding grounds where death awaited some of them. There across the railroad stretched the marshes, where hunters crouched and awaited their advent and where, through all the weeks of spring, individual birds are summoned by the hunter on their last flight and tumble or sail with wounded breast and wing to earth and death.
But such thoughts steal into the mind only here in town, when one is sitting at a desk with telephone and electric reading lamp by one's side and with the jangling of cars and the threatening klaxons of the motors intruding from the street; but out there, where the long lines of geese string over the river, the hunter has no such scruples. His eyes only count the birds and narrow down to fix his aim.
As I watched the very first flocks from our steamer's deck, I resolved, just as soon as my work should permit, to go out for a hunt. I never left home without a shotgun and a rifle, and a long sojourn in the Ussurian country had taught me that a hunter with less than three hundred shells is no hunter at all but only a pitiable dilettante. Consequently I had with me my 12-gauge Sauer, my ​Henel rifle and more, oh many more than three hundred cartridges.
Petuna was also really only a village with the identical type of fang-tzu which we had seen all along the bank. The single difference was that the houses were more in number and crowded together, forming the larger streets and alleys thronged with Chinese and Manchu men, women and naked children, with carts piled high with kaoliang and sacks of millet, beans and flour, most of these thoroughfares being filled with pigs, chickens, mud and dirt, dirt without end! A larger two-storied building with a Chinese curved roof and surrounded by a mud wall flanked one side of an open square. Two mast-like poles with long streamers carrying a line of Chinese hieroglyphs dominated the entrance and marked the enclosure as the Yamen, the official residence of the Taotai with his small garrison, which acted as the local police.
As it was necessary for me to obtain certain documents from the Taotai, I visited the Yamen. When I entered, a large, broad-shouldered Chinese in blue trousers and a short blue coat, was sitting on a raised platform in the centre of the main building directly opposite the entrance gate, whose painted wooden screen protected all this, however, from the gaze of the passers-by. The man wore also a peculiar red apron with a black, curling border. He gave me an indifferent glance and continued his work—a strange and ominous one, for he was scouring with brick dust and oil an immense heavy sword with a large curving blade. A small table with a red frontal cloth carrying two black hieroglyphs stood in front of the raised platform. A little distance apart five Chinese knelt with their necks imprisoned in great heavy cangues, their hands tied to a long pole and their ankles fastened with chains. Bending under the weight of the heavy wooden ​collars, which had chafed their necks and shoulders, they looked curiously at me, talking and even laughing loudly. Once or twice one of them put a question to the big man with the sword, which he answered in a thick, feelingless voice.
In a few moments the Taotai appeared, a small, thin man in a black silken overgown and the regular official hat with a red button and a peacock feather as the insignia of his rank. When the Cossack interpreter made known to him my wishes, the official pointed to the red table and spoke at some length to the Cossack, frequently turning to me, as he spoke, with a smile or a salute.
"The Taotai offers his apologies and says that he will only be able to prepare your documents after half an hour, for just now he must pass sentence upon these hunghutzes, who have been taken red-handed in robbery. Note, please, the inscription on the red frontal cloth. It is very stern: 'Culprit, tremble!' To instil fear is a well-recognized element in the administration of the Chinese law."
"And who is the man with the sword?" I asked, even though I felt sure I should not require more than one guess to answer my own question.
"He is the executioner," answered the Cossack. "These poor men will surely be beheaded, for I heard one of them asking the executioner if he could sever the head from the body with one clean stroke."
While the Cossack was thus speaking with me, the Taotai had perused some papers, set his seal on them and again entered the conversation with many polite bows.
"The Taotai invites you to be present at the trial and at the execution," explained my interpreter. Unattracted ​by the invitation, I declined without regret and announced my intention of returning in half an hour.
During this interval I visited the town, wandering along the principal street, where all sorts of shops, restaurants, inns, opium dens and gambling houses jostled one another. Both sides of the roadway were lined with great and small poles, which carried many forms of red and black signs advertising commercial wares or the products of the manufacturing shops, whose fronts opened on the street.
In one of these was a bakery, or rather a confectioner's shop, where several half-naked Chinese were making steamed dumplings or man-t'ou and other dainties. Bootmakers, tailors, locksmiths and tinkers all worked in dark and smelly quarters. Farther on against a sunny wall two barbers plied their trade, one of them scraping the hair from the head and face of his sleeping client with a spoon-shaped razor, while the other washed and rebraided a pigtail, finishing it off with the tassel of black silk at the end.
A fat old Chinese, decked with a pair of immense black-rimmed spectacles, readily accepted by all as indubitable sign of his wisdom, sat gravely behind a little table that carried the regulation inkstone, Chinese pens, a package of paper and the familiar long envelopes with a broad red band down the middle. His business was the writing of petitions to the authorities and private letters to the relatives of those who had never been initiated into the mysteries of chirography. He was also not beneath proclaiming loudly the merits of his services, which he averred would bring sure results.
At another table sat a doctor, clad in a long grey overgown and also wearing the spectacles of wisdom and importance. He listened to the complaints of the ​sufferers and, without interrogating them for further data or even scrutinizing them for outward physical signs, closed his mental diagnosis, announced the price of the remedy and, with a dry, wrinkled hand, brought out from a little chest the magic powders and pills.
Attracted by these many street scenes, I wandered for nearly an hour before returning to the Yamen. As we entered, an oppressing, gruesome picture staggered us. The executioner still sat on the raised platform, cleaning his sword as before, but this time from a stain for which no oil and brick dust were required. Right there before the tribunal of justice lay the terrible evidence of the work it had done.
Soon the Taotai, with the regular unofficial black hat replacing the more formal headgear, appeared, smiling and amiable, and presented to me the document which recommended me to the protection and the courtesies of the various authorities in the district of Petuna. With this official introduction in hand I left the forbidding scene with considerable misgiving as to what the "protection and courtesies" of these Chinese officials might mean.
I did not discover any appreciable quantities of bean oil in or near the town, but was told where I might expect to find it and so spent another day and a half in Petuna, looking for horses and a guide and living the while on board a steamer loading cattle for the army. During this time I went all about the town and the immediate neighbourhood, as I wished to post myself on the crop prospects of the region.
Near the town the Golden Nonni, with the affluent waters of the Tolo coming from the eastern slopes of the Great Khingan range, joins the Sungari. Westward from the Nonni and the Sungari a portion of the semi-arid eastern end of the Gobi stretches away to these ​mountains and affords pasturage for the numerous herds of cattle and sheep which the Kara-Khorch'in tribe of Mongols graze around their camps. Though long fingers of desert sands reach into this region, it is traversed by a few rivers which water it well enough to keep large areas of pasturage green. Perhaps the best feeding grounds of the whole border region between Manchuria and Mongolia lie between the Tolo and Shara Muren Rivers.
In Petuna the immense figures of the Kara-Khorch'ins, with their flat faces and their narrow slits of black eyes, attracted attention among the typical Chinese and Man- chus. They had round heads with short, stiff, bristling hair, and their feet appeared curved from the constant contact with the saddle.
In the course of my business, I made the acquaintance of the richest merchant of the town and heard from him some interesting law regarding these Kara-Khorch'ins. He told me that this tribe had often swept down toward the Great Wall, which protected China from the attacks of the northern barbarians. More than once the powerful Sons of Heaven feared that this warlike tribe would eventually threaten Peking itself, but the Khorch'ins drew away to the north and disappeared without trace in the prairies and wastes here between the Nonni and the Khingans.
But later, in the twelfth century, during the days of the Sung dynasty, they returned to visit the country with fire and sword. It was the time when the hordes of barbarous Khitans of the great Tungutze tribe began threatening Peking from the north. These wild, big-framed Khorch'ins, closely related to the Khitans, led the van and first carried murder and plunder beyond the Great Wall, scourging with their wild fury the settled ​regions of the Han and forcing the terrified rulers to leave their sacred dwelling in the Forbidden City to found a new capital in Nanking on the Yangtze. But another wave of barbarian hordes appeared to conquer and drive out the Khorch'ins and Khitans. These were the Kin Tartars, who supplanted their savage forerunners in the possession of China's rich fields, only to yield themselves, in turn, to the old civilization of the conquered land and disappear in the great Chinese ocean, leaving nothing after them except the impetus to the Chinese to repair and strengthen the Great Wall against possible further invasion from the north.
On my second day in town I secured, for a rather high price, horses and a guide and shortly after dawn on the following day set out from Petuna to travel east along the right bank of the Sungari; for I had been informed that, in the district between the small river of Hsi La Ho and the town of La Lin, situated at the foot of the mountain of the same name, I should find large plantations of beans and numerous native mills turning out oil and beancake.
Above Petuna the country along the river was more sparsely peopled. Sometimes we rode for hours without passing a house. I was even afraid at times that we might have no roof over our heads at night, but in this I was happily reassured, when at sunset we rode into sight of a small hamlet of several farm-houses set in a grove of tall elms.
Here we stopped for the night. Our guide led us to the largest fang-tzu, which was the ordinary, long dwelling with a single thin wooden partition cutting off about a third of the space for kitchen and living quarters. In this there was the typical low mud stove with a big bowl-like ​iron pan that serves for boiling their porridges of grain and their vegetable soups, for frying occasionally in bean or sesamum seed oil, for steaming the man-t'ou or dumpling-bread of the north and for all the other culinary operations. A fire of dry kaoliang stalks and driftwood fished out of the river burned under the iron pan while the smoke carried away through a flue that circulated under and through the raised platform of mud brick, or k'ang, and then issued forth on the outside of the house, through a conical clay chimney. The k'ang is thus warmed by the waste heat from the kitchen fire and serves the purpose of both a stove and a general bed for the whole family. I saw no trace of furnishings in the room save the straw mats spread over the dirt on top of the k'ang, some wooden basins and cups, two buckets and an axe, which appeared to comprise the total personal property of the household.
The Chinese host called the women. Two old ones and a young one answered, all of them ugly and awfully dirty. They were sullen and answered all our questions with contemptuous silence. They busied themselves with sweeping dust from the k'ang, then prepared tea and disappeared again. We settled for the night on the unbearably hot k'ang and surrendered ourselves to the mercies of a whole army of previous occupants, who made hideous the night through their proofs of valour and greed. At the outset I tried to fight this army, making vigorous counter-attacks; but I was eventually forced to capitulate and waited tediously for the dawn, fearing that, if the sun were late, my losses would prove fatal. But the sun was prompt and mercifully drove the satiated enemy into their dugouts to spend the day in dreaming of another night raid. It was not, however, until I was on the ​high-road in full retreat from the battle ground that I discovered some of the enemy still hovering on the flanks and only shook these off by vigorous riding.
As we proceeded farther along the bank of the Sungari, we came upon rank growths of willows, which shielded the road from view on the river-side. At one point a long sand spit projected far into the stream. Through the tops of the bushes I saw a sight which stirred and enchanted me. An immense flock of geese blackened the shoal, and, though it was impossible for me to make an accurate estimate, they must have numbered thousands. Evidently they had passed the night hereabouts and were now feeding in the crevices of the sand and in the small pools of water, which had been left behind by the receding current, or on a small fry in the shallows along the spit. Many varieties of geese were here. Among them I identified the common grey goose (Anser cinereus), the corn goose (Anser segetum), the casark (Casarca rubra), common in Mongolia and Thibet, the coral lama bird (Casarca rutila), the Indian or bar-headed goose (Anser indicus), the bernicle (Bernicla torquata) and the diving goose (Mergus merganser). Near by on the water rode flocks of wild duck, among them the cross or mallard duck (Anas boscas), the red-necked duck (Fuligula ferina), the teal (Nettion crecca), the duck with white brows (Oedemia fusca), very rare in these latitudes. A group of silver swans floated like great flocks of white foam farther out in the stream. They were of the two well-known varieties of the crying swan (Cygnus musicus) and the deaf swan (Cygnus olor).
As is also the case in southern and eastern Siberia, this Manchurian conglomerate of the wilds had a marked peculiarity. Not only the species commonly found in the ​northward summer migrations but also the varieties peculiar to the south had, for some unknown reason, mingled and joined in the long aerial trek.
As we observed them from our shelter, the sun was already over the horizon and the well-known nervous unrest before flight was beginning to manifest itself among the birds. The geese scattered along the shoal began to break up into groups, with the old and more experienced males emerging as leaders, while the others calmly waddled into their places along the forming sides of the V's or quarrelled raucously over the best positions in the formation, that is, those nearest the ends of the lines where it is easier to fly. The birds raised their heads and stretched their long necks toward the glowing face of the golden sun, as they prepared to start. The short, bass notes of the leaders and the querulous voices of the others filled the air, but it was not from among the chattering geese that the signal for departure came. It was the ducks that first rose with their more strident tones and, with the hurrying splash of wings on the water followed by the more measured cadence, invited their fellow-wayfarers to continue their journey north, whither their instinct, that unfailing heritage of past æons, unerringly guided them.
Next the swans moved their great majestic wings, cut the water with their plumed breasts and rose in widening circles higher and higher, until they seemed to be almost motionless, poised beneath broken drifts of clouds, which, in their feathery whiteness, seemed themselves like unto great moving birds, shining in the sun. But when they had taken sufficient elevation, they headed north, an undulating, vibrant grey stream flowing off toward Arctic space. In a few moments the geese rose with their dull trumpeting and noisy splashing of wings and, dressing ​their lines, drove the wedges of their V's in swift pursuit.
The shoal was deserted; yet, for some time, I could not tear myself away from watching the disappearing broken lines in the north, for I am always thrilled by the sight and contemplation of these magnificent, strong-winged birds making this heroic pilgrimage from the Indian marshes with their lazy, venomous cobras and their rapacious tigers, to the far-away peat bogs at the mouth of the Yenisei, the Ob and the Lena and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. To this flight they are driven by an atavistic instinct, strong as life itself and ineradicable as death—an instinct that guides them to these coldest climes, where they will breed the strongest and most nearly perfect of young. In obedience to this ever-recurring command these geese, ducks and swans go thousands of miles every spring, and nothing can stop them. Hunger, cold, driving rain, snow and the death that men project up into the sky—nothing of all this can stay these winged migrants nor change the course of these victims of instinct and destiny. They fly along routes probably established through millions of years, known and marked for them as clearly as paths and highways are for men.
Exotic birds in these northern migrations always made a strange impression upon me. Frequently, when hunting in Manchuria and Siberia, I have identified Indian geese, beautiful Japanese ibises, flamingos in their blaze of colour and Egyptian storks, all heading for, or returning from, these Arctic regions, which are really foreign to them. I often pondered over the question of what might be impelling these feathered worshippers of sun and sand in their dangerous proselyting flight. Was it ​the resistless command of nature, pointing to the necessity of perfecting their kind by breeding in the Far North a stronger and more enduring progeny, which should bring new vigour to counteract the enervating and destroying influences of the tropics? Or were these exotics unquiet souls, lured by, and driven on to, great efforts full of difficulties and dangers? Were they such individuals as we find among men, whom we catalogue, according to the results of their efforts, as "madmen" or "geniuses"? Who will answer this question for us?
I should always have been ready to forgo shooting at these avian Columbuses, Vasco de Gamas, Menédezes, Stanleys and Nansens, if I could have distinguished in the flocks flying in the mysterious half-light and half-shade of dawn or evening these unusually enterprising and tragically beautiful beings. Alas, we recognize them only when we find them covered with blood in the reeds or sweet-flag, biered on the element which is foreign and merciless to them. At such times I have mourned for them and have pictured to myself landscapes from the journeys of these victims of my hunting passion. There has come before me the yellow ribbon of the Nile, the ruins of kingly Thebes with the mystery of blessings or curses petrified in each stone block of the temples, in each colonnade. Then through the shimmering heat of the Indian plains, blanketed with sultry vapours made heavier by the aroma of flowers, I have caught the lacy patterns of the pagodas of Benares, the minarets of Allahabad and the scarlet gate of Delhi. Farther on, among plantains, elms and tamarisks, have stood out the curving-roofed temples of south China along the banks of the Pearl River and the more sombre cities dotting the course of the great Yangtze Kiang. Above ​these vast panoramas of land and water travel waving ranks of these beautiful birds, shimmering and undulating like autumn spiderwebs floating in the air.
However, these visions suddenly faded as though they had never been; for, as I gazed out over the willow bushes to the deserted shoal, I heard right near me the dull trumpeting and whirring of the powerful wings of a new, low-flying flock of geese, and automatically raised my gun to race the leader by a few feet, without ever stopping to think that my leaden messenger might cut the life-thread of some bird dreamer or of some bold conquistador. But then something stopped me; and I raised my head, slowly brought my gun down and dreamily watched the flock disappear on the horizon. When they were out of sight, I turned and continued my own journey up along the river bank.
As the road moulded itself to the curves of the stream, there stretched out on the left great areas of those marvellously furrowed Chinese fields of kaoliang, millet and wheat, interspersed with sections of soya beans. Chinese and Manchus worked everywhere through the fields and in their vegetable patches around the small hamlets or detached fang-tzu which clustered in the shadows of tall trees farther back from the river bank.
Toward the end of a long day's ride we came, at about four in the afternoon, upon a most difficult stretch of road through a section that was all under water. The road became a bog, full of holes and ruts, into which our horses constantly stumbled and plunged, until we took on the appearance of statues of fresh clay, for we were spattered from head to foot with the sticky, yellow mud. In this plight we met some Khorch'ins, nodding on their carefully advancing camels. They told our guide that heavy snows had fallen on the La Lin during the winter ​and that torrential rains in the mountains had now brought the waters of some smaller streams up over the surrounding country. For some distance we travelled through this flooded territory, losing our way at times and miring at others in the bogs of this yellow, fecund soil. Kaoliang stubble, cornstalks, willow bushes and occasional oaks showed above the water here and there through the low fields; while on the more elevated places, where it was dry, much life was visible. Hares, seeking safety from the waters that had taken possession of their holes, fieldmice and, on one mound, red foxes hid in the bushes. Over the inundated lands snipe, pewits (Vanellus cristatus), wading birds (Actitis hypoleucus) and other species of gulls (Gallinago) flew in all directions, settling occasionally on the rocks or bushes that protruded from the water and then again commencing their restless flight.
After laborious, exhausting wading we came just at sunset to a chain of hillocks, where the road once more emerged upon dry land and where, at the edge of a small wood, we discovered a village of some fifty to sixty houses. It was Hsi La Ho, the place we were seeking. As we approached the village, we passed through extensive fields of the soya bean, and in the outskirts of the place we found the regulation long Chinese building in which the beans were pressed.
The headman of the village received us very hospitably and, after reading the Hu-chao of the Taotai, lodged us in a rather clean house and summoned a meeting of the dealers to discuss the question of delivering bean oil to Harbin. Soon I had signed an agreement with the inhabitants of the village and had arranged with the headman that he should conclude others with the neighbouring districts.
​After having visited the oil mills on the following morning, I felt free to go hunting during the period of rest which we had to give our horses following their strenuous trip of the preceding day. I took the Cossack Nicholas with me and headed north for the edge of the inundated lands, where I had seen the snipe and other water-birds. For a considerable distance we trudged over low hillocks covered with scrub oak. Pheasant cocks in their brilliant colouring and the hens of quieter hues frequently flashed before us with loud squawks and that powerful drumming of the wings that sends a thrill through a hunter's heart. But this day I was to take none of them home with me, as they all rose at long range and as I had only small snipe shot with me.
Chance seemed against us. At a distance of between two and three miles from the village we saw a solitary house situated at the bottom of a rather deep vale with two saddled horses tied to a post in front of it. When we had made a hundred yards farther, two Chinese ran out of the house with carbines in their hands, sprang adroitly upon their horses and galloped off toward the farther end of the dell, where they disappeared around a turn in the road. In just a little while they reappeared on a hillock farther on, stopped and began observing us attentively.
"It is a hunghutze patrol," whispered the Cossack in fear. "We must turn back."
Under these conditions hunting was impossible, as we might easily have fallen into the hands of these Chinese brigands, who during the Russo-Japanese War had proved themselves to be very cruel to the "man-tzu," as they designated all Europeans. We immediately returned to the village and left the same day for Harbin. As we learned that a junk laden with eggs and chickens was ​sailing that afternoon from the neighbouring village of T'un Hsi for Fu Chia Tien, I ordered our guide to take the horses back to Petuna and went with my men on board this junk to enjoy immensely the rapid run downstream to Harbin, where a surprise awaited me.