nine
o'clock in the evening
Beyond there is an immense steppe , extending before our train . Madame de Ujfalvy-Bourdon has justly compared it to a billiard table , so perfect in its horizontality . Only it is not an ivory ball which is rolling over its surface , but an express of the Grand Transasiatic running at sixty kilometres an hour . Leaving the station of Tchontchai behind , we enter station at nine o'clock in the evening . The stoppage is to last two hours . We get out onto the platform . As we are leaving the car I am near Major Noltitz , who asks young Pan Chao : `` Have you ever heard of this mandarin Yen Lou , whose body is being taken to Pekin ? ''