There is a Bund, and along and behind it is the foreign settlement, occupied by about forty Europeans. The white buildings of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, the houses of the staff, the _hongs_ of two or three foreign merchants, and the British Consular buildings, may be said to constitute the settlement. It has the reputation of being one of the kindliest and friendliest in the Far East, and the fact that the river closes annually about the 20th of November for about four months, and that the residents are thrown entirely on their own resources and on each other, only serves to increase that inter-dependence which binds this and similarly isolated communities so strongly together. I was most kindly welcomed at the English Consulate then and on my return, and have most pleasant remembrances of Newchwang, its cordial kindness, and cheerful Bund, and breezy blue skies, but at first sight it is a dreary, solitary-looking place of mud, and muddy waters for ever swallowing large slices of the land, and threatening to engulf it altogether. “Peas,” really beans,[26] are its chief _raison d’être_, and their ups and downs in price its mild sensations. “Pea-boats,” long and narrow, with matting roofs and one huge sail, bring down the beans from the interior, and mills working night and day express their oil, which is as good for cooking as for burning. The viceroyalty of Manchuria, in which I spent the next two months, is interesting as in some ways distinct from China, besides having a prospective interest in connection with Russia. Lying outside of the Great Wall, it has a population of several distinct and mixed races, Manchus (Tartars), Gilyaks, Tungusi, Solons, Daurs, and Chinese. Along with these must be mentioned about 30,000 Korean families, the majority of whom have left Korea since 1868, in consequence of political disturbance and official exactions.[27] The facts that the dynasty which has ruled China by right of conquest since 1644 is a Manchu dynasty, and that it imposed the shaven forehead and the pigtail on all Chinese men successfully, while it absolutely failed to prevent the women from crippling their feet, though up to this day no woman with “Golden Lilies” (crushed feet) is allowed to enter the Imperial palace, naturally turn attention to this viceroyalty, which, in point of its area of 380,000 square miles, is larger than Austria and Great Britain and Ireland put together, while its population is estimated at from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 only. Thus it offers a vast field for emigration from the congested provinces of Northern China, and Chinese immigrants are steadily flocking in from Shan-tung, Chi-li, and Shen-si, so that Southern Manchuria at this time is little behind the inner provinces of China in density of population.