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KUANG-TUNG PENINSULA 7
none too gay or comfortable. These days in
Dalny must have been the one great time in
their lives—and to the Russians it was a matter
of complete indifference whether their property
went to the Japanese or to their allies, the
Hunghutzes.
It is apparent, therefore, that the Dalny I saw
in 1904 was utterly different from the Dalny of
the year before. I remember it well, with its
gay, debonair life of former days. In the after-
noon the band played in the park ;
officers in
their handsome uniforms, with clanking swords,
and jingling spurs on well-polished top boots,
promenaded with more or less well-dressed ladies,
listening to the music or watching the tennis
players ;
in the streets droshkies and private
carriages, driven at a furious pace, took the ladies
of the two mondes for their evening promenade.
In the evening there were gay dinner and supper
parties at the hotels, where the champagne flowed
and where jewels sparkled. The Russian officer
is certainly not miserly. When he has money,
he spends it freely. Sick and tired of the tedious
life in the forts and outposts, he flies to town now
and again when he has received his salary, and
makes the roubles dance for a few mad hours, till
the last has slipped out of his purse, when, with a
light heart and a heavy head, he again returns to
duty and dulness.
The women I saw were of two kinds—married
ladies, mostly Russian (in impossible toilettes)
and generally very bourgeoise and the others,
mostly quite the reverse, and for the greater part
hailing from the sunny countries along the Lower
Danube, soft-eyed, merry little things, who were
excellent partners in the game of the dancing
roubles.
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