We will now cross in the steam launch to the mainland and 48 step ashore at Port Edward. Here is a general view of the new town, with its ugly modern hotel and its European houses scattered about the lower slope of the hill. The territory (44) on the mainland is rather more interesting than the island. It is little more than a strip, ten miles wide, along the coastline of the bay, though we have certain rights over a larger area. Mountain ridges, rising to over a thousand feet, with sharp peaks still higher, cross it from west to east, dark and bare with deep-cut ravines which are torrents in rainy weather. A low isthmus divides the high ground round Port Edward from the main mass of the Territory; through it runs the new road towards Chifu, and at its eastern end, close to the sea, stands the Chinese walled town of Wei-hai-wei, from which the whole district takes its name. Far away in the southwest are the high mountains of Chinese Shantung. The old city, though within sight of Port Edward, is not like the surrounding territory under British control. Let us pay it a short visit to see what a Chinese provincial town is like. We can go in by the eastern gate 49 and look along the street and visit the temple of Confucius, 50 the great Chinese teacher and philosopher, who was a native of the Shantung province. Much of the space within the walls is not built on; the whole town seems sleepy and decaying, and our ideas as to cleanliness and sanitation are quite unknown to the Chinese. In the British area there are no such towns, but hundreds of little agricultural villages scattered about in the low-lying parts of the country. The Chinese peasant here is very different from the coolie or shopkeeper of Hongkong and is governed in a very different way. A Civil Commissioner, assisted by a few Europeans and a small force of police, is responsible for the control of over 150,000 Chinese. At one time there was a regiment of soldiers, recruited from the natives; when this 51 force was disbanded, some of its members became police. Even in the central offices many natives are employed on the staff, while the villages practically rule themselves through the local headmen. Here we have a portrait of a typical 52 headman, and here a group receiving medals as a reward for 53 good service. The Governor of Shantung is the nearest high official representative of China; and we may see him here in his 54 chair of state on his way to pay a formal visit to the 55 Commissioner. Here again is a group of the two high officials and their respective staffs. We are a long way from those early days, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Chinese officials refused even to write to our representatives on terms of equality.