to control and to the restraints of social life; if not particularly warm in their devotion to their children and to their parents, at any rate not absolutely callous; and though any active benevolence is not very apparent there are, on the other hand, few symptoms of active malevolence. But the most important trait to notice is their strong conservatism. What was good enough for their fathers the present-day inhabitants think must be good enough for them.

They are intelligent and quick to grasp simple ideas, but superstitious and ignorant of natural causation; very lacking in imagination, with high powers of imitation, but no capacity for invention. They all dress alike, and in the same way in which they have dressed for centuries past; there is no difference between one house and another, and even their carts are all of the same pattern. The rigid fixity of ideas is a concomitant of their strong conservative proclivities.

They have, as a rule, little regard for truth, but in business matters once their word is given it may be relied on. Honesty is not a pronounced trait in their characters, nor are they remarkable for morality. And these defects must, therefore, be set against their striking industry and thrift.

Their religion seldom shows itself, and has little effect upon their practical conduct. It produces in them none of that fanaticism which impels other races of Asia to deeds of war, and it imposes upon the people of Manchuria few of those restrictions as to what they may or may not eat or do with which the people of India are so fettered. But, on the other hand, their superstitious beliefs, such as Feng-shui, often furnish impediments to progress, and their worship of ancestors increases their inherent conservatism.

With these characteristics of the people and of the country they live in before us, and bearing in mind the position of Manchuria, exposed to the pressure of the great Chinese Empire on the south-west, of Corea on the east, and now of Russia on the north and of Japan by sea, we can form some estimate of the stability of the State into which these people have formed themselves, and attempt a forecast of its future development.

Originally Manchuria extended far away to the mountain ranges on the northern side of the Amur, and, according to Chinese history, this country 3,000 years ago was inhabited by a congeries of petty nomad clans of Tartars, remnants of which survive to this day in the tribes that live by hunting or fishing in the north. But while for a long time the denizens of the mountain valley remained independent of each other and of any outside authority, the dwellers in the rich plain country of the south, more liable to attack and therefore under greater compulsion to weld themselves together, formed a kingdom about 1100 B.C., which shortly afterwards became tributary to China. So it lasted till the Coreans overran the country, but in the seventh

century A.D. the Chinese had again established their authority in this kingdom formed in the southern plain country. But meanwhile the tribes in the mountains on the north had been slowly constituting themselves into organised States, one of which, the Bohai, in the ninth century conquered not only the north but the whole of the south of Manchuria also, till it was in turn supplanted by another northern tribe, the Ketans, who succeeded in establishing themselves in Peking itself until they were overthrown by yet another northern tribe, the Nuchens, who founded the Chin dynasty and retained power till they were swept away by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Whether the Mongols actually ruled Manchuria, or whether the country was independent, is uncertain, but the Ming dynasty of China, which followed the Mongols, held sway over the southern plains of Manchuria till, for the last time, a mountain tribe in the seventeenth century, first gaining control over the other hillmen and then over the settled plains, finally established its authority over the whole of China and formed the present Manchu dynasty.

But even while the successes of this bold mountain tribe, which issuing from its secluded glen had conquered the whole of China, were at their height the shadow of the Great Power which now so imminently threatens the country was first appearing on the north. Russian explorers were finding their way down the Amur, armed parties followed, then trading centres were established, the portion of Manchuria north of the Amur was first absorbed, then the whole of the coast line on the north as far as Corea, and now we hear of the Russians showing signs of establishing themselves even in the south.

This slight sketch of the history of Manchuria will have served to show how the country has grown up; how the incessant warfare of tribe against tribe has resulted in its final consolidation; and how the repeated streams of invaders from the mountain valleys have constantly been met by a reflex flood of immigrants from the plains of China, till at the present day the whole of Manchuria, with the exception of those distant northern tracts which have been absorbed by Russia,'is bound together under one ruler, and its population may be calculated at twenty millions.

Yet, as we have just seen, there are already signs of disintegration setting in, and we have to examine on the one hand the bonds which hold this mass together, and on the other the influences which tend towards its disruption.

Those who have been impressed by the difficulties encountered in Klondike in winter, and by the horrors of sledge journeys in Siberia, will perhaps imagine from my descriptions of the cold in Manchuria that communication must be entirely impeded by snow for half the year, and that Government control and industrial development must

be in consequence seriously hindered. Yet the truth is precisely the reverse. The winter is the most favoured season for traffic. Travelling in December and January, when the roads were frozen hard and the rivers and morasses bridged by ice, we met upon the roads fully ten times the amount of traffic we had seen in the summer months. It was in the winter that the huge guns for the forts upon the Russian frontier and the great masses of machinery for the arsenal at Kirin were transported on sledges to their destination. And it was in the winter that the sable-hunters in the remote mountain valleys obtained their supplies up the course of the frozen rivers which traverse the forests. The heavy summer rains afford a greater impediment to communication, and consequent Governmental control and commercial intercourse, but they are not so severe but what proper draining of marshes, bridging of rivers, and metalling of roads might meet.

A greater obstacle than the climate to the due development and consolidation of the country is the mountainous character of a great part of it. In the plains communication from part to part is easy, and each town is bound to the other by commercial ties and adequately held under the control of Government. But the case is different in the hilly tracts which form the greater portion of Manchuria. These latter are difficult of access, and the result has been that they have given way to outside pressure, and all the northern part has been absorbed by Russia. Moreover, in that part which still remains to China, many valleys off the main lines of communication are practically independent of Governmental control, and, as we found in our exploration, are really administered by local guilds. This hilly country is in no way to be compared with that which borders our North-West frontier in India, than which it is far more accessible in every way. But still it is sufficiently hilly to retard progress, and its inhabitants for a long time yet to come will be more independent of control and less developed industrially than those of the smaller but more favoured portion of plain country.

Yet, detrimental as the hilly character of so much of Manchuria is to its progress, this disadvantage is more than made up for by its possessing a coast line with good harbours, and by the navigable rivers which run along its borders and traverse the heart of the country. Far away in the north-eastern extremities I was able to buy pine apples from Singapore at a shilling a tin, and this was because I was close to the harbour of Possiet Bay, which properly speaking belongs to Manchuria. In the south are still more suitable harbours, and all the cotton cloth which is in universal wear is imported through these harbours from China and Europe, and by the same way are exported both in European steamers and in native junks the beans, bean cake, and bean oil which at present form the

principal surplus products, but which may in future be augmented by timber, coal, and grain. By these southern ports also the overpopulated districts of China discharge their masses of surplus population, who, swarming into the fertile northern country, enrich it by their labour, and vastly increase its prosperity.

Similarly with the great Amur river flowing for hundreds of miles along the northern border, and the Usuri on the north-east, on both of which steamers ply regularly, and with the mighty Sungari, issuing from the heart of the land, and even at Kirin, in the very centre, twenty feet deep; and with the Liao and Yalu, in the south, both navigable for many miles from their mouths, access is gained to the country, which even in the present has furthered its development and which must have a yet more favourable effect in the future.

The variety of the soil and its extraordinary fertility furnish yet other elements of development. Some countries can grow but few kinds of crops, and others are destitute of timber. But Manchuria has so many different crops-millet, wheat, rice, beans, barley, &c.— as to be independent of the failure of any single one; and these crops are so abundant, and there is still so vast a quantity of culturable land available, that the country can support a greatly increased population. And besides the crops of indigo and hemp, which furnish dyes, ropes, and paper, the magnificent forests supply an almost inexhaustible quantity of timber for the use of the people. Fuel for their fires, thatch for their houses, and fences for their gardens they appeared to obtain mostly from the long stalks of the millet crops. But for the construction of their houses, and the manufacture of waggons, carts, boats, household utensils, &c., timber in plenty is always available, and the result of this sufficiency is seen in the roominess of the houses and the consequent comfort of the inhabitants, and in the number of carts which they possess for the carriage of produce to suitable markets.

This abundance of agricultural produce, moreover, makes it possible for even poor farms and small carriers to support a number of domestic animals, both for the supply of meat and still more for draught and farming purposes. The inhabitants need not live on vegetable productions alone. There is an abundance of vigourproducing meat available, and another inducement is thus afforded to the direct increase of population. And the number of transport

animals at hand gives the people an additional facility for communication, one part with another, for conveying the produce of their fields to the most suitable markets, and for carrying to their homes the imported necessaries and luxuries from outside countries. In yet another way, therefore, is the knitting together of the people advanced.

Still more conducive to progress than either its vegetable or animal production might have been its mineral wealth. But this, as I have shown, is almost untouched, and it is therefore only necessary to point out that the gold might attract a still larger population than has already been attracted by agricultural advantages, and, of equal importance, might attract the capital so necessary for its development. And the coal and iron would furnish the people with means of progress of which they have at present scarcely dreamed.

But all this profusion of natural wealth would be useless were the people as ignorant and savage as the Zulus and Kaffirs of the Transvaal, who for centuries have possessed almost the richest country in the world, and yet to-day go about practically naked. Fortunately for Manchuria its inhabitants are far in advance of such barbarians.

They are full of superstitious beliefs, which when brought to bear upon conduct, as in their recent refusal to allow the proposed railway to run through Mukden, the capital, greatly impede progress. And their strong conservative feelings and rigid fixity of ideas, which not only prevent their introducing new methods on their own initiative, but even stand in the way of their freely adopting improvements which have been tried by others, may be thought to stamp them as a hopeless backward race, as yet unfitted mentally to hold themselves together in large aggregates. And the absence of any strong common religious feeling may also be considered a serious want in the process of consolidation. But the inhabitants of Manchuria have many compensating characteristics which surely tend to development and to combine them together for mutual advantage. Among these may be noted their physical capacity for hard continuous labour; their industry, thrift, and cool-headedness; their intelligence and ability to perceive the advantages of commercial co-operation, and their reliability in business transactions.

All these traits help to combine the people on industrial lines. And, in spite of brigandage being so rife in parts where the brigands can find easy escape to the mountains and forests, the people may certainly be called peace-loving and amenable to control, and consequently easily coerced for the purposes of Government. Nor are they divided into rival religious sects, as the Mohamedans and Hindus of India, nor by differences of language, nor by race antagonisms. The Manchus are as much merged with the Chinese as the Scotch are with the English, and for all intents and purposes the twenty million inhabitants of Manchuria are one people and use one language. They have similarity of dress, of customs, and of ideas; and though some call themselves Buddhists, others Confucianists, others again Taoists, and a few even Mohamedans, the religious