the forest stretched away in unbroken lines. I took two Cossacks and plunged into it. We found it was composed of a mixed stand of deciduous and evergreen trees, chiefly pines and firs, and that it was a real jungle with thick, almost impenetrable undergrowth everywhere. It was not a good stand for manufacturing lumber but for burning charcoal it was exactly what we wanted. As we entered the woods, we followed a broad path, on a low, wet section of which I saw from the tracks of horses and men that the route was considerably travelled. It finally led us to a swirling, splashing little stream that came tumbling boisterously down from the mountain. On its bank was the little village of Ho Lin with restricted fields of kaoliang and beans around it, and, farther back, the edge of the dark green forest that carpeted the mountain slope.
As I needed many labourers for felling and cutting up the trees, I decided to begin the search for them in this little village. However, these peasants, who belonged to the Daour tribe of Manchus, refused my offers for work but agreed to lodge our labourers in their houses. Yet even this much was of very definite advantage, for it enabled us to have a supply of food right at the edge of the forest, when our work should begin.
On the following day I returned to Harbin and busied myself with the immediate organization of the enterprise. This took me at the outset to the Chinese town, Fu Chia Tien, where the native element in this new and pulsating great Russian railroad centre in the heart of northern Manchuria swarmed in tremendous crowds, lived in the hastily built houses and inns of the growing settlement and overflowed in the poorer quarters into the most miserable and unkempt of hovels and holes. It was a matter of common knowledge, during these war days especially,
