The face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian Turkestan — John Shaqi
The face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian TurkestanKemp, E. G. (Emily Georgiana)
History
The face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian Turkestan
Kemp, E. G. (Emily Georgiana)
Asia, Central -- Description and travel; Korea -- Description and travel; Manchuria (China) -- Description and travel
From Moukden we made a flying visit to Peking and into Shansi, but as
that does not come within the scope of this book, I shall take up my
narrative from the point where we re-entered Manchuria on our return by
the South Manchurian Railway. We were astonished to see the hundreds of
emigrants going north: every train was packed with them. There was an
accident on the line, a young lad of twenty having his leg badly crushed
by the train preceding ours. First aid was rendered by the officials, who
are trained to give it, and by means of a chunk of coal and some cord
the bleeding was stopped, the ligature being so tight as completely to
stop the circulation. The lad was put on a big sort of door and placed in
the luggage van of our train, and the conductor came round as soon as we
had started again to see if a doctor was aboard to give further aid. Our
party provided one, and there were all necessary requisites in the shape
of bandages, splints, permanganate of potash, &c., in the surgery at the
junction farther up the line, so that the patient was made as comfortable
as possible when he arrived there, and a message was telegraphed to the
medical mission at Hsin Muntun, which happened to be both his and also
our destination. On arrival the doctor and assistants were waiting, and
the young man was carried away at once to the hospital. Amputation was
necessary, but the lad would not at first agree to it; however, just as
we had finished dinner a message came to say that his friends had been
summoned, and that both they and he were willing for the operation to
take place, so no time was lost in performing it.
Next morning we visited him in the hospital, and found him looking quite
comfortable, and not at all pale even.
In the early days of the railway there were countless accidents; people
would drop things on to the line, and then creep under the train to
pick them out, or step in front of it just as it was starting. We
were surprised to find blue glass windows in many of the trains, but
the explanation of that was, that being unaccustomed to glass, people
were continually putting their heads through them as long as they were
uncoloured! Even now the trains all approach and leave the stations
extraordinarily slowly, and there is a great bell ringing in order to
warn people off the line. Of course there are no overhead or underground
passages for crossing the line, so that it makes accidents almost
inevitable. They are taken with the usual Chinese stolid imperturbability.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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