The Manchus have their own Tartar or military city, which will now become the administrative headquarters. Many furs are brought down from the Mohammedan and Mongolian plains in the west and north. There are mission schools and hospitals, a military parade ground, and an arsenal. The twin pagodas of thirteen stories, with narrow galleries, are famous. The pailoo memorial arches are distinct from the open southern type, the Shansi type being a solid top-heavy tower. More ponies are to be seen here than in most of the cities, and the horsemanship of the Mongols is daring, as we should expect from the descendants of Kublai Khan’s hordes, whom Marco Polo praised in that famous memorial that was dictated in a prison of Europe more terrible to him than all the dangers of Far Cathay. Yunnan, the capital of the great copper and tin province, is five hundred miles from the Gulf of Tonquin, with which a French narrow gage railway, completed at awful cost of men and money, now connects it. The city is in a plain five thousand feet high, at the foot of the Tibetan Mountains. A great lake, the Tanklu, near by, is connected by canal with the city. It is the center of a warmer art than the other provinces, the architecture showing the elaborate Burmese influence, which relies on ornament and color more than line and proportion. Some of the pagodas are square, peculiar to Yunnan, and have nine to thirteen stories, and galleries, as compared with seven to nine stories elsewhere. The gate forts are ornate, though the roofs do not curl up as fantastically and richly as in the east of China. The British and French are fighting it out for chief foreign influence, with the latter ahead as yet, because the railway from Mandalay has not been run through. There are fine French stores where you can purchase madame’s millinery, confection or perfumery, a French hospital and a palatial French consulate; but the Chinese have far greater trust in the Americans and British, for French designs on Chinese territory are feared. Yunnan does not want to follow Tonquin. There are many Mohammedans, and their round mosque towers are in evidence.