From Harbin west one passes through the Kuigan mountains. This is said to be the coldest place of like latitude on the globe. Here grows in abundance the Edelweiss, which is so rare and so prized in Switzerland. Mr. Taft, in "Strange Siberia," calls attention to the fact that one of the Manchurian towns here is named for Genghis Khan, who was one of the great military geniuses of the old days. He united the vast hordes of warring tribes of Siberia into one vast army and swept over this whole country like a mighty conqueror. Our American soldiers who were sent to this section of the Far East sure got a glimpse of Manchuria that they will never forget.
Before the world war many of the Chinese and Manchus crossed the line and worked in the Russian gold mines and grew rich, but they had a time getting their gold out of Russia without being discovered. But their cuteness is proverbial. Even Chinamen die, and they as well as the Manchus must sleep their long sleep in their native land. In a certain Russian city it is said that these Chinese were paying great attention to the dead bodies of their kindred in preparing them for the journey back home. The Russians became suspicious and peeping through a keyhole at the embalming processes these policemen discovered that gold dust was blown from a tube into the dead man's skull. This let the cat out of the bag, for these Chinese were making the bodies of the dead the carriers of gold, for as soon as the bodies reached home the gold was extracted.
CHAPTER VI
The Land of Sorrow—Siberia
Away yonder in eastern Siberia, on the banks of the Amur River, high on the projecting cliff stands a huge iron cross which can be seen many miles away. Upon this Christian emblem is inscribed one of the greatest sentences in all the literature of the world. Here it is: "Power lies not in force but in love." Strange it is indeed that such an emblem and such an inscription should be found in the wilds of this country. But many are the strange sights one beholds on a journey across this great lonely, strange, and sad land. Having crossed this country it is my purpose to recount some of the observations and experiences of the journey.
But few people today realize the immensity of Siberia. You could take a map of the whole United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and add to it a map of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria (before the war), Holland, Denmark, the Turkish Empire, Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria, and lay all these together down on Siberia alone and have territory left. Nearly five thousand miles of the main line of the great Trans-Siberian railway are in this one country.
The building of this railroad was a gigantic undertaking and its construction cost the Russian Government four hundred million dollars. With all our boasted American hustle it took twenty years to build the Canadian Pacific railway from coast to coast. The Trans-Siberian is more than twice as long and was completed in half that length of time. Before the war there was hardly ever an accident on this railway. Every verst (about two-thirds of a mile) there is a little guardhouse and there was always a man or woman, generally a woman, standing with a flag as the train passed. I crossed on the International Sleeping Car train. It took ten days and ten nights and the average speed was more than twenty miles per hour.
The berths on this train were very comfortable. They were crosswise of the car while ours are lengthwise. The train consisted of two first-class, two second-class sleepers, a diner and a baggage car. These international trains ran once a week each way before the war and sometimes one had to purchase a ticket weeks in advance to go at a given time. When all berths were sold those who had none simply had to wait a week for the next train. I was the lone American on the train all the way across. There were a number of Englishmen and many Frenchmen on board.