MOHAMMEDAN MOSQUE
Near the mission also there is a pretty Mohammedan mosque, built exactly like a Buddhist or Taoist temple, which provides schools for boys and girls. The girls’ school is a recent institution, probably in imitation of the mission one, and is evidently at all events a numerical success, for a good number of girls filed out on Sunday afternoon as we happened to be passing. The type of face of many of the boys struck us as particularly Semitic, and the Chinese here habitually call them Jews. There is a large proportion of butchers among the Mohammedans, as is usually the case in China, and this is a boon to Europeans, for it is only the Mohammedans who kill beef, and they are particular about the healthiness of the beasts. The Moslems in China do not attempt to proselytise openly, and they adhere less rigidly than elsewhere to their religious observances. They conform outwardly as much as possible to Chinese customs in order to escape notice, but they are no negligible quantity among the myriads of that land, for they number at least twenty millions. The Mohammedans entered China in A.D. 755 by the regular trade route through Central Asia, and even earlier (in 628) according to Chinese Mohammedan tradition they are said to have sent the prophet’s uncle as envoy to the Chinese court. The proselytising of the Chinese was as peaceful as that of the Indians was the reverse. It was mainly achieved by Moslem traders and artisans, following in the wake of Genghiz Khan and Kubla Khan’s conquests. They married Chinese women, and their children all became Moslems; they adopted large numbers of other children in famine times in order to bring them up in the Faith, and thus they have steadily but unobtrusively grown in numbers.
In past times there have been terrible massacres of the Mohammedans by the Chinese whenever they have made any attempt to withstand Chinese customs, which is probably the reason one hears so little of them nowadays, but they show a quiet tenacity in sticking to their religion, which is characteristic of Mohammedanism in every land. It was in a vain endeavour to reach them that the great Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, died off the coast of China. Up to the present time there has been no special mission work amongst the Mohammedans in China.
My sketch of the Mohammedan mosque at Ashiho was done under considerable difficulties, for the boys had just come out of school, and would jostle up and down, and round about me on the mound of earth where I was sitting, raising such a dust that at last I was driven defeated from the field. Though it was the first of May the scene was a winter one, and we longed and longed for spring to arrive.
On sending to the station to inquire what time our train left in the evening, they declared there was no train at all, and that the date of the weekly express from Vladivostock had been changed from Monday to Sunday. We felt so convinced that this was a mistake, having inquired about it at Kharbin only two days previously, that we went down to the station in good time for the usual 9 o’clock train, and were rewarded by learning that the hour and not the date of the train had been altered, and that it would pass through Ashiho at 10 o’clock. After waiting for an hour in the restaurant, where a party of the attendants were playing cards, the ticket office was opened, but they absolutely refused to sell tickets to us, saying that the express only stopped for half a minute, and that we could not get into it. We vainly protested that having no registered luggage we would take our chance of getting into the train, and that we must go by it, as we had the long journey to Irkutsk before us. The reiteration of this fact for about five minutes without stopping at last began to tell, and the official said he must see what small luggage we had. After due inspection he agreed to let us have tickets, but we had to pay for them from a point about fifty miles up the line, which meant twenty-one roubles instead of the four and a half we had paid on coming. The next difficulty was that the ticket office contained no change and seemed unable to get any, so we had to borrow the requisite amount from our friends. When the train did arrive each of our friends stood ready holding an article of luggage ready to hurl it into the corridor, and of course there was no difficulty in getting both our belongings and ourselves into it. We were soon comfortably established in the coupé which we were to occupy for the next two days, that is, until we should reach Irkutsk, where all passengers have to change.
At Kharbin there was a hopeless scrimmage for places, as those booked in advance for passengers from the south had all been appropriated by a large party of Americans at Vladivostock, and the ladies had discreetly retired to bed. It is always asserted that there is plenty of room on the Russian State Express in contradistinction to the International Sleeping Car, and that it is unnecessary to book places in advance. Evidently this was a fallacy, for every berth was full, and it was only after long and acrimonious arguing that the officials agreed to put on an extra carriage, and a very dirty one it proved to be. Great dissatisfaction was caused by this arrangement, and we were over an hour late in starting. We had been frequently assured that we should find the State Express more comfortable than the International, but such is by no means the case. The only point in which it excels is in the smoothness of running, in every other respect it is inferior. The carriages are smaller, there is no dressing-room in the first-class coupés, there are no second-class coupés (only carriages for four people), the washing basins would not hold water, there was no soap or towel, the restaurant car was far too small, and the meals were not to the taste of any of the passengers. A piano in the restaurant does not compensate for such deficiencies.