Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/71

Rh and were usually sold to the Chinese merchants and foreign buyers in Ninguta.

From this valley of the Mutan the fairly large mountain range of Kentei Alin extends eastward, and farther south another, called Loye Lin, takes off. From thirty to forty-five miles behind the Loye Lin lay the Korean frontier, along which the nearest town was the Chinese border station of Hunchun. This whole region between Loye Lin and the Korean frontier was a source of great difficulty to the Russian authorities during the war. It was a well-known fact that large gangs of Chinese hunghutzes, under the leadership of the famous bandit chieftain, Chang Tso-lin, refuged there; and it was only after the war that it became known that this hunghutze leader and his bands were in the pay of Japan to make scouting expeditions and to harass the Russian armies along their extended eastern flank.

In the valley of the Mutan, Rikoff and I found large kaoliang and barley fields. The banks of the river, as well as those of its tributary streams, were lined with a thick growth of bushes, from which many pheasants and a few grey partridges broke. We brought in so many of these birds that our Ho Lin table was always well provided with them; but the hunting itself was not really interesting, as the birds were so plentiful that the shooting was monotonously easy.

We were much more attracted by the Kentei Alin Mountains, along whose foothills we had seen herds of small deer and, on the stream banks, traces of larger ones. Twice Rikoff and I saddled our ponies for a trip into these mountains. Our first expedition was not very successful from the standpoint of hunting, as we did not even see traces of deer. While making a day of it