MANCHURIA
“Inthe increased enthusiasm of Japan in her ardent effort to strengthen her position in the world, by basing her international conduct upon the fairest and best tried principles of human progress, the effort is not free from occasional errors, but the large issue grows clear in Japan’s mind.”
The force of such words as these inMr.Asakawa’s book “Russo-Japanese Conflict,” I feel as a traveller over four thousand miles of railroad controlled by Japan, from Yokohama to Port Arthur. If Japan is the country of loveliness par excellence, and Korea ranking with Greece and Montenegro, in the dramatic and picturesque, Manchuria is the majestic climax to both! Antoken, two days ride from Seoul, is the drop curtain painted in strokes of impressionism, as wonderful an introduction as the heart could wish to the farther grandeur of Asia. The Yalu has vast perspectives in its reaches into the heart of the land and moves one as do all great rivers, as the Neva, the Thames, commercially stupendous, as well as wide and deep. It seems a colossal boundary separating Korea from China, but in this respect it fails of its purpose since Japan has crossed it! The conflict which began near the gates of Pyongyang grows here more intense in retrospect and you see, still much as they were used, the sand bags and the remains of the fortifications. Sitting in a box car, with about twenty Japanese and Manchurians, we watched the unfolding of the landscape of China at our leisure.Here for the first time in our four years of the Orient we saw the horse doing his proper work as we see him in Europe and America. They were drawing the heavy vans as at home laden with harvest.
Antoken is a wild, unkempt town sprawling out in many directions, and is being revolutionized by hard labor, as fast as toil, oriental toil, can revolutionize it. The gaunt crags, the excavated cliffs, make it stern in aspect and rather alarm one as to what may lie beyond. The road seems a toy, but your admiration increases with the square of the distance, as you wind on into the first “divide” on the edge of precipices and over chasms for five hours of each day, through scenery only the passes of the Alps or the Rockies can equal, and although I have travelled through both, I think in certain aspects this trip rivals either. The gauge is to be widened in two years and the distance shortened. I was the guest on my return of the engineer in his private car, so I had the pleasure of admiring the fruit of his brain with the man who had conceived it. At the little mountain station where we passed the night and which is provided with a good Japanese hotel, I was told that here will be the centre of a health resort, and of course the game is all any sportsman can desire. At this station we met a French engineer, on his return to Paris from Tonkin, and his wit and interest in all he saw did much to enliven the stay. His grey hairs had not dimmed his delight in the superb panoramas of Nature, and his enthusiasm was added to our own. These heights covered with the rich hues of autumn are in fine contrast to the treeless, improvident mountains of Korea!
I have regretted not being able to accept an invitationto visit the American mines in Korea, but as it meant a trip in an ox cart I felt with Manchuria before me I had all I could have the heroism for. These mountains of Manchuria are supposed to be unfit for mining. The first farmyards in our home sense begin, soon out of Antoken, with the picturesque confusion of the autumn fruits. The soft greens of the intervals remind us of the country outside of Paris in spring. The cows and pigs are everywhere and in spite of the swineherds, who reminded us of our Spanish reading and the story of the “Prodigal Son” most vividly, they do get in the way of the slowly moving train. One little black fellow had his last race and fell, as so much rustic valor has before him, before the wheels we call progress, or Juggernaut according to our mood. One old swineherd in tatters came to the car door. Never off the stage have I seen a character so like the quaint creations of Shakespeare’s dramas. We made him happier with a few persimmons and a few coins, realizing from his extra crimson nose, that he was indeed in “a far country.” Now we were as the days wore on climbing ridges, now descending into abysses, every moment full of awe and of pleasure. Along one of the slopes I saw a letter carrier with just that easy lope he has on Broadway: so far gone that humanizes the letter! Caves, caverns, stupendous effects at every turn, on we climb. The mists on the heights in early morning are most exquisite. We pass military posts and one where there are rich coal mines. Being the only European on the train, and a woman, we are the “chief animal of the show.” We afford great amusement to the sightseers of Manchuria. Huge woods, men cutting logs, or at their arduous toil, it isall reciprocated and we part the best of friends, the sturdy mountaineers and the woman, strange indeed. They are, in their uncouth way, chivalrous, and as chivalry is dying out in every country we may yet have to seek it alone in Manchuria!
At one stopping place, I was attracted by a shrine, of which you see so many, and as we had an hour’s wait, went to investigate. I fell in with the native kindness and was asked in with the greatest show of hospitality to see the interior. It was of course a farm house! How bare! There was the raised platform where, as in Russia, the family slept. All was blackened with smoke and all, including the family, needed a lot of water to bring them to the original color, but the children were very bright under their coat of dirt and very graceful, in a way far more attractive than most civilized mannikins. The advent of a foreigner made an event in the village annals and we soon had quite an audience of the neighbors. It took us back again to days of the One who went about doing good. I did not see a church spire from Antoken to Dalny; am told that there are Catholic missions and a cathedral in Moukden. The villages are all inclosed in mud walls and are compact and occasionally one sees a temple much the worse for the “tooth of time.”