These founders of Dynasties in China have all been “warriors bold” and reckless marauders with little philosophy and no literature to speak of. When the Manchus, the last of these conquerors, founders of the present Dynasty, established themselves in Peking, in 1646, they were a wild and warlike race. They, like all the other conquerors of China, conciliated their vanquished foes by all sorts of concessions, and they now rule by Chinese laws, and to-day are hardly distinguishable from the Chinese. They have never made, any more than the other conquerors, the slightest impress upon this calm and passive race; and they have become Chinese. “To-day the Emperor Kwang-Hsu is recognized as one of the best Chinamen in China.” The Manchu men to-day wear Chinese dress. The Emperor, himself, shaves his head and wears the queue, the one visible sign of degradation that is said to have been imposed upon the Chinese at the time of the conquest. Oh! Irony of fate! The Manchus are now as quiet and peaceful a race as the Chinese themselves. They dread war. They live by the laws of Confucius. Though not a race of thinkers or philosophers, they have come to have the same ideals as the Chinese, and this, without the natural amalgamation brought about by inter-marriage, for it is only within the last few years that the Throne has issued an edict, allowing inter-marriage between the Chinese and Manchu, and even, with this edict, up to this time there has been very little mixture, by marriage, of the races. The Chinese seem easily led and conquered, but their national vitality is very vigorous, and has kept them pure in racial characteristics after their thousands of years of national existence. [Illustration: ALTAR TO THE INVISIBLE DEITY In the Park of the Temple of Heaven]