How many shades of Christianity, Mohammedism, Lamaism, and Buddhism there were amongst us I dared not inquire. When at set of sun I saw the Mohammedan pray with face turned towards Mecca, I felt as if I were in a Turkish army. When I saw the Russian kiss the collection of ikons and crucifixes that he wore around his neck, I felt as if I were among Crusaders. When the indolent Mongol laughed at both Mohammedan and Christian, I felt that I was back in my own century.
Thus we marched along in peace, each praying to God in his own way, some not praying at all. We were an overflow from the great Muscovite crucible,
in which all sorts of strange undigested elements boil and bubble without ever uniting; and behind us came a helter-skelter of little cows trampling in a cloud of dust, beef still on the hoof, driven with blows of whip by a warlike people in migration.
I have already said that I was with the left column, but I could make out distinctly with the naked eye the long line of horsemen composing the central column. These horsemen were generally on the very verge of the horizon, and owing, I suppose, to the clearness and dryness of the air, their figures were frequently silhouetted with marvellous distinctness against the void of heaven, so that they looked like the little bronze Cossacks of Lanceray or Gratchoff, and that, in spite of the distance, I could see white atoms of dazzling sky between the horses' legs as they moved. To our left rode a strong flanking party, and, in all, the length of front swept by the three columns could not have been less than five miles.
It must not be imagined, of course, that there were five solid miles of soldiers. We only moved four or five abreast, so that each column resembled a long snake crawling slowly southward. The central column was connected with the right and left columns respectively by a network of scouts, who passed continuously between them.
As the scouts in front and rear and on the flanks were regularly relieved, there was no chance whatever for a strange horseman to accompany us without being observed. It would go hard, I am afraid, with any Japanese scout who attempted to get a view of us, even a long-distance view, for without doubt he would have been immediately " spotted." Once, in the rolling dust, Colonel Bunting became doubtful about the character of a solitary horseman who was riding on our left, and at a word from him a Caucasian sped off like an arrow to investigate. So well did we sweep the country with our scouts that game and domestic animals fled before us for miles. A hare ran in front of us all the wway to Yinkow, and though again and again the Cossacks tried to overtake and kill it with their " nagaike," it invariably escaped them.
This the Russians seemed to regard as a serious matter, but they laughed very much at the way in which all along our line of march young horses, mules and donkeys broke away from their Celestial proprietors and enlisted under our banners. These innocent beasts had never before seen such a collection of their species, and were probably under the impression that it was a great equine rebellion against mankind. If so, they were quickly disillusioned, for we soon caught and saddled them.
It must be admitted that the country was not the very best for horsemen, the land being all cultivated with the usual terrible thoroughness of the Chinese agriculturist, and traversed by interminable little ridges, which are bad enough for horses in any case, but which were rendered worse on this occasion by the countless millions of sharp kiaoliang stalks with which they were covered.
On the first night after crossing the Hun river we halted at Sifontai, and next day we faced south, and continued marching south until we reached Yinkow.
On the very day on which we reached Sifontai our scouts reported a conflagration in a village towards the south-east, but I should have concluded that it had no significance and was probably an accidental fire had it not been for what happened next evening.
On the second day we reached a village called Yowdyeze, near the confluence of the Hun and the Liao rivers, and it was here that we came for the first time into contact with the Japanese. Towards evening our foremost scouts overtook a small party of the enemy, who were conveying a transport train consisting of twenty Chinese carts filled with hay and kiaoliang.