Mr. Willard D. Straight, then United States Consul at Mukden, met us at Vladivostok with plans for our reception at Mukden. When we arrived there we were welcomed by a company of Chinese soldiers dressed in the old Mongolian custom, and by a squadron of Cossacks. We were hurried in a carriage behind two fast trotting Orloff horses to a hotel where all the consuls assembled greeted us with cakes, champagne and very short speeches. There was considerable excitement among the consuls with regard to the toasts to be drunk and the order of precedence in which the rulers of the different countries were to be named, but Mr.