Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/216

 CHAPTER XX

PRISON "EL DORADO"

HE temporary political prison in Harbin was, by comparison with other places of incarceration, a veritable "El Dorado." The quarters were large and clean and well lighted by the big windows. Nowakowski and I were assigned to one cell, where we settled ourselves for the long term ahead of us.

"After all, I am to live here eighteen months," thought I, "and consequently, I must arrange everything as agreeably as possible, in order that this period of inactivity and restraint may not leave its undesirable marks upon me."

First I had brought from my house my books and the scientific notes which I had made during various excursions throughout the Russian Far East and in the laboratories at Vladivostok and Harbin. For whole days and nights I worked without ceasing. During the first three months I wrote almost constantly and, with the permission of Prosecutor Miller, sent off to Warsaw to the monthly magazine, The Polish Chemist, and to The Journal of the Society of Chemistry and Physics in St. Petersburg a number of articles on the chemistry of coal, petroleum and gold, as well as some chemico-technical studies of several East Asiatic products such as vegetable oils, commercial fertilizers, seaweeds containing iodine, Chinese and Japanese bronzes, etc. The former Minister 204