388 THE FAB EAST. 



sand rounds of shell for their gun and neglected to 

 bring the field-gun itself, which remained at Tientsin 

 — to our great grief afterwards, when it would have 

 been of untold value at Peking ! " ^ 



Corruption, it is to be feared, is deep-rooted and 

 widespread. "Look to thy office and indemnify thy- 

 self" was the perilous advice of the old Russian Tsars, 

 advice which, it must be admitted, was universally acted 

 upon. Peter the Great, it is true, waged unappeasable 

 warfare against this deeply-rooted abuse, and on one 

 occasion condemned an offending governor of Astrakhan 

 "to be torn by pigs ! " But how little available were 

 his laudable endeavours may be judged by the fact that 

 Alexander 11. , when campaigning with his army in 

 Bulo-aria durino; the Russo-Turkish war, is reported to 

 have said that there were only two honest men m the 

 Russian army, and one of those men was Tsar Alexander 

 II. and the other was the heir to his throne ! It is 

 only too probable that the stories to the effect that 

 bags of sand masquerade as sacks of flour in many a 

 Russian store, and that cases filled chiefly with shavings 

 and sawdust reach the troops, in place of the offerings 

 made by private charity for their comfort, will prove to 

 have only too solid foundation. 



In the case of the present war, the limited possibilities 

 of the Russian communications must also be kept in 

 view. Mr Henry Norman, whose Russian sympathies 

 are well known, admits that " the expectation that the 

 line would serve at a moment of danger, or in pursuit of 

 a suddenly executed coup, to throw masses of soldiers 

 from Europe into China, is yet far from realisation. 

 The line," he goes on, "and its organisation would 

 break down utterly under such pressure," and I know of 

 no single instance of any one who has had any practical 



^ These from the Land of Sinim. 



