I have to thank my friend Mrs Lang for the drastic criticism which once more has materially helped me to write this book. Other people also have I to thank, but so great was the kindness I received everywhere I can only hope each one will see in this book some token of my sincere gratitude. Mary Gaunt. Mary Haven, New Eltham, Kent....

E ach time I begin a book of travel I search for the reasons that sent me awandering. Foolishness, for I ought to know by this time the wander fever was born in my blood; it is in the blood of my sister and brothers. We were brought up in an inland town in Victoria, Australia, and the years have seen us roaming all over the world. I do not think any of us has been nearer the North Pole than Petropaulovski, or to the South Pole than Cape Horn—children of a sub-tropical clime, we do not like the c

B ut you mayn't go to T'ai Yuan Fu in one day. The southern train puts you down at Shih Chia Chuang—the village of the Stone Family—and there you must stay till 7.40 a.m. next morning, when the French railway built through the mountains that divide Shansi from Shensi takes you on to its terminus at T'ai Yuan Fu. There is a little Chinese inn at Shih Chia Chuang that by this time has become accustomed to catering for the foreigner, but those who are wise beg the hospitality of the British America

I was to ride a pack-mule. Now riding a pack-mule at any time is an unpleasant way of getting along the road. I know no more uncomfortable method. It is not quite as comfortable as sitting upon a table with one's legs dangling, for the table is still, the mule is moving, and one's legs dangle on either side of his neck. There are neither reins nor stirrups, and the mule goes at his own sweet will, and in a very short time your back begins to ache, after a few hours that aching is intolerable. To

I n my wanderings across Shansi I came in contact with two missionary systems run with the same object in view but carried out in diametrically opposite ways. Of course I speak as an outsider. I criticise as one who only looks on, but after all it is an old saw that the onlooker sees most of the game. There are, of course, many missions in China, and I often feel that if the Chinaman were not by nature a philosopher he would sometimes be a little confused by salvation offered him by foreigners o

A s I have said more than once, it seems to me the most intolerable thing in life would be to be a Chinese woman. I remember when first I began to write about China I asked a friend of mine to look over my work and he objected to my making such a fuss about the condition of the women. “Why, people will think you are a suffragette!” said he, searching for some term of obloquy that he felt could not possibly apply to me. But I am a suffragist, an ardent suffragist, realising that a woman is most v

S etting out on a long journey by road, moving along slowly, at the rate of thirty miles a day, I find I do not have the end in view in my mind all the time. I do subconsciously, of course, or I would never get on at all, but I take a point a couple of days ahead and concentrate on getting there. Having arrived so far, I am so pleased with the performance I can concentrate on the next couple of days ahead. So I pass on comfortably, with the invigorating feeling of, something accomplished. Fen Ch

I t is better, says a Chinese proverb, “to hear about a thing than to see it,” and truly on this journey I was much inclined to agree with that dictum. We were bound for Hsieh Ts'un. I can't pronounce it, and I should not like to swear to the spelling, but of one thing I am very sure, not one of the inhabitants could spell it, or even know it was wrongly set forth to the world, so I am fairly safe. We went under the archway with the theatrical notices at Liu Lin Chen, under the arched gateway of

W ell, I had failed! The horrid word kept ringing in my ears, the still more horrid thought was ever in my mind day and night as I retraced my footsteps, and I come of a family that does not like to fail. I wondered if it were possible to make my way along the great waterways of Siberia. There were mighty rivers there, I had seen them, little-known rivers, and it seemed to me that before going West again I might see something of them, and as my mules picked their way across the streams, along th

A t Tientsin I sweltered in the Astor House, and I put it on record that I found it hotter in Northern China than I did on the Guinea coast in West Africa. It was probably, of course, the conditions under which I lived, for the hotel had been so well arranged for the bitter winter it was impossible to get a thorough draught of air through any of the rooms. James Buchanan did not like it either, for in the British concessions in China dogs come under suspicion of hydrophobia and have always to be

A ll the afternoon we went back on our tracks along the main line, the sea on one side and the green country, riotous, lush, luxuriant, on the other, till at last we reached the head of the gulf and took our last look at the Northern Sea; grey like a silver shield it spread before us, and right down to the very water's edge came the vivid green. And then we turned inland, and presently we left the main line and went north. Above was the grey sky, and the air was soft and cool and delicious. I ha

N ikolayeusk seemed to me the ends of the earth. I hardly know why it should have done so, for I arrived there by way of a very comfortable steamer and I have made my way to very much more ungetatable places. I suppose the explanation is that all the other places I have visited I had looked up so long on the map that when I arrived I only felt I was attaining the goal I had set out to reach, whereas I must admit I had never heard of Nikolayeusk till Mr Sly, the British consul, sketched it out as

O n the 25th July 1914, at nine o'clock in the evening, I left Saghalien, and as the ship steamed away from the loom of the land into the night I knew that at last, after eighteen months of voyaging in the East, I had turned my face homeward. I had enjoyed it, but I wanted to go home, and in my notebook I see evidences of this longing. At last I was counting the days—one day to Nikolayeusk, three days to Kharbarosvk, three days more to Blagoveschensk—and I was out in my calculations in the very

B lagoveschensk is built on much the same lines as all the other Siberian towns that I have seen, a wooden town mostly of one-storeyed houses straggling over the plain in wide streets that cut one another at right angles. Again it was not at all unlike an Australian town, a frontier town to all intents and purposes. The side-roads were deep in dust, and the principal shop, a great store, a sort of mild imitation of Harrod's, where you could buy everything from a needle to an anchor—I bought a do

A t Stretensk I awakened to the fact that I was actually in Siberia, nay, that I had travelled over about two thousand miles of Siberia, that dark and gloomy land across which—I believed in my youth—tramped long lines of prisoners in chains, sometimes amidst the snow and ice of a bitter winter, sometimes with the fierce sun beating down upon them, but always hopeless, always hungry, weary, heartbroken, a sacrifice to the desire for political liberty that was implanted in the hearts of an enslave

I was in the train at last, fairly on my way home, and I was glad. But I wasn't glad for very long. I began to wish myself back in the railway station at Stretensk, where at least I had fresh air. At first I had the window open and a corner seat. There are only two people on a seat in a Russian long-distance train, because when night falls they let down the seat above, which makes a bunk for the second person. But I was second class and my compartment opened without a door into the other compart

I t was evening and we had arrived at Petrograd. For many years I had wanted to see the northern capital. I had thought of it as a town planned by a genius, slowly growing amid surrounding swamps, and in my childhood I had pictured that genius as steadily working as a carpenter—in a white paper cap—having always in his mind's eye the town that was to grow on the Baltic Sea, the seaport that should give his country free access to the civilisation of the West. He was a great hero of mine because o

B ut we couldn't get on the steamer at once. For some reason or other there were Customs delays and everything we possessed had to be examined before we were allowed to leave the country, but—and we hailed them with delight—under the goods sheds were set out little tables where we could buy coffee and rolls and butter and eggs. It was autumn now, and for all the sunshine here in such high latitudes there was a nip in the air and the hot coffee was welcome. We met, too, our friend of the night be