But it is dull eating in your bedroom, and I knew I had not done wisely, for even if the principal hotel had been uncomfortable—I am not saying it was, because I never went there—it would have been more amusing to watch other folks than to be alone.
The day after I arrived I called upon Mr Sly, the British consul, and I was amused to hear the very dubious sounds that came from his room when I was announced.
I cleared the air by saying hastily: “I'm not a distressed British subject and I don't want any money,” though I'm bound to say he looked kind enough to provide me with the wherewithal had I wanted it. Then he shook his head and expressed his disapproval of my method of arrival.
“The last man who fell into Kharbin like that,” said he, “I hunted for a week, and two days later I attended his funeral,” so badly had he been man-handled. But that man, it seems, had plenty of money; it was wisdom he lacked. My trouble was the other way, certainly as far as money was concerned. It would never have been worth anyone's while to harm me for the sake of my possessions. I had fallen into the hands of a Polish Jew named Polonetzky, though he called himself Poland to me, feeling, I suppose, my English tongue was not equal to the more complicated word, and he dwelt in the Dome Stratkorskaya—remember Kharbin is China—and I promised if he dealt well by me that I would recommend his boarding-house to all my friends bound for Kharbin. He did deal well by me. So frightened was he about me that he would not let me out of his sight, or if he were not in attendance his wife or his brother was turned on to look after me.
“I am very good friends,” said he, “with Mr Sly at present. I do not want anything to happen.”
Mr Sly, we found, knew one of my brothers and he very kindly asked me to dinner. That introduced me to the élite of the place, and after dinner—Chinese cooks are still excellent on the borders—we drove in his private carriage and ended the evening in the public gardens. The coachmen here are quite gorgeous affairs; no matter what their nondescript nationality—they are generally Russians, I think, though I have seen Chinamen, Tartars, driving like Jehu the son of Nimshi—they wear for full livery grey beaver hats with curly brims like Johnny Walker or the Corinthians in the days of the Regent. It took my breath away when I found myself bowling along behind two of these curly brimmed hats that I thought had passed away in the days of my grandfather.
The gardens at Kharbin are a great institution. There in the summer's evening the paths were all lined with lamps; there were open-air restaurants; there were bands and fluttering flags; there were the most excellent ices and insidious drinks of all descriptions, and there were crowds of gaily dressed people—Monte Carlo in the heart of Central Asia! Kharbin in the summer is hot, very hot, and Kharbin in the winter is bitter cold. It is all ice and snow and has a temperature that ranges somewhere down to 40° Fahrenheit below zero, and this though the sun shines brilliantly. It is insidious cold that sneaks on you and takes you unawares, not like the bleak raw cold of England that makes the very most of itself. They told me a tale of a girl who had gone skating and when she came off the ice found that her feet were frozen, though she was unaware of her danger and had thought them all right. Dogs are often frozen in the streets and Chinamen too, for the Chinaman has a way of going to sleep in odd places, and many a one has slept his last sleep in the winter streets of Kharbin—the wide straggling streets with houses and gardens and vacant spaces just like the towns of Australia. A frontier town it is in effect. We have got beyond the teeming population of China.
And then I prepared to go first east to Vladivostok and then north to Siberia, and I asked advice of both the British consul and my self-appointed courier, Mr Poland.
Certainly he took care of me, and the day before I started east he handed me over to his wife and suggested she should take me to the market and buy necessaries for my journey. It was only a little over twenty-four hours so it did not seem to me a matter of much consequence, but I felt it would be interesting to walk through the market. It was.
This class of market, I find, is very much alike all over the world because they sell the necessaries of life to the people and it is only varied by the difference of the local products. Kharbin market was a series of great sheds, and though most of the stalls were kept by Chinamen, it differed from a market in a Chinese town in the fact that huge quantities of butter and cheese and cream were for sale. Your true Chinaman is shocked at the European taste for milk and butter and cream. He thinks it loathsome, and many a man is unable to sit at table and watch people eat these delicacies. Just as, of course, he is shocked at the taste that would put before a diner a huge joint of beef or mutton. These things Chinese refinement disguises. I suspect the proletariat with whom I came in contact in Shansi would gladly eat anything, but I speak of the refined Chinaman. Here in this market, whether he was refined or not, he had got over these fancies and there was much butter and delicious soured cream for sale. My Polish Jewess and I laboured under the usual difficulty of language, but she made me understand I had better buy a basket for my provisions, a plate, a knife, a fork—I had left these things behind in China, not thinking I should want them—a tumbler and a couple of kettles. No self-respecting person, according to her, would dream of travelling in Siberia without at least a couple of kettles. I laid in two of blue enamel ware and I am bound to say I blessed her forethought many and many a time.