We leave Shanghai for the last stage of our long voyage from 43 Europe. As we steam northwards, the coast on our left is low, fringed with banks and without harbours or inlets; it is the edge of the great alluvial plain of China. But on the second day we come in sight of high bare cliffs, backed by dark mountains. We are approaching the promontory of Shantung, an isolated block of highland, cut off sharply by the sea on its eastern edge and sinking on the west to the shifting beds of the Hwang-ho and the maze of waterways which covers the great plain. Towards the southwest corner of the peninsula lies Kiaochau, now a possession of Germany; in the middle of the north side is the old Treaty Port of Chifu; and between Chifu and the extreme eastern point of the promontory is the bay and port of Wei-hai-wei. The map shows us that north of Shantung the coast again becomes low and uniform, difficult of access and without good seaports; but a hundred miles away, across the water, another mountainous peninsula, Liaotung, stretches out to meet Shantung, where a string of little islands partly bridges the broad channel. In Liaotung, as in Shantung, are headlands and deep inlets and harbours; here we have Port Arthur and Talienwan. The two great promontories seem framed by Nature to guard the approach to the Gulf and the capital province of China. On the one, two foreign Powers are established by diplomacy; two more have fought for the control of the other. We steam round the eastern headland, with its white lighthouse 44 nestling below the gloomy hills, and soon a wide bay begins to open out ahead of us. We have reached the end of our voyage. The bay forms a rough semicircle, about six miles across, ringed in by hills to the south and west, but open to the northeast, except where for two miles across the entrance stretches the island of Liukung, hilly in the west but tapering off to a long low reef in the east. The island and the northeastern bend of the mainland enclose an anchorage sheltered from the northerly gales which sweep in from the sea in winter. This is the harbour of Wei-hai-wei. In the midst of the broad southern channel, a mere dot upon the water, is a rocky islet, _I-tao_, or Sun Island, crowned with the ruins of strong fortifications. There are other such ruins on the high ground to the north and south, commanding the two entrances to the bay. These relics contain the history of Wei-hai-wei. [Illustration: WEI-HAI-WEI.]