About nine o’clock we reached Nikolsk-Ussuri, where the railroad splits, one track, the Chinese Eastern, going across Manchuria to the Siberian border, and the other, the one we were to follow, proceeding to the north through the Maritime Provinces as far as Khabarovsk, where it crosses the Amur River north of that city, and then runs to the northwest well inside the Siberian border, with a branch line running down to Blagoveschench. The main line then goes to Kerak, and crossing the Shilka River, joins up with the Chinese Eastern over Manchuria, at Karimska, a few versts to the southeast of Chita, capital of the province of Trans-Baikal. At Nikolsk, as it is commonly called, I had my first experience with a station restaurant. There was a Japanese troop-train in the yards, also a train with Chinese troops. Our six hundred odd soldiers had their own kitchen-cars and messed while the train stopped. After their night on shelves built into the box-cars, they were glad for a chance to stretch their legs and exchange pleasantries with their friends in other cars. The station restaurant was thronged. My orderly went with me, and we pushed our way through crowds of refugees, Cossacks, Japanese officers and all the motley crew assembled there and clamoring for food. We managed to get some cabbage soup, which we had to defend against the flies, for no one ever kills or traps a fly in Siberia. The city itself is a couple of versts from the station, for when the railroad was built it appears that the engineers took every precaution against getting too close to cities; they simply laid out their lines for the right of way, and if the city happened to be near, well and good; if not, the city would have to come to the railroad. It was here that I realized for the first time how vague and unlimited is the Russian word _Sichass_, which means anything from presently to some time in the dim future. I desired to visit the city, to look over the German war-prisoner camp, to investigate the train full of Bolshevist prisoners, including men, women and children. But our Russian conductor, drinking tea in the station, warned us that our train would move “_Sichass_”, so I went back to my car and waited, not daring to get far away. We were there for several hours. Russians came and looked at us, and we looked at them. They regarded us with friendly eye, but scowled and muttered when they encountered a Japanese soldier. It was apparent that the wounds of the Russo-Japanese war are not fully healed, and in the face of the hatred which meets the Japanese at every turn in Siberia, the little soldiers from Nippon display a splendid discipline. We heard that this discipline is limited to places where their conduct is under observation. Every minute, during the time our train lay in the yards, it appeared that departure was imminent. A bell at the station tolled once, and the conductor and engineer blew horns at each other. Presently the engine whistled.