My Dear Little Girl:- There is so much uncertainty in the airjust now as to our going

anywhere that we have just given up even hoping. It seems generally agreed that we are going home shortly but no doubt there are circumstances that -affect our departure of which we know nothing. Some of the men and officers are going up to Omsk tomorrow with trains, I wish I could ring in a trip like that; wouldn't it be fine to go up loaded with films. But never mind I may get some if we go to Peking. Or there is a rumour that we may stop in Japan for a few days. I should like to tell you something about the country and the people, as I said in my last letter, but do not know where to begin. There is so much ground to cover. I am not prepared to speak on Soviet Russia or even the inland of Siberia, or of anything which I have not seen with my own eyes. But of course we see enough in Vladivostok and hear enough of what is going on in Dalnyvostok, as this part of the Amur province is called, to realize what a terriblejumble it all is.

First of all you have to start with the native population-Manchurians, on whom everything else is superimposed. They form the base, provide the labour for almost all the outdoor work. Then you have the Chinese who have drifted in and who have monopolized not, as with us, the laundry business, but the provision business and several others. They are clerks in the stores, cashiers in the banks, indeed I had a run in with a fresh young chink with a pink face and a green tie the last time I was in town. They are pretty smooth guys and strut around in their silks and furs or else in very up to date English clothes.just what the Mongolian is I am not quite sure but I understand they are distinguished by a pigtail; if that is the case, they come fairly close to the Manchurians.

Then you have the Koreans who dress in white and are decked out with the most outlandish head gear, I have some snaps of them. The Koreans I understand are emigrants, keep much to themselves and are engaged principally in farming, fishing and

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