Feng-hoang-cheng is situated on the plain in the apex of an angle of hills, one side of which extends towards Antung and the other South-west in the direction of Ta-kou-chan. It is the only town on the Pekin Road between Liao-yang and the coast, and has a population of twenty thousand peasants and small traders. Like most Chinese towns, Feng-hoang-cheng consists of compact rows of one-storied houses and shops with tiled roofs. The streets are unpaved and fairly wide, and the general aspect is dingy and poor. At the Northern end of the town, where the hills begin to converge, is a walled enclosure three or four hundred yards square, within which dwell the Governor and officials--a small village, shut in by brick walls eighteen feet high and three feet in thickness. No architectural feature relieves the dull level of one-storied buildings, and no touch of colour stands out of the drab dinginess. The Intendent of the Eastern Marshes is a man of consequence. He is responsible for the administration of one of the three Provinces that occupy the North-east corner of the Chinese Empire. His capital is Feng-hoang-cheng--a city with a record of two thousand years--and his province of Feng-tien has an area of fifty-five thousand square miles. The importance of this district is to be measured at the moment not by its extent or by the undoubted richness of its soil but by its position on the map. Feng-t’ien borders on Korea, on the Yellow Sea and on the Gulf of Liao-tung. It was, therefore, in the heart of the war and among its mountains and valleys would be determined the fate of Manchuria. Before I called upon the Intendent I learned a few elementary facts of the elaborate system of the Chinese civil service with its checks and balances. There are three Governors in this Province, and though their authority and duties differ, each exercises a moderating influence on the other. The Military Governor is, of course, a Manchu, and commands the Manchu soldiers or bannermen, of whom nearly eighteen thousand are stationed in the province, four thousand six hundred being “foreign” drilled. Being of the race from which sprang the ancestors of the reigning dynasty the Military Governor ranks first in the administrative hierarchy. His powers, however, are limited, and he serves only as a visible sign of the predominance of the Manchu race. After him ranks the Taotai, known as Tung-pien-tao, or Intendent of the Marshes, whose authority is wider and more real, and under him again is the Governor of the City with duties more defined and circumscribed. When he is master in his own house the Intendent lives within the citadel or walled enclosure. The necessities of General Kuroki’s Staff have banished him for a time beyond these brick walls, which have only the semblance of strength, despite their iron crusted doors and deep gates.