In like manner few realise that China is not a united and homogeneous nation. It consists of many provinces, the inhabitants of which belong practically to different races and speak in different tongues. They have little intercourse or sympathy with each other. Inter‐village wars are almost as frequent as among Pathans. Rebellions are common occurrences. The Mohammedans hold themselves aloof and regard the other Chinese with little love. The written language is the same throughout China; but the man of Canton cannot speak with the inhabitant of Pekin or the coolie from Amoy. Occasionally the curious sight may be seen of two Chinamen from different provinces holding converse with each other in pidgin‐English, the only medium of intercourse intelligible to both. In the outbreak of 1900 the Boxers and the Pekinese showed themselves almost as hostile to the Cantonese trading or residing in the north as they were to Europeans. They considered that the southern city’s long intercourse with the white man must have rendered its inhabitants favourable to foreigners; though, indeed, this is very far from the truth. So the Chinaman can have no patriotism. To any but the most enlightened—or the mandarins from more sordid motives—it is a matter of comparative indifference who rules the Empire. Provided that he is allowed to live in peace, that taxes do not weigh upon him too heavily or his religion be not interfered with, the peasant cares not who reigns in Pekin. Justice he does not ask for; he is too unused to it. All that he demands is that he be not too utterly ground down by oppression. Patient and long‐suffering, he revolts only against the grossest injustice. Not until maddened by famine or unable to wring a bare living from the ground does he rise to protest against the unjust officials, whose exactions have kept him poor. If he once realised the fairness of European rule, he would live content under any banner, happy in being allowed to exist in undisturbed possession of the fruit of his toil. The Chinamen in our possessions in the East are satisfied and happy under the mild law of England. Large numbers of them make their home there, content to live and die under a foreign government, and ask only that their corpses may be conveyed back to China to be interred in its sacred soil.