e Consul at
An-tung, who had made the journey eight times, had been in four railway
accidents, and two days previously the train had rolled down a declivity
with a general and his staff.

The view through the carriage windows is magnificent. This part of
Manchuria is mountainous, but in the depths of the valleys lie farms and
fields. Manchus in long blue coats and black vests wind along the road
tracks, some on foot, others mounted, while others again drive
two-wheeled carts drawn by a horse and a pair of mules. All the
watercourses are frozen, but there is no snow. It is sunny, clear, and
calm in these valleys, where the thunder of battle has long died away
among the mountains.

Half-way to Mukden we halt for the night, and start next morning before
daybreak in biting cold. Some Chinese merchants join the train, attended
by servants bearing paper lanterns. A small party of Japanese soldiers
also is here. They are in thick yellow coats with high collars,
_bashliks_, red shoulder knots, caps with a red border, leather-covered
felt boots, and are armed with cutlasses and rifles. They are sinewy and
sturdy fellows, neat and clean, and always seem cheerful.

At length the Christmas sun rises glowing red, and the ice flowers
vanish from the windows. Here, where the winter cold is so piercing, it
is oppressively hot in summer. Our little toy train crosses a river
several times on fragile bridges of beams, which seem as though they
might at any moment collapse like a house of cards. Small strips of
tilled land, creaking ox-carts on the deeply rutted roads, tiny Buddhist
oratories, primitive stations with long rows of trucks of fuel, a
country house or two--that is all that is to be seen the whole day,
until late in the evening we arrive at Mukden.

Manchuria is one of the dependencies of China. The Russians constructed
a railway through the country to the fortress of Port Arthur, but, as is
well known, the Japanese succeeded in capturing the fortress during the
war. By the peace of Portsmouth,[19] concluded in September 1905, the
Japanese acquired Port Arthur, the adjacent commercial port of Dalny,
with the surrounding district, the southern half of the large island
Sakhalin, the supremacy over Korea, together with the South Manchurian
Railway--so that the Russians had unknowingly built this railway for the
benefit of their enemies.

Round Mukden was fought the greatest battle of the whole Russo-Japanese
War. The contest