Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/46

34 and, without interrogating them for further data or even scrutinizing them for outward physical signs, closed his mental diagnosis, announced the price of the remedy and, with a dry, wrinkled hand, brought out from a little chest the magic powders and pills.

Attracted by these many street scenes, I wandered for nearly an hour before returning to the Yamen. As we entered, an oppressing, gruesome picture staggered us. The executioner still sat on the raised platform, cleaning his sword as before, but this time from a stain for which no oil and brick dust were required. Right there before the tribunal of justice lay the terrible evidence of the work it had done.

Soon the Taotai, with the regular unofficial black hat replacing the more formal headgear, appeared, smiling and amiable, and presented to me the document which recommended me to the protection and the courtesies of the various authorities in the district of Petuna. With this official introduction in hand I left the forbidding scene with considerable misgiving as to what the "protection and courtesies" of these Chinese officials might mean.

I did not discover any appreciable quantities of bean oil in or near the town, but was told where I might expect to find it and so spent another day and a half in Petuna, looking for horses and a guide and living the while on board a steamer loading cattle for the army. During this time I went all about the town and the immediate neighbourhood, as I wished to post myself on the crop prospects of the region.

Near the town the Golden Nonni, with the affluent waters of the Tolo coming from the eastern slopes of the Great Khingan range, joins the Sungari. Westward from the Nonni and the Sungari a portion of the semi-arid eastern end of the Gobi stretches away to these