The town of Niu-chwang is rapidly growing in importance since the construction of the railway. The East China Railway between Port Arthur, Dalny, and the junction of Ta-shik-chia, whence a branch line runs to Port Arthur, was finished as far as Mukden towards the close of 1899. The Chinese Imperial line was also completed then. It was subsequently decided to deal systematically with the mineral resources of Manchuria, owing to the East China line having laid open the coal-mines at Mochi-Shan and Z'mershan near the Liaoyang, and at Wafungtien in the south of the Liaotung peninsula. The railway line runs right along these rich exploitations. An unprecedented commercial activity has accompanied these developments, resulting in an increase of 49 per cent. for 1898. The chief articles of trade for this port are beans and oil-cake, with an export of 2,241,053 piculs of the former and 2,289,544 piculs of the latter in 1899. The net quantity of opium imported in 1898 was 92 piculs as against 2453 in 1879. The importation of opium has been steadily declining in the course of the last few years, the poppy seed being largely and successfully cultivated in Manchuria. The total figure of the trade of this port for 1899 has risen to 48,357,623 taels as against 32,441,315 in 1898. The port figured conspicuously in the disturbances of 1900; the Chinese troops which attacked the town being defeated by the Russians, who took possession of the port. Trade was necessarily at a standstill in 1900. Niu-chwang was a revelation to me. I saw for the first time a real Chinese town in all its immensity. It appeared an inextricable labyrinth of streets and alleys overflowing with people. All our Western ideas are reversed here; indeed, buildings and people alike seemed to belong not only to another hemisphere, but to another planet. The lines are so strange, the colours so brilliant, the sounds so sharp, that one is at once deafened, blinded, and astonished. Beyond the city, on the solid earth, is the floating town on the river. The Liao at this point, little more than half a mile wide, is literally covered with vessels of every description. It is a thronged mass of large merchant ships, smaller boats, and wooden junks. Each boat is a home, in which always one, and often several, families are housed with all their belongings: children, pigs, and poultry filling the decks. Those of the better classes who can afford it have regular summer-houses on the river, built like pagodas, elaborately furnished and surrounded by artificial gardens with dwarf trees in costly pots. In between this confusion of boats, narrow passages and regular canals are left free on the water, in which graceful canoes are seen gliding and winding about like gondolas. Both on land and water, the crowds of human beings, and exuberance of life, are overwhelming.