It was a lovely morning, and we were sorry to quit the peaceful valley, the more so as we emerged into a raging dust-storm on the plain. Our return journey was much more rapid than the previous one, and we reached the station one and a half hours before the train started. The tiny waiting-room was already crowded, and the atmosphere dense, for the people have the vaguest conception of time, and are accustomed to wait hours at the station. We had no longer our previous escort to find us more comfortable accommodation, so we had to exercise patience. The bookstall does not yet form part of the equipment of a Chinese railway station; we were reduced to the study of humanity. We returned to Liao Yang for the third and last time, and found the same kind welcome and sense of home-coming which is familiar to all visitors at Liao Yang. We were told that the good monks at Changsha had refused to take any remuneration for our accommodation, but had sent word to the doctor that it was time to think of it when he came again. Perhaps that was a gentle hint for him to come soon, but it was a different experience from the one we had in the Buddhist monastery that we visited in Korea. A few hours later we took the bi-weekly express train for the north, and reached Kharbin in about eighteen hours. I must now take my narrative back to the time after our first visit to Liao Yang when we returned to Moukden, as the base from which to go to Korea. In the map at the end of the volume it will be seen that the single line from the north to Moukden is replaced by three lines spreading out fan shape, one to Korea, one to Dalny (both of these are Japanese), and one to Tientsin, which is Chinese. CHAPTER VI Moukden to Korea