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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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full ear, were extraordinarily heavy ; the millet especially, both
the large and the small, being unusually heavy in the ear.
The villages, too, were all of a considerable size and numerous.
But separate farmhouses or small hamlets were seldom seen
—probably on account of the brigandage, which was very rife
all over North Manchuria. We heard frequent tales of carts
being attacked on the road, and of villages and even towns
being pillaged. We had, however, no personal experience of
these brigands, and this part of our journey, though interesting
as lying through a populous and thriving district, was lacking
in incident and excitement.
Just beyond Petuna we again struck the Sungari, at the
point where the Nonni joins it from the north. Here in the
swamps by the river we had an experience of mosquitoes
which quite eclipsed all former records. Thinking the marsh
looked a likely place for snipe, we went down into it. We
heard a suppressed kind of roar, like that of the distant sea,
and we thought it must come from the river. But it was
nothing but mosquitoes. For a foot or two above the marsh
they were in myriads. For a short time we tried snipe-
shooting, for there were a number of snipe about ; but the
mosquitoes bit right through our breeches and gloves, and
drove us so mad we had to leave hurriedly.
The Sungari was here spread out in many channels to a
width of some ten miles. We crossed it by a ferry, and on
the opposite side we soon entered the open rolling steppes of
Mongolia. The cultivation ceased, and with it the villages, so
that we now only passed an occasional hut inhabited by
Mongols, and entered on a quite new phase of our journey.
Scarcely a tree was to be seen, and for mile after mile we
passed over rolling downs covered with rich grass and exquisite
flowers. In the hollows were often lakes of very considerable
size, some of them several miles in length. And these were
covered with swarms of water-fowl—thousands and thousands
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471
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482
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