VI
Thursday, October 18.
It is a surprise to awaken to a dark and sombre sky. We counted upon having, as on the preceding mornings, the almost never clouded autumn and winter sun, which in China shines and warms even when everything is frozen hard, and which has, up to this time, helped us to support the gruesome sights of our journey.
When we open the door of the junk just before dawn, our horses and cart are there, having just arrived. On the forbidding shore some Mongolians with their camels are crouched about a fire which has burned all night in the dust; and behind their motionless groups the high walls of the city, of an inky blackness, rise to meet the low-hanging clouds.
We leave our small nomadic equipment in the junk, in the care of two marines of the Tong-Tchow division, who will look after it until our return, and also our most precious possession, the last of the bottles of pure water given us by the general.
The last stage of our journey is made in the company of the French consul-general at Tien-Tsin and of the chancellor of the legation, who are both bound for Pekin, under the escort of a marshal and three or four artillerymen.
Our long, monotonous route leads us across fields of sorghos reddened by the early frosts, and through deserted villages where no one is stirring. It is a cold, gray morning, and the autumn country, upon which a fine rain is falling, is in mourning.
At certain moments I almost fancy myself on the roads of the Basque country in November, amid the uncut maize. Then all at once some unknown symbol arises to recall China,—either a tomb of mysterious shape or a stele mounted upon enormous granite tortoises.
From time to time we meet military convoys of one nation or another, or lines of ambulances. In one place some Russians have taken shelter from a shower in the ruins of a village; in another a number of Americans, who have discovered some hidden clothing in an abandoned house, go on their way rejoicing, with fur mantles on their backs.