FROM MUKDEN STATION TO MUKDEN TOWN
It was dawn when I looked out of my carriage window—a dull grey dawn. The sky was covered with leaden clouds and the rain came down in torrents. The river banks were entirely submerged, and the train stood still in a sea of mud. The scene of general deluge vividly recalled my ideas of the Flood, and it was like stepping out of the ark when I alighted from my carriage. Close by I saw a modest structure, one storey high, more like a peasant's hut than anything else, and I could scarcely believe that this was the station intended for Mukden, the capital of Manchuria. To my consternation I learnt that the train would go no farther that day. It might go on to-morrow or perhaps in a week's time.
There was plenty of time therefore to explore Mukden, although the town was over twenty miles away. But how was I to get there? There was no road to be seen and no vehicle anywhere about. I made inquiries from the station-master, a Russian officer, with a long beard and resplendent with gold lace. He advised me to send my interpreter to one of the neighbouring farms, where I might possibly obtain a Chinese cart, a driver, and a couple of mules, to convey me to Mukden in as short a time as the state of the roads would permit. I followed this advice. The courier wasted the greater part of the day in arguing with the farmers, while I was left in my carriage at the mercy of the hurricane, and occupied the time in writing down my unpleasant impressions, wind and rain supplying the accompaniment of music.
Towards the close of the afternoon my faithful Sancho returned, and pointed to a kind of cabriolet on two wheels with three mules harnessed in tandem fashion, and driven by a crooked little Chinaman. I cannot deny that the effect was extremely picturesque. The car was lacquered yellow, the hood covered with blue; the mules were grey, and the little driver was sheltered by a huge umbrella of gold-coloured oil-cloth. But although picturesque, it was far from comfortable. The vehicle had no springs and no seat; in fact, it consisted simply of a wooden board about two and a half feet square, on which one had to sit cross-legged like a Turk or a tailor. If the occupant happens to be neither the one nor the other, he suffers agonies before five minutes have passed. The only attempt at comfort was a small calico rug at the bottom of the cart, but this was a poor protection against the extremely hard wood of Manchuria.
I hesitated a moment before venturing to enter this uncomfortable conveyance, and pictured vividly to myself the horrors of a night's journey in it. But I had promised to visit, if possible, the site of our Mission station, which had been pillaged and burned in the last Boxer insurrection, and which had been the scene of so much noble martyrdom. So after all I made up my mind to go.
Little Li-Hu cracked his long whip, which, by the by, looked more like a fishing rod than a whip. And indeed, I might have amused myself with some angling on the way, for the mules were up to their fetlocks in chocolate-coloured liquid mud.
The first sight which attracted my attention on the road was a one-storeyed building, used as barracks and occupied by Cossacks. I learnt that it served as an encampment for the protection of the railway station.
Then followed a long stretch of road without anything remarkable to be seen.
FROM MUKDEN FLATS ON TO THE TOWN
After a Water-colour Drawing by the Author
"Then followed a long stretch of road without anything
remarkable to be seen"
[To face page 80]