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 flocks 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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