It was an uninterrupted yellow grin all the way to Dalny. I have never before had such an opportunity of observing the mirthless Asiatic smile. It was a kind of noiseless laugh, and conveyed, not only an appreciation of humour, but amazement, keen satisfaction and scorn sharp enough to pierce the hide of a rhinoceros. It was like the smile you might see on the faces of London street arabs gazing at the corpulent form of a pompous but unpopular police-sergeant who had got beastly drunk and was being solemnly carried frog's-march to the police station, only that the street arabs would dissipate a lot of their venom in jocular and abusing shouts, while the Chinese concentrated all theirs in that characteristic smile. There was no tribute to bravery, no pity for suffering in that cruel grin. The Chinese can see nothing honourable in captivity; most of them were probably convinced that the Japanese would hereafter make slaves, draughtcattle, of these white-skinned prizes of war. Being Orientals and belonging to a nation as old as Assyria, they probably thought that the natural thing to do with us was to treat us in the shameful way that prisoners of war were treated in the days of Assur- Nusir-Pal.
It seemed impossible to sate the curiosity of these Celestials. They drank in the tremendous significance of the scene with their eyes as thirsty men drink water, and their curiosity seemed unappeasable. Many Chinamen, who had probably supposed the Great White Tsar to be God in Heaven, were suddenly petrified when they saw us, and remained in that condition until the train had passed. Chinese boys in padded winter dress that gave them the appearance of corpulent little elephants, ran wildly across fields to see the show, intimating meanwhile by shouts and gestures that they fully grasped the enormous significance of this great haul. Parents, with an historical prescience that did them credit, brought out their little children to gaze on the train-load of fallen white men passing by.
And how shall I describe the way in which the Chinese regarded the Japanese? To borrow M.
Berard's fine comparison, they seemed to lock this victorious, kindred people, whom the infallible Occident had declared to be smitten by the same inferiority as themselves, as Homeric soldiers might be supposed to look upon comrades who had all at once and without effort assumed the mighty casques and armour of those vast gods whose weight made the axle-trees of their chariots creak.
Meanwhile the Russians talked of their capture just as if they had been captured by the Germans or the English or any other race of kindred. They failed to grasp the fact that the Germans and the English are their brethren, while, to all Europeans, the Japanese are as mysterious and incomprehensible as the inhabitants of Mars. They failed to see that they were prisoners of this strange and monstrous Asia, which, since the time ot Herodotus, Europe has constantly regarded with distrust and hatred, not unmixed with fear. They were captives to the vague, legendary Cipango. They failed to see the fact, clear as the sun in the heavens, that history had opened a new account, that the axis of the earth had shifted, that the Universe had entered on an entirely new phase. They were as little alive to the tremendous nature of the occasion as was Columbus's cabin-boy when the New World was first sighted. Not since the days of the Golden Horde, since the days when Russian princes had to kneel in person before the Khan of Serai, has Russia endured such a gigantic humiliation. No such disaster has befallen the White Race since the time of the Mongols. Adowa was nothing in comparison with it. No such disaster befell the Russians in the recent war. There were not many Chinese to see the shame of
Port Arthur, while Ta-shih-chiao and Liaoyang were practically barren of captives. But the publicity of this dishonour may be gauged by the fact that for two months, according to the jubilant Japanese calculation, it would take a train like the one in which I travelled, running daily, to convey all the Russian captives through Manchuria to Dalny. By the end of that time the Manchurian peasant might well be excused for believing that the entire White Race was tilling the soil of Japan under the whip of the Japanese slavedriver.
The shame was so flagrant, so glaring, that one felt reluctant to regard it, just as he would feel reluctant to regard the shame of a man dragged naked to prison in broad daylight through howling streets. One longed to shut his eyes. One wished for the darkness to come and hide the horror, for some natural catastrophe to take place and distract the universal attention. One wished to be small and beardless like a Japanese. One felt ashamed of being white, inasmuch as his white skin exposed him to some of the unspeakable reproach.