Kirin itself is famous for the battlemented wall which, with its heavy ramparts and pagoda-like towers, is very imposing. But the chief attraction of this provincial capital is the surrounding scenery. Valleys and mountains, dark forests and distant blue mountain peaks, form a most charming picture. It is indeed a glorious region, and a joy both to the sportsman and to the artist. The fishing in the mountain streams is excellent, and there are still numbers of leopards, bears, wolves, a certain kind of deer, foxes, and hares in the forests. For the artist the opportunities here are not less ample; pretty woodland scenery, attractive bits of street corners, and town scenery, and above all the historical monuments, the celebrated royal tombs, and the commemorative tablets on the river banks, or hidden in the sacred groves; all these are excellent subjects for sketches. The great difficulty at the present moment is how to reach these beautiful regions. There are, so far, only a very few stations in process of building on this route, and it must be remembered that even these, though called by the names of the various places, are often twenty or thirty miles distant from the towns they represent, and that there are scarcely any means of conveyance, and that in many cases there is not even a road! It would seem as if the Eastern Chinese Railway scrupulously avoided all inhabited regions, and certainly in its present condition, and as long as there are no branch lines, it is useless for all purposes of ordinary traffic or commercial enterprise. The Russian officers who have projected it appear to have had only one object in view, to connect in the most direct manner Vladivostok and Port Arthur with the Siberian line, for the sole purpose of transporting troops in case of need with the least possible delay. [Illustration: A STREET IN KHARBIN "The water in the streets rose to the knees of the horses" To face page 76] All this great work has been done quietly, unostentatiously, and without arousing any ill-feeling among the natives. At the present moment one may travel for a whole day without catching sight of anything more conspicuous than railway buildings, barracks, and encampments with Russian soldiers lining the entire length of the route. After several days' travelling we emerged into cultivated plains, rich pasture land intersected by patches of Indian corn, beans, etc. Crops of all kinds presented themselves before our eyes. The country no longer showed the barren desolation of the Gobi desert, nor the romantic wildness of Central Manchuria. It was peopled! There were men working in the fields, and I could see houses and little farms, poor and miserable enough it is true, but at least indicative of human life. FROM MUKDEN STATION TO MUKDEN TOWN