Through one shabby courtyard after another, all guarded by soldiers in khaki, he led me to the presence of the Tartar General, Hsiung Hsi Ling, the great man who had been Minister of Finance and who now held military command over the whole of that part of China, independent even of the Viceroy of the Province of Chihli. Those who told me made a great point of that independence; but in China it seems that a General with troops at his command always is independent, not only of the Viceroy of the Province in which he is stationed, but of anyone else in authority. The President himself would treat him with great respect so long as he had troops at his back. He is, in fact, entirely independent. If the central authorities give him money to pay his troops, well and good, he holds himself at their command, if they do not, then he is quite likely to sympathise with his men, and become not only a danger to the community among whom he is stationed, but to the Government as well. It is hardly likely yet in China, that a General popular with his troops can be degraded or dismissed. He can only be got rid of by offering him something better.
Here I found none of the pomp and magnificence I had expected to find about an all-powerful Oriental. We went into a room floored with stone, after the Chinese fashion, and furnished with a couple of chairs, and through that into a plain, smallish room, with the usual window of dainty lattice-work covered with white paper. All down the centre of it ran a table like a great dining-table, covered, as if to emphasise the likeness, with a white cloth. I felt as if I had come in at an inopportune moment, before the table had been cleared away. Seated at this table, with his back to the window, was the General. He rose as I entered and came forward, kindly and considerately, to meet me—a man of middle height, younger than I expected, for he hardly looked forty. There was not a thread of white in his coal-black hair, but he had some hair on his face—a moustache and the scanty beard that is all the Chinese can produce—so he was evidently of ripe years, well past middle age. He wore a uniform of khaki, as simple and devoid of ornament as that of one of his own soldiers; his thick black hair was cut short and he had a clever, kindly face. Though he could understand no English, he looked at the foreign woman pleasantly, and as if he were glad to see her. He went back to his chair, and I was seated at his right hand, while his secretary, and very inadequate interpreter, sat on his left. An attendant, looking like an ordinary coolie, brought in tea in three cups with handles and saucers, foreign fashion, and the interview began.
I have been told that a grave and unsmiling demeanour is the proper thing to bring to a Chinese interview; and if so I failed lamentably to come up to the correct standard. But since the interpreter knew even less English than Tuan, whom I had left outside, there was really little else to do but smile and look pleasant. My host certainly smiled many times. I complimented him on the beauty of his country and then I asked permission, that is to say his protection, to go on to Lamamiao, or as it is called on the maps, Dolnor. Goodness knows why I asked. It would have meant two or three weeks at least in that awful Peking cart, but I appear to be so constituted that, when I am within range of a place, it would seem like missing my opportunities not to try and get there. I don't know what there is to see at Dolnor, but it is up on the Mongolian plateau, and there is a big lamaserie there and a living Buddha, that is an incarnation of the Buddha. The one who is there at present may be very holy as to one part of him, but the earthly part requires plenty of drink, I am told, and the caresses of many women to make this world tolerable. However, I was not to see him. The General and his secretary might not have understood much, but they did understand what I wanted then, and they were emphatic that I could not go. The General looked at his secretary and then at me, and explained at length, and he must have thought that the English language was remarkable for its brevity, for I was curtly informed:
“No can go. Plenty robber. Too much war.”