I saw much about the “hidden hand” in the newspapers we received from home, but our experiences of the same character were sometimes amusing and sometimes serious.  The railway was under a sort of joint control, Russian, American and Japanese, and it soon became clear that one or the other of these groups was unfriendly to our western advance.  It may have been all, but of that I have no proof.  The first incident was a stop of four hours.  After the first two hours a train passed us that had been following behind; after another two hours, when slightly more vigorous inquiries were being made as to the cause of delay, we were quite naively informed that the station-master did not think we ought to risk going farther.  We soon informed him to the contrary, and again started forward.  The next stop of this character was at a fairly big station about twenty hours from Harbin.  This station-master held us up for seven hours.  This I thought the limit.  At last he showed my interpreter a telegram asking him to prevent us going any farther.  It was not signed, and when I demanded that we should be allowed to proceed, he said that there were no engines.  I had seen two standing idle outside.  I rushed on to the platform just in time to prevent the engines disappearing.  While the station-master had been parleying with me he had ordered the engines to put on steam.  I gave orders for my guard to form up across the line at each end of the station and either bayonet or shoot anyone who tried to take the engines away.  I then forced the operator to tell me if the line ahead was clear, and threatened to take the station-master under military arrest for trial at Harbin unless he announced my intention to start in that direction and cleared the way ahead.  I put a soldier with fixed bayonet on the footplate to see that the driver held to his post and did not play tricks with the train, and started on our journey.  We made every inquiry possible, but no one could give us the slightest reason for our stoppage, but seemed to think that there was something wrong with the works which had allowed us to get so far.  From then on I took no risks.

There are no special features about Harbin.  It is just a conglomeration of houses of a more or less Chinese character thrown together in three heaps, the first two attempts of the thrower not getting quite near enough to the target, which was the junction of the Chinese Eastern Railway.  Elaborate preparations had been made by an Allied Committee for our reception, and when we drew into the station about 4 P.M. it was crowded with about as cosmopolitan a crowd of Far Eastern races as we had so far met with—­the Mayor, the Chinese Governor and all the notabilities, foremost amongst them being the British Consul, Mr. Sly; but most important of all was General Plisshkoff, the commander of the local forces known as “Hovart’s Army.”  Speeches were delivered, and a reply given which elicited from a Cossack band the most astounding