: Siberia To-Day by Moore Frederick Ferdinand - Siberia (Russia) Description and travel; Siberia (Russia)

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the Japanese in giving financial and military assistance to the various Cossack chiefs. I have no particular reason for assuming that their motives were anything but what they claimed them to be--to put down Bolshevism. I do doubt that the Japanese motives were wholly to assist Russia in rehabilitating itself as a great and powerful empire; I do doubt that the Japanese Imperial government, sought or seeks to see Russia a united and powerful republic. Russia has been a source of worry to Japan for many years, and the many barracks built in Siberia since the Russo-Japanese war, have not had a tendency to remove that worry. For if the war had not broken in 1914, or if it had ended without smashing the r?gime of the Czar, Japan would have felt the weight once more of the Bear's paw.

The bigger cities of Siberia are cities which have grown up round new brick barracks. There are literally miles of these barracks all through Siberia along the railroad. These quarters could not have been necessary for an army of the size contemplated by this construction, merely to keep order in Siberia.

It is plain enough that Russia contemplated revenge for the Manchurian fiasco. The Czar undoubtedly intended to throw a vast army into Siberia, move it against Japan, throw another army into Siberia behind in reserve, and keep hammering Japan till the island Empire was destroyed or rendered harmless in a military and naval way. He was waiting for a new fleet capable of coping with Nippon's navy. And Japan knew it. I have doubts that she wishes to see that menace once more in her back yard, and under the present system of competition between nations for territory, I do not blame her for wishing to protect herself. Her methods are another matter.

FROM KHABAROVSK TO USHUMUN

A glance at the map shows that a wedge of Manchuria runs up into Siberia. Khabarovsk is at the northern point. The Amur, flowing in a general westerly direction, bending southerly along the northern boundary of the Manchurian province of Tsitsihar, and then turning to the north sharply as it comes in contact with the province of Kirin, runs up the westerly side of the wedge, and from Khabarovsk flows almost due north, where it empties into Amur Gulf, near the Siberian port of Nikolaievsk, opposite the northern end of Saghalien Island.

The Amur branch of the trans-Siberian railroad crosses the Amur River a little to the north of Khabarovsk, and almost parallels the river, but at a considerable distance to the north of it, crossing many tributaries of the Amur flowing from the north. The red line marking the railroad, superimposed on a standard wall map, shows no railroad stations till Kerak, some fifteen hundred versts west of Khabarovsk. And the sectional Intelligence map which I had, was little better, for the spelling of the towns was so radically different, that except for the larger places of simple spelling, I gave up using it except to orient myself by identifying the various small rivers.

Where the name of the town was transformed into English by our Russian map-makers, and then the station-sign in Russian betrayed no special affinity for the Anglicized version, I found many towns which were apparently astray. Like the navigator who having made a landfall was told that the port he was approaching was Karaka, said: "Impossible! Karaka is two hundred miles to the south of here on my chart!" when my interpreter told me that we were arriving in Poperoffka, I looked at my map and said: "Impossible! Unless the Bolshevists have brought Poperoffka here and tied it till they want it."

There was a company of the Twenty-seventh at Ushumun, our farthest north. I had a limited time in which to reach this company, and with one train a day running, on uncertain schedule, I must needs leave Khabarovsk to complete my itinerary in time.

But there was talk at Khabarovsk that this company would draw down the line, though the time of its departure was uncertain, and its destination unknown. At headquarters of the Twenty-seventh I could get no definite information, a fact which puzzled me, until I learned that the movement was to be directed by the Japanese commander, General Otani, and that Colonel Styer, in command of the regiment, was waiting for orders as to the movement.

I decided to proceed in accordance with my orders, and from detachments of our troops seek news of the force supposed to be at Ushumun, and either catch it, or go to where it was.

So with my interpreter, I embarked on a passenger train, late at night. We got a "coup?" or compartment, fitted with berths for four persons. It was a so-called "sanitary car" of the second class, and clean and comfortable. The car appeared to be empty except for us, till morning, when we found a Japanese captain and his orderly in the next compartment.

At Nikolsk, on the way to Khabarovsk, and at Vladivostok, there were American officers in the stations, members of the so-called Russian Railway Service, known at home as the Stevens Commission. All were expert railroad men, and telegraph operators, and their presence in stations made travel simple enough. But after leaving Khabarovsk, I found the stations in charge of the regular Russian staffs, and a Japanese staff, the latter with their own telegraphic service. I had been under the impression that every station had officers of our corps, and as I found them missing over the Amur branch, I was puzzled, in addition to being hampered for news and a means of keeping in touch with my own headquarters. At that time this corps was serving only on the Chinese Eastern line, but I did not know it.

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