ABSTRACT
On the 28th of December, 1895, I received telegraphic instructions to proceed to Kirin, the capital of the Central province of Manchuria, to settle a long-standing missionary land case, and at 4.30 a.m. on the 2nd January, 1896, my little caravan passed through the gates of the British Consulate at Newchwang bound northwards. The town of Niu-chuang, where one of the very few fierce struggles between the Japanese and Chinese during the late war took place, lies thirty miles inland, and the fact that the port and this inland town are indiscriminately called Newchwang gave rise to considerable confusion as to the military operations during the winter of 1894-95. In the interior of Manchuria the port is spoken of as Ying-tzǔ, or more generally Ying-kow; but as outside Manchuria it is known only as Newchwang I shall continue to name it so, and always refer to the inland town as Niu-chuang. The caravan consisted of four carts—-one for Lieutenant Quayle, R.N., of H.M.S. Rattler, who was good enough to be my companion; one for my Chinese writer; one for provisions; and the fourth for myself. In addition to these we had three ponies to vary the monotony of cart travelling; but the weather was so cold that we rarely summoned up courage to rida An official messenger, a cook, a horse-boy, my writer’s servant, the four carters, and twelve mules and ponies completed the caravan. We were provisioned for a month, and provided with fur-lined clothing 2and boots and fur rugs to enable us to withstand the rigours of a Manchurian winter. These precautions were very necessary, for during the journey we experienced a temperature of 84° below zero, or 66° of frost. Mr. Quayle had a sextant, with the usual accompaniments, and a fowling-piece which on the only occasion on which it was really required—to resist an attack by mounted robbers—could not be unearthed from its case, the lock having got jammed by the jolting of the cart in which it was stowed away, and we each carried a revolver, and last, but not least, I had packed away in my cart an old battered iron despatch box—the trusty companion of my travels in Western China—filled with the more peaceful munitions of travel—broken silver ingots of various sizes, the only universal currency excepting copper cash in China.
