These and other regulations, to which we need only allude, prove the preponderating influence of Russia in the undertaking, and we should, moreover, remember that the majority of the shares are in the hands of the Russian Government. It is therefore obvious that the Chinese President is but a mere figurehead, and that the whole enterprise is exclusively Russian. As a matter of fact, the only important reservation made in the interests of China is the following: ‘After a lapse of thirty-six years from the date of the completion of the line, the Chinese Government will have the right to repurchase it, and to assume all the responsibilities of the said company.’ If China does not avail herself of this right of repurchase, she will not enter into possession of the line and its dependencies until the conclusion of the eighty years from the date of its inauguration originally stipulated, under which circumstance she will certainly have a very long time to wait. The statutes also declare that the works must begin not later than August 16 to 28, 1897, and that they must be finished in six years, that is to say, in 1903, but, as a matter of fact, it is not likely that everything will be ready by that time, owing to the many obstacles the engineers have to overcome. According to a project accepted in 1897, the Manchurian line from Onon to Nikolsk will be 1,200 miles in length, of which 890 miles will pass through the Celestial Empire, and 310 miles through Russian territory. The total distance by rail from Cheliabinsk to Vladivostok will be 4,072 miles instead of 4,640, as stated in the original scheme, including the 40 miles across Lake Baikal. Chinese Manchuria is composed of the two basins of the Sungari, the great affluent of the Amur, which joins this river between Blagovyeshchensk and Khabarofsk, and of the Liao-ho, which flows into the treaty port of Niu-chwang in the Government of Pe-chi-li. Between these two basins lies a zone of steppes, quite destitute of water, an eastern prolongation of the great Desert of Gobi, and 130 miles in width. To the east of the north and north-west of Manchuria rises a chain of lofty mountains, which separate the valleys of the Amur and its tributaries, the Argun and the Ussuri, from the great inland and very marshy plain watered by the Sungari and its tributary rivers.