SINO-MONGOLIAN FRONTIER 



arrival we found all our property exactly as we 

 had left it, and were also successful in recovering a 

 substantial sum of money from the agents of one 

 of the banks destroyed by fire at the outbreak 

 of the Revolution. 



The city was in the hands of the Sixth Division 

 troops, who kept the inhabitants in a perpetual 

 state of terror. Although they had received 

 orders to return to Peking, they were demanding 

 the sum of taels 50,000 before they would leave. 

 But for the fact that the city had already been 

 looted, they would certainly have mutinied and 

 fallen on the luckless townsfolk. Finally they 

 were content with a payment of taels 25,000 

 and left the province quietly. 



While in T'ai-yiian Fu we were fortunate in 

 getting some really good sport in the way of wild- 

 fowling. It happens that along the whole of the 

 western wall inside the city there are marshes 

 and ponds, which have always formed good feeding 

 grounds for snipe and wild ducks. Visiting these 

 ponds early one morning, we soon discovered 

 some large fl.ocks of ducks. A shot or two set 

 them flying, when, by crouching behind some 

 mud dykes, we enjoyed for a few minutes some 

 splendid flight shooting, as the disconcerted birds 

 repeatedly flew back and forth over our heads. 

 Our fun, however, was soon stopped, for the 

 guard at the West Gate came hurrying up and 

 begged us to leave off firing. It turned out that 



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