Had this Chin Wang to Aigun railway been laid, besides the vast grazing, agricultural, mineral, lumber and mining territory which would have been developed, several important centers would have been made known to the world. Hulutao and Chin Wang are new ports which are ice free longer than Newchang, which should be made the advance post, instead of Shanghai, seven hundred miles away, for America’s attack on the rich Manchurian trade. Some day we shall run steamers across the Pacific to Hulutao and Chin Wang, and thus be independent of Japan’s port of Dalny. Tsitsikar on the Nonni River is a great stock, lumber, mining and railroad center. Aigun, on the great Amur River, is the proposed northern terminus of this seven hundred and fifty miles of railway. Up to 1900 Aigun was the largest city in Manchuria, but during the Boxer troubles Russian troops in revenge razed it to the ground. Here, in May, 1858, was signed the famous Chinese treaty with Russia, delimiting the present bounds of Manchuria. Aigun is a most important fur, lumber, agricultural, flour, gold and general mining center, and has all the great Amur, Sungari and Shilka Rivers to draw cargoes to its docks. Across the Amur River on Siberian soil (I can hear George Kennan revive his reminiscences) lies Blagovestchensk. This city was the scene, in 1900, of one of the most cruel massacres of the ages, which should reveal fully to the world the real heart of the oligarchal Russian army and government with which we have had to deal, afar off as yet. Thousands of unarmed Chinese shopkeepers and gold miners (who had absolutely nothing to do with Boxerism one thousand miles away) were led to the riverside, and at the word of command from General Chitchegoff the Russian troops at the point of the bayonet drove the innocent victims into the swift Amur, where many were drowned. Blagovestchensk is a thriving modern city. It is the center of the opulent Siberian gold industry, and has many live American advance agents who would welcome the American railway by a bridge over from Aigun! It is lighted by electric light, has clubs, hotels, libraries, docks, river steamers when the river is open (!), theaters, colleges, factories, flour and sawmills, splendid churches, fine brick residences, roads and horses.