1917.02 鸭绿江上

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冰封的鸭绿江上空
作者：爱丽丝-提斯代尔
1917年2月号
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I
我们已经计划了两年，即用马车越过冰冻的鸭绿江的旅程。第一年的冬天非常寒冷，没有一个外国人可以冒险。现在是第二年的二月。随着连续的冰冻和解冻，南满洲的河流还没有变得可以用车旅行。看起来我们应该再次放弃，因为除非冻结，否则原始森林中的部分小路几乎无法通行。


为漫游者的运气干杯! 我们经历了一个星期的持续寒冷天气，鸭绿江终于结冰了。他们说，如果我们立即出发，我们可以在冰层破裂前完成河道部分的行程。鸭绿江构成了满洲里的东部边界，朝鲜就在对面。这条大河蜿蜒曲折，长约两百英里，然后分叉，一条支流沿着朝鲜海岸，一条支流沿着满洲里。在这些支流之间有一块三角形的满洲，几乎完全与大陆隔绝，被这些无桥的支流与自己的大陆分开。在更高的地方，这些支流逐渐缩减为细流，满洲里再次成为一个整体。但是，由于这发生在长白山附近不可逾越的土地上，三角地带的孤独居民必须依靠冬季的冰和夏季的船来进行外部交流。这就留下了一个薄冰或浮冰的夹缝时间。由于我丈夫的生意需要我们沿着三角地带的东侧走大约两百英里，到一个大的伐木镇，然后穿过一片广阔的国家，充满了覆盖着森林的山脉，危险的是，我们可能在这个名副其实的岛屿孤立无援的时候被抓住。

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为那些照顾流浪者的亲爱的仁慈的神灵干杯！我们将相信他们不会阻挡我们。我们将相信他们不会用漂浮的冰块阻挡我们的道路，让我们像克鲁索一样，在地球的一个独立部分。这样的旅程! 任何一个流浪者的心都会感到高兴。在冰上走了好几天，在河的下游的耕地和部分耕地的山丘之间。然后进入那个孤立的三角形宝地，这个遥远的国家充满了隐藏的煤、铜和金子，绵延不绝的光辉木材和--土匪和野兽! 它是中国彩虹尽头的那个拥有中国金罐的国家。日本人从被没收的朝鲜出发，以饥渴的目光追随这条彩虹。


但对白人世界来说，沿鸭绿江的这部分满洲国几乎无人知晓。1888年，杨虎城和几个同志在那里度过了一年的休假期。从那时起，就西方的探险家而言，这片难以接近的财富荒原几乎被留给了自己，只有偶尔会有商人冒险进入其荒凉的未定居地区。大约十年前，一个因行为古怪而闻名于整个满洲里的英国人在满洲里寻找金矿，其特许权文件是他自己制作的，后来被证明是假的。在此后的几年里，在东方经营的大公司偶尔也会派一个白人经过。也有传言说，很久以前，一位航海家和他的妻子乘坐本地船到河上的某个地方度假。但是，以前从来没有一个女人走过这块领土的全部，或者在冬天试图走过任何地方。

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现在是打包走人。我们刚刚去了我们住的那个小港口的外国商店。它很像美国四角地带的一家乡村商店。一场戈壁沙尘暴--一场名副其实的棕色暴风雪--已经刮起来了，但我们戴上防尘镜，穿上大衣，冒险前进。我们在乎什么呢？几个小时后，我们将再次一起走在小路上--一条新的，未经考验的小路。再一次，我们穿上了路上的粗布衣服。没有一件女性的衣服进入那胸膛。我本可以抱着那双结实的好鞋、马裤和粗布外套而感到非常高兴。它们对我来说意味着摆脱了礼节的束缚，而礼节有时会从生活中压榨出一些活泼的乐趣。

我们搭上了前往鸭绿江大港安东的夜班车。火车在暴风雪和黑夜中缓缓驶出，滑过荒废的俄国兵营，雄辩地说明了俄国人的巨大进步；这里和那里的俄国墓地也雄辩地说明了后来的撤退。在那片离边境很多天的佛教平原上，蜷缩在一起的坟墓上的希腊十字架显得孤独而流亡。

随着时间的推移，穆克登和单调的大草原已经消失。我紧紧地贴着冰冷的窗玻璃，在暴风雪中努力地睁大眼睛，想看一眼那永恒的山丘。'快，快，火车！小路，开阔天空下的小路，山丘间的小路，就在前面。然后我就去睡觉，一直睡到清晨我们驶入安东。


第二天，我们一直在忙碌。首先，要买车--一辆给我们自己，一辆给那些不可缺少的因素，"男孩 "和中间人。我们很早就开始了这些工作，因为根据经验，我们知道要完成东方人的讨价还价将是一个整天的工作。当然，包工头的起价必须远远超过公平价格，而我们则远远低于公平价格。然后，到了晚上，在我们双方都不 "丢脸 "的情况下，我们会达成一个中间价；中间人、包工头、男孩和其他各种挂靠者会仔细安排交易中的 "挤兑 "小事。有人说："有六英尺的土地在等着试图拉拢东方的人 "吗？让我们也说说，如果他试图消除 "挤压"，这六英尺会更快地等着他。

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我们要穿的衣服清单令人震惊：每人两套法兰绒内衣、法兰绒衬衫、毛皮长裤、毛衣、短皮褶皱大衣、厚鞋，然后是最后一层--羊毛厚得几乎不能移动的羊皮大衣，以及套在大鞋上的中国毛毡软鞋。

我们最大的财富是我们的孩子。他在瘟疫的冬天住在哈尔滨；他是那个风景如画的英国人去打金矿时的随从之一。他做过木匠、农民、苦力、男孩和船夫。他改变自己的角色就像变色龙改变颜色一样容易。在路上遇到压力时，这种灵活性是一种救赎。


2月21日，我们穿戴整齐，装备齐全，离开了安东--这是我们在许多天内看到的最后一个地方，它甚至具备了文明舒适的最初前提条件。'把他们都赶走是件好事'--当清晨六点，在最黑暗的情况下，我们在黎明前从过热的旅馆步入安静的寒冷中时，我们的心这样唱道。我们的两辆覆盖着厚厚的蓝布、内衬毛皮的马车已经在门口准备好了；包工头们走来走去，给他们的车轮上了最后一道油。食物箱看起来很小，无法装下一个月的口粮，被拴在后面；然后是衣服箱，也被拴在上面。被褥卷被放在车的后面。最后，在我们上一次旅行的粮食袋上，我们塞进了一个薄薄的床垫，晚上我们要在k'angs1上使用。这个床垫是我们最新的设备，可以让我们忍受橡木车体的颠簸，因为它没有温和的弹簧中介，直接坐在坚实的橡木轴上。

我的衣服已经长到了平时的两倍，而这辆车，连同它的毛皮和床垫，似乎已经萎缩了；但是，通过我丈夫的大力推动和我自己的大力拉扯，我设法爬了进去。我丈夫跳到司机对面的老位置上；男孩和中间人已经在后面的车上；由一名士兵组成的 "护卫队 "走在前面。在代表司机的那捆活泼的衣服里，我们听到了相当于美国佬 "gid-dap "的tsu-tzu声。我们出发了，在安东白雪皑皑的街道上轰隆隆地行驶着。转了一圈又一圈，我们已经把安东甩在身后。再过半小时，我们就到达了冰封的河流，那里有冬天的足迹。


二
我肯定喝了一些吉普赛人专用的药水；因为我们一坐上那辆颠簸的马车，带着对远方的确信，我的精神就有了一种我们流浪日子里特有的宁静。当我们到达河边时，乘坐北京车的诀窍又出现在我身上，我依偎在毛皮里。

快乐吗？"我的丈夫问道。

我满足地叹了口气。

车头卷起毛皮帘子，就像一扇窗户，顶部呈拱形，为我勾勒出冬季边疆地区的盛景。两边是白色的山丘，我们头顶上是灰色的天空，我们面前是冰封的鸭绿江。在它上面，远处的地平线上，有一条黑线蜿蜒而来，现在在一边，现在在另一边。冬天的道路就是这样被开辟出来的，以避免薄冰和水流过快而结冰的急流。

骡子上的小铃铛叮叮当当地响着；当骡子轻快地在中国骡子见过的为数不多的好路上奔跑时，马车也咔咔作响。太阳从山顶上升起，以精灵般的触觉抚摸着这个死气沉沉的灰色世界，把它变成了一片闪亮的光辉。在那个光芒四射的早晨，在闪闪发光的冰雪上，农民们在移动，他们有的忙于生意，有的忙于享乐，有的为结婚的孩子欢呼，有的为死去的人哀悼。黑点从闪亮的阴霾中走出来，变大了，有了形状。


我看到树像人一样在行走，'我笑着说。

'他们是韩国人，'我丈夫说。

他们都穿着白色的衣服，带着他们的小鸡鸡帽，在毛皮帽顶上饶有兴致地坐着。从柔软闪亮的远处，出现了由长长的骡子拉着的巨大的农产品车，上面蜷缩着深色的蒙面人。徒步旅行者走来，他们衣衫褴褛，在背上的货物下低头弯腰。缓慢地，缓慢地，他们从我们身边走过。有的人用家里的牛拉着雪橇。在牛的身边，有一个家庭的男人在蹒跚前行；在雪橇上，裹着软垫毯子，坐着快乐的小女士，她们光亮的头发上镶着珠宝。从毯子里探出了眼睛明亮的婴儿，他们的脸颊被寒冷和油漆涂抹得通红。现在庄稼收割了，他们都要去参观。

渐渐地，有一支送葬的队伍走了过来，那是一抹令人惊异的色彩。穿着林肯绿衣服的音乐家们拿着巨大的金色乐器。哀歌的微弱片段，现在是高亢的哀鸣，现在是低沉的呻吟，传到我们耳中，越来越响，在我们耳边尖叫，然后过去。队伍紧随其后--一长串闷闷不乐的黑色身影抬着死者的纸质用具：艳丽的红纸椅子，一辆巨大的蓝色马车，和真正经过的马车一样大，高大的幽灵仆人，以及骑着大运鸟的同性恋纸娃娃女士，看起来就像鹅妈妈骑着扫帚扫过天空一样像女巫。踱步，踱步，从上面的岸边走来了穿着红色紧身衣的大棺材，被随意聚集在一起的乞丐高高举起，他们的衣衫在匆忙穿上的国服下诡异地飘动。穿着麻布的送葬者们走来走去。


垫脚的小司机在打瞌睡。右边的骡子，就像著名的莫德斯坦，试图走每一条雪地上的小路，对每一个熟悉的和不熟悉的东西都躲避。但我们非常高兴，心情轻松，从来没有在意过什么--只是看着农民的世界从我们身边走过。

'嘿！'我丈夫喊道，因为那头邪恶的白骡子多跳了一下，'在这里醒来，Schnicklepenutz，照顾这些骡子。

'他不是德国人，他有一个队列，'我抗议说。

'我没办法，他是方头，腿又短，他应该是Schnicklepenutz，'我丈夫从他的毛领上方喊道。

因此，Schnicklepenutz一直到本章结束，他在这个名字下和其他任何名字下都能睡着。

'而贝诺尼将是另一辆车的司机的名字，'我丈夫继续说；'我觉得他是个悲剧的标志。

一直到晚上，我们在苍白的月光下骑行。我们要做一天出色的工作--一百二十里（四十英里）。路很好，骡子也很新鲜，我们对我们的马车没有意识，因为我们还没有在上面睡过。大约在九点左右，我们把骡子从岸边赶到安东的第一个镇子的街上。大街上一片漆黑，空无一人，因为这里的宵禁时间是八点。所有的百叶窗都关上了；每扇门的三四根铁条都被推到了原位。我们找到了我们要找的商店；中间人下来敲门，直到里面有人从缝隙中喊出，问我们是谁。


'Kai mun, kai muni'（打开你的门，打开你的门！）'我们来自安东。我们和你们有生意往来。

'等等，等等！'他们喊道，'我们必须问头人。

更多的问题来自内部，更多的等待。然后栅栏被推回，我们受到了东方人的礼貌接待，当我们在炭火上暖手时，被奉上茶水，然后在一个内室里得到一个温暖的K'ang。

啊，我们的精神在二十四小时内发生了巨大的变化! 第二天早上，当我们醒来时，我们所渴望的是在温暖的K'ang上安静地呆着。我们的身体是如此的僵硬和疼痛，以至于我们不愿意去想马车。但不幸的是，我们的任务很快就完成了。我们与店主只有一个困难。前段时间，有人给他送来一套用于广告的铜牌。他认为把这么漂亮的东西暴露在空气中是最奢侈的行为，所以他小心翼翼地把它们包起来放好了。当这件事被安排得令我们满意，而他又不同意时，我们只需与我们的主人一起吃面包，我们就又上路了。

当时刮着北风，下着雪--很大的雪片。河流已经变得很陌生了。我们无言以对，陶醉其中，无法将目光从如此狂热的事物上移开。成堆的雪看起来模糊而不自然；成堆的冰呈现出阴森的形状。四点钟，在白雪皑皑的暮色中，我们看到了一家客栈的标志--红布的圈圈，除了一个黑乎乎的稻草人从插在我们上方高岸雪地上的长杆上垂下外，什么也没有。


我们相信这些摇摆的破布说的是实话，因为河岸掩盖了客栈本身的任何迹象，我们命令马车驶上轨道。随着骡子最后一次冲上堤岸，我们发现自己来到了旅店的院子里，院子里有匆忙搭建的灌木篱笆，枯枝败叶还依附在上面。这座建筑是一个长长的、单层的泥屋，有茅草屋顶。

我们进去了。看看这个边疆人创造了什么! 长长的房间是家庭工业的场景。从中间的椽子上挂着一盏大油灯，把它的光芒洒在一个像蜜蜂一样忙碌的父系家庭上。爷爷坐在粘土炉旁，用树枝喂火，照看着一窝在硬邦邦的泥地上玩耍的孩子们，地板被扫得干干净净。从一个角落里传来磨石的欢快呼声，一头蒙着眼睛的驴子走了一圈又一圈，而一个戴着奇妙头饰的红衣女子正在收集从灰色石头上渗出的成堆的黄色玉米面。更多的红衣女子将鲜艳的饭菜高高抛起，绞去其中的糠秕；其他人则靠在泥臼上，用石杵敲打调味品。

男人们拿着柴火匆匆赶来，为旅行者们做饭。房间的一端是为这些旅行者保留的，但另一端的K'ang被分成了几个部分。从每一节的椽子上摇晃着古朴的小摇篮；每个摇篮里都有一个棕色的小婴儿，每个婴儿都由一个较大的孩子照看。远离西方世界的喧嚣，我们在干净的内室中，在摇篮和磨石的轻响中睡着了。


三
六天后，我们第一阶段的旅程结束了。我们已经到达了镇上，就在河的分支处。明天，我们开始沿着三角形的右臂前进，将自己与大陆分开。与我们住在一起的店主给了我们一个蛋糕厨房的K'ang。在烤炉上方的壁龛里，坐着厨神。现在是傍晚时分，一个小厨子正在巡视所有的神灵。他刚刚给厨房的守护神上了香，并向其致意。我想知道他是否也在照顾流浪者--如果他们不拥有自己的厨房？

我在似乎是夜深人静的时候醒来，眼前一片漆黑，只有香火的微光在房间里闪耀着。我的丈夫在叫：'醒醒，醒醒，你这个瞌睡虫；'是时候烧掉我们的桥了。然后男孩进来，把一根点燃的蜡烛插在K'ang桌上的一些熔化的蜡里。我们进入可能成为孤立无援的国家的舞台已经搭好。

尽管我们起得很早，但在我们离开之前已经是下午了。男孩在梦中得到了关于强盗的警告，这引起了一场严肃的讨论；所有的店主都停工参加了讨论。其结果是，衙门将我们的护卫队增加了一倍。

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几乎在我们开始的时候，这个国家的特征就开始发生了变化：山坡越来越尖，山谷越来越窄，出现了零星的硬木树，村庄越来越少，我们看到的粮食塔越来越少。现在的耕地相距甚远。

攀登是一项寒冷而艰苦的工作。我们向前走几步，又向后退一步。当我们最后站在多风的山顶上时，从这些观景点可以看到内部的景色。我们看着远处绵延不绝的大地的壮观景象。在满洲里灿烂的天空下，我们可以看到绵延数英里的冬季白色山丘，在风吹走积雪的地方，光秃秃的，一片片的褐色。几座棕色的小屋和我们下面的棕色盘旋公路是唯一的居住迹象。所有物质的东西都退去了。即使是山丘也无动于衷，披上了冰冷的雪衣。我们在精神的平静中分开居住。我们感到与印度的博学之士融为一体，他掌握着伦敦的所有方法和印度的所有事务，但却放弃了一切，远走他乡，在那里，在一座山的山顶上，他把自己变成了一个乞丐和一个圣人，在那里度过了研究生存之谜的岁月。我们与希伯来人的呼喊合而为一，"我要举目向山"。我们与第一个中国边民是一体的，他的职责是在道路越过山头的地方建立一个路边的神龛，留下一棵树，在风平浪静、雨过天晴的时候，在粗糙的祭坛上伸展它的保护枝。我们渴望在那里上香，并敲响挂在树枝上的钟，从而向山谷宣布，又有一个人感到需要食物和衣服以外的东西。

又过了三天。最后，山坡上开始有了木材。那里几乎没有一间小屋。第一天，我们完全迷失了方向，发现自己偏离了我们的道路15英里。这意味着我们的行程又增加了两个小时，而且在吃晚饭的时候，我们根本就没有找到旅馆。第二天，我们遇到一个拉着雪橇的农家男孩。

'到美德之家的旅馆还有多远？'我们的护卫喊道，在路上拦住了他。

'让你见鬼去吧! '男孩回答。'我不是沿着道路去告诉你路，'他无礼地说完。

'我会教你如何侮辱外出执行公务的士兵！'我们的护卫队吼道，用枪托打了他。

然后，从山坡上的一个小屋里下来了男孩的父系家庭的男人，速度之快，让我们不禁眨眼。最年长的那个人声音颤抖，但右臂却很有力，他痛打了我们这位勇敢的士兵，把他赶到山上的小屋。夜晚从狭窄的山谷中走来。我们对损失了一半的护卫队感到有些沮丧，但认为这样的勇敢的人，一个也比两个好，于是不再多说，匆匆赶路。

当晚我们进入旅馆时，看到的是一个女巫的洞穴。巨大的烟云盘旋在昏暗的椽子上，巨大的蒸汽云从敞开的火炉上的大锅里升起。它们上面靠着高大的北方人，他们的脸在交替的阴暗和柴火的闪光中显得阴险。在房间两边的长条形木板上，爬满了不知名的旅行者的朦胧身影。在黑暗、怪异的小炕桌旁，他们蜷缩着身子，用响亮的吸吮声吸着热茶。土炕被许多人的脚上融化的雪弄得湿漉漉的，黏糊糊的。干肉、用弯曲的棍子挂在昏暗的椽子上的调味品篮子，呈现出奇妙而野蛮的形状。

我们吃完了热茶、香肠和干面包等俭朴的饭菜，就爬到了温暖的K'ang一端的毯子下，因为那晚我们没有隐私（没有我们可以乞求或命令的内室）。这种温暖是可以接受的，尽管有烟和火苗，我们还是睡着了。

我梦见自己在但丁的《地狱》中，当我醒来时，发现这不是一个空想。当我们无辜地睡着时，许多迟到的旅行者已经进来了。灶台上的锅，通过烟道系统为灶台供暖和烹调大量的食物，具有双重作用，已经装到了最大的容量，锅下也有相应的火。因此，当旅店老板生意兴隆，而我们在睡觉时，炉床却越来越热，直到傍晚时分，感激的热度变成了烧红的烤架。我们疲惫地转了又转。这种感觉是我们的上半身被冻僵了，下半身被烤焦了。我们在纸窗玻璃上打洞，等待着黎明的到来。

随着第一道曙光的出现，我们唤醒了我们的随从。那天我们要去毛二山，伐木工人的圣地。每个人都很疲惫，而一个疲惫的中国人，无论他是一个勇敢的大兵还是一个坚强的车夫，都是一个爱哭的婴儿。到了中午，一个士兵让他的小马在没有骑手的情况下游荡，而他则骑在我们的马车后面；另一个士兵拒绝让他的动物小跑。他抱怨说："小跑时更冷"。车夫们也拒绝赶路；他们也很累，他们的骡子也是如此。让我们停下来，'他们哄着说。当我们拒绝时，他们都开始在离我们的目的地毛儿山还有20里的一家可怜的旅店里转悠。我们感到很绝望。这时，那个男孩，也就是我们的工作人员和我们遇到困难的杆子，来救我们了。他爬上士兵的小马，把它打得摇摇晃晃地跑了起来。他的长毛袍向四面八方飘扬；小马畏缩不前，但男孩用愚蠢的小鞭子不停地抽打，直到我们的骡子受到刺激，真的跑了起来。二十里路走完了，毛二山也走完了。就这样，我们的第二阶段旅程结束了。

四
第二天早上，当我们睁开眼睛的时候，我们就意识到我们不再是在寂静的白色荒野里了。在我们周围出现了大量的生命的声音和气味。我们的早餐很快就吃完了，我们来到了街上。粗糙的人物，强壮无礼的面孔，懒洋洋地走着；餐馆就像夏天的苍蝇一样密集。偶尔出现的商店对中国来说显得异常繁荣。即使是最富有的商店，也没有通常所标志的那种近乎奢侈的节俭。店主们吹嘘说，他们已经拒绝了几家大型外国公司的代理。他们傲慢地说道："与他们打交道是没有好处的。他们把事情看得很重，他们 "说得很重"。

到处都是高工资的证据，都是一个新国家的巨大利润。这让人想起阿拉斯加的疯狂生活，当时矿工们带着他们的金子来了。钱来得容易，去得更容易。欲望和许可在世界各地的伐木营中疯狂地运行着，只是这里有一种从东方的狂放中获得的动力。在这个干净的新国家的边缘，人们为拥有容易获得的金钱而疯狂。

在与这些因权力而膨胀的人斗争了两天后，我丈夫决定继续前进。我们不能再拖延了。现在是三月，我们还有七天的时间穿过森林，到达另一条支流，我们必须穿过这条支流才能到达满洲里的大陆。在离开那个咆哮、骚乱的小镇后的半小时内，我们就进入了原始森林的薄薄的边缘，在那下面是中国隐藏的财富。

哦，那些日子里的奇迹！我们看到的地球几乎是原样的。我们几乎看到了地球最初的样子。我们越走越深，越爬越高。那里有不可言喻的静谧和无边无际的和平，永恒的。我们暂时远离了人类。我们从过去辛苦旅行的角度来看待我们的生活活动。最后，我们站在了我们所有旅程中最高的山口上。在我们周围是阳光和闪亮的雪；近在咫尺的一棵枯松，光秃秃地站在那里，显得格外威严。山坡上的树木在前进；远处的山是灰色的，隐藏在灾难性的暴风雪中。一阵大风向我们袭来。这是一个至高无上的时刻。

在越过最后一座高山后，我们下到了另一边较为隐蔽的土地上。我们惊呼一声，意识到空气中出现了新的东西，有生命的东西，新鲜的东西。'看！'我喊道。我们看着周围的地面，看着太阳；我们互相看着对方。我们把我们的手伸到车外。风轻轻地抚摸着它们。

我丈夫呻吟着说。它看起来像春天，感觉像春天，闻起来像春天，对不起，它是春天！"。这样的日子再过几天，河水就会腐烂到无法让马车在上面冒险。

'不可能的，'我说。'为什么，就在昨天，我们还在跑来跑去，以防止受冻。

'而且我们还有将近一千英里的路程要做，'我丈夫继续说。

'醒醒，醒醒，老Schnicldepenutz，'我们都哭了，戳着司机昏昏欲睡的垫背。'这将是一场与春天的竞赛。没有你这种东方的拖延症。

砰的一声，我们的车在柔软的雪地上撞上了一块石头。我们还没来得及考虑它的信息，就看到前方道路两边的两条车道上出现了不可否认的水迹。

'今天下午，'我们决定，'我们必须走很长的路才能停下来。我们必须设法赶到东部，而且我们必须在中午时分比平时更早地开始行动。

哦，老鼠和人的最佳计划！""我们会有豆子的。

'我们要吃豆子，孩子，'我们说；'告诉包工头，切，切，必须快点。

'主人，'男孩回答说，'马车说必须停下来，现在很晚了，明天可以走。

'为什么？"我们喊道。

'骡子很累。

我们是按日付给马夫的，因此需要休息。

'告诉马夫，必须去。不走，今天就没有钱。

男孩离开了，我们继续做我们的豆子。

'好吧，'男孩回来说，'可以走小路了。

但我们刚吃完豆子，镇上的一个士兵就进来了，他踩着高跟鞋（如果可以说是踩着布鞋的高跟鞋的话），站在原地。

'镇上的头儿请你们在今天剩下的时间里乖乖地留在这里。有一队两百人的洪湖土匪从北方过来。他已经派出了士兵，但路上可能会有战斗，你能不能好心地等待，至少等到明天？

当然，除了'好心等待'之外，没有其他办法。马车夫们在喝完中午的酒后，有了一个可爱的、安静的午后鼾声；对我们来说，除了出去沮丧地打量在午后阳光下融化的雪，和坐在旅馆里听强盗的故事外，没有什么可做的。

这是否完全是命运的安排，或者是神灵的阴谋，我真的说不清楚。我倾向于相信后者。我认为诸神是这样推理的："我们不能允许任何人赶往东方，无论他个人多么需要。如果它一旦被允许，就不知道它会在哪里停止。我们必须保留一些安静的角落，否则神灵、仙女和心爱的流浪者都会消失。

尽管如此，我们只执行了两天的赶路计划，在山丘之间的一个宽阔的山谷里，我们的轴心骡子就瘸了。它先是走得很慢，然后一瘸一拐，最后，当我们走到山谷的尽头，开始不可避免地往上拉时，它完全拒绝继续走。我们该怎么办呢？Schnicklepenutz下来看了看他。他生气地哼了一声；很明显，他不打算拿一头完美的骡子的生命去冒险。


然后，双方进行了协商和争论；所有人都下了车。首先是贝诺尼从他的车上爬下来，然后是那个男孩，接着是我们的中间人，最后是我丈夫，因为他在讨论中听不到，所以跳了下来。孙，这个中间人，喜欢轻松，不喜欢在车上呆太长时间，他赞成停下来。Schnicklepenutz既不希望失去他的骡子，也不希望失去他每天的三块钱，他也赞成停下来。那个男孩对骡子、钱和轻松都不屑一顾，他赞成继续前进；并不是说他感觉到了拖延的危险--所有的中国人都对这一点极度漠不关心，但他对他们都非常反感。我们不打算在遥远的河边的烂冰上冒生命危险，而是要去寻找新的装备；只是我们太清楚了，如果我们的随从想要别的东西，不管他们看起来多么默许我们的愿望，新的装备是不会出现的。然后，贝诺尼，他是施尼克勒彭努茨的亲戚，想保持家里的骡子和钱的完整，提出了一个解决方案：把我们的大白骡子放在竖井里，让瘸腿的骡子干些轻活。由于大白骡子从未进过竖井，而且是一头脾气不好的野兽，所以他，即贝诺尼，将成为司机，因为他是驾驭动物的最佳人选。

皮带扣好了，绳子系好了，神秘的马具线也打好了结，大骡子在井口邪恶地摇晃了一下，然后不慌不忙地开始爬。这个计划奏效了！在我们的观察下，我们只损失了一半。根据我们的手表，我们只损失了半个小时。


我们往上爬，大骡子勇敢地拉着，而警觉的贝诺尼则适时地弹动着三个人的耳朵，以避开每一个冰冻的肿块和每一块石头。攀登那个山口是一件艺术作品！我们几乎决定骑马下山，以避开每一个冰冻的石头。为了节省时间，我们几乎决定骑车下山，看看贝诺尼的杰作。不过，由于施尼克勒潘努兹那沉重的大脑工作得更慢，还没有到达山顶，我们还不如步行，尤其是贝诺尼正在谨慎地绑住我们的车轮。我们向他招手；在下坡时，走在马车前面是不安全的，因为有时马车会突然滑倒。贝诺尼一手拿着鞭子和绳子，另一只手腾出手来稳住马车，在旁边跑着。'Tzu, tzu, oah, oah'。白骡子挺着腰，把四只脚牢牢地踩在地上；马车带着锁住的车轮在它身后滑行。

我们跟在他们后面，在寒风凛冽的路上跳舞。他们越走越快。我们落在后面，气喘吁吁，然后停下来，目不转睛地盯着现场。骡子在奔跑；马车在它们的脚跟前跳动。贝诺尼一路狂奔，但他从未停止过挥舞鞭子的动作。

现在，骡子在奔跑！马车似乎正在爬上它们的头顶。马车似乎要爬到它们的背上。融化的雪隐藏着一层滑溜溜的冰，贝诺尼的毡鞋成了他的败笔。他全力以赴地奔跑着，鞭子仍然挥舞着，一头滑过冰面。在一个闪电般的瞬间，马车沉重的钉子轮从他身上骑过。我们闭上了眼睛。


当我们看时，贝诺尼正用他的手拖着自己回到路上，向我们走来。他的第一本能把他从那可怕的孤独经历中拉回到他的伙伴们身边。在他下面不远处，他的马车被一些灌木丛缠住了，就在悬崖上面，骡子平躺在皱巴巴的马具里，有一根轴把白骡子钉在地上。

这时，我们所有人，甚至那个傲慢的男孩，都已经到达贝诺尼。我们不明白他为什么还活着；但我们发现，丑陋的车轮只从他的腿上经过，而他的软垫裤--两三条--使他的腿没有被打碎。他的肉上有铁钉的印记，他的脸因为痛苦而变得惨白。他咬着牙站了起来，向下面山谷中的旅馆走了几步。Schnicklepenutz已经离开，去看他的财产的残骸了。受伤的亲戚都很好，但受伤的骡子和破车呢？我们转过身去，看到他的短腿跨在一头骡子的头上。这头坏骡子变得很不安分，正在威胁着车和骡子，包括他自己。我们想到了自己的财产，召集了一个路人让贝诺尼靠着，然后离开了。坚固的马车和更坚固的骡子都很好，但把我们的箱子固定在马车后面的绳子断了，我们的衣服、商业报告和珍惜的口粮都散落在峡谷的远处。一个早晨的损失，一头瘸腿的骡子，一个受伤的司机，我们为数不多的饼干在沟底的泥土中，商业报告被撕碎，没有朝那条河走多远。


'我们不会试图催促东部，'我丈夫沮丧地说；'连骡子都反对。不过，那条河在那里！'

V
在接下来的两个小时里，我们都到达了旅店，在那里他们用热酒给可怜的Bcnoni的伤口敷药。然后，大家就如何处理瘸腿的骡子和受伤的司机进行了激烈的讨论。有一件事是显而易见的：我们必须在当天下午出发。这对贝诺尼来说似乎很残酷，但这是几件坏事中最小的一件。如果他只是严重擦伤，那么在他好转之前，他将会更加僵硬和疼痛。如果是更严重的情况，我们最好的办法是马上带他去看医生。

理论是好的，但谁来开车呢？要学会用鞭子和几声咕哝来引导传说中的顽固的骡子，需要很长的时间。那个男孩上来了。为什么我们以前没有想到他？他不是一个木匠，一个划船的人，一个农民吗？他不能很好地开车，但他可以挥动鞭子，贝诺尼答应坐在前面，给人打招呼，而施尼克勒潘努兹则依次驾驶每辆马车走过山路。在这样高度专业化的劳动下，我们开始了。


第一天就结束了。我们缓慢但坚定地朝着我们的目的地前进。第二天，然后是第三天，我们开始了第四天的工作。通过改变路线，我们找到了一条不常走的路。我们高度专业化的劳动是非常缓慢的。那一天，我们不得不重新咬紧牙关。在山路上是不能放弃的，即使在接近天黑的时候，一个陡峭的山口突然出现在你面前，在晚间的冰冻开始后，使白天覆盖在路上的融化的溪水变成了光滑的强光。瘸腿的骡子，生病的司机，每个人都不得不屈服于手中的工作。除了生病的司机之外，每个人都在为减轻马车的拉动而努力。司机们咯咯地叫着，当骡子滑倒并放弃时，鞭子就猛抽，诱使它们疯狂地跃起。我们的 "护卫队 "和我丈夫从后面推着；孙和我拿着石头跟在后面，如果马车开始滑动，就用石头挡住车轮。我们正处在最后一个陡峭的斜坡上。瘸腿的骡子气喘吁吁、大汗淋漓地走了下来；车也滑了下来；我们的石头没能挡住，车开始向另一辆车滑行。我们疯狂地在冰冷的土地上抓取新的石块。那是一个令人作呕的时刻，但我们及时地把它们弄到了那里。

我不知道这最后一节课是如何完成的。我的全部意志都放在了不崩溃的任务上。我绝不能成为一个放弃者。很久以前，我从我丈夫那里诚实地赢得了 "小路女 "的称号，现在我不会再失去它。所以我一直对自己说，'振作起来，做个男子汉'。这样说着，看着山谷中流淌的月光，我一直跟在丈夫身后蹒跚而行，走向一束光，似乎在躲避我们的接近。然后，过了很久，我们到了旅馆，喝着热茶，让我的眼泪流了下来。我确信那只是茶，我丈夫并没有看到它们。


贝诺尼为他的队伍找到了一个司机，我们得到了一整套装备来代替施尼德佩努茨的。这样的车! 它就像独轮车一样--如此老旧，以至于如果它坏了，那将是最后的破裂；而司机就像他的车一样。他的四肢和灵魂都已老去，对任何东西都不感兴趣，只有一个大豆饼作为饲料，他带着年老的固执，决心把它直接放在我坐的地方下面。我们给他取名为约沙法。我们计划好了：要走六百里；每小时十里，每天十小时，在河边的车站停一天。然后过河--如果神灵是好的!

我们在七天内就渡过了河! 他们说马车还在过河，但这并不能完全让人放心。中国人经常渡过结冰的河流，直到有人掉进河里。不过，我们认为解冻并不足以融化底下厚厚的冰块。如果我们能选择一个幸运的地方就好了!

在灰色的清晨，我们来到了河边。我们都坐在小车的前面（如果我们穿过去，里面就是一个死亡陷阱）。有几条路。我们挑了一个看起来最安全的。我们开到了冰面上。司机用鞭子抽打着每头骡子的耳朵，"啪 "的一声。它们陷入了疯狂的奔跑之中。我们已经走了一半。我们能感觉到冰在我们脚下弯曲。约沙法，这个呆板的人，变成了运动的化身。他的手臂拍打着，他的鞭子飞舞着。他挥舞着双脚，敲打着轴心骡子的屁股。当冰层在我们周围裂开时，他像狗一样叫着。快！快！快！快！快 更快！更快！更快


我们又站在了满洲里的坚实土地上，瞧，所有的动作都离开了约沙法。他看起来就像一坨没有生命之火的肉。我们看了看身后：我们的另一辆车也很安全。但在我们刚刚穿过的地方，有一条越来越宽的裂缝。这片三角形的土地正在进入春天的隔离状态。

中国旅馆中的加热砖床。- 作者。



Over the Frozen Yalu
By Alice Tisdale
FEBRUARY 1917 ISSUE
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I
WE had planned it for two years now, — a cart journey over the frozen Yalu. The first winter it was so bitter cold that no foreigner could risk it. It is now February of the second year. With a succession of freezes and thaws, the rivers in Southern Manchuria have not yet become safe for cart travel. It looks as if we should have to give it up again, for the partial trails in the virgin forest are scarcely passable unless frozen.


Here’s to the luck of the roamer! We have had a week of continued cold weather and at last the Yalu has frozen over. They say that, if we start immediately, we can finish the river part of our journey before the ice breaks. The Yalu forms the eastern boundary of Manchuria, with Korea lying just across. The great river winds and winds for about two hundred miles, then divides, one branch following the Korean shore, one the Manchurian. In between these branches is a triangular-shaped piece of Manchuria, almost entirely cut off from the mainland, separated from her own by these bridgeless tributaries. Higher up, the branches dwindle to thin streams, and Manchuria again becomes one. But as this takes place in the impenetrable land near the Long White Mountain, the lonely inhabitants of the triangle must depend upon the winter ice and summer junks for outside communication. This leaves an inbetween time of thin or floating ice. As my husband’s business takes us some two hundred miles up the eastern side of the triangle, to a big lumbering town, and then across a wide stretch of country full of ranges of mountains covered with forests, the danger is that we may be caught in this veritable island at the time of its isolation.

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Here’s to the dear kind gods who look after wanderers! We shall trust them not to block our path with floating cakes of ice, leaving us, like Crusoe, on a separate portion of the earth. Such a journey! It would rejoice the heart of any vagabond. Days and days on the ice, among the tilled and partially tilled hills of the lower reaches of the river. Then a plunge into that isolated triangular-shaped treasure-land, a faroff country full of hidden coal, copper, and gold, stretches and stretches of glorious timber and — bandits and wild animals! It is the country holding the Chinese pot of gold at the end of China’s rainbow. From confiscated Korea the Japanese follow this rainbow with hungry eyes.


But to the white world, this part of Manchuria along the Yalu is almost unknown. Younghusband and a couple of comrades spent a year’s furlough there in 1888. Since then this inaccessible wilderness of wealth has been left almost to itself, so far as the occidental explorer is concerned, only now and then a business man venturing into its wild, unsettled regions. Some ten years ago a picturesque Englishman, famed all over Manchuria for his erratic doings, went through it hunting a gold mine, the concession papers for which he made out himself, and they were afterwards proved fraudulent. Occasionally, in the years since, large firms operating in the Orient have sent a white man through. There are also rumors of a sea-pilot and his wife who, long ago, went by native boat for a holiday part way up the river. But never before had a woman gone over the whole of this territory, or attempted any of it in the winter.

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It’s pack and go. We have just been down to the foreign store of the little port where we live. It closely resembles a country store at a four-corners in America. A Gobi dust-storm — a veritable brown blizzard — had blown up, but donning dust-goggles and great coats, we ventured forth. What cared we? In a few hours, we will once more be together on the trail — a new one, an untried one. Once more, out came the rough clothes of the road. Not a feminine garment went into that chest. I could have hugged for very joy the good stout shoes, the breeches, and rough jacket. They meant for me freedom from the proprieties which sometimes crush from life some of its buoyant gayety.

We caught the night express for Antung, the great port of the Yalu. The train pulled slowly out into the blizzard and the night, slipping past deserted Russian barracks, eloquent of the great Russian advance; here and there the Russian cemeteries spoke all too eloquently of the later retreat. On that Buddhist plain, many days from the frontier, the Greek crosses of the huddled graves looked lonely and exiled.

In time Mukden was gone and the monotonous prairies. Close against the cold window-pane I pressed my face, straining my eyes into the blizzard for one glimpse of the eternal hills. ‘ Hurry, hurry, fire-cart! the trail, the trail under the open sky, the trail among the hills, is just ahead.’ And then I went to sleep and slept until we pulled into Antung in the early morning.


All the next day we were busy. First, there were the carts to get — one for ourselves and one for those indispensable factors, the ‘ boy’ and the middleman. We began early on these, for we knew by experience that it would be an all-day job to complete the Oriental bargaining. The carters must, of course, start far in excess of the fair price, and we far below. Then, by night, without either of us ‘losing face,’ we would reach an in-between price; the middle-man, and the carters, and the boy, and various other hangers-on would have carefully arranged the little matter of ‘ squeeze ’ attendant upon the transaction. Has it been said, ‘There is six feet of ground awaiting the man who tries to hustle the East’? Let it also be said that the six feet await him even sooner should he seek to eliminate ‘squeeze.’

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The list of the clothes we are to wear is appalling: two suits of flannel underwear each, flannel shirts, fur-lined trousers, sweaters, short leather furlined coats, heavy shoes, and then the final layer — sheepskin coats with the wool so thick we can scarcely move in them, and Chinese felt moccasins to go over our big shoes.

Our greatest asset is our boy. He lived in Harbin during the winter of the plague; he was one of the retinue of the picturesque Englishman when he went hunting the gold mine. He has been a carpenter, a farmer, a coolie, a boy, and a boatman. He changes his role as easily as the chameleon its color. In times of stress on the road, such flexibility is salvation.


Thus attired, thus equipped, on the twenty-first of February we left Antung — the last place we were to see for many a day that had even the first prerequisites of civilized comforts. ‘It is good to cast them all away,’—so sang our hearts as at six o’clock in the morning, in blackest darkness, we stepped from the overheated hotel into thequiet cold, just before dawn. Our two carts, covered with heavy blue cloth and lined with furs, stood ready at the door; the carters moved around, giving a last greasing to their wheels. The foodboxes, looking very small to hold a month’s rations, were roped on the back; then came the clothes chest, also roped on. The bedding-roll was put in the back of the cart. Last of all, on top of the grain sacks of our last journey, we stuffed in a thin mattress which we were to use on the k’angs1 at nighttime. This mattress was our latest device for making endurable the jolting of the oaken cart-bodies which sit, with no gentle intermediary of springs, directly on a solid oak axle.

I had grown to twice my usual size in my layers of clothes, and the cart, with its furs and mattress, seemed to have shriveled; but, by dint of much pushing by my husband and much pulling on my own part, I managed to crawl in. My husband jumped to his usual place across from the driver; the boy and the middle-man were already in the cart behind; the ‘ escort,’ consisting of one soldier, walked ahead. Somewhere from within the bundle of animated clothes which represented the driver, we heard the tzu-tzu, the equivalent of the Yankee ‘gid-dap.’ We were off, rumbling over the snow-covered streets of Antung! Turning once and then again, we had left Antung behind. In another half hour we had reached the frozen river where lay the trail of the winter.


II
I have surely sipped some potion meant for gypsies; for as soon as we were in that bumpy cart, with the surety of days afield, my spirit took on a serenity peculiar to ourwandering days. By the time we had reached the river, the knack of riding in a Peking cart had come back to me, and I snuggled down into my furs.

‘Happy?’ asked my husband.

I sighed contentedly.

The front of the cart, with its fur curtain rolled up, was a window, arched at the top, framing for me the pageant of the winter frontier-land. On either side were the white hills, over our heads was the gray sky, before us the frozen Yalu. Above it, far to the horizon, there snaked along, now on one side, now on the other, a dark streak. Thus had the winter road been blazed out to avoid thin ice, and rapids where the water flowed too fast to freeze.

Tinkle, tinkle went the tiny bell on the shaft-mule; click, clack went the cart as the mules trotted briskly over one of the very few good roads a Chinese mule ever sees. The sun came over the mountain-tops, touching that deathlike gray world with an elfin touch, transforming it into a shimmering glory. In that radiant morning, over the sparkling ice and snow moved the peasants, bent on business, bent on pleasure, rejoicing with the married children, mourning for the dead. Black spots advanced out of a shining haze, grew large, took on shape.


‘I see trees as men walking,’ said I laughing.

‘They are Koreans,’ said my husband.

They were all in white, with their billy-cock hats perched rakishly on top of fur bonnets. From the soft shining distance there emerged great producecarts pulled by long lines of mules, with dark hooded figures huddled on the top of the load. Foot-travelers came along, sombrely clad, bent low under the loads on their backs. Slog, slog, they moved past us. There were sledges drawn by the family ox. By the ox’s side plodded the man of the family; on the sledges, wrapped in padded blankets, sat gay little ladies, jewels in their glossy hair. From the blankets peeped bright-eyed babies, their cheeks red with cold and daubs of paint. Now that the crops were harvested they were all going visiting.

By and by there came a funeral procession, a startling splash of color. Musicians in Lincoln green carried great gold-colored instruments. Faint fragments of the dirge, now high wailing, now deep groaning, reached us, grew louder, shrieked in our ears, and passed. The procession followed — a long line of muffled black figures carrying the paper paraphernalia of the dead: gaudy red-paper chairs, a great blue cart, as large as the real ones passing, tall phantom servants, and gay paper-doll ladies riding large birds of luck, looking as witchlike as Mother Goose on her broomstick sweeping the sky. Pace, pace from the bank above, came the great catafalque in a clinging mantle of red, borne aloft by beggars gathered in at random, their rags flapping bizarrely below their hastily donned garments of state. In sackcloth walked the mourners.


The little padded driver drowsed. The right-hand mule, resembling the famous Modestine, tried to take every snowy by-path, shied at every familiar and unfamiliar object. But we were very gay and light-hearted and never minded anything — just watched the peasant world file past us.

‘Hey!’ cried my husband, as that wicked white mule gave an extra jump, ‘wake up here, Schnicklepenutz, and tend these mules.’

‘He’s not a German, he’s got a queue,’ I protested.

‘I can’t help it, he’s square-headed and got short legs, and Schnicklepenutz he shall be,’ shouted my husband from over the top of his fur collar.

So Schnicklepenutz he remained to the end of the chapter, and drowsed as well under that name as under any other.

‘ And Benoni shall be the name of the driver of the other cart,’ my husband continued; ‘ I feel that he is marked for tragedy.’

Far into the evening we rode under the pale rays of the moon. We were going to do a splendid day’s work—a hundred and twenty li (forty miles). The road was good, the mules were fresh, and we unconscious of our cart-bruises, because we had not as yet slept on them. Somewhere about nine o’clock we drove our mules up the bank into the street of the first town from Antung. The street was dark and empty, for the curfew rings up here at eight o’clock. All the shutters were closed; the three or four iron bars of each door were slid into place. We found the shop we were looking for; the middle-man descended and hammered on the door until some one within shouted through the cracks, asking who we were.


'Kai mun, kai muni’ (Open your doors, open your doors!) ‘ We are from Antung. We have business with you.’

‘Wait, wait!’ they cried, ‘we must ask the head-man.’

More questions from within, more waiting. Then the bars were slid back, and we were received with Eastern politeness, served with tea as we warmed our hands over a charcoal brazier, and then given a warm k’ang in an inner room.

Ah me! the change in our spirits in twenty-four hours! All we desired the next morning when we woke, was to be left in peace on the warm k’ang. We were so stiff and sore that we did not like to think of carts. But unfortunately our business was soon done. We had only one difficulty with the shop-owner. Some time before, he had been sent a set of brass signs for advertising purposes. Considering it the rankest extravagance to expose such beautiful things to the elements, he had carefully wrapped them up and put them away. When this matter had been arranged to our satisfaction and his disapproval, we had only to break bread with our host and we were again on our way.

There was a north wind and it was snowing — great heavy flakes. The river had become a stranger. We were speechless, enthralled, unable, to take our eyes from so wildly compelling a thing. The heaps of snow looked vague and unnatural; the piles of ice took on eerie shapes. At four, in a snowy twilight, we saw the sign of an inn — the hoops of red cloth, nothing but a dark scarecrow dangling from a long pole stuck in the snow on the high bank above us.


Trusting that the swinging rags told the truth, — for the bank hid any sign of the inn itself, — we ordered the carters to drive up the track. With the last strain of the mules up the embankment, we found ourselves in the inn courtyard, with its hastily built brushwood fence, the dead leaves still clinging. The building was a long, one-storied mud hut, with thatched roof.

We entered. Behold what the frontiersman had created! The long room was the scene of homely industry. From the centre rafter hung a big oil-lamp, shedding its rays over a patriarchal family as busy as a hive of bees. By the clay stove sat the grandfather feeding the fire with twigs, and tending a brood of children playing on a dirt floor packed hard, swept clean. From one corner came the merry whir of grinding mill-stones, as a blindfolded donkey walked round and round, while a woman in red with a wonderful headdress gathered up the heaps of yellow cornmeal that oozed from the gray stones. More women in red threw the bright meal high in the air, winnowing it of its chaff; others leaned over clay mortars, pounding condiments with stone pestles.

Men were hurrying here and there with firewood, cooking for the travelers. One end of the room was reserved for these wayfarers, but the k’ang at the other end was divided into sections. From each rafter over each section swung quaint little cradles; in each cradle was a little brown baby, each baby tended by a larger child. Far away from the loud clamor of the western world, we fell asleep in a clean inner room, to the soft sound of swinging cradles and grinding mill-stones.


III
Six days, and the first stage of our journey is over. We have reached the town standing just where the river branches. To-morrow we start up the right arm of the triangle, cutting ourselves off from the mainland. The shopkeepers with whom we are staying have given us a k’ang in the cake-kitchen. In a niche above the ovens sits the kitchen god. It is evening now, and a little scullery-boy is making the rounds of all the gods. He has just offered incense and chin-chinned to the kitchen’s guardian angel. I wonder if he looks after vagabonds also — if they don’t possess kitchens of their own?

I woke in what seemed the dead of night, so black it was, with only the tiny points of light from the incense glowing in the room. My husband was calling, ‘ Wake up, wake up, thou sleepy head; ’t is time to burn our bridges.’ Then the boy entered and stuck a lighted candle in some melted wax on the k’ang table. The stage was set for our plunge into the country that might become isolated.

Despite our early rising it was midforenoon before we left. The boy had been warned in a dream of bandits, and it caused a grave discussion; all the owners of the shop stopped work to take part in it. The upshot of it was that the yamen doubled our escort.

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Almost as we started, the character of the country began to change: the slopes of the hills grew sharper, the valleys narrower, scattering hardwood trees appeared, the villages became fewer and fewer, the grain-towers we saw less and less often. The tracts of tilled land were far apart now.

It was cold, hard work climbing. A few steps forward, and a step back we slid. When we stood, at last, on the windy tops, there was inner vision from these vantage-points. We looked at the grandeur of the far-stretching earth. Under the brilliant Manchurian sky we could see for miles and miles, range after range of winter white hills, bare and brown in spots where the wind had blown the snow away. A few brown huts and the brown circling road way below us were the only signs of habitation. All things material receded. Even the hills stood aloof, clothed in cold snow. We dwelt apart in spiritual calm. We felt at one with the learned man of India who had at his finger-tips all the ways of London, all the affairs of India, and yet renounced everything and departed far into the hills, where, on the brow of a mountain, he made himself into a beggar and a holy man, there to spend the years working out the riddle of existence. We were one with t he Hebrew crying, ‘I will lift up my eyes unto the hills.’ We were one with the first Chinese frontiersman who had made it his duty to build a wayside shrine just where the road went over the brow of the hill, leaving a tree to spread its protecting branches in wind and calm, in rain and sunshine, over the crude altar. We longed to offer incense there, and to toll the bell that hung from a branch of the tree, and thus announce to the valley that one more man had felt the need of something beyond food and raiment.

Three days more. Finally, there began to be timber on the slopes. There was scarcely a hut. The first day we lost our way entirely and found ourselves fifteen li off our road. That meant two hours more added to the traveling day and it brought us at tiffin to no inn at all. The next day we met a peasant boy pulling a sled.

‘How far is it to the inn of the Virtuous Family?’ our escort cried, stopping him on the road.

‘To hell with you! ’ the boy answered. ‘I’m not going along the road to tell you the way,’ he finished insolently.

‘I’ll teach you to insult a soldier out on official business!’ roared our escort, hitting him with the butt of his rifle.

Then, so quickly that it made us blink, down from a hut on the hillside came the men of the boy’s patriarchal family. The oldest one, with a quavering voice but a strong right, arm, belabored our erstwhile brave soldier and marched him off to the hut on the hill. Night was coming down through the narrow valley. We were a bit rueful over the loss of half our escort , but concluded that one was as good as two of such brave men, and hurried along without more ado.

When we entered the inn that night we beheld a witch’s cave. Great clouds of smoke circled to the dim rafters, great clouds of steam rose from the huge caldrons standing over the open braziers. Over them leaned tall men of the North, their faces sinister in the alternate gloom and flashes of light from the wood fires. On t he long k’angs down each side of the room, sprawled the shadowy figures of uncout h wayfarers. By the dark, grotesquely small k’ang tables they hunched, drawing in hot draughts of tea with a loud sucking sound. The earth floor was wet and slimy with the melting snow from the feet of many comers. The dried meat, the baskets of condiments hanging by crooked sticks from the dimly seen rafters, took on fantastic and savage shapes.

Our frugal meal of hot tea, sausage, and dry bread finished, we crawled under the blankets on one end of the warm k’ang, for we were to get no privacy that night (there was no inner room that we could either beg or command). The warmth was acceptable, and despite the smoke and flaring fires we fell asleep.

I was dreaming that I was in Dante’s Inferno when I awoke to find it no idle dream. Many a late traveler had come in while we innocently slept. The cooking-pots at the end of the k’angs, whose fires served the double purpose of heating the k’angs through a system of flues and cooking extra large quantities of chow, had been filled to their utmost capacity, with a proportionate amount of fire built under them. So while the innkeepers did a thriving business, and we slept, the stove beds grew hotter and hotter, until the grateful heat of early evening turned into a red-hot grill. Wearily we turned and turned. The sensation was that of freezing on our upper side and grilling on our lower. Poking holes in the paper windowpanes, we watched for the dawn.

With the first streak of light we roused our retinue. That day we were to make Mao Erh Shan, the Mecca of the lumbering man. Every one was tired, and a tired Chinaman, be he a big brave soldier or a stalwart carter, is a whining crying baby. By noon one soldier had left his pony to wander riderless while he rode on the back of our cart; the other refused to trot his animal. ‘It was colder trotting,’ he complained. The carters, too, refused to hurry; they also were tired and their mules as well. ‘ Let us stop,’they coaxed. When we refused they all started to turn in at a wretched inn twenty li short of Mao Erh Shan, our destination. We were in despair. Then the boy, our staff and our rod in difficulty, came to the rescue. He climbed up on the soldier’s pony and beat him into a wabbling trot. His long fur gown flapped to the four winds; the pony baulked and plunged, but the boy beat on and on with the silly little whip, until our mules caught the excitement and actually trotted. The twenty li were made, and Mao Erh Shan. Thus ended the second stage of our journey.

IV
Even as we opened our eyes the next morning we were conscious that we were no longer in the silent white wilderness. All round us rose the sounds and smells of teeming life. Our breakfast quickly eaten, we were out on the street. Rough characters with strong, insolent faces slouched along; the restaurants were as thick as flies in summer. The occasional shops looked incredibly prosperous for China. There was none of the almost penurious thriftiness that usually marks even the wealthiest shops. The owners boasted that they had refused the agency of several large foreign firms. ‘It does n’t pay to bother with them,’ they said arrogantly. They saw things large; they ‘ talked big.’

Everywhere were the evidences of good wages, of the large profits ot a new country. It reminded one of the mad life of Alaska when the miners came in with their pokes of gold. Money came easily and it went even more easily. Lust and license ran riot as they do in lumbering camps the world over, only here there was the momentum gained from a wild oriental abandon. On the edge of the clean new country men were crazed with the possession of money easily obtained.

After two days of struggle with these men swollen with power, my husband decided to move on. We could delay no longer. It was March now, and we still had seven days’ journey through the forest to the other tributary, which we must cross to get over to the mainland of Manchuria. In a half hour after leaving the roaring, rioting town we were in the thin edge of the virgin forest underneath which lay China’s hidden treasure.

Oh, the wonder of those days! We saw the earth almost as it was made in the beginning. Deeper and deeper we penetrated, higher and higher we climbed. There was ineffable stillness and peace boundless, eternal. We had passed, for the time, far away from man. We saw the activities of our lives in the perspective of the past days of toiling travel. At last we stood on the highest pass in all our journey. Around us lay sunshine and sparkling snow; close at hand a dead pine, bare and naked, stood out majestically. Down the slopes marched the trees; far off the mountains were gray, hidden in fastrising snow squalls. A great wind came biting against us. It was a supreme moment.

Having crossed the last high range of mountains, we descended into the more sheltered land on the other side. With a gasp we realized that there was something new in the air, something living, something fresh. ‘Look! ’ I cried. We looked around us at the ground, at the sun; we looked at each other. We reached our hands out beyond the cart. The wind touched them softly.

My husband groaned. ‘It looks like spring, it feels like spring, it smells like spring, and by gorry, it is spring! A few days like this and the river will be too rotten to risk the carts on it.’

‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘Why, it was only yesterday that we ran and thrashed around to keep from freezing.’

‘And we have nearly a thousand li more to do,’ continued my husband.

‘Wake up, wake up, old Schnicldepenutz,’ we both cried, poking the driver’s drowsy, padded back. ‘It’s going to be a race with spring. None of your Eastern procrastination.’

Thud, our cart roundly struck a stone in the soft snow. We had n’t time to consider its message before we saw ahead the undeniable sheen of water in the two cart-tracks down each side of the road.

‘This afternoon,’ we decided, ‘we must go a long way before we stop. Somehow we’ve got to manage to hustle the East and we’ve got to get started sooner at noon than we usually do.’

Oh, for the best-laid plans of mice and men!

‘We’ll have beans, boy,’ we said; ‘and tell the carters chop, chop, must hurry.’

‘Master,’ replied the boy, ‘carters say must stop, very late now, to-morrow can go.’

‘Why?’ we cried.

‘Mules very tired.’

We were paying the carters by the day; hence the need for rest.

‘Tell carters, must go. No go, no money to-day.’

The boy departed and we went on with our beans.

‘All right,’ said the boy returning, ‘can go little way.’

But we had no sooner finished our beans than a soldier from the town entered, clicked his heels (if one can be said to click heels booted in cloth shoes), and stood at attention.

‘The head-man of the town invites you to be so good as to remain here for the rest of to-day. There is a band of two hundred hung-hu-tzes [bandits] coming down from the North. He has sent out the soldiers, but there may be fighting on the road, and will you be so kind as to wait, at least until to-morrow?'

Of course there was nothing to do but ‘ be so kind as to wait.’ The carters had a lovely, quiet afternoon of snoring sleep after their midday wine; for us there was nothing to do but go out and ruefully survey the snow melting in the afternoon sun, and sit in the inn listening to tales of bandits.

Whether it was due entirely to fate, or whether the gods conspired against us, I really cannot say. I am inclined to believe the latter. I think the gods reasoned this way: ‘We cannot allow any one to hurry the East, however necessary it may be to him personally. If it is once allowed, there is no telling where it will stop. We must save a few quiet corners, else gods, and fairies, and beloved vagabonds will disappear.’

Be that as it may, we had carried out our rushing programme for only two days when, in a wide valley between hills, our shaft-mule fell lame. First he began going very slowly, then he limped, and finally, as we came to the end of the valley and started on the inevitable pull upwards, he refused altogether to go on. What were we to do? Schnicklepenutz got down to look him over. He grunted angrily; it was evident that he was not going to risk the life of a perfectly good mule.


Then there was a consultation and an argument; everybody got out. First Benoni climbed down from his cart, then came the boy, then our middleman extricated himself, and last of all, as he could not be heard in the discussion, down jumped my husband. Sun, the middle-man, who liked ease and not too many hours in a cart, was for stopping. Schnicklepenutz, who wished to lose neither his mule nor his three good dollars a day, was also all for stopping. The boy, who cared not a fig for the mule, the money, or the ease, was for going on; not that he felt the danger of delay, — to that all Chinese are superbly indifferent, — but he was highly disgusted with them all. We, who did not intend to risk our lives on the rotten ice of the far-away river, were for hunting for a new equipment; only we knew all too well that, if our retinue wanted something else, however acquiescent they might seem to our wishes, the new equipment would not be forthcoming. Then Benoni, who was a relative of Schnicklepenutz and wanted to keep intact the mules and money of the family, offered a solution: put our big white pulling-mule in the shafts and give the lame one the lighter work. Since the big white one had never been in the shafts and was an ill-tempered beast to boot, he, Benoni, would be the driver, as he was the best hand with the animals.

The leather buckled, the ropes tied, the strings of the mysterious harness knotted, the big mule gave a wicked shake in the shafts, then started to climb without more ado. The scheme had worked! By our watches we had lost only half an hour.


Up we climbed, the big mule pulling bravely and the alert Benoni flicking the ears of all three at just the moment to avoid every frozen lump, every stone. It was a work of art, the ascent of that pass! We almost concluded to ride down in order to save time and see Benoni’s fine work. Still, as Schnicklepenutz, his heavy brain working more slowly, had not reached the brow of the hill, we might as well walk, especially as Benoni was discreetly tying our wheels. We waved him on; it is never safe to be ahead of the carts on a down grade, for sometimes they take a sudden slide. Benoni, whip and lines in one hand and the other free to steady the cart, ran along at the side. ‘ Tzu, tzu, oah, oah.’ The white mule squared his haunches, planted all his four feet firmly; the cart with its locked wheels slid behind him.

We danced after them down the wintry road. Faster and faster they went. We fell behind, panting, and then stopped, transfixed to the spot. The mules were running; the cart was hopping at their heels. Benoni was plunging along, but never for an instant did he stop swinging that circling whip.

Now the mules were galloping! The cart seemed to be climbing up their backs. The melting snow hid a glaze of slippery ice, and Benoni’s felt shoes were his undoing. Running full tilt, down he went, his whip still waving, and slid headlong over the ice. In one lightning moment the heavy studded wheel of the cart rode over him. We closed our eyes.


When we looked, Benoni was dragging himself by means of his hands back up the road toward us. His first instinct pulled him away from that awful solitary experience back to his fellows. Not far below him was his cart all tangled in some underbrush, hanging just above a precipice, and the mules lying flat in the snarled harness, with one shaft pinning the white mule to the ground.

By this time we had all, even the supercilious boy, reached Benoni. Why he was alive we could not understand; but we found that the ugly wheel had passed over his leg only, and his padded trousers — two or three pairs — had saved it from being broken. There was the mark of the iron studding on his flesh, and his face was white and drawn with suffering. With set teeth he got up on his feet and took a few steps toward the inn in the valley below. Schnicklepenutz had already departed to view the wreck of his possessions. Hurt relatives were all very well, but what about hurt mules and broken carts? We turned round to see his short legs astride one mule’s head. The bad mule had grown restive and was endangering the cart and the mules, himself included. We bethought ourselves of our own possessions, corralled a passerby for Benoni to lean upon, and departed. The stout cart and stouter mules were all right, but the ropes that held our boxes to the back of the cart had broken, and our clothes, business reports, and cherished rations were scattered far down the ravine. A morning lost, a lame mule, a hurt driver, our few biscuits in the mud at the bottom of the ravine, business reports torn, and no farther toward that river.


‘ We will not try to hustle the East,’ ruefully said my husband; ‘even the mules are against it. Still, there’s the river!’

V
In the course of the next two hours we all reached the inn, where they applied hot wine to poor Bcnoni’s wounds. Then there was a furious discussion as to what to do with the lame mule and the hurt driver. One thing was evident: we must start that afternoon. It seemed cruel to Benoni, but it was the least of several evils. If he were only badly bruised, he would be stiffer and sorer long before he was better. If it were something worse, our best course was to get him to a doctor at once.

Theories were good, but who should drive? It takes a long time to learn to guide the proverbially stubborn mule with the flick of a whip and a few guttural notes. Up came the boy. Why had we not thought of him before? Was n’t he a carpenter, a poler of boats, a farmer? He could not drive very well, but he could flick the whip and Benoni promised to sit out in front and give the tzu tzus and oah oahs, and Schnicklepenutz was to drive each cart in turn down the passes. With such highly specialized labor we started.


The first day was finished. We had moved slowly but surely toward our destination. A second day and then a third, and we were started on the fourth. By changing our course we had struck an unfrequented road. Our highly specialized labor was very slow. That day we had to grit our teeth anew. There is no quitting on the trail, even if a steep pass does suddenly confront you toward dark, after the evening freeze has set in and made the melting streams, that had covered the road during the day, turn to a smooth glare. Lame mule, sick driver, every one had to buckle to the work in hand. Every one except the sick driver was out to lighten the pull-back of the carts. The drivers clucked and clucked, and when the mules slipped and gave up, slash! went the whips, goading them on to a frantic leap. Our ‘ escort ’ and my husband pushed from behind; Sun and I followed with rocks to block the wheels if the cart started sliding. We were on the last steep grade. The lame mule, panting, sweating, went down; the cart slid; our stones did not hold, and back toward the other cart it began to glide. Frantically we clawed the freezing earth for fresh blocks. It was a sickening moment, but we got them there in time.

Just how that last grade was made I do not know. My whole will was set on the task of not breaking down. I must not be a quitter. Long ago I had honestly earned the name of ‘ trail woman ’ from my husband, and I was not going to lose it now. So I kept saying to myself, ‘Brace up and be a man.’ So saying, and watching the moonlight streaming over the valley, I kept plodding behind my husband toward a light that seemed to evade our approach. Then, after an eternity, we were at the inn and drinking hot tea that brought tears to my eyes. It was just the tea, I am sure; my husband did not see them.


Benoni secured a driver for his team and we got a whole outfit to take the place of Schnicldepenutz’s. Such a cart! It was like the one-hoss shay — so old that if it broke at all it would be a final break-up; and the driver resembled his vehicle. Old in limb and soul, he had no interest in anything but a large bean-cake for fodder which, with the stubbornness of old age, he was determined to put directly under the place where I sat. And we named him Jehoshaphat. We planned it all out: six hundred li to do; ten li an hour, ten hours a day, a stop of one day at the station on the river. And then across — if the gods were good!

We made the river in the seven days! They said carts were still crossing, but that was not altogether reassuring. The Chinese often cross frozen rivers till some one falls in. Still, we thought the thaws had not been sufficient to melt the thick underlying masses of ice. If only we could choose a lucky place!

To the river we went in the gray early morning. We all sat perched on the front of the cart (the inside would be a death-trap should we go through). There were several tracks. We picked the safest-looking. On to the ice we drove. Slash! went the driver’s whip, flicking each mule’s ears. They plunged into a wild gallop. We were halfway over. We could feel the ice bend under us. Jehoshaphat, the stolid, became motion incarnate. His arms flapped, his whip flew. He waved his feet, drummed them on the shaft-mule’s quarters. He yapped like a dog as the ice crackled round us. Faster! Faster!


We stood again on the good firm ground of Manchuria, and lo, all motion had left Jehoshaphat. He looked like a lump of flesh unquickened by a spark of life. We looked behind us: our other cart was safe also. But over the place where we had just crossed spread a widening crack. The triangular land was entering into its spring isolation.

The heated brick beds found in Chinese inns. — THE AUTHOR.↩