As we journeyed northward once more the cold steadily increased, and a biting wind found its way even into the railway carriages. At Kharbin a perfect blizzard had been blowing the previous day, and as it happened to be the Russian Easter, banks were closed and the tickets for the Russian State express train were not to be purchased. We discovered that the train service was all to be changed the next day, May 1st, and no time-tables were obtainable. The British Consul kindly promised to get our tickets on the Monday, and ascertained that we could join the express at Ashiho, a few stations down the Vladivostock line, where we were going to spend the week end.

We reached Ashiho about 9 o’clock, and set out for our destination in a droshky. It was a most perilous drive in the dark, for the roads—or what pass muster as roads—were in the worst possible condition; the spring thaw had set in, and the surface of the ground was a hopeless quagmire destined to last until there should be sufficient sunshine to dry it, for the wet was unable to penetrate the still frozen earth. Our friends at Hulan had set out that morning to meet us at Kharbin. After a long weary walk in a snowstorm they found the Kharbin steamer on the Sungari River crowded with passengers. An hour’s wait in a piercing wind was followed by the information that it was quite uncertain whether the boat would go at all that day, so they gave it up in despair and returned home. Practically speaking all traffic is stopped on the country roads at this time of the year, and those who walk must be prepared to wade knee deep in black mud to reach their destination. We had no catastrophe during our half-hour’s drive, but it was more by good luck than anything else.

Ashiho is rather a dull Chinese town with the usual Russian settlement round the railway station, which is about half a mile outside the gates. The Russians have insisted on the town being lighted at nights, but there is not more than enough light to show the darkness. A red light on the top of a lofty pole is the sign of public baths, which seemed to be the scene of much activity. The Russian droshky, with Chinese drivers, is apparently quite an institution there, but one wonders how they can make a living in such a locality. The town boasts a sugar factory, but owing to a bad beetroot season it was closed. A small community of Scotch missionaries is working there, and when they have got a new hospital and better premises, there is every prospect of greater growth in the work. The lady doctor, though only recently from home, and still in the first stages of learning the language, had over sixty patients waiting to see her, and the people seem more willing here than elsewhere to send for her in midwifery cases. As she is the only doctor, she has one day a week for men patients. The missionary premises are deplorable; if only some of the home committee could have enjoyed our quarters and heard the walls which enclose the compound falling down during the night, they would see the need for haste in building new ones. The girls’ school was being carried on under difficulties that would daunt any but the most resolute, but the workers are Scotch, and have learnt to laugh at difficulties. Less than two years ago one of the ladies was itinerating in the country, accompanied by a Biblewoman, when she was suddenly attacked by a party of mounted brigands. They treated her with considerable roughness, robbing not only her but also the Biblewoman and the carter of all that they considered worth stealing—money, watches, clothes, and food. Amongst other things they took her eiderdown—for this took place in the cold weather—but the Biblewoman had the happy inspiration to tell the robbers that it only contained feathers (which they utterly scorned), so they threw it away. They only left her one cent in money (evidently they had a sense of humour), and decamped somewhat hurriedly on seeing a party of horsemen appear in the distance, whom they took for soldiers.

There is plenty of ground belonging to the mission, but, as usual, funds for building are not forthcoming. It seems a pity that the home churches should keep on sending out workers without the requisite equipment to carry on their work. At home one frequently hears of the luxury in which missionaries live, but in my fairly considerable experience of mission houses, I have never met a single one where this is the case, and rarely (except in the case of American missions) have I been where the work has not been seriously hindered for the lack of funds. Most missionaries are driven by the necessities of their work to eke out by contributions from their own meagre salaries the insufficient funds provided from home. Many are consequently unable to afford to have newspapers and other literature sent out regularly, and the thoughtless kindness of their supporters does not supply them with anything beyond religious periodicals and books. The postage of papers and books is only the same as at home, and parcels weighing not more than 11 lb. can now be sent to China by post for the small sum of 2s. 11d., so there is no reason why the missionary’s life should not be occasionally brightened by a judicious present from the home country.

The one drawback to the position of the mission premises at Ashiho is that they are so near the wall beside the East gate, outside which is the public execution ground, and the gruesome procession to it passes alongside the mission houses. Shortly before our visit there had been executions twice in one week—the first time two men, and the second time four men were killed by strangulation.

Near the mission also there is a pretty Mohammedan mosque, built exactly like a Buddhist or Taoist temple, which provides schools for boys and girls. The girls’ school is a recent institution, probably in imitation of the mission one, and is evidently at all events a numerical success, for a good number of girls filed out on Sunday afternoon as we happened to be passing. The type of face of many of the boys struck us as particularly Semitic, and the Chinese here habitually call them Jews. There is a large proportion of butchers among the Mohammedans, as is usually the case in China, and this is a boon to Europeans, for it is only the Mohammedans who kill beef, and they are particular about the healthiness of the beasts. The Moslems in China do not attempt to proselytise openly, and they adhere less rigidly than elsewhere to their religious observances. They conform outwardly as much as possible to Chinese customs in order to escape notice, but they are no negligible quantity among the myriads of that land, for they number at least twenty millions. The Mohammedans entered China in A.D. 755 by the regular trade route through Central Asia, and even earlier (in 628) according to Chinese Mohammedan tradition they are said to have sent the prophet’s uncle as envoy to the Chinese court. The proselytising of the Chinese was as peaceful as that of the Indians was the reverse. It was mainly achieved by Moslem traders and artisans, following in the wake of Genghiz Khan and Kubla Khan’s conquests. They married Chinese women, and their children all became Moslems; they adopted large numbers of other children in famine times in order to bring them up in the Faith, and thus they have steadily but unobtrusively grown in numbers.

In past times there have been terrible massacres of the Mohammedans by the Chinese whenever they have made any attempt to withstand Chinese customs, which is probably the reason one hears so little of them nowadays, but they show a quiet tenacity in sticking to their religion, which is characteristic of Mohammedanism in every land. It was in a vain endeavour to reach them that the great Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, died off the coast of China. Up to the present time there has been no special mission work amongst the Mohammedans in China.

My sketch of the Mohammedan mosque at Ashiho was done under considerable difficulties, for the boys had just come out of school, and would jostle up and down, and round about me on the mound of earth where I was sitting, raising such a dust that at last I was driven defeated from the field. Though it was the first of May the scene was a winter one, and we longed and longed for spring to arrive.

On sending to the station to inquire what time our train left in the evening, they declared there was no train at all, and that the date of the weekly express from Vladivostock had been changed from Monday to Sunday. We felt so convinced that this was a mistake, having inquired about it at Kharbin only two days previously, that we went down to the station in good time for the usual 9 o’clock train, and were rewarded by learning that the hour and not the date of the train had been altered, and that it would pass through Ashiho at 10 o’clock. After waiting for an hour in the restaurant, where a party of the attendants were playing cards, the ticket office was opened, but they absolutely refused to sell tickets to us, saying that the express only stopped for half a minute, and that we could not get into it. We vainly protested that having no registered luggage we would take our chance of getting into the train, and that we must go by it, as we had the long journey to Irkutsk before us. The reiteration of this fact for about five minutes without stopping at last began to tell, and the official said he must see what small luggage we had. After due inspection he agreed to let us have tickets, but we had to pay for them from a point about fifty miles up the line, which meant twenty-one roubles instead of the four and a half we had paid on coming. The next difficulty was that the ticket office contained no change and seemed unable to get any, so we had to borrow the requisite amount from our friends. When the train did arrive each of our friends stood ready holding an article of luggage ready to hurl it into the corridor, and of course there was no difficulty in getting both our belongings and ourselves into it. We were soon comfortably established in the coupé which we were to occupy for the next two days, that is, until we should reach Irkutsk, where all passengers have to change.

At Kharbin there was a hopeless scrimmage for places, as those booked in advance for passengers from the south had all been appropriated by a large party of Americans at Vladivostock, and the ladies had discreetly retired to bed. It is always asserted that there is plenty of room on the Russian State Express in contradistinction to the International Sleeping Car, and that it is unnecessary to book places in advance. Evidently this was a fallacy, for every berth was full, and it was only after long and acrimonious arguing that the officials agreed to put on an extra carriage, and a very dirty one it proved to be. Great dissatisfaction was caused by this arrangement, and we were over an hour late in starting. We had been frequently assured that we should find the State Express more comfortable than the International, but such is by no means the case. The only point in which it excels is in the smoothness of running, in every other respect it is inferior. The carriages are smaller, there is no dressing-room in the first-class coupés, there are no second-class coupés (only carriages for four people), the washing basins would not hold water, there was no soap or towel, the restaurant car was far too small, and the meals were not to the taste of any of the passengers. A piano in the restaurant does not compensate for such deficiencies.