Tien-tsin is the biggest open port in North China and the third in rank in point of activity and commerce in the whole Celestial Empire. It is, moreover, an immense Chinese city of nearly a million inhabitants, but its European concession is very inferior to that of Shanghai, and as a native city it is of little interest in comparison with Peking, Canton and many other towns. It is from here that travellers used, in former times, to begin the disagreeable journey to the capital, either on horseback or by junk up the Pei-ho. The river route was usually performed partly by sail and partly by oar, but occasionally the boat had to be towed by men. The junks took two or three days to ascend the sinuous course of the river. Sometimes, however, when the wind was to the north, and the shoals numerous, the journey occupied from four to five days before Peking was reached. Now the daily express, which speeds along at the rate of twenty miles an hour, takes three hours and fifty-three minutes to cover the ground which separates Tien-tsin from the station at Peking. The country through which it passes is very flat, and it is only just before arriving at its terminus that the blue outline of some rather high hills come into sight towards the north-east. In the month of September, when the rains are over and are replaced by a drought that lasts until the end of winter, the environs of Tien-tsin, including the cemetery, are entirely under water, and as we looked from the train window, we could see a coffin floating about, and another like gruesome object stuck on the embankment of the line, which led us to reflect that, though the Chinese make such a fuss over their ancestors, they apparently care very little for their graves. The inundation at first stretched as far as the eye could see. Presently the land began to peep out. If you expect to find the soil from which the waters have just retired uncultivated, it will only be an evident proof that you know very little about the indefatigable industry of the Chinese agriculturist, and the great care and skill which he brings to his task. All that emerges has already been carefully sown, even down to the very brink of the water, and at a few steps from the limits of the inundation, the future harvest which has sprang up under the hot September sun from the moist but rich soil begins to make its appearance. The mud villages now succeed each other rapidly, and presently the traveller reaches an admirably cultivated country where not an inch of soil is wasted, and where the wheat and sorghum fields are alternated by kitchen gardens and orchards.