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0271 History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927-1935 : vol.2
History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927-1935 : vol.2 / Page 271 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000210
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XVIII. WINDING UP THE GREAT EXPEDITION

IN PEKING AGAIN

this time of the year the Pacific could scarcely be said to justify its

t   s

name. After a very stormy voyage I arrived on January 19th, 1933, in Tientsin, where BERGMAN had come down to meet me.

In Peking the headquarters of the expedition had now been moved to a compound in Hsi-kuan-yin-ssu in the east city. BERGMAN lived with his family in a little house just near. He had rented it privately, and had his own household there.

Professor LESSING was no longer in Peking, but his daughter BRUNHILD (HILLA) LESSING was living in one of the houses in the expedition's compound.

Professor PAUL PELLIOT, the eminent sinologue, was staying in Peking that winter. In his company I inspected BERGMAN'S Han-finds from the Edsen-gol, that the discoverer and some Chinese were busy cataloguing in the Institute for Sinology of the National University. The institute has its premises in an old Manchu palace, Sung Kung Fu, immediately behind the brick building of the university. Together with the great number of Chinese manuscripts on narrow wooden slats that BERGMAN had excavated, we were especially interested in the oldest known writing-brush and the unique »book », made up of seventy-eight narrow wooden slats, a foot in length, knotted one beside the other with two strings, and, when excavated, rolled up. With the exception of one or two they were covered with Chinese writing concerning military matters, and were dated 93-95 A. D.

THE JAPANESE ADVANCE

After the Japanese, in the autumn of 1931 and the spring of 1932, had subjugated Manchuria and declared its independence, in March 1932, with Mr HENRY Pu Yi, the last boy-emperor on the Dragon Throne of China, as Chief Executive, they continued their continental expansion by marching into the Jehol province. In view of the threat of war the treasures of Peking were little by little evacuated, and many rich Chinese fled south. At the end of January, for example, 3,000

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