Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 79 (Color Image)

0079	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. III.] FROST AND SNOW. 55

rose at two or three, had a good plate of

porridge and some tea, and then started off.

For the first hour or two it would, of course,

be dark. Snow covered the ground, and the

thermometer would read anything from zero to

14 ° Fahrenheit below zero, which was the

coldest we registered. But though it was so

cold, I do not remember suffering from it.

The air was generally still, and we had the

advantage of starting from a warm house with

something warm inside us, and at the end of

our day's march, we again found a good warm

room to go to. It was afterwards, on the

Pamirs and in the Himalayas, that I really felt

the cold, for there, instead of a warm room to

start from, I only had a small tent, and some-

times no tent at all, nor sufficient firewood

for a fire, and the high altitudes, by causing

breathlessness and bringing on weakness,

added to my discomfort. Here in Manchuria,

unless it happened to be windy—and then, of

course, it was really trying the cold affected

us but little. The roads were frozen hard and

the snow on them well beaten down by the

heavy traffic, and we trundled along a good

thirty miles a day.

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