On the whole we rubbed along fairly well, although where so many nationalities were closely packed together for a fortnight, a certain amount of racial antipathy was occasionally bound to appear. When no Russians were about both the Japanese and Chinese would eagerly question me on the chances of war. When a Russian appeared, they immediately seemed to lose all interest in the subject. The Germans affected to despise the Russians, and the Russians said they hated the Germans, while they both suspected the English.
_4th November._--We reached Dalny at 7 a.m., and I drove in a droski from the station to the wharves, a distance of perhaps one mile and a half, and there went on board the Railway Company’s steamer “Amour” which was to convey us to Shanghai. It is truly wonderful to what a large European town Dalny has grown from absolutely nothing, in about five years. Good private residences, factories, hotels, shops, public buildings, the beginnings of botanical and zoological gardens, a dry dock measuring, I judged, about 350 feet by 70, wharves, breakwaters, dredgers, tugs, steamers ... everything except the one thing needful, trade. Of the half-dozen fine steamers in port, and others either arriving or preparing to depart, all were practically light. Money has been poured out like water by the Russians in constructing the Railway and in building Dalny, and it is very doubtful if this gigantic enterprise will ever be made to pay. It is said that Dalny, which is identical with Talienwan, can never thrive unless Newchwang be closed to foreign trade. The harbour has a depth of 28 feet and is being dredged. The Railway Company’s line of superb steamers carrying mails, passengers and a little cargo between Dalny and Shanghai, is being run at a heavy loss. The naval fortress of Port Arthur, at the extremity of the Liaotung peninsular, is thirty miles by rail from Dalny.
The impression left on me by my journey through Siberia is that Russia has advanced her outposts into Manchuria far beyond range of effective communication, that is, communication by the Siberian railway alone, which is only a single line of light metals some 5,375 miles in length.
Travelling over this line day and night for fourteen consecutive days, passing continuously through bleak, barren and almost unpopulated regions, crossing numerous wide rivers, an enormous lake and several mountain ranges, waiting sometimes for hours in sidings to allow homeward bound trains to pass, and seeing enough snow, even before winter had actually begun, to understand what difficulties heavy falls must occasion, I cannot help feeling that Russia’s position in the Far East is unnatural and even precarious.