When the divine Timur dwelt in our tents, The Mongol Nation was redoubtable and warlike. Its least movements made the earth bend; Its mens’ look froze with fear The ten thousand people upon whom the sun shines. O Divine Timur, will thy great soul soon return? Return, return; we await thee, O Timur! IX CHINA Destiny has bequeathed to his once subject-race the heritage of Genghis Khan, but whether its Manchu possessor can or cannot hold even his own birthright is to-day an enigma. The last few years have seen the gathering of the eagles, disputing the mastery of eastern Asia, where China stands against the world. Slav, Saxon, and Frank press in, upon the supine empire. Has this yellow race the manhood and the capacity to rally against them and retrieve its national integrity? The cession of Formosa after the war of 1895 began the partition. China’s defenselessness was then visualized. The revelation of her easy defeat set every predatory nation on the alert. Watchful for an occasion, which two murdered missionaries supplied, Germany, by clumsy but successful unscrupulousness, seized Kiao-chow and two hundred miles of hinterland. Three weeks after the bludgeoned ratification of Admiral Diedrich’s grab, Russia procured the signature of the intimidated Emperor to the lease of Port Arthur. France demanded and secured the cession of Kwang-chow-wan, on the mainland opposite the island of Hainan. England acquired the lease of Wei-hai-wei, and continental territory opposite Hong-kong. Italy came to claim as its portion Sanmen Bay; but this at least China found courage to refuse. Then followed a period when, backed each by its government, invading cohorts of promoters scooped in franchises and special privileges of every description. The latter part of 1899 saw foreigners pushing in from Manchuria on the north, where Russia with her so-termed railway guards held the strategic route, and from Yun-nan on the south, where France was constructing a similar road of conquest. It showed four European nations so established along the coast that only by courtesy of a foreign government could a Chinese vessel cast anchor in some of the principal ports of China. It saw a Belgian-French railway driving from Peking into the heart of the Empire at Hankow; an American line started north from Canton to the same objective; an English line controlling the territory between the main northern trade-centres, Niu-chwang and Tien-tsin; a French society in possession of a great south-country copper concession; Russians with the exclusive right to all the gold in two _eimucks_ of Mongolia; and an English syndicate deeded the best of the Chinese coal-fields.