first Printed January, 1946

CHAPTER I

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

IN the days when men still believed the world to be square, the Chinese decided that their own country occupied the very centre of that vast space. Their maps indicated that four great seas surrounded it, and that among them lay various islands inhabited by men whom they called "outer barbarians." It was therefore quite natural that the Chinese should call their own country Chung-kuo, which means "Middle Kingdom," and give to all other countries the general name of Wai-kuo - "Outside Kingdoms." These names have persisted all through the centuries since long before the Christian era to this very day.

One look at the globe makes it evident that China is a very large country; but no land is important by size alone, and it is the character of her remarkable people which makes her of such great consequence in the world. Including her outlying provinces and dependencies she is nearly seventy-seven times as large as England. Her seaboard is four thousand five hundred miles long, and the seas which form her western and southern boundaries include the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Gulf of Pohai. On the north-west, Sinkiang, China's New Dominion, reaches to the very middle of the Asian continent, and that spot on earth's surface which is the furthest from the seaboard is still within her borders. The northern boundary of Sinkiang touches Siberia, and on the west it is divided from India by the Himalayan Range and the mountains of Tibet. On the south, China is bordered by the lands of Burma and Tonking, being now connected with the former country by the recently constructed Burma Road. China proper is a land of high mountain ranges, of mighty rivers and of vast plains, but her outlying dependencies of Sinkiang and Mongolia contain the widest desert area on the face of the earth.

China is divided into thirty provinces including Tibet, which is a mountainous and sparsely populated country now claiming independence, Mongolia and four Manchurian provinces which have been occupied by the Japanese since 1931. The names of her provinces at first seem puzzling, but when they are understood it is seen that each one has a definite meaning and is a key to the geography of the area which it represents. For example, in the west, which is watered by the great river Yangtse and its three main affluent, the province through which they flow is called Four Streams (Szechwan). To the south of Szechwan are high mountain ranges often enveloped in clouds. This has suggested the name of the province beyond, which is South of the Clouds" (Yunnan). The great Tung-Tin Lake in Central China supplies names for two more provinces, one of which is called "North of the Lake" (Hupeh) and the other "South of the Lake" (Hunan). Further north again mountain ranges serve as boundary between two provinces, called respectively "West of the Hills" (Shansi) and "East of the Hills" (Shantung). Still further north the rushing stream of the Yellow River divides two provinces which are called "North of the River" (Hopeh) and "South of the River" (Honan). On the border of Tibet is "Green Lake" province (Tsing-hai), named after the great emerald lake of Kokonor. Bordering the Desert of Gobi is "Summer Tranquillity" (Ninghsia) province, a place where only the summer months are pleasant and where the winter brings terrible blizzards.

China has three main rivers, the two largest of which have their source in the eternal snows of the Tibetan mountains. They divide the country into three wide areas:

North China, which is watered by the Yellow River; Central China by the Yangtse; and South China by the West River The largest of these rivers is the Yangtse, and in its course of two thousand nine hundred miles it flows west to east through the very centre of China proper, falling 16,000 feet and finally emptying itself into the East China Sea m an estuary six miles wide, on which the port of Shanghai is situated.

The second in importance is the Hwang-ho, or Yellow River, with a course of two thousand four hundred miles From its source it flows northward, then turns south, making a huge bend and dividing the provinces of Shensi and Shansi, emptying itself in the Gulf of Pohai in the Yellow Sea. This river is only navigable over limited stretch S and at certain times of the year. It takes its name from the colour of its waters. Flowing down through the pale yellow soil of North China, it carries away so much silt that not only is the river itself tinged yellow, but it so discolours the sea into which it flows that this also is called the Yellow Sea.

Twice in the course of the last six hundred years the Yellow River has altered its course over many hundreds of miles, and it is expected to do so again. It constantly deposits so much sediment that the bed is gradually filled up, and in course of time the river rises above the plain and has to be held in by protective banks. The time comes -when these inevitably collapse, and the mighty stream spreads over the plain and finds for itself a new outlet to the sea. On account of the havoc caused by flooding the Yellow River has been given the name of "China's Sorrow."

The third most important river of China is the Sikiang or West River. Its length is over one thousand miles and it rises among the mountains of Yunnan (South of the Clouds) Near its mouth the West River divides and empties itself into the South China Sea through two openings. The northern branch flows through the estuary at the mouth of which is the island and port of Hong Kong, and the southern branch reaches the coast near the port of Macao. Where the West River has room to expand it is fully a mile wide, but at one point it rushes through a gorge which is only 270 yards across. This river plays an important part in the irrigation of China's southern rice-fields.

The highest mountains of China are in the west and in the north. Cutting through Sinkiang from east to west is the line of Heavenly Mountains (Tienshan), the highest peaks of which reach an altitude of 25,000 feet. They form part of the Kunlun Range of Tibet, which extends to the Himalayas. Dividing Tibet from north-west Kansu is the Richthofen Range, named after a renowned German geologist. Here the peaks rise to 20,000 feet and the streams, which all through the summer flow from the eternal snows, create many of the oases in the desert lands of Gobi and Mongolia. The Altai Mountains divide Sinkiang and Mongolia from Russian territory. The word Altai means gold, and the range is so named because of the large amount of that precious metal which is found there. The Mongols of that district wear heavy gold ornaments, and sometimes the buttons of their robes are made of solid gold. The Tsingling Range, which divides North and South China, is a lower continuation of the Kunlun Mountains. Although the hills of Shansi and Shantung do not rise above 6,000 feet, they lend a beautiful ruggedness and great charm to the scenery of North China. On the west the mountain ranges of Tibet also extend southward into the province of Yunnan.

Central China has many lakes, of which two are very important. The Tung-Ting Lake touches the northern border of Hunan (South of the Lake). It is connected with the Yangtse by canals, and during the summer, when water is plentiful, it is filled by the overflow of the river, but during the winter its waters pour back into the Yangtse, thus helping to keep the river at the level necessary for navigation. During the winter the water of the Tung-Ting flows only in the deeper channels, and between them the dry land appears like a series of islands. This lake is 75 miles long and 60 miles broad.

The second largest lake is the Poyang in the coastal province of Kiangsu. It is 90 miles long and 20 miles broad, and is connected with the Grand Canal, for which it also serves as water storage.

In North China the climate is extremely hot in summer and equally cold in winter. The winter is very dry and cloudless, the spring brings sandstorms from the desert areas north and west, and in the later summer there is a rainy season followed by a long fine autumn. In Central China the rainfall is more evenly divided over winter and summer, and in South China the rainfall is much heavier and the damp heat most difficult to endure. The China Sea is subject to typhoons, a terrifying form of whirlwind which causes mountainous seas and is disastrous to shipping. The term typhoon" is connected with the Chinese words tafeng, which mean "the great wind."

If the globe which we study could become a moving picture of the places which it represents, the most startling impression would be one of amazement at the enormous number of people whose home is in the Middle Kingdom and whose mother tongue is Chinese. They are reckoned at four hundred and fifty million, which is about eleven times as many people as there are in England. Moreover, they increase very rapidly, and are such a sturdy race that it is calculated that every fifth child born into the world is Chinese.

It is, however, neither the fact of her size nor of her immense population which gives China a unique place among the nations. Her reliable historic records go back to about 2,000 years B.C., and a great many discoveries of beautiful and useful things are due to the Chinese. She is the oldest living nation with a continuous culture. She has a literature, a philosophy and a wisdom of life entirely her own, and in the realm of art she stands out as the one whose sense of beauty is most highly developed.

CHAPTER II

THE MAKING OF A SEAPORT

THE journey from London to China can be made by several routes. The most usual is to board a steamer in the London Docks, sail through the Bay of Biscay, cross the Mediterranean and pass through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea. The ship goes through the Indian Ocean to the China Sea and lands its passengers at the port of Shanghai. This sea trip takes about six weeks.

It is also possible to travel by one of the great liners across the Atlantic Ocean, arriving at some port on the east coast of Canada or America. The continent is crossed by train, and another steamer is boarded at one of the West American ports which conveys the passenger to Shanghai over the Pacific Ocean via Japan. Allowing for normal breaks at important places en route, five weeks is allowed for this trip.

A more direct journey is to cross the Straits of Dover and take a train through Belgium, Germany and Poland to Moscow. Here the International Trans-Siberian train leaves twice each week for the overland trek across the Ural Mountains, through the Siberian forests, past Lake Baikal and over the plains of Manchuria. About twelve days and nights of unceasing travel will complete the journey to Peking.

As air-routes open up, the quickest and most direct way to China will be via Moscow and across the Desert of Gobi, flying high above the camel caravan track to the towns of Urumchi, Hami and Suchow. The last town is just inside the Great Wall of China on its western side, and from this point an air service connects with Sian, Chungking and Shanghai. The sea journeys are reckoned in weeks, the Trans-Siberian in days, but the air-route in terms of hours.

Shanghai, which is the largest seaport of China, stands at the mouth of the Yangtse. The two syllables Shang-hai mean "On the Sea." It was inevitable that there should be a seaport at the place where this mighty river reaches the sea, yet Shanghai is quite a modern town. Until little over one hundred years ago China had remained so isolated from the world that she felt no need of a port to which foreign vessels could bring their cargoes. When the northern capital Peking had been an important city for nearly two thousand years, Shanghai was still little more than a fishing village where a few groups of fishermen's huts stood on the banks of a small tributary called Huang-pu. In the course of one century a great international seaport has come into being which handles half the export trade of China.

The waters of the Yangtse carry down such a mass of earth and sand to the estuary that big liners are unable to enter the harbour, and all large ships remain at anchor at Wusong, from whence passengers are transferred to the quayside by tender. The bank of silt is called the "Bar," and only smaller cargo vessels can come over it into the harbour.

As the launch steams up the mouth of the river, all aboard are fascinated by the sight of this great eastern port and its strange activities. Everywhere small craft, skillfully plied by Chinese boatmen, skim from ship to ship to pick up refuse thrown out by the crew. Everything which is thrown overboard is immediately salvaged, even though its only use be to serve as manure or fertilizer. Shanghai is reported to be the cleanest port in the East because everything is picked up and put to use. The visitor now receives his first impression of that striking characteristic of the Chinese people industry and thrift.

All travellers are impressed by the line of buildings which faces the waterside boulevard, or Bund as it is called. Some of them are twenty stories high, and they contain palatial bank buildings, offices of the principal business houses, the largest hotels and the most fashionable clubs. Thus the first sight is that of a modern western town of the most prosperous type. The traffic on the Bund is made up of motor vehicles of every description, but, in and out among them, the swift rickshaw-runners carry their passengers at full speed. There are always groups of well-dressed and prosperous Chinese waiting for friends who are expected by the tender, and rows of splendid cars, drawn up at the landing-stages, wait for the owners or for their friends to disembark.

There is a crowd of agile, eager, excited Chinese, shouting, gesticulating, and all trying to seize the visitor's baggage and thus compel him to make use of their services. These are the luggage-carriers, rickshaw-pullers, money-changers, hotel touts and children begging for cash, and unless the traveller is accompanied by someone accustomed to deal with this rabble he may have a difficult time. At the custom-house he will be questioned by Chinese officials, and asked if he carries any ammunition, any opium, morphia or other deadly drugs. Then, surrounded by his smaller suitcases, he will be whirled off through crowded streets in a rickshaw drawn by a man who keeps up a steady run until he reaches the house to which he has been directed.

Some distance away from the Bund there is a high battlemented wall which surrounds the native city, where four million Chinese live crowded together, mostly in small houses, conducting their lives according to Chinese customs and standards. Outside this city the town is divided into settlements which are controlled by the nationals to which they have been allocated. Shanghai has one International Settlement, and other quarters which are British, American, French, Italian, etc. In another part there was a Japanese settlement where the streets were full of men, women and children wearing Japanese dress, and the shops displayed Japanese signs and sold Japanese goods. It is a strange way of dividing up a town, especially when it is realized that in each concession there is a military guard and a police force made up of the nationals of that particular concession.

In order to understand the system it must be realized that when the British Government went to war with China in 1842 in order to compel her to open up ports for trade and admit opium to the country, the Treaty of Nanking was signed, and the British were given concessions of land on which they might build business houses and residences for themselves. British subjects, moreover, were to be tried according to their own law and by their own consuls. These privileges, which were quickly extended to other nations, constitute what is known as extra-territoriality or, abbreviated, as "extrality." Ever since then in Shanghai and in various other towns of China there have been foreign concessions. This whole system of extrality was revoked in 1942, and the matter of concessions is to be reconsidered as soon as war conditions allow. Until 1842 no European business house might be established in Shanghai, the reason being that the Chinese declared themselves to be self-sufficient, and said that goods from other countries had no interest for them, as their own produce pleased them best in every respect.

As soon as western nations had secured land they went ahead with drainage, building, lighting and town-planning. The result, in the course of one century, is the present seaport with its expanse of quays, its magnificent water-side boulevards, its frontage of international hotels and towering buildings, its cathedrals and its luxurious shopping centres.

In order to lay the foundations for buildings twentythree stories high, a great deal of engineering work had to be undertaken. The subsoil was merely the mud deposit of an old river-bed, so a base was prepared by first removing the soil to a depth of twenty to thirty feet. Long concrete piles were then driven down, and a concrete raft laid on them to support the towering sky-scrapers. In one of Shanghai's great department stores the foundations were not laid sufficiently firmly, and as a result the whole building sank one foot, so that the flooring of the shop is below street level.

The central street of Shanghai runs north to south and is named Nanking Road, after the capital of the Chinese Republic. All the roads which run east to west are named after the provinces of China, and those north to south after her largest towns.

The main exports which are shipped from the port are silk, tea, cotton, yarn, pigs' bristles, casings, skins, carpets, wickerwork furniture, and there is also an important industry of silk lingerie and embroidery, some of which is antique and some of which is delicate modern work.

Since 1938 the Japanese army has occupied Shanghai, and for the time being this great port is out of action so far as international trade is concerned. During the war it is only used by Japan as a centre of supply for her armies in China.

CHAPTER III

CHINA'S INLAND PORT

ONE of the busiest quarters of Shanghai is that part which surrounds the riverside wharfs where the large steamers which ply on the Yangtse lade and unlade their passengers and cargoes. Six hundred miles away, upstream, is the inland port of Hankow, and steamers of various navigation companies carry goods up and down the river, on the banks of which are large and populous towns, each of which is a centre of business for local commodities.

At Hankow itself the river is still one mile in width, and it is here that exports from a wide area of inland China are brought. Like Shanghai, Hankow consists of an old native city and modern foreign concessions. Inside the native city the streets are narrow, tortuous and crowded, but along the Bund there is a row of concessions with wide streets and handsome buildings. The word Hankow means "Mouth of the Han," because this is the spot where the great tributary Han flows into the Yangtse.

Hankow is the centre of China's tea trade, and during certain months of the year the streets are fragrant with a delicate perfume of drying tea. The plucked tea leaves come from the provinces of Hunan, Anhwei, and Kiangsi, and are conditioned and graded by the tea firms of Hankow, the most renowned of which are owned by Russians. Cargoes of cases filled with tea, as we are accustomed to use it in England, are conveyed by river-steamer to Shanghai and then shipped to other countries.

There is, however, another form of tea which is more popular with the people of Central Asia and Mongolia, and this is known as brick-tea. It is prepared by compressing tea leaves to a solid block, in appearance like a very large dark brown brick, the surface of which is decorated with Chinese, Tibetan or Mongolian script, according to the country for which it is intended. These bricks of tea are conveyed by boat up the inland channels, then by wheelbarrow over steep mountain passes, and finally by cart to Turkestan, by camel to Mongolia, or by yak to Tibet. In the lamaseries of Tibet or the tents of Mongolia a lama or a caravan leader may be seen chipping off a small piece of tea-brick, throwing it into a kettle of boiling water, letting it simmer for some time, and then drinking the pale brown liquid, which is much appreciated as a beverage and has a strange smoky flavour. In those lands where barter is the basis of trade, brick-tea is a valuable commodity, easy to pack and can be handled roughly without deterioration. Its manufacture is a carefully guarded trade secret.

Hankow is also the junction of two main lines of railway. One is the Peking-Hankow line and the other the CantonHankow line. So Peking in the far north and Canton in the far south are connected by rail via Hankow.

The waterways which communicate with Hankow bring huge amounts of raw material to the port. Cotton arrives in large bales which are conveyed by coolies, who carry them on their backs to the firms whose business it is to make merchandise more easy to handle by means of hydraulic pressure. Here a two-hundred pound bale is reduced to a package only two feet by four, in which form it is carried back to the docks and re-shipped to its destination. Large amounts of hemp are handled in Hankow from which rope, string and sacking are made. Sesame seed and goat skins come from Honan, silk, cotton, hides and gypsum from Hupeh, and varnish and wood-oil from the western mountain regions.

On the opposite bank of the Yangtse is the town of Wuchang, and on the other bank of the Han river is a third great city called Hanyang. These three towns form a most important industrial centre. They are connected by ferry, but the bottle-neck outlet of the Han river makes its congested native shipping very difficult to manage. When the north wind blows it will sometimes pile the junks one upon another until they lie in utter confusion, and it is not an uncommon occurrence for people from Hanyang, paying an afternoon call in Hankow, to find themselves held up for several days by the rough waters of the river, which make the use of the ferry impossible. The small craft of the Han and the Yangtse are the sampan, the wupan and the junk. The sampan (three plank width) is the smallest boat on which a family can live, crowded in the tiny cabin. The wupan (five plank width) is a size larger and allows for a second cabin in which a few passengers are housed. These houseboats are propelled either by one man using two oars and facing the direction in which the boat travels, or by means of one rudder-like oar in the stern. The whole family, down to small children, takes a share in management of the boat.

Between Hankow and Shanghai there is little difference in altitude and the stream flows gently, but above Hankow the current is much more rapid and the upper reaches of the Yangtse flow through gorges which in places narrow the river-bed to a width of barely three hundred yards; The sides of these canyons are sheer walls of rock which rise to a height of four thousand feet. The summits are shaped like the walls of a turret, with rugged peaks and jutting buttresses. The swirling current below forms eddies and rapids which are exceedingly dangerous to navigation. Nevertheless the perseverance of the Chinese people, whose sole living depends upon overcoming the natural obstacles of the river, has succeeded in establishing a waterway, both up-stream and down-stream, over rapids and through gorges, so that the surface of the river carries a constant stream of boats.

Here and there among the gorges are caves several hundred feet up the precipices, and the river-folk make their homes in them. Wherever there is a thin layer of soil over the rock the peasants cultivate it and raise some kind of crop. The difference of water level between the low mid-winter and the summer flood-tide mark is as much as 175 feet.

Since very ancient times river boats have navigated the rapids. They are pulled up-stream by hand-power, but coming down they shoot the rapids at great risk to themselves. Thousands of men are employed as trackers, and their business is a perilous one, hauling the craft by means of ropes made of plaited strips of bamboo. These ropes are so strong that they have been tested to stand the enormous strain of ten thousand pounds to the square inch. In Same places the trackers have to walk on narrow footpaths carved in the face of the cliff, and sometimes, at the rapids, they crawl on hands and feet, clawing the cracks of the rock in their effort to bring a loaded junk up-stream. They wear a bandolier which is fastened to the tow-rope with a strong button, for the bamboo ropes are too sharp to be held in the hand. In fastening themselves to the central rope they use a peculiar hitch which can be loosed by a twitch of the wrist, for if caught unawares they might lose their lives if they could not free themselves in a split second.

Wherever possible the peasants plant groves of bamboo, which they use for making all the ropes required for river work. In their own homes also the bamboo serves numerable purposes. The framework of their huts, the furniture, their rain-capes and hats, cooking utensils, chopsticks, agricultural implements, paper, pens, umbrellas are all made of bamboo, and the young shoots of bamboo supply a most delicious vegetable.

Among the most important towns situated on the banks of the Yangtse are Nanking, which is now the capital of the Chinese Republic, and Chungking, which is the war-time seat of Government and the residence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and Madame Chiang.

CHAPTER IV

A UNIQUE WALL, CANAL AND ROAD

WHEN China plans a wall, digs a canal or makes a new road she does it on such a grand scale that it becomes something which the whole world talks about. The Great Wall, the Grand Canal, and the Burma Road have each in turn been described as one of the wonders of the world. Each was built with a definite national aim, and each has served the purpose for which it was intended.

The Great Wall of China was in process of being built two thousand two hundred years ago, but it is still an imposing structure which people travel long distances to see.

It begins at Shan-hai-kwan, north of Peking, and can be followed in a westerly direction for about 1,500 miles. Like some great serpent it stretches over mountain ranges, across deep ravines and valleys, and at one point it divides into two branches, forming a great loop which encircles the city of Kalgan. Further north-west it divides the provinces of Shansi, Shensi and Kansu from Mongolia, and finally it seals China's outlet to the Gobi Desert with a battlemented fortress called Kia-yu-kwan (Barrier of the Pleasant Valley). At its east end, which is on the seaboard, the height of the wall is twenty to thirty feet and its base is fifteen to twenty-five feet thick. The summit is paved, and presents a level surface like a promenade which is twelve feet wide. The greater portion of the wall is made of earth, strengthened as required with a facing of round boulders, but in the valley bottoms and on mountain passes it is supported by masonry and brickwork. About every two hundred yards a squat tower forty feet high was erected to shelter soldiers and supply an outlook over the Mongolian plain, which was enemy land. At its highest point the wall stands four thousand feet above sea level. The portion which is most frequently visited is built among the bare hills beyond Peking, and there it is in such good repair that in the course of the present war it has again served as a military road for the transit of troops on the march. In ancient days the fact that it ensured a reliable marching road for the army was one of its chief advantages.

Further west the wall was less strongly built, and much of it is now in very bad condition, but at Kia-yu-kwan the fort is worthy of its name, for its walls within walls and inner and outer gates make of it an imposing military outpost. Outside the outermost gate, and within sight of the Gobi, a tall stone tablet is erected on which are inscribed Chinese ideographs meaning "Earth's Greatest Barrier."

For many centuries before the Christian era China's most troublesome enemies were the nomad hordes who were tent-dwellers of the bleak Mongolian plain. These hardy people formed bands of roving horsemen, constantly raiding their more civilized and peaceable neighbours, the Chinese. They attacked peaceful farming centres, they looted towns and villages, and galloped back to their encampments carrying off booty and prisoners. From time to time these raids developed into extensive campaigns. The Chinese, with their superior military strategy, were a match for the Huns, except that the latter came and went so rapidly on their sturdy steppe-land ponies that they outwitted the Chinese army. In order to stop these raids the Chinese built this Great Wall of such a height that no horseman could get over it without leaving his mount behind, and deprived of their horses the Huns were no match for the nimble Chinese.

Warfare with the barbarian nomads brought about the building of the Great Wall, and it was fear that in the event of maritime war there might be shortage of food in Peking that made the Chinese plan that other great undertaking known as the Grand Canal. The southern and central provinces are the "rice-bowl" of China because of the swampy nature of their land, in which rice grows so prolifically. In normal times fleets of junks carried this rice through the China Sea to the populous and rich northern towns, but in time of war the enemy attacked the junks and Peking starved. A plan was therefore devised of digging a canal which, even in wartime, could serve for the transport of food.

This great canal was commenced in 486 B.C., and ever since that time has remained a valuable, busy and magnificent water thoroughfare with a total length of twelve hundred miles, stretching from Hangchow in the south to Tientsin in the north. Under Imperial Government the provincial taxes were paid in kind and were handed over in Peking; therefore innumerable junks were required to transport the tax-grain down the Yangtse and along the Grand Canal to the Imperial City.

The canal borders are populous with many large towns and innumerable villages, and the boat life which it sustains is full of interest. The sampan, the wupan, the junk and steam launches are all found on its waters, and a large population of water-folk has no home except the cabin o a house-boat.

The canal varies considerably in width according to locality. In its handsomest though not widest reaches it is spanned by elegant stone bridges, and where it meets the Yangtse it extends to make room for a great influx of shipping. Further north it touches the waters of the Poyang Lake, but over long stretches the bed of the canal has been raised by the deposit of silt which is washed into it. Consequently in course of time the banks have been lifted until now the canal stands high above the surrounding land. This constitutes a great danger, for at times of unusual spate, in spite of strenuous efforts to keep the dykes intact, they are liable to reach breaking point at one place or another, and disastrous floods occur in which human beings are drowned and cultivated land is submerged, causing widespread famine. With all their many ingenious devices, the Chinese never discovered the secret of building locks, and where the varying levels of the canal make navigation dim-cult they construct a barrage, over which empty boats are hauled by windlasses worked by man-power. The delays caused by this inevitably slow system are considerable, and make travel by river boat on the Grand Canal a very leisured performance.

The third construction of China which has been classed as one of the wonders of the world is the Burma Road, and it was again through facing the emergencies of war that it came into being. China was always shut in on her southern side, and debarred from overland communication with her neighbours by the mountainous nature of the land. There existed a very ancient caravan trail leading to Burma, but the rough country made it unusable by any save pack-animal traffic. Of recent years the aggression of Japan made the building of a Burma motor road imperative, and after the most careful survey it was decided that the best line for the new road lay over the track of the old one. The road was begun in 1937. It is seven hundred and seventy-two miles long, commencing at the town of Kunming in the province of Yunnan and ending at Lashio in Burma. It crosses two very large rivers, the Mekong and the Saiween, the former of which flows between mountains eight thousand feet high, while the width of the Salween is as much as eight hundred feet. The bridges of the old caravan route were made of rope, and were no wider than four feet over a span of three hundred feet. The crossing of these bridges, even on foot, was a perilous business. In the swampy land at river level summer heat is intense, and malaria cayying mosquitoes are so numerous that there was terrible mortality among the bands of labourers who built this portion of the road.

The road rises to a maximum height of four thousand feet in twenty miles. Such gradients necessitate a series of terrifving hairpin bends on roads only eight feet wide which are skirted by a two-thousand foot precipice. The danger in driving is such that in the year 1940 statistics showed that to lorries and three lives were daily sacrificed through the driver losing control and the car plungingover the embankment. The work of levelling gradients and widening tracks is always being carried on, so that, gradually, risk to life will be lessened.

The area through which the Burma Road passes has been described as "the most heart-breaking country in the world," for, added to such difficulties as those already mentioned, there is a rainy season lasting from June to October when torrential rains invariably cause landslips which temporarily obliterate the motor road. The Chinese people made this road with the same patience and indomitable perseverance as they showed in constructing the great Wall and the Grand Canal. It was done by the combined effort of men, women and children, using often the most primitive tools such as long hoes and stone-rollers; in fact, much of the debris was removed in baskets by the women and children. At one spot there is an inscription in Chinese painted on the edge of a precipitous cutting in the cliff. It reads thus:

This road was built by the natives of this district, without the aid of foreign implements."

Very few actions on the part of foreign nations have angered the Chinese people more than the closing of the Burma Road by the British Government in 1940. At the end of 1939 the Indo-Chinese railway and the Burma Road were carrying more than three-quarters of Free China's imports, and psychologically the blow was a: cru one. British statesmen considered this to be a necessary action in order to secure sufficient respite after the fall of France to enable Britain to temporize with Japan, but China felt herself deserted by one of her best friends, and it is easy to understand her intense feeling of anger and distress, with her ports in enemy hands, much of her land occupied by enemy forces, and now her only means of supply cut off. When British public opinion was aroused the Burma Road was re-opened, and even those in high places expressed deep regret that the step had ever been considered necessary.

China values her western outlet so much that a new highway is in process of construction which will connect West China with India via Assam. China's Emperor once told a British monarch that he needed no supplies from the rest of the world, as China was entirely self-sufficient. It is tragic that this peace-loving nation is compelled to depend on Westerners for weapons of death made necessary not by her own aggressiveness but by the cruelty of an enemy who seized her land and murdered her people.

CHAPTER V

THE NORTHERN CAPITAL

IN the course of her long history China has had many successive capital cities, but the most renowned of them is Peking, where the Manchu Emperor set up his throne in 1644. After the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1912 the seat of government moved to Nanking (Southern Capital), and Peking (Northern Capital) changed its name to Peiping (Northern Plain). Twelve centuries before Christ there was already a town on this site, and although destroyed many times it was always reconstructed.

The Imperial City was built on the same plan as every Chinese Yamen or official residence. In the old Chinese Yamen every visitor passed through a series of courtyards leading from one to another until he reached the innermost court, where the Mandarin had his private apartments. To walk uninvited to that court was an offence punishable by death. Peking is designed on the same pattern, but on such a grandiose scale that different quarters of the whole city stand for the courtyards of the Yamen. The Emperor lived at its very centre in the Imperial Palace, which was a place of utter seclusion and always called the Forbidden City.

The outer walls of Peking form a vast rectangle ten miles in length and six miles in width, and the city which they enclose is divided by a few wide streets, between which are labyrinths of narrow alleys. In the Tatar city are the residential quarters of the inhabitants, and, though to the stranger they appear crowded, yet it would be impossible to overstate the beauty of the houses which often lie behind such an unassuming frontage. Each has a landscape garden with moon door, small lotus ponds and weeping willows. Though not large, such a garden is designed with a perfect sense of fitness and proportion. The houses are usually one-storied, built round a courtyard, and are admirably designed. The furnishings and decoration of the rooms are in perfect keeping with the surroundings. The Imperial Court and the wealthy population of Peking so cultivated appreciation of beauty in form, colour and material that the architecture, the gardens, the decoration and the furnishing of their palaces and homes reached perfection point.

In the south-east corner of Peking is the Observatory, in which some old astronomical instruments are preserved. The bronze Armillary Sphere and the Astrolabe were made about 1272 by Persian astronomers whom Kublai Khan brought to China in his train. They have been exposed to the weather in the open courtyard of the Observatory for more than six hundred years, but are still the finest known specimens of bronze in the world.

The Imperial City contains the Universities, many temples and various public buildings. At its centre is the Purple Forbidden City, as its full title stands, surrounded by a wide moat full of lotus plants. The surface of the water is covered by their circular leaves, and in the flowering season lovely white and pink blossoms stand erect and magnificent above them. In Imperial days the name Forbidden City meant all that the words imply, and the punishment inflicted for passing through its gates without proper authority was one hundred blows of the bamboo.

Inside were a succession of spacious throne-halls and palaces, which were the living quarters of the Emperor and such members of the Imperial family as had a right to live there. The Pavilions of Learning, which contained the Imperial Library, the administration buildings of the Imperial household and aimost innumerable palaces and halls, each of which was dedicated to some particular use, stood in the vast spaces which surrounded the living quarters. Each building had a high-sounding title, such as The Hall of Supreme Harmony for a throne-room, The Palace of Established Happiness," where royal portraits were preserved, "The Hall of Industrious Energy," which was one of the Imperial schoolrooms. The Hall for Blending Creative Forces" held the marriage certificates of the Empresses written on plaques of gold, and behind the palaces of "Cloudless Heaven" and "Tranquil Earth" was the garden exclusively reserved for members of the Imperial family. It was a place of great charm and beauty, with grottoes and winding path-ways among groves of" thousand-year cedars."

There was one Hall, however, quite unlike that in any other palace. Lofty, large and unfurnished, the floor space was covered with rocks built up to represent a rugged mountain with a narrow path leading from one rock cave to another. Among the rocks of this mountain the Emperor came from time to time to meditate on the quest of hermits and others who chose a life of poverty that they might the better understand deeper things. In fact this strange building was a "thinking room."

With the proclamation of Republican Government for China, the full glory of the Forbidden City departed, and today the halls, temples and living apartments are open to the public, while the former Emperor lives under Japanese control in Manchuria. Until occupation by the Japanese the palaces still held a unique collection of bronzes, jade carvings, lacquered boxes, enamels, ivories, exquisite blackwood furniture, and a hall full of jewel-plants, each one of which was deftly made of jade, cornelian, malachite and all manner of lovely coloured stones.

Outside the Inner Wall of Peking are the vast parks which hold the Hall of Agriculture and the Temple of Heaven. These were visited on certain festivals by the Emperor himself. At springtime, when the earth is disturbed from her long winter sleep, the Emperor went to the Hall of Agriculture, and there he ploughed a furrow and threw a handful of the five kinds of grain on to the land. These grains were symbolic of the produce by which man lives-rice, wheat, millet, hemp and pulse. Thus the Emperor himself acknowledged his dependence on the bounty of heaven and, by the action of ploughing, did honour to all who till the soil.

The general title which belonged to all rulers of China was "Son of Heaven." Once a year, on the longest night of the winter, December 21, after severe fasting, the "Son of Heaven" went to the enclosure which surrounds the Temple of Heaven. The principal altar of the Temple is a triple circular terrace of white marble. It rises tier above tier, and the summit is reached by a wide stairway. The platform is paved in nine concentric circles with a circular stone as centre. The Emperor, standing on this centre stone, surrounded by the nine concentric circles beyond which was the vast boundary of the horizon, was thought of by his people as standing at the centre of the universe. At midnight, leaving the pavilion where he had put aside his regal robes and clothed himself in the simplest dress, the Son of Heaven walked alone and unattended to the high platform, and there knelt in the double capacity of ruler and priest, offering the homage of his people to the great Tien who, to the Chinese, is Lord of Heaven and Earth. While he prayed a white bull was slain and burnt as sacrifice at the foot of the altar. The Chinese have a proverb which says, "Only through knowledge of the past can the present be understood," and truly it is only through knowledge of China's background that the greatness of her people can be appreciated.

Outside Peking, and about seven miles to the east of the Great Wall, is a quiet valley which holds the tombs of thirteen emperors of the Ming dynasty. The spacious burial ground is so stately and so dignified that it is acknowledged to be one of the finest architectural schemes in the world. The tombs are not laid in chronological order, but are distributed over the valley according as each sovereign chose for himself a site suited to the demands of his horoscope. The Triumphal Way opens with a five-arched gateway which stands in the open country, and beyond it spreads the valley of dead emperors and an avenue which is called "The Spirit Road for the Mausolea." The greatest sculptors of the Ming period shaped the stone figures which seem to guard the avenue, leading to the distant temples and to the sepulchres. The Triumphal Way is two birds of a mile long, and is lined with eighteen pairs of colossal statues of men and animals. There are sitting and standing lions, kneeling and standing camels, four elephants, four horses and unicorns, with figures of stately warriors in grey stone and officials in full civil dress or clad in armour and wearing fantastic helmets.

Where the road passes through the triple "Dragon and Phoenix Gate" most of the thirteen scattered tombs can be seen. The most beautiful of them holds the body of Yung Loh (1402-1424). The sepulchre is reached through an outer courtyard in which are ancient and twisted trees, then an inner court on which opens the Sacrificial Hall; where the rites of ancestral worship have been performed in Yung Loh's honour by the long line of emperors who succeeded him. This Hall is the largest building in China, and measures seventy yards by thirty yards. The roof is supported by forty pillars shaped from tree-trunks each more than a yard in diameter and sixty feet high. It is an empty temple save for a simple wooden table for offerings, and a stand for the tablet on which the dead man's name is inscribed and in which his spirit is supposed to rest.

The tomb itself lies beyond a further courtyard which is behind the temple and through a vaulted passage forty yards long which conceals a stone stairway rising to the grave-chamber where the coffin was laid. The entrance to the vaulted passage is closed by a special device, for inside and behind the door a round hole was cut in the stone flooring and a large ball of stone so placed that when the door was shut it fell into the hole and prevented the door from ever being opened again.

CHAPTER VI

READING, WRITING AND RECKONING

LEARNING to read and to write takes a very large part in the life of a Chinese boy or girl. The Chinese language has no alphabet; every word is a monosyllable such as ma, li, chu, fan, wang, and each word is represented by an ideograph or picture. Some of the ideographs are very simple and made up of only two or three strokes, while another may be so elaborate as to require twenty-seven strokes of the pen to form it, yet it is still a monosyllable.

Some of the earliest writing goes back as far as eighteen hundred years before Christ, and at that time the ideographs showed a strong likeness to the object they represented. The sign for rain was like drops falling from the sky; that for cow was shaped like the horns of cattle; and the one for moon was crescent-shaped. With the progress of thought the number of ideographs increased enormously through the centuries. For example, the sign for mouth is a square opening (pronounced co), but when something solid proceeds from it becomes tongue (pronounced share), arid when breath is represented as coming from the mouth the ideograph is the word for speech (pronounced yen).

A combination of characters may represent a whole series of words all pronounced the same, but each with a different meaning. For example, bao means a packet; bao and a hand means to carry; bao and a foot means to run; bao and water is a bubble; bao and rain means hail, and many other combinations could be mentioned. At the present time new combinations are always being formed in order to represent new ideas. A Chinese schoolboy has to be familiar with about two thousand ideographs before he can read ordinary books, and advanced education demands the free use of at least ten thousand characters.

To the westerner the chief difficulty of the Chinese language is the fact that it is tonal, and that by means of various inflections a totally different meaning is given to one word; for examine, fan in a high tone means food, but fan in a low tone means tumult. It sounds very complicated to a westerner, but no Chinese thinks of tones as difficult, nor does he ever make a mistake in using them. He learns the tone or inflection with the word, and quite unconsciously uses all five tones correctly. Every language has its own subtle rhythms which are unnoticed by the people of the land, but become evident when a foreigner speaks. It is by the correct use of these rhythms that a stranger makes himself easily understood.

If the reading of Chinese is difficult its writing is far more so, and is only acquired by the exercise of much patience and concentration. It is spoken of as the art of Chinese calligraphy, and the man or woman who can use the brush well and write the characters with distinction is considered an artist of no mean order. At school each child is provided with articles which are called "the four treasures of the room of literature" - a brush, a brush-stand, a block of ink and a stone inkslab. The ink is made from the soot of burnt pinewood or lampblack, mixed with oil, allowed to solidify and moulded into flat or round sticks decorated with designs in gilt characters. The stick is ground on the inkslab with a little water until the fluid is neither too thick nor too thin. While rubbing down the ink the child is taught to make its mind calm and quiet, so that the sacred characters are not used carelessly or unworthily. The writing-brush is stroked on the inkslab until the hair is brought to a fine point. This brush is made of animal hair tied together and fixed into a hollow reed or thin bamboo stem. For small writing and delicate characters rabbit's hair is the most popular; but for large characters sheep's hair is best. In earliest times, before the brush was invented, writing was done by dipping a piece of frayed bamboo into ink and using it as a pencil. The brush as now used was invented in the third century B.C.

Since the time of the Revolution (1911) China's leaders have been deeply concerned about the widespread illiteracy of the people. At that time only twenty out of every hundred could read and write. In order to bring literacy within reach of the masses every effort has been made to simplify the complicated system of reading and writing, and two methods have been used, both of which have been amazingly successful. A phonetic script was compiled which has been widely used in Government and Missionary schools. The sounds are represented by forty signs used singly or in combination. For example, the complicated is written phonetically, yet both represent the sound "ho." It was found that by means of this system complete illiterates could be taught to read in a remarkably short time. The Government school-books soon introduced the plan of printing the shorthand phonetic by the side of each new ideograph, and this has been of immense help to students.

The other way of helping illiterates is based on a system of limiting the written language to twelve hundred words, and a whole series of books has been compiled which use only these twelve hundred characters. Since 1926 ten people have learnt this system of reading at a cost to the Government of only $1.40 (at par 2s. 6d.) per pupil. The teaching has been largely undertaken by young Chinese patriots, who responded enthusiastically to the slogan" The illiterate is a blind man. Can you stand to see three-quarters of China blind?" Village schools, open-air classes and holiday groups have been organized by students who were determined to make the people literate. In one province a law was passed that every illiterate would be taxed until he had learned the twelve hundred characters and passed an examination on them. The organizer of this scheme was James Yen, a young Chinese who had studied in an American University, and is popularly known as Jimmy Yen.

Christian missionary work has always been in the vanguard of the literacy campaign, and many of the best teachers have been gathered from men and women who were trained in Mission schools. It has been the aim of all Christian Missions that the converts should be able to read, and all who were willing have been thoroughly taught so that they can read the Bible for themselves. At the beginning of this century very few women and girls could read, but Mission schools were pioneers in the education of girls in the days when it required great courage to come to school and 'learn to read like their brothers. Now there are elementary girls' government schools everywhere, and they can continue their education in High School, College and University.

Although western systems of arithmetic and mathematics are now taught in all schools, the Chinese method of reckoning is still by the use of a calculating tray called an abacus. It is a wooden frame on which a number of beads are strung on parallel lines, and it is based upon the decimal system. In the largest banks Chinese clerks and cashiers use the abacus, and with its help they reckon up long accounts with amazing rapidity and accuracy. Illiterate peasants accustom themselves to mental calculation, and when buying and selling will reckon any account without the use of pencil or abacus so accurately that no one can cheat them. In all large transactions Chinese merchants do not discuss prices aloud. The buyer and the seller each put a hand up the other man's sleeve and by movements of the fingers indicate the price asked and accepted. The bargaining goes on in silence until the transaction is complete.

CHAPTER VII

THE HUNDRED NAMES PEOPLE

ONE of the strangest school-books that the Chinese boy handles when he first goes to school is called "The Book of a Hundred Names." It is, in fact, a list of all the surnames found in the country: Wang, Li, Ma, Feng, Chiang and many others, but there are no fancy names with strange pronunciations, nor is any name reckoned to be more honourable than another, and the name of every Chinese is included in the book. The name given to a European on his Chinese passport is the one selected from this same volume which has the nearest sound to his own family name. This very democratic "Who's Who" is memorized by innumerable Chinese boys and girls, and every child must learn to write it. It represents what the Chinese call "the people of the hundred names" -and a grand people they are, for they live well ordered, industrious lives, content with what the day may bring, and always seek to fulfil their responsibilities towards the clan to which they belong.

In the Chinese home everything is done according to established custom. In the house of any one of the Hundred Names People," for example, there is a definite place for the parents' living-room, for that of the elder son, the second and third son, etc., etc. Inside the rooms there is an ordered arrangement for the tables and for each chair, and every visitor knows at once on which chair he should sit and where his host will stand to receive him.

The "people of the hundred names "are lovers of peace and quiet. The vast majority (87 per cent.) live in villages, cultivating their land industriously, and each clan is self-sufficient. The wheat or rice which is the staple diet is grown on the family land, vegetables are produced as required, and sufficient cotton is grown so that the whole family may have garments to wear. The women pick the cotton, spin and weave it, then dye it with the indigo plant from their own fields. They cut up the lengths of cloth as needed, and make the simple but adequate and comfortable Chinese coats and trousers which are worn both by men and women. In wintertime these garments are made double and wadded with home-grown cotton-wool, or, in North China, with hair from the family camels. Even the shoes are home-made. Every scrap of worn material is saved to serve as filling for the soles, which are a quarter of an inch thick, and these are stitched through with homemade string of hemp fiber. The uppers are made of strong hand-woven cotton carefully cut to measure, and the shoes are so well and strongly stitched that even schoolboys can wear them for a long time, and farmers do all their heaviest work in shoes made for them by their wives.

One son in a family may hold an official position, another may be a teacher, another organize and control the great caravan of camels which he takes to Peking each year laden with cotton, pelts or tobacco, bringing back foreign goods such as enamelware and fancy articles for sale in the markets near his own farm. Another son may be a business magnate who travels abroad and controls large interests, while other men of the family will do the farming, and one may work in a coal-mine or have a small shop or tea-house in a neighbouring village it is quite immaterial what each man's occupation may be-the clan, the family, that is the centre of life for them all, and none will despise the other because his vocation or trade seems more humble or brings in less money. The contribution of each is recognized as being essential to communal life.

When a son marries, it has been the custom to bring his bride to the family home, where she should wait upon her mother-in-law and take her place in the wide circle of the clan. In modern China this is rapidly changing, and the young people do not now necessarily live with their parents. The fact, however, remains that the family tradition is such that each generation feels itself to be part of a great chain which links the past with the future. The ancestors are worshipped and their spirits are said to be present in the place where their names are recorded. Every household shrine holds wooden tablets inscribed with the names of the dead, and every clan has an ancestral temple where incense is burnt and where there are ceremonial offerings of food. On all occasions when family life is affected, as by a marriage or a death, formal announcements are made to the ancestors as though they were still present. Wherever the Chinese may be, home has a tremendous attraction for them, and they always desire to be buried among those mounds of earth surrounded with trees where the bodies of their forefathers are laid.

The clan is accustomed to express its unity in the recurring festivals which draw its members together. Apart from special occasions such as rejoicing at births, merriment at marriages and long rituals at funerals, there are seasonal festivities throughout the year, which is divided into exact periods, beginning with New Year's Day. The Chinese have always observed the lunar calendar, and New Year's Day generally fell toward the beginning of February. This first day of the first moon was China's greatest day of the year, but when the Republican Government decreed that January the first was now the date on which the year began, the people said: "Who can rejoice in the midst of mid-winter cold? Moreover, this change of calendar must necessarily offend the spirits that guard and control our lives." Orders were posted in all the towns and gongs were beaten on the streets to call public attention to the fact that January 1st was New Year's Day, and that. Omission to keep it as such would result in a heavy fine. On the appointed day fresh scarlet scrolls were obediently posted outside the doors, official calls were duly paid and the shops were kept shut, but not until six weeks later, on the first day of the first moon, did the "Hundred Names People" give themselves up to feasting, gaiety and merry-making. Thus public opinion actually carried the day. Gradually, however, such pressure has been brought to bear on the populace that the old customs are vanishing in many of the large towns, but in all file country places the first day of the first moon is still the people's holiday.

On the 15th of the first moon the New Year holiday came to an end with the Feast of Lanterns, when every variety of lantern was carried in procession. Some were in the shape of fifteen-foot-long dragons and other magnificent contrivances, while others were delicately made in the form of flowers, birds and insects. On the day known as "Clear Brightness," which falls in early spring, the family graves are always repaired. In early summer comes the period of "Sprouting Corn," followed by "Excited Insects," "Small Heat" and "Great Heat," then "Beginning of Autumn," "Small Cold" and "Great Cold." Season-able weather can be depended upon, and no one thinks of undertaking a long journey, unless compelled to do so, during the days of "Great Heat" or "Great Cold."

There is one festival which is now known all over the world, and is spoken of as "China's Double Tenth " that is, the tenth day of the tenth month (October 10th), the day on which the establishment of the Chinese Republic is celebrated. On that occasion London joins with her Ally in demonstrations and rejoicing. Gradually, with changing conditions, many of the old festivals will be less rigidly observed, but they are so interwoven with the fabric of China's thought that it will be many generations before the Hundred Names People allow them to fall into complete oblivion.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RICHES OF THE LAND

CHINA is perhaps unique among the countries of the world in that she is able to supply all the necessities of a civilized life to her own people. Through many long centuries the western nations were eager to do business with China, but this was never encouraged by the Chinese themselves. They needed neither the European nor his goods, and there is a famous letter from Chien Lung, Emperor of China (1736-1796), which was written to King George III and sent back with Lord Macartney's Mission in 1793. It reads:

You, O King, live in a distant region, but desiring humbly to share the blessings of our civilization, you have sent an embassy respectfully bearing your letter.

Our dynasty's majestic virtue has reached every country under heaven, and kings of all nations have sent their tribute by land and sea. We possess all things; we are not interested in strange and costly objects, and we have no use for your country's products. I have accepted your tribute offerings only because of your devotion which made you send them so far.

Your letter shows a respectful humility, and I have entertained your ambassador, have given him many gifts, and am sending you, 0 King, valuable presents of which I enclose a list. Receive them reverently.

As to your request to send an ambassador to live at my Heavenly Court, this request cannot possibly be granted. Any European living in Peking is forbidden Lo leave China or to write to his own country, so you would gain nothing by having an ambassador here. Besides, there are many other nations in Europe beside your own; if all of them asked to come to our Court, how could we possibly consent? Can our dynasty change all its ways and habits in order to do what you ask?

Your ambassador asks us to allow your ships to trade at other ports beside Canton. This request is refused. Trade may be carried on only at Canton.

The request that your merchants may store and trade their goods in Peking is also impracticable. My Capital is the hub and centre around which all the quarters of the earth revolve. Its laws are very strict and no foreigner has ever been allowed to trade there. This request is also refused.

Your ambassador has asked permission to have your religion taught in China. Since the beginning of history, wise emperors and sages have given China a religion which has been followed by the millions of my subjects. We do not need any foreign teaching. The request is utterly unreasonable.

I have always shown the greatest kindness to tribute embassies from kingdoms which truly long for the blessings of civilization, but your demands are contrary to the customs of our dynasty and would bring no good result. It is your duty to understand my feelings and reverently to obey my instructions."

Lord Macartney carried this sealed letter home thinking that his mission had been successful, for he had been greatly impressed by the reception accorded him. What the Emperor said was true: China had all she needed because of the ceaseless industry of her people, who, in spite of a rapidly increasing population, maintained supplies sufficient for her own necessities.

The principal product of the southern provinces is rice, which is the staple food of the majority of Chinese. The word "rice" has become interchangeable with the word "food," so that the idiom for the common greeting,

Have you taken food?" is "Have you eaten rice?" and. What is your meal time?" becomes "At what o'clock do you eat rice?" This grain is cultivated in three main varieties: (I) Ordinary rice (Oryza sativa), which must be planted out in land kept under water and which has been ploughed by the water buffalo. Between the rice plantations is a raised path on which people can walk dry-shod, but all the cultivation is done in the submerged part of the field.

(2) Mountain rice (Oryza montana) grows on land which is not under water but which is watered by abundant rains.

(3) Glutinous rice (Oryza glutinosa) is mainly used for the distilling of spirit and for making rice-cakes.

Rice is generally grown in special seed-raising beds, and the seedlings are transplanted by hand into submerged fields where, as the plants grow, the water can be gradually drained off to a lower level. Although water is essential to the root and lower part of the plant, it must never be completely under water, and when the grain is full in the ear only a small amount of moisture is needed. The rice is stored in the condition where it is called" paddy," that is to say, before it has been freed from the husk. The main rice-producing areas are in the delta land around Canton and among the valleys of the Yangtse and its tributaries.

Another important product of the south is tea (Camellia thea). The infusion which we call tea is first mentioned in Chinese annals in the year A.D. 500, but the English people only began to drink tea in the middle of the seventeenth century, and then it cost six to ten pounds per lb. Tea grows well even in rather poor soil, but only thrives where it receives moisture both during the winter and the summer. The town of Hankow is the main centre of the tea trade, and the harvested leaves are conveyed there by boat. The demand for China tea has so much increased during recent years that the crop is never sufficient to meet the needs of the market.

Sugar cane is grown in large quantities, but particularly on the hot plains around Hong Kong.

Silk is one of the chief industries of South China, and 27 per cent. of the world's silk comes from China. Sericulture is the name given to the breeding and care of the silkworm. Cultivation of the mulberry tree is a necessary part of this craft, as silkworms are fed on mulberry leaves, but sericulture can only be carried on in places where the temperature can be kept above a certain level during the entire period of the worm's life. Under favourable conditions the women in South China expect to rear three successive generations of silkworms each year.

Bamboo is a natural produce of the land. The thickest stems of this strong and pliable plant serve to make the supports and beams of houses, while the split stem serves for thatching the roof and making beds and other necessary articles of furniture. Charcoal for heating braziers is made from the roots, and most of the accessories of the boatruan's and fisherman's outfit are fashioned from bamboo, while the farmer uses it to make the water conduits of the irrigation system.

Cotton grows plentifully both in the south and in the north of China, as real heat for two months is sufficient to ripen the crop, and the plant requires a very moderate amount of moisture. Wherever cotton grows, hand-woven materials are plentiful, and the farmers grow indigo with which they dye the material in every shade of blue.

In North China wheat is grown widely, the best quality being the hard winter wheat, which is sown in the autumn in time to sprout before winter frost sets in. This is reaped by the end of June, and is succeeded by autumn crops, which include millet, maize and sorghum. Last of all to be reaped is buckwheat, which, when all else fails through drought, is sometimes the only food of the North China farmer. Sorghum is a handsome plant which bears a coarse grain. It grows as tall as ten feet in height and is crowned with a splendid tuft bending under the weight of the grain which it bears. The crop supplies fodder for the transport beasts of the northern travel roads, and its leaves and stems are chopped and mixed with the grain in the manger.

The ground-nut or pea-nut is one of China's important and widely grown crops. The plant requires a light sandy soil on account of its peculiar growth. The flower appears above ground, but when it withers the stalk of the ovary bends down, elongates, and forces the pod underground, where the fruit forms and ripens. It is a prolific harvest, yielding thirty to thirty eight bushels of nuts per acre. In parts of Honan where the land is too poor for general farming, the fields are covered with high mounds of the nuts at harvest time, and the village children are kept busy stripping them. All over China children eat roasted peanuts as in England they eat sweets, and in one laboratory in U.S.A. more than forty products have been made from the pea-nut, including salad-oil, nut milk and margarine.

The growing of rice, the picking of tea and of cotton, sericulture and the manipulation of bamboo are all matters which demand the most meticulous care. It has been truly said, "The Chinese are sparing of all save trouble," but in that one respect they are regardless of expenditure. When the fields require weeding, when the shoots and leaves of the tea-plant must be picked and sorted, when the pods of cotton need to be harvested one by one at the exact moment when they burst and release the soft white substance which they enfold, women and children are expected to work indefatigably so that the man's strength will be conserved for heavier jobs. To make the earth yield the maximum of her increase is the dominant purpose of the agriculturist and his whole family.

The care of silkworms is a most exacting matter, for mulberry trees must be frequently stripped of their leaves to satisfy the increasing hunger of the rapidity growing grub. This also is one of the village women's and children's special industries. When the worm is nearly full size it has to be supplied with fresh food by day and by night, and there is no respite for those in charge. Thus the Chinese have become renowned for the occupations in which every member of the family has a share.

The soya bean (Glycine hispida) is very widely cultivated, especially in Manchuria, where an enormous acreage is devoted to its growth. The Chinese place great value on this bean as the basis of the famous soy sauce, which is a favourite condiment in Chinese cooking. It is also compressed into valuable fodder for horses, but in recent years scientific research has discovered many other uses for soya flour and for the milky curd which can be made from the bean. This latter has proved an excellent substitute for cow's milk in places where this is unobtainable, and is used in the infant welfare centres of Peking. Soya bean flour, being free of starch, can be taken by diabetic patients.

Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) was only introduced to China in 1530, but is now extensively cultivated both in the northern and southern provinces, and the sun-dried leaf forms a valuable line of export.

Medicinal plants are found in abundance, and the herbalist stalls are filled with a great variety. Rhubarb (Rheum palmatum) grows wild among rocky watercourses in both Szechwan and Kansu. Its bright reddish leaves are most decorative when they are caught by the sun's rays and show up as red spots in the yellow landscape.

One of the most important medicinal plants is liquorice (Glyrrhiza glabra). It grows prolifically in North China and in the oases of the Gobi Desert. The Chinese value it very highly. When it has been gathered the root is cut up, tied in bundles of varying lengths and stored round the courtyard.

Szechwan and Fukien provinces supply camphor (Cinnamomum camphora). The wood of the tree is distilled and the camphor is extracted and sold in blocks.

One of the most highly valued drugs obtained from China is ephedrine, which is now used so successfully in the treatment of asthma. It comes from a plant which grows in the Desert of Gobi, and has for long been used by native doctors.

There is one plant which has been very widely grown since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Chinese began to sow fields of the opium poppy and its cultivation spread rapidly over the land. When the petals have fallen and the poppy head is bare, men and women go over the field scoring each head with a sharp knife. A thick dark brown substance oozes out, and this is the raw opium from which the drug is made. In many parts of China the sowing of the opium poppy is forbidden, but the habit of smoking or taking it in some other form is so difficult to eradicate that the government is often baffled in its efforts. In earlier days the Chinese did not smoke opium, and to this hour their name for it is "foreign smoke." In the eighteenth century the East India Company as exporting opium on a large scale, growing it in Bengal and selling it in China. In 1840 a dispute arose in Canton over opium smuggling, and the town was bombarded by British armed vessels, seized and forced to ransom itself. This is called the First Opium War. Later the Treaty of Nanking was signed, five Chinese ports were opened to foreign trade, extra-territoriality was introduced and China forced to pay a heavy indemnity. The opium trade went on, and in 1857 the Chinese authorities seized a ship in Canton waters which flew the British flag. The British claimed extrality for this ship, and when it was refused they seized Canton, and so the Second Opium War began. Further treaties were imposed on the Chinese, including that of Tientsin, which was signed in 1858. Gradually the British public came to know the facts of these wars, and public opinion was so roused to protest that the iniquitous opium traffic was brought to an end so far as Britain was concerned.

The vegetables found on Chinese markets are of excellent quality and endless variety. They include the egg-plant (aubergine), beans, carrots, turnips, ordinary and sweet potatoes, yams, cabbages, spinach, capsicum, sweet corn, lotus root, bamboo shoots and a great variety of pumpkins and marrows. There are also bean sprouts, which are produced by packing beans into large vats of water and allowing them to sprout in the dark. Strange to say that even where asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes are indigenous to the country, they are not eaten. Fruits vary according to latitude, but generally speaking grapes, peaches, apricots, apples, pears, nectarines, melons, persimmons and walnuts are of splendid quality in North and Central China, while oranges, pumeloes, pomegranates, pibas and lichees are found in the hotter places. In the most fertile parts of the central provinces it is claimed that forty different kinds of fruit are cultivated.

There is one oasis of the Gobi Desert called Turfan, where a small seedless grape grows in great profusion. The summer is intensely hot in that locality, and the vinedressers build latticed drying-halls where the hot winds blow over the bunches of grapes and very quickly dry them into sultanas, which are carried by camel to China proper and to Siberia. The melons from some of the oases are of the finest quality, and the flesh is so firm that it can be cut into strips, dried and plaited into cakes, which travellers eat all through the winter on thirsty desert stages and in places where only bitter water is obtainable.

The salt trade is a monopoly of the Chinese Government, and no one may traffic in this commodity without paying a tax which was first imposed over four thousand years ago. The supply amounts to two million tons annually, and salt is therefore a great source of revenue to the State. It is found in several provinces, but the most important salt springs are in Szechwan. While the borings are made to a depth of three thousand feet, sometimes through solid rock, the mouth of the well is often no wider than fourteen inches, and the brine is drawn up by five or more water buffaloes working on a wheel. Near the brine-springs there is an outlet of natural gas which supplies the heat needed for the evaporating process. Some of the salt wells are on the banks of the Yangtse, and when the river is low travellers can see the clouds of steam which arise from them, but when the water is high they are submerged. The captains of metal-built boats do not like to carry a cargo of salt, but the great wooden salt junks ply to and fro between Shanghai and the springs.

Further north in Shansi, Kansu and Sinkiang there are salt lakes and marshes. In south Shansi salt production is a very important industry, and near the evaporation tanks there are hillocks of glittering salt as high as a four-storied building, waiting to be carted away. On the borders of the Gobi Desert there are salt lakes which, at certain times of the year, fill up to the brim with brine and, when the water recedes, leave a fringe of salt all round the margin. Even in very desolate places there is a salt-gabelle station which collects a tax on every cartload which is taken away.

Antimony is a silvery-white, crystalline metal with a high lustre which is found in Hunan in quantities sufficient to supply the whole world's demand. Antimony is used in combination with other metals for forming alloys such as are used in making printers' type, white metal spoons and forks, and the lining of copper and brass saucepans.

Wolfram, also called tungsten, is found in the province of Kiangsi. It is used in the manufacture of steel, and until recent years was only to be found in China.

One of the greatest riches of North China is her deposits of coal. On the eastern border of Shansi is the most extensive bed of anthracite so far known in the world. The seams of coal lie very near the surface, and in many places the Chinese miners work them by the most primitive means, but in a few areas western machinery has been introduced and the output has consequently greasy increased. Much further northwest, in Kansu, there is both coal and anthracite of a very superior quality.

Mineral oil has long been used in its crude form in Sinkiang and in the province of Kansu, but in recent years oil-refining plant has been imported and local petrol is now being used by the motor traffic lines of the far north-west. There is undoubtedly great mineral wealth in China of which, so far, very little use has been made, and recent surveys are revealing hitherto unknown deposits of oil, coal, iron ore, lead, sulphur, gypsum and copper. China's mineral riches are still largely undeveloped, but with the pressing needs of warfare and the urgent demands made on her by all her allies, she is likely to become one of the world's most important centres for the export of raw materials.

CHAPTER IX

GOODS ON THE MOVE

THE transport of China's produce demands the ceaseless activity of an incredibly large number of people. The railway system is still very restricted, but each train is crowded with men and women of every class of society. A limited part of the country is now supplied with motor roads of varying quality, over which lorries and motor buses carry passengers and a small amount of goods, and these lorries are always piled high with bales of every description and carry as many passengers as can hang on to them. But what is conveyed by rail and motor transport is but a minute portion of China's colossal transport.

For thousands of years the traffic of the country has depended on the waterways in the south and on road traffic in the north. The waterways carry a seemingly endless stream of boats of every description, and the roads are filled with an equally endless line of carts, pack animals, wheelbarrows and pedestrians balancing an evenly divided load in two baskets slung on a pole across one shoulder. No country in the world has such a clever system of canalization as China, and every possible means of joining natural streams by means of artificial waterways has been used to the full. From the Sikiang to the Yangtse and via the Grand Canal up to Tientsin, agricultural produce is conveyed with the minimum output of strength and of expense.

In Central China there are hilly districts where passengers are carried in sedan-chairs by bearers, and where goods are transferred by coolies carrying loads across their shoulders. The men of Szechwan (Four Streams) province are renowned throughout China for their skill in this respect, and in that province there are many mountain roads which are roughly paved in stairways in order to give bearers a possible foothold. Trained men will carry burdens amounting to two hundred pounds up and down these difficult paths.

South China is covered with a network of rivers and canals, but North China is the land of dust and gullies. The kind of soil found there is called loess, which is German word introduced to China by German geologists. The northern provinces merge into the sandy plains of Mongolia, where sandstorms are very frequent, and the fine sand which is lifted from the desert by these storms drifts southward and falls in a soft layer over the fields of North China. The result is a soil which is uniformly light yellow and is composed of a mixture of clay and sand which is friable and very absorbent. Loess crumbles easily and falls away so as to leave high jagged points of earth standing above deep ravines. It breaks in a vertical line, so that the country presents a remarkable aspect of peaks, chasms and gorges or canyons. The roads wear away very rapidly under the grind of traffic, and many of them have become deep gullies between bess cliffs rising twenty or thirty feet on either side, and are so narrow that two carts cannot pass each other. For one heavily laden cart to meet another in a narrow gully is an awkward predicament, so the carters have the habit of shouting and yelling as they go, to give warning to traffic ahead. Here and there the cliff has been cut away with spades so as to make a deep recess where a few carts can stand back and allow those coming in the other direction to get by.

The freight cart is a heavy, two-wheeled vehicle made of wood strengthened with iron. It is drawn by a team of five or more animals, but when it has to be dragged over a mountain pass many extra beasts are hitched to the axle by rope traces, for the cart, besides its own weight, carries more than one thousand pounds of merchandise. It is brakeless, but when coming downhill a log of wood is used to catch the wheel and check the speed. A rough matting awning makes a shelter for passengers from the scorching sun and from gales and blizzards. When crossing deserts a little wooden door is placed at the front of the cart to keep out the sand, but this travel cart supplies but poor comfort at the best.

In the larger cities there is a lighter vehicle called the Peking cart. It has a framework of wood or bamboo covered with dark blue cotton, and is drawn by one mule or horse. It is not intended to carry heavy loads or take long journeys. Wealthier homes keep one of these carts for personal use much as a family in the land of motors keeps a car.

In the villages where deep rivers have to be crossed bullock carts are used by the peasants. The wheels are about seven feet high, which enables passengers and goods to be taken across the river without getting wet. When the water is too deep the of which drags the cart will swim to the opposite bank.

In North China river traffic is practically unknown, and freightage is consequently very much more expensive than in the south. While freight carts are drawn by teams of mules or horses, pack-mules and donkeys are in constant demand for conveying every kind of local produce, including grain and coal as well as loads of cloth, silk, paper, and a variety of manufactured articles from coastal areas. The only river which is navigable for boat traffic in North-West China is that portion of the Yellow River which flows through the province of Kansu between Lanchow and Paotow. All through the winter the river is frozen over, but in the spring it bursts its ice fetters with all the force of its released current, and after hurling many blocks of ice up its banks it carries the rest downstream until they are melted away in warmer climes. The people of Kansti have evolved a system of rafts resting on floats made from blown-out skins of sheep, goats or bullocks. The light board flooring of the raft is lifted above water level on these distended skins, and by this means heavy cargoes of goods, as well as many passengers, are conveyed for several weeks, by raft, to the railhead at Paotow. It is a dangerous way of transport, and the passengers' only sense of security rests on the ingenuity of the raftsman, who guides his craft with extraordinary skill among the cross-currents and eddies of the treacherous river.

In less mountainous regions of North China such as Hopeh, Shantung and Honan, the wheelbarrow is in great use. It is very heavily constructed, with a control wheel and a small platform on either side. Sometimes two travellers balance each other sitting on the platforms, but more often goods are carried carefully packed in loads of equal weight. A strap goes round the shoulders of the muscular barrow-man, and he holds the widely separated handles in each hand. It is work which exacts great expenditure of strength and also much skill in balancing the heavy, clumsy structure. When there is a following wind the barrow-man will fix a pole to either platform and make a sail by tying a cloth between the poles, and thus he lightens his job.

In the far north-west camel caravans are the favourite means of transport. The camel is the two-humped beast known as the Bactrian variety, whose humps form a natural and easy saddle. Camels are formed into caravans, in which several hundred laden beasts often walk in single file. They carry goods to and from Peking and Kashgar across Mongolia and Sinkiang, a journey which takes about five months at an average rate of three miles an hour. When perishable goods have to be moved quickly from one place to another, herds of small and inexpensive donkeys are used. These agile little creatures travel quickly over the thirty-mile stages, but as they are often overdriven they do not live long and may fall exhausted by the wayside. One man will drive a score of them, and he can guarantee to deliver the goods in fresh condition.

Nearer the Tibetan border the shaggy yak is the usual beast of burden. It can stand even the cold of the Tibetan heights on account of its thick hair, which reaches the ground all round its legs. The yak is a fearless swimmer and will take to the water even when rivers are in wild turbulent spate, always seeming to land safely on the other side, though frequently swept away for long distances by the current. The Tibetan drivers use the yak as a snow-plough, driving it over snow-blocked passes, then following behind in the path which it has cleared by brushing the snow aside with its tail.

CHAPTER X

LIFE IN NORTH CHINA VILLAGES

'THE dress, the customs, the occupations and the food of a people are everywhere influenced by climatic and geographical conditions. It would be difficult to find two countries in greater contrast with each other, as regards soil and climate, than are North and South China, yet their inhabitants have this in common, that in both places the overwhelming majority of the people are agriculturists, for China reckons that over eighty per cent of her inhabitants are engaged in farming.

The northerner is taller) less talkative and less excitable than the southerner, but both have the same physical characteristics of high cheek-bones, flattened nose, straight black hair and slanting eyes, and mentally the same deter mination to overcome difficulties and to turn to best use every advantage that the narrow circumstances of life afford them.

In the central area the annual rainfall registers about forty five inches, and the winter temperature is lower than would be expected in England on a rather chilly spring day, while the summer heat is intense, but both cold and heat are made much harder to bear by the constant moisture of the air. In the very south of China, midwinter is a warm as an English summer, and the summer temperature is correspondingly high. Further north the climate is extremely dry and very sunny, with much wider difference between winter and summer temperatures. In summer the thermometer goes up to 110 F., and in winter it falls to about twelve degrees below zero. There is a rainy season in July and August, but frequently very little rain falls during the remainder of the year.

The villages of North China are not colourful because the houses are made of mud bricks which are identical in colour with the loess soil. These bricks are made from mud, which is mixed to the right consistency, then pressed into a wooden frame, turned out in the form of a large brick and dried by sun heat. The poorest houses are mere hovels, and cave dwellings are popular. Wherever there is a loess hill, the villagers hollow caves from its side and live in them with considerable comfort, because they are easily warmed in the winter and form a very cool shelter from the burning sun in summer. The caves are often built tier above tier, with small paths leading from one level terrace to another. It is not unusual to see the smoke coming from a mud chimney pot at the edge of a field or threshing floor, and this just shows that the land under foot has been excavated and that the farmer and his family are living in caves, the roof of which is the field that he cultivates.

The cave is often thirty feet deep. It has one window in which there is paper instead of glass. Under the window there is a large platform about three feet high made of mud bricks. It is called a kang. During the day the women sit on the kang and do their work, eat their meals and receive callers. It is hollow, and at one end it has a 'stove from which the hot air travels through a flue to a chimney which is at the other end. In cold weather the hang is always kept warm, and at night it provides sleeping space for the family. Further down the cave is a kitchen table, which is a very large smooth board on which flour and water paste is rolled out for the family food. When the sheet of paste is almost as thin as paper it is cut into fine strips with a' heavy chopper, thrown into a cauldron of boiling water and vegetables, ladled into bowls and eaten with chopsticks. The depths of the cave are used as a storeroom for grain, pickled vegetables, dried capsicum, hemp seed oil and home-made vinegar. A loom and a spinning wheel generally stand on the hang, and even small children will spin very cleverly while their mothers and elder sisters weave homespun cloth of which to make clothes and shoes for the family. Outside the cave door is a level space often used as a threshing-floor, and on it is a mill to which a mule or donkey is harnessed for grinding flour.

The livestock of the small landowner consists in a 'donkey, a pig, half-a-dozen sheep and a few fowls. The richer man has, in addition, mules, bullocks, and a large flock of sheep and goats. Mutton and fowl are used for food, but bullocks and heifers are too valuable to be slaughtered. They are kept for ploughing and for drawing bullock arts; nor are the village cows usually milked, as few Chinese care for milk, butter or cheese. The only pasture is in hilly places where patches of land are useless for cultivation, but sheep also nibble down the autumnsown wheat, and the leaves of trees are swept up and stored to help them through the lean winter months. These sheep belong to the broad tailed breed which stores fat in the tail during the plentiful season, and gradually absorbs it in times of scarcity.

in order to increase the acreage of arable land farmers cut the crumbling hillside into a series of terraces, each fortified by a carefully strengthened bank. In this way a steep hill sloping from a loess peak can be brought under cultivation. In those parts land is spoken of as "dry land" and "watered land," the former depending on rain and snow, and the latter on irrigation. According to rural law each farmer has an exactly calculated share of the available water supply which flows through his own channel for a certain length of time and is then diverted to his neighbour's land. The system entails a great deal of labour, but if a matter is considered important, the Chinese never suggest that it is too much trouble.

As a result of irrigation, in the northern provinces two successive crops are reaped each summer, and in the south the industrious farmer will raise three crops of rice in one year. In many mountain villages in North China water is so scarce that it has to be fetched from a stream which is a mile away. Once each day a donkey is laden with wooden panniers and driven to the stream, where they are filled, and the family has to reduce its use of water to this meagre supply. Only on the few days of the year when clouds collect and bring abundant rain do such villages know the luxury of an adequate supply.

Each son when he marries brings his bride home to the family farm, where she is expected to take her full share in community work. The men of the household excavate a fresh cave for each bridal pair, and there the conditions of life which have been those of the parents are carried on to the younger generation.

In each hamlet there is a temple dedicated to the worship of gods made of plaster or wood. At the entrance there is usually a representation of two fierce armed warriors, and further in are hideous and cruel-looking idols. In the courtyard there is often a tree which is more than a century old, with wide-spreading branches reaching right across from one shrine to the other. Within the shrines there may be figures of the Buddha, or there may be tablets which :show it to be a Confucian temple. There is always a burner filed with the dust of burned incense sticks, and here the village people come on stated days to offer homage to their own hand-made gods.

When the longed-for rainy season is a failure and the wheat is scorching in the fields, the villagers go to the temple take away the image of a god, and carry him in procession under the blazing midday sunshine, that he too my have a taste of its fierceness, and remember to send the rain In the south, where excessive rain is more often the farmer's problem, the villagers carry a jar of rain-water up to the hills where the Water Dragon lives, in order to bring it to his notice that some drier weather would be a great help to the farmers on the plain.

Every man devotes a corner of his land to be the family paveyard. The mounds which mark the spot are carefully repaired once every year at the spring fesfival of Clear Brightness. Cypress trees are planted to throw a shade over the graves and to fill the air with their pungent fragrance; and here the dead are remembered as widows mourn their husbands and orphans wail for their parents.

CHAPTER XI

LIFE IN SOUTH CHINA VILLAGES

VILLAGE life in Central and in South China is different in many respects from that in the northern provinces. Instead of dryness there is a superabundance of rain, of rivers and of canals. Instead of relying on a mule, a donkey or a bullock for tilling the land and for transporting farm produce, most families in the south have a boat and many own a water-buffalo. The farmer himself uses this beast for field work, but the children of the family take it to the river or the pond for its daily relaxation of wallowing in the water.

As the farmer's boy grows older and stronger much hard work awaits him, and he has but little opportunity of any steady school life. In the north the cold winter months call a halt on farm work, and for a winter term of six months the boy can apply himself to learning in the village school, but in the south the three onsecutive sowings and reapings of the rice crops allow but little leisure to the farmer himself or to any member of his family. As soon as he is old enough the boy learns to stand for long hours in a flooded rice field, stooping down to push each of the seedlings which he is transplanting deep into the ooze. The irrigation of the land requires constant attention, as the water is mainly controlled by the building up or breaking down of mud dykes through which it reaches the fields. There are also various contrivances for forcing water uphill by means of tread pumps, and by working these he strengthens his muscles until he can endure the strain of working almost incessantly from dawn till dark. ln many small holdings there is no buffalo, and all the ploughing, as well as the reaping and threshing, is done by hand. After the last crop of rice has been cut the fields are re-ploughed and vegetables of many kinds are sown. These are a very welcome addition to the food, but nothing is allowed to hold up land-space when the rice-growing season begins and the young plants in the seed-beds are ready to be transplanted Everything is cleared away to make room for the first main crop of the year.

Most families rear a few sheep, but they can never be allowed outside the sheds where they live, as there are no fences and hedges to divide the holdings, and they would inevitably damage the crops. Young children collect fodder wherever there is grass to cut, and the sheep are fed in the huts.

Each household tries to keep a few pigs, in fact the ideograph which represents the word "home is formed of a f with a pig under it. As many fowls as can scratch a g for themselves are encouraged to do so. Village folk live sparingly on plain boiled rice with the addition of small hes of fish, pork, fowl and highly flavoured pickles, and is considered very wrong to waste food, or even to leave few grains of rice at the bottom of the bowl. Cooking pots and serving-dishes are carefully scraped, and any maining food is saved for another meal.

The farmer's home is usually built round three sides of a square courtyard, which the family more or less shares with pigs hens and the water-buffalo. Besides living-room and Kitchen, there are various storehouses and sheds. The better buildings are tiled and the poorer are thatched with rice straw. The eaves are low and wide, serving to protect the papered windows from rain, and also to shade the rooms from scorching sun. They also ensure a dry passage round the courtyard so that the family can move from room to room without being drenched by the rain. An open-air mud cooking-stove is often in use during very hot weather.

Besides a very large preponderance of farmers the village has craftsmen, principally workers in bamboo or in silk, shopkeepers and fishermen. In the most densely inhabited areas there are as many as two thousand inhabitants per square mile, and it requires a very sustained effort to feed so many from the land. In North China the population is reckoned at about 67 per square mile, and up in some of the far north-west dependencies it is only about 2 per square mile.

CHAPTER XII

LIFE ON THE WATERWAYS

THERE are many millions of Chinese who are born, brought up and spend the whole of their life on a river boat. The girls of the family, at marriage, are merely transferred to the boat on which the bridegroom lives, and there they bring up their own children, and will only finally leave their little craft when their bodies are carried ashore and buried by the riverside.

The ordinary river boat is flat-bottomed and square at each end. The middle of the deck is covered with plaited bamboo matting and forms the cabin which is hired by passengers, who are always referred to as "guests." The front of the boat is reserved for the rowers, who stand to propel the boat. When there is a strong current and the likelihood of rapids, a crew of several hired men will be needed to man the oars, and hard work is expected of them all through the day, but at night the boat is tied up and all lie down to sleep till daylight.

The rowers know by the look of the water when they are nearing a rapid, and as they come close the roaring of the waves is an alarming note of danger. Each rower watches for the line of surf which will carry the boat on to the dangerous down-pouring flood, and each one is alert and $ tense to his own part of guiding the boat to safety. For the next few moments the waters around the little craft boil and foam and toss. Then the danger is over, the boat again floats in the quiet waters, and everyone relaxes with a sigh of relief. The river folk are accustomed to facing such perils, but they never lose the sense of danger at the moment shooting the rapids, because they have known so many families to be drowned in that turbulent water. It is because of this that, before starting on the journey, they sacrifice a hen and burn some sticks of incense in the prow the boat in order to propitiate the river god.

The waterways present many interesting and curious sights. There are fishermen who have trained otters to work for them by diving and bringing back fish in their mouths, which they drop into a jar full of water. Others t in a boat with a dozen birds called cormorants perched the edge of the craft to help in the fishing. At a signal e birds will dive and bring back the fish in their mouths, but their necks are encircled with a ring to prevent them from swallowing the fish which they have caught.

The boatman's family has very small quarters in which to live, cook and sleep, but they are all very little under over and live an open-air life of hard work, which makes em strong and healthy. Boat life is dangerous for a then ture some toddler, so in babyhood it is safely tied to its mother's back, and when it begins to run about a block of good or bamboo is fastened to its body to keep it afloat whenever it falls overboard. There is no schooling for the river-folk children with their mobile life, but plenty of work for all, and at the age of five they are already learning to steer, to coil ropes, to guard the boat from thieves and to help in innumerable ways. Small punts carry local produce, houseboats will convey a party of travellers for several weeks' river journey, and the square prowed ocean junks are a beautiful sight as, with all sails set, they fly before the wind. These usually have great eyes painted on the prow that they may see their way over the ocean track. Most of them are wind-driven, but some are propelled by great paddle-wheels in the stern which are turned by the tread of gangs of coolies.

On the waterways, whenever there is anything to cause a congestion of traffic, the number of boats becomes so great that an active boy can go for miles by leaping from boat to boat without ever touching land. In the busy waterside towns shoppers use boats to ferry from one place to another, and school-children are collected and deposited at their various schools by the boatmen.

Canton has one of the largest boat populations of China, and though some families have become wealthy and live on gaily painted junks, they still remain a class apart and do not intermarry with land folk. At all the wharfs of important towns gangs of coolies work daily at lading and unlading cargo. They carry very skilfully, and by using strong bamboo poles they shift great weights by man-power only. The accompanying diagram shows how thirty-two men will co-ordinate their strength to move one heavy object without getting in each other's way. In order to do this they move and act in perfect harmony, and to ensure this co-operation they emit a rhythmic sound which is very melodious and helps to regulate their movements. No one who has visited a Chinese port will ever forget the low monotone uttered by coolie teams at work.

CHAPTER XIII

LIFE IN TOWNS

"Hundred Families People" have always been classified according to a very sensible and democratic order of society. The highest class was that of scholarship, next order came the agriculturist, then the artisan, and below these stood the merchant. The soldier came last in the social scale. According to ancient Chinese State law, ' there is no such thing as being born noble," but universal respect for learning ordains that everyone who is well educated should form part of the upper class. Of the remaining divisions the agriculturist stood highest because e is producer of the nation's food, the artisan next, for he converts raw material into useful articles, the merchant was below him as a mere distributor of goods, and least worthy of all was the military class, for soldiers destroy life and property which others have laboriously built up. Modern warfare has raised the status of the army, but only a few years ago it was still held in scorn, and while every father coveted a scholar son he was ashamed if his son joined the military.

Village life in China exalts the farmer, but among town dwellers business life is attractive because it brings in money and the luxury which money commands. A business street in an inland town is a very gay sight. The shops are rather like stalls, for the counter is used to separate the shop from the street, and many customers prefer to sit on narrow benches which are placed on the side-walk and buy what they want without going inside. As soon as a customer begins to examine the goods, an apprentice places a small cup of straw-coloured tea at his elbow that he may sip it during the lengthy business of bargaining prices. No one requires either milk or sugar, and the tea is called "green tea" as distinguished from the "red tea" that westerners use.

The shop frontage is decorated with scarlet, blue or green banners on which are written the merchant's name, the sign of the shop and mottoes which are drawn from old books. When meal-time comes the half-dozen apprentices lay a table just inside the counter and sit down to a meal of bread or rice with several dishes of vegetables cooked with mutton, fowl or fish. The master of the establishment sits a little to one side smoking a pipe with a bamboo stem three feet long and a tiny bowl which only holds a pinch of tobacco, and which he refills after taking three or four puffs. The back door of the shop opens on to a square courtyard, in which are his store-rooms and where he lives with his wife and children.

Shops which sell some particular line of good are generally assembled in one street, and they often give it a name: Shoemaker Street, Rope-maker's Alley, Pawnbroker Lane, Jade Street and Lacquer Street are localities which speak for themselves, but of all the business houses none is stocked with richer or more fascinating goods than the shops of the silk merchants' quarter. Here the buyers always go inside, and both shopkeeper and customer prepare for a long sitting. It may be that a daughter is shortly to be married, and her mother has come with a couple of women relatives to help her select the trousseau silks. The wedding clothes must all be made of scarlet, but there must also be twenty summer dresses in delicate shades of pale grey, ivory white, duck-egg, turquoise blue and rose-pink, while the same number of wadded winter gowns will be made of heavy brocades in darker colours. Her coats will be tailored with fur linings and brocade covers, and the trousseau must include at least a dozen wadded quilts made up of patterned silks of the most elaborate designs.

In the course of half an hour the counter is covered with a gorgeous display of magnificent silk materials in every colour and shade, but no purchase is made without careful computation as to quality and the exact amount required. There is no hurry or bustle and no mistakes occur, for these ladies are most experienced buyers and judge so well of respective values that, by the time the bargaining is through, the shopkeeper will only have made his legitimate profit on e transaction.

Down each side of the street numbers of artisans work at their varied crafts. Shoemakers are numerous, for Chinese en like to wear heelless black cloth shoes which are inexpensive but do not last long. The tailor does his work in e open, and it is fascinating to watch him as, by means of, taut string and a bag of powdered chalk, he sketches a diagram on the cloth and cuts the garment with perfect precision according to its intersecting lines. In another shop frontage three men have strapped themselves to a strong bar of wood, and with bare feet they tread sheep's or goat's hair into thick felt. When their work is done they will have produced the felt mats for rich people's kangs and cheap round felt caps with ear-tabs for village labourers who are out of doors in all weathers. There is one dingy shop standing back from the street which seems full of small stoves built from mud. All the stoves are covered with boiling kettles, and this is a "boiling-water shop." Fuel is often scarce and heating water is troublesome, so if a friend calls it is simple and economical to take a pot to the boiling-water shop and make the tea there. Near the shop there are always children with brimming teapots in their hands, running so as to get home before the tea is cold.

The pawnbroker has a peculiar frontage, for his shop entrance is built up so that all transactions are discussed over the top of a boarding which is as high as the customer's head. It is not only the poor man who comes to the pawnbroker with a garment to pledge, but there are many among the well-to-do who bring their best clothes to be stored there when not required, and who make a practice of laying up a fur coat during the summer and a midsummer garment during the winter.

The roadway of the main streets is always encumbered with vendors who carry their goods balanced across one shoulder. The itinerant barber is on the look-out for a man who wants a shave, and as soon as he gets a sign from someone he produces stool, towel and razor and shaves his customer in the middle of all the hurly-burly of the street. There is always a hungry man to shout at the mobile food-seller, who instantly slips the trays of food from his shoulder and begins to make ready a simple and appetizing meal. A brazier keeps the chitterling broth boiling, and the bean-flour shape, which we call blancmange, is cut in fine strips and served with vinegar and a dusting of cayenne.

Another vendor of eatables advertises the cheapness of his goods by calling out: "Picked up wheat and a demon turned the mill," which means "It cost me little and yours will be the gain," but for all that his first price will not be a small one, and the buyer will have to beat him down if he is going to buy cheap.

If the town is near a river or a canal, there will be a ceaseless stream of water-carriers bringing pails of soft river water to housewives busy with the family wash. The single file of laden carriers moves with a rhythmic jog-trot and a monotonous cry which helps to keep the line moving at an even pace, and as they go they pass the swifter line of men with empty buckets who wend their way back to the river-side to dip and fill their pails again, then carry them back through the crowded thoroughfare.

The streets of large towns for all the hours between sun-rise and sunset are filled with a noisy crowd of men, each of whom is intent on his own business, and whose dominant thought is how he can earn a living and supply his family with food for another day.

CHAPTER XIV

CHINA'S DEPENDENCIES

CHINA'S dependencies form her land frontier from northwest to northeast. They include Tibet, Sinkiang, Mongolia and Manchuria, and beyond Manchuria lies Korea, which was once counted among the dependencies. Some of these provinces have been seized by outside powers, which now control them, while others exercise a larger or smaller degree of independence.

The first to be lost to China was Korea, a peninsula about six hundred miles long extending southward from Manchuria. The seaboard is fringed by a line of over two hundred volcanic islands, of which about one hundred and thirty are inhabited. Some of them are mere masses of volcanic rock rising to an altitude of two thousand feet. Korea is very little smaller than Great Britain, and has an excellent climate which only becomes hot and surcharged with humidity for about three months of the year. The population, which numbers about twenty million, is of the Mongolian race. Their language is different in structure from the Chinese, for it is polysyllabic and has an alphabet composed of eleven vowels and fourteen consonants The land is fertile in grain, cotton and silk, and has valuable deposits of coal and iron.

Until 1895 Korea was under Chinese rule, but from that time there were constant political difficulties and during the Russo-Japanese war which broke out in 1904 she became the battlefield of contending nations. When peace was concluded she was granted a considerable measure of independence, and this she enjoyed for some years. Korea was, however, in the dangerous position of a small and undefended nation surrounded by powerful neighbours who might at any time use her territory as a base for attack on an enemy. The King of Korea exercised the right of independent sovereignty until 1910, when he ceded his rights to the Emperor of Japan.

Mongolia is a vast territory of 130,000 square miles, which is divided into Inner and Outer Mongolia, the former of which touches China and the latter of which borders Siberia. Mongolia is sparsely populated, and agriculture is impossible except in a few areas. The whole country is a plateau from three to five thousand feet above sea level. The climate is hot and dry in the summer and intensely cold during the winter. Its dryness is largely due to the wall of mountains on the east and south boundary which are called Khingan, and which shut out the moist winds. Consequently Mongolia has one of the driest climates in the world. It has vast stretches of grassland, and on the borders of the mountains frees and water are found in abundance, but there are wide expanses of sandy waste. The people are nomadic, live in felt tents and move from place to place seeking pasture for their flocks. The trade-routes of Mongolia are mainly caravan camel tracks, but Kwei-hwa-cheng in north Shansi is now connected both with Urga and with Hami by motor traffic. The Great Wall was originally tended to divide Mongolia from China in days when the Mongols were great warriors and a source of terror to the Chinese. Now they show very little warlike spirit, but herd their cattle and shun intercourse with other nations, whom they know to be more astute in worldly affairs than they are themselves.

China was the governing power in Mongolia until a few years ago, and local administration was carried out under the supervision of Chinese officials. In 1911 during the Chinese revolution, Outer Mongolia tried to secure its independence. It has now adopted a Soviet form of government, and is under treaty of protection by the U.S.S.R. Inner Mongolia remains Chinese, but has suffered invasion by Japan on the eastern side.

Manchuria lies on the north-east of China. It is a large country, eight hundred miles long and five hundred miles wide, and is divided politically into three provinces. It touches China and Mongolia on the west and Siberia on the north and east. The climate is very dry and presents extremes of heat and cold, the winter temperature ranging from ten to twenty degrees below zero. Manchuria has a very fertile soil, and many of the mountains are covered with forests. It has great mineral wealth and many precious stones are found there. Of recent years it has become famous as the land of the soy bean. During the last half-century Manchuria has passed through times of great political difficulty. At the close of the nineteenth century she was claimed by Russia as a natural sphere of influence. This aggressive attitude led to war between Japan and Russia, and at the close of the war (1895), when Russia was beaten, the Japanese handed Manchuria over to China. From that time and until 1907 it was governed from Peking as a separate possession, after which it was converted into a Viceroyalty with the Viceroy's seat at Mourned, the capital. The last dynasty of the Imperial Government was Manchurian. It came into power at the close of the six tenth century, and the last Emperor, who was a mere child, abdicated in 1912 on the proclamation of the Chinese Republic. His dynastic title was Hsuan Tung, and he is still alive, but is now known as Pu-yi. He lives at Mourned as nominal head of the Japanese puppet government of Manchuria.

About twenty years after handing the country over to China, Japan began to show by a series of aggressive incidents that she herself wished to occupy Manchuria. She landed successive parties of troops, seized the railways and exercised increasingly widespread control. Finally, in 1937, fighting broke out near Peiping and marked the beginning of the long war between China and Japan.

The land of Tibet is often spoken of as the land of mystery. The reason for this is doubtless its inaccessibility and political barriers which make it impossible for Euro-peans to travel freely within its borders. The population is reckoned to be three to four million people, and their land is seven times the size of England, Scotland and Ireland combined. Tibet is the highest country in the world, and is a land of great mountain ranges and high plateaux. The peaks which stand out from the Himalayan range are as high as 24,600 feet, and the passes through the mountains rise to 19,000 feet. The strain on the hearts of men and beasts when travelling at these altitudes is tremendous, and only those caravan men who are accustomed to the journey are prepared to take their ponies over the steep roads. The climate of the highest country in the world is, as would be expected, intensely cold, and the bitterness of this is made worse by terrific winds which blow violently for most of the year.

The products of Tibet include gold, and some of the temple roofs are overlaid with gold leaf. The land is probably