The river ice was breaking up into large masses under the morning sun, and between Russia and Korea there was much open water about 600 feet broad. The experts said if we could get over at all it would be between noon and 2, after which the ice would pack and freeze together again. Koreans and Cossacks worked with a will, breaking the ice, digging under the boat, and moving her with levers, but it was noon before the unwieldy craft, used for the ferriage of oxen, moved into the water, accompanied by a hearty cheer. She leaked badly, two men were required to bale her, and the stern platform, by which animals enter her, was carried away. The baggage was carried in by men wading much over their knees, and then came the turn of the ponies, but not the whole Russian army by force or persuasion could get those wretched animals embarked. After a whole hour’s work and any amount of kicking, plunging, and injuries, from getting one or two legs over the bulwarks, and struggling back, and rolling backwards into the river, two were apparently safe in the ferryboat, when suddenly they knocked over the man who held them and jumped into the water, one blind animal being rescued with difficulty, and the other cutting his legs considerably. The ice was then fast forming, but the soldiers made one more attempt, which failed, owing to what Americans would not inaptly call the “cussedness” of the Siberian ponies. For the first time on any journey I had to confess myself baffled, for it was impossible to swim the contumacious animals across, owing to the heavy ice floes and the low temperature of the water. I had sat on my pony watching these proceedings for nearly four hours, watching too the grand Korean mountains as they swept down to the icy river in every shade of cobalt blue, varied by indigo shadows of the white cloud masses which sailed slowly across the heavenly sky. At that point from which I most reluctantly turned back, the Tu-men has a large volume of water, but above and below sandbanks render the navigation so difficult that it is only in the rainy season that flat-bottomed boats make the attempt, and not always with success, to reach the Korean town of K’wan, 80 _versts_, or something over 50 miles, above Krasnoye Celo. The Chinese, in the insane notion that Japan was about to land a large force on the south bank of the Tu-men, had seized all the boats above the Russian post. [Illustration: RUSSIAN “ARMY,” KRASNOYE CELO.] I photographed the “Russian army” and the barracks as well as the Boundary Stone, and the corporal slouching against the scaly forlorn quarters on the desolate height in an attitude of extreme dejection, as we drove away leaving him to his usual dulness.