“But why the earth piled up against the sides?” I asked. It was sprouting grass now and yellow buttercups and looked gay and pretty, the only attractive thing about the place.
“Madame, for the cold,” said he, “for the cold.” And remembering what they had told me about the cold of Kharbin, what I myself had experienced at Manchuria on the way out in much the same latitude as this, I could quite well believe that even sunk in the earth this poor little hut was not a very good protection against the cold.
The river widened again, winding its way across a plateau. On the Chinese side were great oak forests where my Cossack told me were many pig that gave them good hunting and many bees, but this was not China as I knew it. It was inhabited, he said, by nomad tribes who were great horsemen, and we saw occasional villages and—a rare sight—cattle, red and white, standing knee-deep in the clear water. Particularly was I struck by the cattle, for in all those thousands of miles of travel I could count on my fingers—the fingers of one hand would be too many—the numbers of times I saw herds of cattle. Once was in Saghalien, and twice, I think, here, curiously enough, for the pure Chinese does not use milk or butter on the Chinese side of the river. Of course there must have been cows somewhere, for there was plenty of milk, cream and butter for sale, but they were not in evidence from the river.
On the Russian side the landing-places did not change much, only now among the women hawkers were Chinese in belted blouses, green, yellow, blue, pink, red; they rioted in colour as they never did in their own land, and they all wore sea-boots.
And still over twelve hundred miles from the sea it was a great river. And then at last I saw what I had been looking for ever since I embarked—fields of corn, corn ripe for the harvest. This was all this lovely land needed, a field of corn; but again it was not on the Russian side, but on the Chinese.
The spires and domes of Blagoveschensk, the capital of the Amur Province, came into view. All along the Russian bank of the river lay this city of Eastern Siberia. Its buildings stood out against the clear sky behind it, and approaching it was like coming up to a great port. The river, I should think, was at least a mile wide. I am not very good at judging distances, but it gave me the impression of a very wide river set here in the midst of a plain—that is, of course, a plateau, for we had come through the hills.
And here my Cossack friend came to bid me good-bye and to impress upon me once again to go straight to the Governor for that protection order. He was sorry he could not see me through, but his orders were to go to Chita as fast as he could, and someone would speak English at Blagoveschensk, for it was a great city, and then he asked for the last time:
“But, Madame, why does not England come in?”
And then the question that had troubled me so was answered, for as we touched the shore men came on board wild with excitement, shouting, yelling, telling the war news, that very day, that very moment, it seemed, England had come in!
And I appeared to be the only representative of Britain in that corner of the world! Never was there such a popular person. The sailor-men who worked the ship, the poorer third and fourth class passengers all came crowding to look at the Englishwoman. I had only got to say “Anglisky” to have everyone bowing down before me and kissing my hand, and my Cossack friend as he bade me good-bye seemed to think it hardly necessary to go to the Governor except that a member of a great Allied nation ought to be properly received.