CHAPTER V
A Great Unknown Land—Manchuria
Of all the lands in eastern Asia perhaps the least is known about Manchuria of any of them. And yet one of the finest sleeping cars I ever traveled in was on the South Manchurian railway. I had a large roomy compartment to myself. In it was a comfortable bed, or berth, a folding washstand and writing desk, electric fan, and various other conveniences. While this was an eastern model sleeper, an American pullman was also attached to the train for those who preferred it.
For two hundred and seventy years the Manchurians furnished the rulers for the whole Chinese Empire. The Empress Dowager was a Manchu. Born in a humble home, at the age of sixteen she became a concubine of the Emperor. She was so diligent in study and self-improvement that she was elevated to the position of first concubine and later became the mother of the Emperor's son and was raised to the position of wife. When her son was but three years of age the Emperor died and she swept aside all aspirants to the throne, placed her son upon it with herself as regent until he was of age. For forty-seven years, in a country where women had scarcely any power, this marvelous woman ruled one-fourth of the human race.
Manchuria is a little larger than the combined area of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. It is located at the northeast of China and until recently formed a part of the Chinese Empire. While nearly all kinds of grain and vegetables are grown, the one great staple crop of Manchuria is the soybean. Think of growing two million tons of these beans per year! Before the war Manchurian beans were shipped all over the world. In a Manchurian city I asked a business man to tell me the chief sights of the city and he said: "We have nothing here but bean mills. It is beans, beans, beans." In the hills and mountains nearly all kinds of wild beasts are found. The Manchurian tiger is perhaps most dreaded of all.
Perhaps the best known place in Manchuria is Port Arthur. Years ago the Chinese had what they believed to be an impregnable fortress in Port Arthur, but the wily Japanese battered it down in twenty-four hours. Later on the Russians got it and worked seven years on the fortifications and gun emplacements and really felt that they had it secure. Although the forts were built on the Belgian plan and Port Arthur was as secure as Antwerp, yet the unconquerable Japanese took it with a loss of only a thousand or fifteen hundred men. Nature has been kind to Port Arthur by throwing up the mountains of "The Chair," "The Table," and the "Lion's Mane," but the best defense that nature provides has to give way before the genius of the human brain.
Only a little more than four miles from Port Arthur is the city of Dalney, also called Dairen. It is a beautiful little city of fifty or sixty thousand people with a good street car system and many modern buildings. On landing I went to the Yamato hotel and found comfortable quarters at a reasonable price. The South Manchurian railway operates a string of these Yamato hotels. This is a Japanese railway and operates with a steamship line crossing the Yellow Sea and the great Trans-Siberian railroad, or rather did so before the world war. In Dalny I found a good Y. M. C. A. building with an American secretary. This association has good buildings in nearly every large oriental city especially if it is near the coast. One can hardly realize the debt of gratitude civilization owes to this organization. These buildings are oases on the great oriental desert where the American traveler can find rest and a quiet home.
At the close of the war between Russia and Japan by the treaty of Portsmouth, Russia agreed to transfer to Japan without compensation and with the consent of the Chinese Government, the South Manchurian Railway between Port Arthur and Changchun, a distance of four hundred and thirty-six miles, "together with all rights, privileges, and properties appertaining thereto in that region, as well as all coal mines in said region belonging to or worked for the benefit of the railway." The Chinese Government also agreed not to construct any parallel lines that would injure the interests of this railway, so the Japanese have an iron hold upon the whole proposition.