It takes the ordinary Siberian about an hour to get himself properly tender. For some strange reason, known only to the inscrutable American mind, I had failed to cook myself a full two rubles worth, and had surrendered my room to a Chinese who did not appear to be a regular client, judging from his lack of grooming. The major had been as precipitate as myself, having been duly influenced by my active imagination. Once more we risked our lives in the drosky. VI HETMAN OF THE USSURI Khabarovsk is a city of probably sixty thousand population, and picturesquely situated in a sweeping bend of the Amur River, its streets being laid on a bench of land overlooking the river. The barracks occupied by the American and Japanese forces are on still higher ground arranged on a plateau, with the dull reds and browns of the city roofs shining below. It is a provincial capital, the most important north of Vladivostok, and the chief center of the Ussuri Cossacks. The first thing to catch the eye on the morning we marched up to the post, was a yellow flag flying from a pole across a gully from the American headquarters, with a black and fanciful lower-case y upon its field. Y in Russian has the sound of our double o, and so was the initial letter in Russian for Ussuri, thus the flag marked a Cossack garrison quartered inside the stockade beyond. [Illustration: AN AMERICAN DOUGHBOY HELPING MAKE SIBERIA “SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY”] [Illustration: NIGHT VIEW OF VLADIVOSTOK HARBOR FROM HILL OF THE CITY] Yellow is a favorite color with the Cossacks. Their officers wear Prussian blue riding breeches, with wide yellow stripes, similar to the breeches worn by our own cavalry officers before the khaki days. Their tunics were well-cut, but almost any color seemed to serve, as long as heavy gold cloth shoulder straps with elaborate embroidery on them, could be procured. Boots and spurs, and the characteristic high busby of white or black lamb-skin with the wool on, completed the costume. These bonnets are not always circular, but are flattened out, and then worn with the flat sides front and back, and tilted to the rear, giving a rakish effect. The cloth tops set into the wool are frequently of gorgeous colors, some being bright purple, some gold, some red, so viewed from behind, the Cossack is a colorful personage. Viewed from the front, on a charging horse, and with lance or saber point first, they generally get the road to themselves.