The streets were carefully swept every morning. The numbers of the different "sotnia" living in this " stanitza " had been painted in white on the mud walls bounding the little courtyards, while the inside of all the houses had been carefully washed and papered with back numbers of Russian journals, among which the illustrated supplements of the Novoe Vremya were conspicuous. The houses were heated by means of "kangs " and of small tin stoves constructed, after a European model, by the tin-smiths in Mukden. The sanitary regulations were strict, and one of the huts had been made air-tight and converted into an excellent Russian bath-house.
The weather was now cold, but glorious. The ground was hard as iron; there was little snow; and, though there was plenty of sunshine, the cold wind pierced one to the marrow, unless one followed the example of the Russians and wore a pile of furs, which gave one the appearance of a small elephant.
Bearded men suffered a good deal of discomfort from this cold, because the vapour from their mouths formed into icicles, the removal of which from their moustaches and beard was rather painful.
A stream ran through our village, but it ran underneath a coat of ice, thick enough to bear a railwaytrain. Every day the Cossacks cut holes in this ice to allow their horses to drink. The water for their own use they got at the village well, where, in accordance with the Russian custom, a soldier always stood on guard. In an enclosed space behind the houses, the horses were piqueted and fed on straw.
While walking one morning through our village of Cossackville, I was surprised to see five or six wretched-looking Chinese standing by the frozen bank of the stream collecting the entrails of the cows and sheep that the Cossacks had just killed for dinner, and, for a moment, I was as startled at seeing these Celestials as a New Yorker would be at seeing a Red Indian stalking in paint and feathers through his back yard.
Some village dogs had collected near them, partly for old acquaintance' sake — these gentlemen having probably been the aldermen of the hamlet under the
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Chinese regime — and partly, no doubt, for the sake of the eatables.
When the Cossacks entered into possession of the village, these dogs had left it in a body, and they had afterwards lived in the fields at a respectful distance. They were not hostile, however; they were onlypuzzled. Some of them had given hostages to fortune in the shape of pups, which the Cossacks took care of, and all of them seemed to see more or less distinctly that the newcomers were not wholly bad. They therefore refrained from barking at the Russians, and were probably open to an offer to come back on the old terms. But the Russians did not want them back, and I am afraid that the rigorous winter thinned their number. Often when I went out riding I found two or three of these poor animals frozen to death. In Mukden, Chinese beggars picked up these dead dogs, whose skins they sold, and whose flesh they ate.
The case of the Chinese was indeed hard, for the whole country between the Shaho and the Hun, over a line extending eighty or ninety miles, had been swept clear of them, and the population of Mukden had consequently swollen to five or six times its usual size. Day after day I met the inhabitants of outlying villages coming in, sometimes with a mule and a few pots and pans, sometimes with nothing at all. Often I met a number of sturdy young men carrying on a door their aged grandmother or great-grandmother, one of those extraordinarily ancient people only to be found in China, where old age is worshipped. Once I met a cheerful young farmer carrying his two little children, each swung in a basket about the size of a hat-box, balanced over his shoulder, one in front and one behind. That poor fellow had lost everything in the world save these two children, but he was quite happy.
The Cossacks never practised firing at targets, or in any other way; but every morning they had cavalry drill on the village green, and sometimes, on returning from this drill, they would burst into a lively, rattling chant, which had always the effect of making me issue forth into the ice-cold, crisp morning air, radiant with sunshine, and, after the over-heated " fanza," pleasant to the taste as iced champagne in summer time. In fact the amount of singing they did was extraordinary, and it was excellent singing. Sometimes they sang that beautiful national chant,
Mnogo lyet, mnogo lyet, Nashe Pravaslavny Tsar!
Many years, many years
To our Orthodox Christian Tsar!