The capital of Northern Manchuria is Tsi-tsi-kar. The Governor of the province resides there, and it is the centre of that part of the country. But the town itself is very primitive, and far behind the other two chief towns, Kirin and Mukden. The population is a mixture of Manchus, Chinese, and Buriats, who do a small trade in raw materials, more especially in skins of all sorts.
From a very early date caravans have made this place one of their stopping stations on their way from the southern provinces to the districts north of the Amur. The people still use the same primitive carts as in those remote times, sometimes drawn by Mongolian ponies—I have seen as many as sixteen or eighteen to one cart—more often by oxen.
The peculiar way in which the harness was fixed always amused me: it seemed an inextricable confusion of straps and cords. How do they manage it? It is a problem which only Chinese patience can solve.
I had equally good opportunities of studying the local dress and the customs of the natives. In this vast, barren region, where no European had ever penetrated before the construction of the railway, everything is still in its primitive state. The people live partly by agriculture, such as it is, and partly by fishing. The houses are extremely poor; we should call them hovels, built of bricks or dried mud. There they live, together with their cattle and other domestic animals. Like all Asiatics, they are devoted to horse-breeding, and I visited several large haras.
Flocks and herds abound, but the animal one meets with most frequently is the pig; but the pigs of this region are very different from ours. They are usually black, with long, thin tails, looking rather like boars. Numbers of them are to be seen in every yard, rooting up the ground and giving the Manchu homestead about as untidy and dirty an appearance as is possible to conceive.
Of poultry there is no lack either. Geese, ducks, and fowls share the family abode. The entrance to every house is guarded by half-savage dogs, like so many wolves, and certainly not less ferocious. More than once I was nearly devoured by them, and as it is not advisable to fight them I always took care to have my pockets full of biscuits.
A Manchu home, in short, has the appearance of a cattle show, or a Noah's ark, and the life lived is unquestionably antediluvian.
Speaking generally, the cultural standard of the Manchus is much below the average Chinese level. The people look more barbarous to begin with, their occupations are all of a rough nature, and the old Confucian doctrines have never penetrated to them. They have always led a merely animal rather than an intellectual life, an existence of strife rather than of thought, and to this day the Imperial army consists almost exclusively of Manchu soldiers.
Our progress was very slow. For many days we travelled on leisurely, with occasional stoppages long enough to enable me to make excursions into the interior. I tried every means of conveyance—bullock-carts, Mongol ponies, Cossack horses. It was tiring work, but gave me extraordinary opportunities of making myself familiar with the country and its inhabitants. At last I reached Kharbin, a famous town, being the junction where the three railways of Manchuria meet, viz. the Vladivostok, the Port Arthur, and the Siberian lines.
