At 6 P.M. we steamed into Moukden punctual to the minute, and found a deafening crowd ready to lay hold of the passengers. We were greeted by a man possessing a few words of English, and able to understand where we wanted to go, so we were glad to entrust ourselves to his care. He even satisfied any curiosity we might have had as to the personal appearance of our host, whose main feature, judging from the description, was a huge moustache. The drive was thrilling, and the five miles were none too long; it was the New Year festival, and all sorts of things were to be seen in the thronged streets. Brilliant moonlight illuminated the city from above, and lanterns and fireworks lit it up intermittently from within. A short drive brought us near a thoroughly Burmese dagoba of old times, and then through a horrible iron archway of the worst type of modern times. Farther on we passed through the gloomy gateway in the big city wall, and found an almost impenetrable throng of sightseers. Our driver had no longer a chance of pointing out interesting buildings, and giving us details of his faith, &c., with which he had varied the earlier part of the drive, for he was obliged to keep up a monotonous shout of “hech! hech! hech!” only varied by what sounded like “hurry on, hurry on!” a much needed injunction to his steed. After about an hour’s drive we reached the group of Mission buildings, hospitals, schools, and dwelling-houses situated on the river bank, which is radiant with lotus blossom in the summer-time. But I must not begin describing the charms of Moukden at the end of a chapter: it demands one to itself. As the relation of Manchuria to China is but little known, it may be of interest to the reader to have the brief account which forms the beginning of the next chapter, but after this warning it is easy for those who are not interested to skip the next four pages. CHAPTER II Moukden